#After Trump, Dems need a real message and other commentary

From the left: Democrats Need a New Message 

Now that “Trump, the democratic Saddam, has lost, and his metaphorical statue will soon be dragged out of the White House,” Democrats need to turn their attention to creating an “ambitious” new party identity, ­advises Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone. For the last decade, “the brilliantly marketable Obama and the monster-pig shipwreck act that was Trump” let Democrats ignore the fact that “something was not quite working with the party’s overall message.” Having elected Joe Biden, “another ex-senator with a pro-Iraq [War], pro-NAFTA” record, they’ll need to acknowledge “how much failing to deliver real change cost them before.” Otherwise, “they will find themselves right back where they were four years ago — vulnerable to revolts on both sides.”

Conservative: Barr’s Critics Were Wrong

US Attorney General William Barr evidently “kept quiet about the Hunter Biden investigation — even when the Trump campaign was metaphorically screaming at the top of its lungs,” National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes. Those who called Barr a “partisan hack” should “please line up to make a very public apology.” Barr chose not to shake up the race “with a dramatic revelation as Americans were casting ballots,” proving himself to be “the guy who follows the law and preestablished procedure and the evidence to the truthful conclusion.” But to Barr’s liberal critics, “you’re either a progressive Democratic good guy, or you’re aligned with one of history’s greatest monsters.” Just playing it straight, following the rules and upholding constitutional order is never enough in their minds. Thus, “few people who spent the past two years demonizing the attorney general are going to rethink their decisions and views.”

From the right: Divided Government Best for Joe

Although most Democrats are anxiously hoping to win control of the Senate, a “divided government” would be “the only check and balance ­remaining on two political parties, for whom the center of gravity is so far from the center that they’ve nearly fallen off the ends of the earth,” ­argues RealClearPolitics’ Carl M. Cannon. Without Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block extreme initiatives, Joe Biden “will be in bed” with radical progressives, whose “agenda doesn’t stop at the Green New Deal or single-payer health care.” But McConnell and Biden could be a successful team, especially since “the two men had been friends when they both served in the Senate.” No, the partnership wouldn’t always “be smooth sailing,” but McConnell could be both “a convenient foil for Biden” and “a useful negotiating partner” in reaching compromises ­between the “ideologues” of the right and left.

Pro-lifer: Biden’s Abortion Militancy

Joe Biden is “fulfilling predictions that his administration will be the most militantly pro-abortion of any in American history,” declares Kenneth Craycraft at First Things. The latest sign: his pick to lead Health and Human Services, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra — “a tool of the abortion industry.” When he served in the House, Becerra “consistently received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. During his tenure, no member of Congress exceeded his enthusiasm for abortion for any or no reason up to, and even during, the birth of a child.” As California AG, he enthusiastically (and ­unsuccessfully) defended a Golden State law that would have forced pro-life pregnancy centers to promote abortion against their conscience rights. He also “joined Pennsylvania in suing the Little Sisters of the Poor in federal court, trying to force the religious ­order to facilitate and finance abortion and contraception for its lay employees” under ObamaCare. His  nomination, then, “is about imposing rigid, fundamentalist, pro-abortion ideology on the country.”

Liberal: The Left’s Policing Language Games

President Barack Obama’s criticism of police defunders was met with claims that he is indifferent “to police killings,” The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan sighs. It just goes to show that the hard left’s positions have “no connection to any commonly agreed upon standard of reality.” Instead, the left is playing “language games” — and the rest of America is growing “impatient” with those games. 

— Compiled by Ashley Allen & Sohrab Ahmari