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Editor's note: We couldn’t be more proud of one of our teammates, Isaac Rose-Berman, who penned his first op-ed this week in USA Today: “How college students can bridge American divides: 'Study abroad' in Alabama or New York.” Please give it a read, and share far and wide!
“British lawmakers defeated Boris Johnson in parliament on Tuesday in a bid to prevent him taking Britain out of the EU without a divorce agreement, prompting the prime minister to announce that he would immediately push for a snap election.” Reuters
Earlier on Tuesday, “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost his working majority in parliament… when one of his Conservative lawmakers defected to the pro-European Union Liberal Democrats.” Reuters
These developments followed last week’s decision by Johnson to suspend Parliament from mid-September to mid-October, just before the current Brexit deadline of October 31. Reuters
Fun fact: Britain has no formal written constitution. University College London
The left is critical of Johnson and worries that Britain is running out of palatable options.
“In an instant, the conflict hollowed out the world’s oldest and most successful political party. Former insiders were banished, and pro-Brexit lawmakers — once on the fringes, and now at the heart of Mr. Johnson’s government — tightened their grip on the party. What remains, moderates fear, is a narrow, more homogeneous party that sacrifices its long-term electoral prospects in pursuit of a hard split from Europe.”
Benjamin Mueller, New York Times
“The unprecedented move to sack 21 Conservatives, many of them long-serving members, was a stark sign of just how high the stakes have been ratcheted up… In carrying out the cull, Johnson blew apart his majority, presumably with the idea of replacing those members in a general election with others who will toe that line. By calling for a snap election, he could in fact be aiming to increase his majority and strengthen his hand on Brexit all at the same time. That said, his predecessor Theresa May tried the same tactic in 2017 -- and it spectacularly blew up in her face.”
Eliza Mackintosh, CNN
“Even now that the technical complexities and economic hazards of Brexit are indisputable, the prime minister pretends that obstacles are trifling or illusory. He claims that leaving the EU without a deal would not be a calamity, but also that the threat of calamity is necessary to persuade the EU to grant a deal. He says that MPs’ demands for an article 50 extension make it harder to negotiate in Brussels because continental leaders will compromise only when they see that the UK is beyond reason. In short: there is no cliff, and even if there was one, the way to avoid it is by driving towards the edge at full speed with no brakes.”
Rafael Behr, The Guardian
“While, from the perspective of this non-British observer, Brexit seems like a very bad idea, the arguments of many Remainers and People’s Vote proponents also often seem to boil down to: The voters did something dumb, so it shouldn’t count… But Johnson’s case is not all that strong either. The referendum asked voters only, ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’ It didn’t ask on what terms that departure would take place. That was left up to the country’s elected leaders to figure out…
“The debate comes down to what, fundamentally, you think modern ‘democracy’ is: a system in which the people set policies, or one in which the people select leaders they trust to set policies. Unfortunately, in this case, the debate is muddled by the fact that the people have done both and contradicted themselves.”
Joshua Keating, Slate
“The result [of another election] could see the winner installed in Downing Street for a full five-year term… Yet for the past three years, hardly any attention has been paid to the very different visions the Conservatives and Labour, the main opposition, have for Britain. The parties are much further apart than they were even in the aftermath of the financial crisis… how much discussion can there be about Britain’s future options during a six-week election campaign in the shadow of a ticking clock? And if radical reforms do follow, will the British public really feel that they have agreed to them when they received so little debate beforehand?”
Helen Lewis, The Atlantic
“By declaring that the United States will respond with airstrikes to any attacks on American targets or assets, Mr. Trump is drawing a bright red line that Iran cannot cross. And yet, Iran relies on a network of proxy actors from Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Must they all respect Mr. Trump’s red line? There are plenty of hotheads in those proxy forces that will be incensed by the assassination, the same way young men with weapons and minimal discipline often are… Mr. Trump can’t keep an entire region from crossing his red line, making violent conflict all the more likely if the president holds to it…
“It is crucial that influential Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind Mr. Trump of his promise to keep America out of foreign quagmires and keep Mr. Trump from stumbling further into war with Iran.”
Editorial Board, New York Times
Others argue that “Biden was almost the only one on the stage who talked like a normal person. There was a point near the end of the debate when he was talking about getting men involved in stopping domestic violence and he said that we need to keep ‘punching’ at it… I knew that the twitterati and the analysts would tut tut. Ol’ Joe is just out of touch! He doesn’t know you can’t use words like that. Meanwhile, every non-political junkie watching the debate thought there was nothing wrong with this. Biden was just using ordinary language, not worrying too much if it was fully approved by the woke brigade.”
Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
The right is generally supportive of Johnson and believes a general election is likely.
The right is generally supportive of Johnson and believes a general election is likely.
“There is nothing brave in what the ‘Tory rebels’ are doing… In fact, intentionally blocking Brexit strikes me as the least brave thing you can do in British politics right now. It’s risk aversion, cowardice, stick-in-the-mud short-sightedness. We all know that their agitation against no deal is really a continuation of their agitation against Brexit itself. All these so-called Tory rebels are Europhiles. It isn’t ‘crashing out’ of the EU that horrifies them – it’s the prospect of leaving the EU in any fashion whatsoever…
“Theirs is not a rebellion against power or dictatorship or even Boris himself – it’s a rebellion against us, the people, or at least the millions and millions of us who voted Leave.”
