#Racism’s no cure for racism and other commentary

Iconoclast: Racism’s No Cure for Racism

Lori Lightfoot’s decision to talk only to “POC reporters” on her anniversary as Chicago’s mayor, Stanford’s “ ‘whiteness-accountability’ affinity groups” and President Biden’s debt relief for minority farmers are all “variations” on the debate “between newfangled equity and old-fashioned equality,” argues The New York Times’ Bret Stephens — i.e., between those pushing “antiracist discrimination” and those who, “to paraphrase Chief Justice John Roberts, think we can stop discrimination on the basis of race without discriminating on the basis of race.” The radicals will lose because equity advocates “offend ordinary sensibilities”: The idea of a “whiteness-accountability” group “is insulting to everyone who still ­believes we should be judged by the content of our character.” And “trying to solve the old racism with the new racism will produce only more racism.”

From the right: Biden’s Georgia Vendetta

The “Biden Department of Justice’s complaint against Georgia would be laughable if it weren’t so frightening,” declares The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland. The DOJ “point-blank accuses the Georgia legislature of racism,” as it complains “Georgia’s new law tightens the use of drop boxes” — but the legislature “had never approved the use of drop boxes”; bureaucrats at the State Election Board had. And the DOJ says “Georgia’s ­requirement that voters cast ballots in the proper precinct violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” though “just a few months ago, the Biden administration agreed that Arizona’s out-of-precinct voting law was valid.” That’s just “a taste of the surreal state” of the DOJ under Team Biden.

Libertarian: The Election Fix We Actually Need

Rather than “the ill-starred and misnamed For the People Act,” which is “a jumble of assorted progressive ideas mostly unrelated” to problems with last year’s elections, Walter Olson asserts at Cato.org, Congress must realize that “the sharpest threats to democratic process in America at the moment relate not to the casting but to the counting of votes.” That means fixing the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which “laid out rules meant to govern how Congress should address disputes over the legitimacy of electoral slates submitted by the states.” The act “leaves too wide an opening for those who would argue that Congress, the vice president or both have leeway to exercise a selective power” to count electoral votes. Fix it, so we can “get on with defending democracy the right way.”

Liberal: Learn From Joe Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) “has become a target of progressives who insist that he toe the line. But is there really a wide tactical difference between them? Rep. ­Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a progressive warrior representing a progressive district; Joe Manchin is a militant moderate representing a conservative state,” notes ex-Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) at The Hill. “Progressives have a paradox. If they want to reduce Joe Manchin’s power . . . they need to add Democrats and close in on a filibuster-proof majority. But the 2022 Senate electoral landscape will be fought in moderate swing states . . . where you win in the center.” Will “Democrats fight for the perfect bill while Republicans fight to win the next election?”

Conservative: Dems Gaslight on Police Funding

The new Biden administration and Democratic talking point is that “Republicans are really the anti-cop party,” sighs National Review’s David Harsanyi. “Why? Because they voted against President Biden’s $1.9 trillion boondoggle ‘rescue’ package, which included $350 billion for state and local governments that could be spent on police.” This is gaslighting: It’s Dems who for a year have rallied around #Defund: “Kamala Harris, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Vanita Gupta, Marty Walsh and, yes, Joe Biden — who, when asked, ‘Do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?’ answered, ‘Yes, absolutely’ — all backed defund-police efforts to some extent.” Yes, Biden subsequently backtracked, but it’s undeniable that “Black Lives Matter protests not only spurred the broad-brush vilification of cops, but the widespread progressive embrace” of #Defund.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board