#Lockdown dogma and other commentary

As part of a second lockdown, a British citizen is barred from meeting a neighbor unless the neighbor, “is a member of what government officials, with apparently straight faces, define as a ‘support bubble,’ ” snarks The Week’s Matthew Walther. And there’s every reason to expect America to descend to such absurdity, thanks to liberal politicians more beholden to “totemism” than “scientific evidence.” The irrationality is the worst part: In California, for example, “strip clubs were just reopened by the order of a judge” — ah, “if only people were not in the unfortunate habit of wearing clothes to Mass!” And in “restaurants across this country, millions participate in the bizarre fiction that masks are not only efficacious but required except when we are eating and drinking, at which point they are no longer necessary.” The “science” is settled: “It was settled months ago, in favor of whatever the whims of the political, educational and business establishment happen to be.”

Philosopher: Judgment, Not ‘Lived Experience’

Kamala Harris says she has promised Joe Biden she will always share her “lived experience, as it relates to any issue that we confront.” At The Guardian, Kwame Anthony Appiah wonders: “That sounded comforting, but should it?” After all, you “can debate my sociopolitical analyses — those facts and interpretations are shared and public — but not my lived experience.” What makes its invocation “such a powerful move — the fact that it’s essentially private, removed from inspection — is exactly what makes it such a perilous one.” Let’s hope Harris “will offer, alongside her lived experience, her considered judgment.”

From the left: Democrats’ Disastrous Coalition

In a Politico interview, Democratic data whiz David Shor discusses the trends that shocked so many liberals this year. As college-educated whites swing left, they increasingly set the party’s agenda, driving the non-college-educated away, including some of the minorities Democrats thought they would own forever. Pollsters thought this “education polarization” would decrease in 2020 — instead, it “got larger.” It’s happening “in almost every country in the Western world.” And “it’s going to be very hard for Democrats to resist the pull of catering to” these elite voters, and (thanks to the decline of local newspapers) tough for candidates to distinguish themselves from those who choose the party’s top issues, such as “defund the police.” They’re just not “pushing things that we think are going to move voters in a direction that we want.” In short, “We need to change the nature of our coalition if we want to wield legislative power.”

Conservative: A Big Blow to Race Preferences

Californians just voted for Joe Biden by nearly 2 to 1, yet “this deep blue state” also “delivered a resounding rebuke” to racial preferences, nixing Proposition 16 by a 57-43 margin, cheers American Civil Rights Institute and NO on Prop 16 president Ward Connerly at USA Today. That margin is even bigger than the 10-point spread won by Prop 209, banning preferences, which pushed Connerly through in 1996 — even though Prop 16 had a 16-to-1 funding advantage over its foes, support from “the entire California political, business and media establishment” and “endorsements” by numerous national figures, including Kamala Harris. “This was an unequivocal victory for equality under the law,” beams Connerly. Preferences “cannot exist without corresponding discrimination” — “it is well past time” to end them.

VP Pence: How Don Renewed NASA

At FoxNews.com, Vice President Mike Pence celebrates Sunday’s NASA SpaceX Crew-1 launch as a “historic milestone,” marking “only the second time in nearly 10 years that American astronauts launched into space from American soil.” The Resilience spacecraft, carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station, is a “culmination of four years of renewed leadership in space.” Under President Trump’s “clear direction” and call for innovation, America “remains as dominant in space as we are” on land, air and sea. With the renewed space initiatives, “we’ve summoned the courage to dream bigger, to work harder, and we’ve gone forward with the same confidence of trailblazers who came before us.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board