Notes on the Way

Lawfare follies, debate angst, DEI deleted, keffiyeh creeps, s.d.b.s., feminist fury

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If you’re going to resort to lawfare, you should choose your warriors carefully. But no, the Left went with Alvin Bragg—a comically inept progressive prosecutor who cobbled together a case so ridiculous that no one can even figure out what laws Donald Trump is alleged to have broken. Memo to the comrades: It’s not illegal to be a dirtbag, nor is it illegal to pay hush money to the pornstar with whom you did the nasty. It may be recalled that Bill Clinton managed multiple bimbo eruptions without being prosecuted for election interference. The trial now underway makes a mockery of due process, not to mention making a mockery of the Left’s claim to be defending “our democracy.”

Somebody must have shown Joe Biden his poll numbers, because suddenly he’s eager to debate Donald Trump. And perhaps to our absurd president’s surprise, the Prince of the Golden Escalator instantly accepted that challenge. For the Biden campaign this is a Hail Mary play: something must be done to staunch the bleeding. On Trump’s side the calculation may be that Biden will self-destruct under pressure. It may be doubted that the two debates, one next month and one in September, will actually come off. But if they do, it should be quite a show.

We may have arrived at peak DEI: The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee has voted to throw out UNC’s 2019 Policy on Diversity and Inclusion. Farther south, the Florida legislature passed, and Governor Ron DeSantis signed, a bill prohibiting the use of public money to fund DIE initiatives, leading the University of Florida to eliminate all DEI positions in its administration. And at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President Sally Kornbluth just announced that “diversity statements” will no longer be for faculty members. The Left, of course is crying racism—which is ironic given the abundant evidence that DEI does nothing but sow resentment, discord, and mutual animosities.

If the objective of the “anti-Zionist” Left was to make itself widely despised—mission accomplished! Polls show that as many as six in ten Americans disapprove of the masked, keffiyeh-wearing, Palestinian-flag-waving activists who’ve been disrupting life in this country since October 7, 2023. But look, this is a dog-bites-man story. The ugliness of all those Jews-bashing, anti-American demonstrations, campus encampments, defacing of monuments, burning of American flags, etc., has had the effects that anyone might have expected. The Hamas-hugging activists have made both themselves and the cause they support odious in the eyes of the public.

About that social distancing mandate: Among the regulations of the pandemic period, six-foot social distancing was the most disruptive. It caused schools and churches to be closed, jobs to be lost, businesses to go under, and imposed on the public a multitude of minor inconveniences. The cabal of authoritarian busybodies who delight in running other people’s lives had a field day with social distancing. But now it can be told: Social distancing was b.s. During closed-door testimony before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins was asked if he had information on the science supporting the efficacy of social distancing. “I do not,” he replied. Collins went on to admit that he never saw any scientific evidence in support of social distancing. It seems that the idea just…appeared. Yes, the American people have lost faith in experts and institutions—and this is why.

They don’t get a kick out of him: Feminists are furious with Harrison Butker, the San Francisco Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl-winning kicker. During a commencement speech he gave last weekend at Benedictine College, Butker, a devout Catholic, had praise for his wife Isabelle, whose most important role, he said, is “homemaker.” He went on to opine that the young women in the graduating class might find their deepest fulfillment not at work but as a wives and mothers. This was too much for the Sisterhood, which pitched an online hissy fit. The mob denouncing Butker included Brooke Schwartz, the wife of ex-Chiefs offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz. With the smug self-assurance of someone who believes herself entitled to speak for all women, she reviled Butker as a misogynist, an anti-LGBLT (or whatever that stupid acronym has mutated into now) hater and just for good measure, an antisemite. How dare he crush the hopes of young women on the verge of a fulfilling career?! It seems not to have crossed her mind that some of those young women might consider marriage and family to be just that—a fulfilling career.