#Maximo Alvarez’s American Dream and other commentary

Maximo Alvarez, founder of Sunshine Gasoline, addresses the RNC Monday.
Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images

RNC journal: Maximo Alvarez’s American Dream

“A Cuban immigrant businessman whose family fled Fidel Castro’s ­regime has been widely praised for a speech in which he told the Republican Party faithful how his family’s story was an example of the American Dream which can only be protected by the GOP,” reports Newsweek’s Brendan Cole. Sunshine Gasoline founder Maximo Alvarez told the Republican National Convention “how his father, who only had a sixth-grade education, had fled totalitarianism, first from Spain, and then Cuba.” Alvarez declared, “If I gave away everything I have today, it would not equal 1 percent of what I was given when I came to this great country of ours: the gift of freedom.” Even Trump foe Preet Bharara enthused, “Agree or not, Maximo Alvarez gives by far the most effective speech of the evening.”

Urban beat: Common Sense on Chaos

Not six years ago, “Barack Obama made a point of stating that he had ‘no sympathy at all’ for rioters in Ferguson, Mo., sending 1,500 National Guard troops into the state to enforce a curfew,” recalls Nate Hochman at City Journal. Now, however, “Democrats are too beholden to their activist base to give voice to such commonsense opinions.” And reporters are abetting them: ­“Violent demonstrations in Portland show no sign of ending” after three months, but “national media have been mostly silent,” showing “interest only in the presence of federal protective agents” there. But the “narrative” that any violence is a reaction to federal law enforcement “is getting harder to maintain as the destruction continues” though the feds “have mostly left.”

Media desk: Loving Lockdowns

The New York Times attributes the recent drop in COVID-19 cases to “effective” government restrictions, notes Reason’s Jacob Sullum, which “fits neatly” with its “enthusiasm for lockdowns” — but not with the data. In states that imposed new restrictions after June’s surges, new cases ­began dropping but the timing didn’t coincide with the closures. And states like Georgia that didn’t impose new rules saw declines anyway. It’s “difficult to disentangle the impact of government edicts” from “voluntary” actions. Yet it’s clear “the curve can be flattened without general lockdowns.” And the key to minimizing deaths while waiting for a vaccine is protecting “older, frailer people.” Focus on “the best ways to do that, rather than recriminations about what went wrong with lockdowns.”

Hate watch: ADL’s Sick Sharpton Romance

An umbrella group of Jewish organizations has “signed on as a partner in the Virtual March on Washington, an event organized by Al Sharpton,” fumes Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz — the same Sharpton who, as the force behind the anti-Semitic Crown Heights riots, stands as “America’s only living pogrom leader.” How did this happen? Blame the Anti-Defamation League. The once-venerable outfit “kashered Sharpton enough” to signal it’s OK to do business with a hater. When ex-Obama aide Jonathan Greenblatt took over the ADL in 2015, the group began devoting its “considerable resources not to the hard and often thankless job” of standing up to real hate, but to “glamorous” woke causes. Greenblatt recently joined Sharpton to call on Facebook to censor pro-Trump ads, an “odious moral decision.” Given these abdications, it’s time for American Jews “to be our own leaders.”

Think-tanker: The Real Mail-in-Vote Risks

The US Postal Service’s problems, Kevin R. Kosar explains at Politico, “aren’t the ones everyone is panicking about.” Retirement of mailboxes and sorting machines has been happening for decades. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a logistics veteran, is no “Trump stooge.” The agency has ample cash, with “$13 billion in its Treasury account, more than it has had in years,” as the pandemic has boosted business. But a fall virus surge could trigger a surprise slowdown, and a late demand for absentee ballots could lead to “the USPS getting a massive crush of ballots dropped on them late and with little notice.” In those cases, it’s up to “state officials and election workers” to “flatten the election mail curve.” Voters can help by getting and casting their ballots ASAP.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board