Politics

The State Department sent an all-staff email Friday apologizing for misgendering people with its new pronoun system and offered counseling to parties who may have been offended by the systems error. The Spectator is exclusively publishing a copy of the email: The Washington Free Beacon first reported that the State Department's plan to allow employees to add pronouns to their emails backfired spectacularly. Apparently, the State Department's system began randomly assigning pronouns to employees rather than allowing them to choose their preferred pronouns. This "unfortunate mistake" led to "hurt" and "distress", according to the State Department's chief information officer Kelly Fletcher.

The Republican primary has kicked into a higher gear in recent days. Donald Trump terrified one half of the country (and delighted the other) in his dominant, unrepentant CNN town hall appearance last Wednesday. Ron DeSantis is spending a lot of time in Iowa and — in the surest sign yet that he really wants to be president — appearing jacket-less among normal people. (10/10 fake laugh, Governor.)  The coming few weeks will see more candidates make it official. With Florida’s legislative session done and dusted, a DeSantis announcement is just around the corner. In a lengthy profile of Mike Pence, the New York Times yesterday reported the arrival of a new pro-Pence super PAC, Committed to America, a sign that he will soon come clean about his plans.

Well, well, well. That is to say, I told you so. Finally, at last, it was about time, scary-looking special counsel John Durham has delivered his report on the stinking, corrupt, lying, no-good partisan machine that is the FBI and the Department of Justice. Just as I and the rest of the non-Hillary commentariat told you, what he showed was that the Deep State’s investigation into possible collusion (remember that once-ubiquitous word?) between Donald Trump and the Russkies was a partisan witch hunt fabricated by Team Hillary.  The report is full of the antiseptic bureaucratese that specialists recommend to their insomniac patients. The FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law,” yada, yada, yada.

Philadelphia will choose its next mayor tomorrow. The election isn’t until November, but Republicans don’t stand a chance in the City of Brotherly Love these days. So tomorrow’s Democratic primary is all that matters.  In this big-city race, crime and public safety has dominated the campaign, pitting moderate Democrats against progressives. If you feel like you’ve read that sentence before, it’s because you probably have, in relation to any number of major US cities in the last three years.  Since 2020, America’s metropolises have been the scene of blue-on-blue political fights over the interlocking issues of crime, homelessness, public order, criminal justice and Covid restrictions.

The pandemic-era immigration policy known as Title 42 came to end alongside the nation's public health emergency Friday. Its expiry is expected to throw the southern border into further chaos. Title 42 refers to a portion of US code that gives the federal government the authority to curb migration during public health crises. The Trump administration implemented the policy to quickly eject illegal border crossers, including those who claimed asylum, amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Administration officials at the time warned that border crossers could both spread the virus to American citizens, as well as to each other if held in close quarters in detention facilities, at a time when the US was mostly prohibiting travel from other countries.

America’s border security was stretched to breaking point this week. US Customs and Border Protection chief Raul Ortiz said this morning that border patrol has averaged around 10,000 arrests a day as midnight last night, and the end of Title 42, approached. On Wednesday, Ortiz said that an estimated half a million “gotaways” have made it into the US since the start of the fiscal year in October.  Officials had expected a surge of migrants after the expiry of Title 42, the pandemic-era regulation that made it easier for authorities to deport arrivals. For now, reporting from the border suggests the new rules have been met with a lull in activity. That is a sorely needed reprieve for a system that has proven unfit to handle the influx in recent weeks.

Tick. Tick. Tick. That’s the sound of the clock as the United States approaches the limit of its borrowing power. Tick. Tick. Tick. It’s also the sound of the US debt clock. Actually it's more of a whoosh as it tries to keep pace with the sheer clip of the national debt, which totals some $31.7 trillion or over $240,000 per taxpayer. For fiscal hawks, these two measurements have set the tempo for a seemingly endless set of battles over the nation's debt ceiling and financial footing. To be clear, the government already hit its debt limit. That was back on January 19, a mere twelve days after Kevin McCarthy survived his bid to claim the speaker’s gavel.

What does Mike Pence, a family man, a devout Christian, occupant of the top spot on Donald Trump’s enemies list ever since January 6, 2021, and rival of his old boss in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination, think of the fact that the former president has been found by a jury to be “civilly liable” for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll?  Asked by NBC for his reaction, he sidestepped: “I really can’t comment on a judgment in a civil case,” he said. “It’s just one more story focusing on my former running mate that I know is a great fascination to members of the national media, but I just don’t think it’s where the American people are focused.”  Vivek Ramaswamy cried foul play.

The mixed verdict delivered by the jury in the Donald Trump civil rape case will be interpreted differently by those who support and oppose the former president.   On the main count that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, the nine-person jury unanimously found that he did not. The plaintiff could not even satisfy its low burden of proof, namely proof beyond a preponderance of the evidence. In so finding, the jury apparently disbelieved at least part of the plaintiff’s testimony. She was very specific about being raped, not merely sexually abused or molested, as the jury did find.   It’s a strange verdict.

Those in the White House masochistic enough to have read the results of the ABC/Washington Post poll published yesterday will surely have had an uneasy start to the week.  The poll reveals plenty of problems for Biden and those whose job it is to persuade the American people to give him another four years: the fact that it shows him losing by six points to Donald Trump, widely panned as a busted flush with no appeal beyond the MAGA hardcore; the solid majority of voters who do not think the Biden has the mental sharpness (63 percent) or the physical health (62 percent) to serve as president; and the new record low approval rating in the survey (36 percent).

Most of those who follow the news have already seen the distressing video. A black man, Jordan Neely, walked onto a New York subway train screaming obscenities and ranting about his own destitution. Another passenger, a former Marine called Daniel Penny, came up behind him, took him to the ground and placed him into a chokehold. Neely lost consciousness and died. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist could not create a better scenario that perfectly exemplifies everyone’s societal meta-narratives, a Rorschach test onto which we can map our assumptions and biases. It resembles a “what do you see? Two women or a wine glass?” kind of picture. Is this a black man, destroyed and choked by oppression, or the inevitable result of societal decay?

Another week in the spring of 2023, another round of claims that the 2024 Republican primary is over before it has even begun. As regular readers will know, this newsletter’s firmest 2024 conviction is that it’s far too soon for such definitive declarations. Trump may not be like other presidential contenders, but anyone ready to hand out prizes should remind themselves who was leading the pack at this stage in previous cycles. Driving the sense that it’s all but over is a growing consensus that Ron DeSantis doesn’t have what it takes: he lacks charisma, he doesn’t know what ideological lane to occupy, he has made the fatal mistake of trying to beat Trump at his own game.