AOC

While all eyes and ears at the Munich security conference will be on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday, it was America’s Democrats who were able to enjoy their moment in the spotlight on Friday. The party was out in force: Californian governor Gavin Newsom, member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer were among the high-profile party delegates on panels at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, where the conference is held. Campaigning for the next Democratic party presidential primary isn’t expected to kick off in earnest for another year.

If you think America doesn’t permit assisted suicide, you haven’t been watching the New York mayoral election. The city is deliberately killing itself.The country’s largest city, its financial and media capital, had a choice among three truly dreadful candidates: a deeply-tarnished former governor, a Republican who runs in every election except Homecoming Queen and had no chance of winning this one (but refused to withdraw), and a young socialist with a winning smile, dreamy programs, Islamist allies, and zero administrative experience. Predictably, New York voters chose the absolute worst. Zohran Mamdani won handily. Now, they’ll have to live with Mamdani’s socialist programs, which fail everywhere and break the bank in the process.

New York’s Kathy Hochul isn’t a good governor. But, like a particularly empathetic house pet, she’s finely attuned to any change in the weather. A huge crowd in a Queens stadium rallied last night for Zohran Mamdani and chanted “Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” over and over again. So when Hochul said, “I hear you, I hear you,” you can be sure that she actually heard them, though today she said she thought they were saying “let’s go Bills.” Sure. Either way, she got to where she is by knowing how to back a winner.  The rich, meanwhile, are in the process of moving their family photos to the Palm Beach town home or shopping for McMansions in suburban Dallas.

A lonely caravan, ambushed on the open frontier, circles the wagons. The settlers bring out their long rifles to fight for survival. They endure the first onslaught, but dusk is falling – and the battle has only begun.It’s a familiar scene in Hollywood westerns. In recent weeks, on Washington’s political prairies, the mainstream Democratic establishment has been living it, too.The Democrats of the old established order are hunkered down behind whatever cover they can find, defending themselves against a rising, radical flank of their own party. The insurgents call themselves "the Resistance" – but they’re not just resisting Republicans. They are contesting normalcy within their own party.

The strangest thing happened last night: the Democratic Party, which has built its success in recent years thanks almost entirely to framing themselves as the candidates espousing normalcy versus the chaos offered by Republicans, showed up to Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress and cried havoc. Part of this may be due to institutional decay. The sight of a weakened Nancy Pelosi murmuring to Steny Hoyer in advance of the speech served as a reminder of the strongarm tactics from the Democratic leadership class that used to restrain their far-left wing from losing its shit in public with all the restraint of a toddler denied their binky.

Days into his presidency, Donald Trump is delivering on one of the campaign promises that no doubt led to his re-election.“Deportation flights have begun,” Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, wrote on X, along with photos of illegal migrants handcuffed and boarding military planes. “President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences.”The deportations are part of sweeping immigration changes Trump has implemented since being sworn-in as commander-in-chief on Monday. Remember that immigration was consistently top of mind for voters during the last cycle.

On the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Biden campaign is getting aggressive on abortion. While President Joe Biden is mostly locked away at Camp David preparing for Thursday’s first presidential debate against Donald Trump, he released a video blaming Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, “putting women’s lives in danger.”  “Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House,” Biden said. “We know what will happen if he gets another four. For MAGA Republicans, Roe is just the beginning. They’re going to try to ban the right to choose nationwide. They’re coming for IVF and birth control next.

After offering explanations for why TikTok presents a danger to US security, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Friday that his college-aged daughter uses the controversial app.At a “signature event” held by the Economic Club at the capital’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, the club’s president, David Rubenstein, sat for a lengthy conversation with the secretary. On immigration, Rubenstein pressed him, asking about asylum policy, increasing encounters and whether having a physical barrier would have helped curb illegal crossings. This reporter asked Mayorkas if the administration was preparing for any policy changes given they recently hired two new senior-level officials.

The Democratic establishment has never looked more vulnerable to progressive upheaval; Biden's supposed leadership bridge to a new generation leads nowhere. "Moderate" darling transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has seen his slim national prospects dwindle with every near-miss in the air and toxic train derailment on the ground. Vice President Kamala Harris has been about as visible as Biden was on the 2020 campaign trail — and a geriatric Capitol Hill leadership class appears on its last legs. The scene is set for the party’s progressives to strike. And yet there is little relief in sight for the party’s left wing as its own geriatric champion rides off into the sunset.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, free speech was primarily defended by civil libertarians and the Democratic Party. This was in the 2000s, when a handful of civil libertarians on the right and many more on the left worried about how the Patriot Act would enhance the government's ability to monitor its own citizens. They also opposed the growing power of the intelligence community, which they thought could pressure companies into providing private information that the government could not legally grasp for itself. The past is a different country. Yesterday's hearing before the House Oversight Committee with three former Twitter executives illustrated as much. Democrats repeatedly made the case that the hearing was a distraction, unimportant, even conspiratorial.