#Democrats are the ‘Karens’ and other commentary

Libertarian: Democrats Are the Party of ‘Karens’

“As President Biden’s approval ratings have tanked with nonwhite voters, the Democratic Party increasingly has become dominated by liberal white women who virtue-signal with suburban lawn signs and then henpeck people in supermarkets to pull their face masks up over their noses,” snarks The Hill’s Kristin Tate — i.e., “the Democratic Party is at risk of becoming a party of ‘Karens.’ ” Though Dems “worked to build a voting base composed of minorities and unmarried women,” polls show “Hispanic and black voters are abandoning the party,” as many are harmed by “surging inflation, anti-business COVID measures and exploding crime rates in urban areas brought about by a year of left-wing measures.” This leaves Dems with only “its most consistent members: single, college-educated white women.”

Urban beat: NYC Injection Sites Outrage Biz

“The establishment of supervised drug-injection sites in two New York City neighborhoods has predictably rankled area business-owners and residents,” observes National Review’s Zachary Evans. “The two sites, located in Washington Heights and East Harlem, are the first of their kind in the country. They provide clean syringes and overdose-prevention services to addicts, who bring drugs from outside.” One owner of a store near the Washington Heights injection site says there are “needles on the sidewalk all the time” and customers are “afraid of addicts” standing in front of the store. But “whether or not communities are comfortable with it, government officials seem willing to give overdose-prevention centers a try in the real world” as “the US suffers through record levels of overdose deaths.”

Economy watch: ‘Miss Trump Yet?’

“No one has vindicated [Donald] Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ policies more persuasively than [President] Biden,” quips Stephen Moore for Creators. “High gas prices, the highest inflation rate in four decades, a plan to double the national debt in 12 years and falling paychecks” are waking Americans to the “broad-based prosperity under Trump.” His “strategy was to reduce taxes, slash regulation, massively increase domestic energy production and overhaul trade deals to get tough with China.” No one thought it would be successful, but here are the facts: Before COVID, “the unemployment rate fell below 4%, which was near the lowest in half a century,” inflation fell to 1%, and poverty fell to its lowest levels ever recorded. Americans are now starting to ask, “Miss Trump yet?” 

From the right: Cali’s Pointless Climate Pain

“President Biden has made California his green-energy model, so it’s noteworthy that a new study” — by a left-leaning group, Next 10 — shows the Golden State failing to meet its emissions goals “in part because of its climate obsession,” chide The Wall Street Journal’s editors. Last year, the state added more power from emissions-producing natural gas than solar because it’s “needed to back up unreliable renewables.” Emissions from wildfires have also soared “due to years of forest mismanagement,” though the study didn’t include them; if it had, it would’ve shown emissions rising since 2000, “making California’s anti-carbon crusade look like an even bigger failure.” The main point seems to be “suffering in the name of anti-carbon virtue, because that suffering hasn’t done much to reduce emissions.”

Culture critic: How the 1960s Radicals Won

“The radical ethos of the sixties can be felt throughout public and private life,” declares Roger Kimball at Spectator World. After “fantasies of overt political revolution had faded, many student radicals urged their followers to undertake the ‘long march through the institutions’ ” — “working against the established institutions while working in them,” in Herbert Marcuse’s words. And by “insinuation and infiltration rather than confrontation,” the “radicals have triumphed”: Look “no further than the curriculum of your local school or college or at what is on offer at the nearest museum.” The “startling and depressing fact is that supposedly conservative victories at the polls have done almost nothing to challenge the dominance of left-wing, emancipationist attitudes and ideas in our culture.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board