Brendan O’Neill, The Spectator
“A majority of Parliament… want to rule out a no-deal Brexit option, one [Johnson] is using as a threat to force the EU to give up the Northern Irish border backstop. They want to force him to accept any Article 50 extension offered by the EU that would assist in avoiding a no-deal exit… And yet, even though they clearly don’t trust [Johnson’s] strategy, a majority of Parliament is unwilling to vote its lack of confidence in this government and trigger a new election… These are constitutionally irreconcilable.”
Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review
“Britain’s Parliament is elected in single-member districts where a candidate need not get a majority to prevail. This ‘first-past-the-post’ system means that Tories could easily win a majority of seats with only 35 percent of the national vote. Given that more than 400 of the United Kingdom’s 650 constituencies voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, Johnson has the upper hand. Opposition parties could agree to an electoral pact to oppose Conservatives, but that’s easier said than done…
“[The Liberal Democrats and Greens] have been pushing Corbyn to unambiguously support a second referendum that could cancel Brexit entirely. Corbyn is loath to embrace that option, however, as his party’s voters are divided on Brexit, with many working-class supporters in favor of it. He is also a lifelong euroskeptic and does not personally back staying in the E.U. as is. Without a pact, Johnson would surely triumph unless large numbers of Brexit backers plunked down for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. So far polls show Brexit-backing voters flowing toward the Tories and away from Farage.”
Henry Olson, Washington Post
Regarding Johnson’s attempt to suspend parliament, “Whatever else the prorogation of Parliament may be, it is not (as some excitable sorts are claiming, and other excitable sorts are reporting) a ‘coup.’ Rather, it is the use of a commonplace (and legal) device but at a time when British politics are anything other than business as usual. Whether or not it is a wise move is a different question. My own guess is that it is a possibly smart, certainly risky tactical move, but strategically a mistake: If it succeeds, it will allow Remainers to reinforce their claim that Brexit was brought about by trickery, a claim that may well have staying power if the U.K. moves towards the sort of ‘no deal’ Brexit that is looking increasingly likely, a no deal that will led to a great deal of difficulty both economically and politically.”
Andrew Stuttaford, National Review
It’s worth noting that “conservative ideas were much more popular when not associated with the Republican party. In Washington State, voters narrowly rejected bringing affirmative action back to state contracting and university admissions…
“In Seattle, the self-proclaimed socialist city-council member appears to have lost her seat to a pro-business challenger. In Colorado, voters gave fiscal conservatives a big win by rejecting letting the state keep any tax revenues above the state spending cap, money that the state Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights currently guarantees as refunds to taxpayers. In Sussex County, N.J., voters approved, by a 2-to-1 margin, a referendum directing the local freeholder board to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Washington, Colorado, New Jersey — notice these are places where Republican candidates have had no luck lately.)”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“If a dozen drones or missiles can do the kind of damage to the world economy as did those fired on Saturday—shutting down about 6 percent of world oil production—imagine what a U.S.-Iran-Saudi war would do to the world economy. In recent decades, the U.S. has sold the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment. Did our weapons sales carry a guarantee that we will also come and fight alongside the kingdom if it gets into a war with its neighbors?… the nation does not want another war. How we avoid it, however, is becoming difficult to see. John Bolton may be gone from the West Wing, but his soul is marching on.”
Patrick Buchanan, The American Conservative
Others note, “I’d hate to be a Democratic member of Congress trying to convince Joe Sixpack that this is a whole new ballgame. The transcript shows Trump being Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky trying to ingratiate himself with the big dog by, for instance, mentioning that he stays at Trump hotels. Trump’s conversation is typically scattershot, wandering all over the field, leaving a reasonable listener puzzled about what the takeaways are supposed to be…
“I think Joe Sixpack’s response is going to be a hearty shrug. After all that has emerged about Trump so far, his approval rating is closely tracking Obama’s approval at the same point in his presidency. To get Mr. Sixpack’s attention you are going to have to do better than this.”
Kyle Smith, National Review
“President Trump should be happy. As much as Warren is articulate, obviously intelligent, and energetically supported by Democrats, she would also be far easier to defeat than Joe Biden… Considering Trump's economy, the president is well placed to defeat Warren.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“While running for president in 2000, George W. Bush derided ‘nation building’ and said American foreign policy should be ‘humble’ rather than ‘arrogant.’ As president, Bush brought us the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq… While running for president in 2007, Barack Obama rejected the idea that the president has the authority to wage war without congressional authorization whenever he thinks it is in the national interest… As president, Obama did that very thing in Libya… A few years before his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump said the U.S. should withdraw immediately from Afghanistan… As president, he sent more troops to Afghanistan…
“Three men with little or no foreign policy experience entered an office where they were surrounded by experts, and they quickly shed their initial skepticism of military intervention… we should worry about a president with little knowledge of the world whose military decisions are driven by anger or domestic political considerations. But it's not clear to me that such a president poses a bigger danger than the experts who have been disastrously wrong more times than we can count.”
Jacob Sullum, Reason
This $200 cup of tea is England's most expensive brew.
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