TIM CARNEY: Can Democrats Love The Voters Hillary Hated?

The 2018 election furthered this division. Democrats took over the House of Representatives in part by picking up dozens of seats in upper-middle-class suburban districts. The new bragging point for Democrats is that they are the party of the highly educated and the successful. It allows for the self-serving explanation that people who know the real deal vote Democratic, and only the clueless bitter clingers vote Republican.

The choice for 2020 is: Do Democrats prefer the pride of being the party of the elites, or are they willing to sully themselves by trying to win over the “backwards” places full of deplorable bitter clingers?

If they want to win, they need to tune out Hillary and the commentators who insist that Trump’s base was purely racists —the folks who declare “ There’s no such thing as a good Trump voter.”

This will involve accepting that working-class suffering is real — even for white people.

That’s going to be tough for them.

ILLINOIS GOP: Just how many sexual harassers has Speaker Madigan protected over the years?

WOW: Antonin Scalia Law School Receives $50 Million: Largest Gift in George Mason History. “Mrs. Rouse was an enthusiastic fan of Justice Scalia.”

ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE:

Though honestly, he seems like a perfect fit for CNN. . . .

SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Sanders Fills Ranks With Anti-Israel Advocates Tied to Anti-Semitism Scandal.

Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic-socialist who has once again thrown his hat into the ring for a 2020 presidential bid, has begun to rely in recent months on two staffers: Foreign policy adviser Matt Duss and campaign manager Faiz Shakir, both of whom faced charges of promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories during their time at the Center for American Progress, or CAP, a liberal think-tank.

Sanders’s dependence on Duss and Shakir has been making waves in the pro-Israel and Jewish community in recent months, given the duo’s prominent role in CAP’s 2012 anti-Semitism row, which saw several staffers at the organization’s Think Progress blog rebuked for invoking age-old canards about Jewish control of money and politics. Duss has faced additional scrutiny in the subsequent years for publishing Nazi-era propaganda posters and steadfastly standing against the U.S.-Israel alliance

As the matter of anti-Jewish bias in prominent D.C. political circles makes its way back into the news following a series of anti-Semitic comments by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), many in the pro-Israel community are beginning to raise questions about Sanders’ choice to fill his ranks with individuals closely tied to some of the most prominent anti-Israel causes.

In 2012, Duss was CAP’s Middle East director, while Shakir served as editor-in-chief of the group’s Think Progress blog, which has since become regarded as a hotbed for anti-Israel activism.

Every revolution needs its scapegoats.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Questions Surround Who Approved ‘White Privilege’ Training for Williamson County Teachers.

CHANGE: A big change to Ford’s Mexico plans that will make Donald Trump smile. “You might recall, a little more than a year ago, when liberals were absolutely giddy over the news that Ford was going to be building an automotive plant in Mexico after all. It was seen as a defeat for President Trump’s America first ideas and a failure of one of his campaign promises. I wonder what they’ll be saying now? The company just announced that the Mexico deal has been scrapped and they will instead be expanding a plant in Michigan, adding hundreds of new jobs. . . . This is an interesting development, mostly for the people of Michigan. A 700 job expansion is nothing to sneeze at and with technology increasingly moving in the direction of autonomous vehicles, this will keep them in a growing market. But it’s also something that will be of great interest to the President as we head into the next election cycle. After only narrowly carrying the state in 2016 with a plurality, beating Clinton by barely half a point, his approval ratings have been underwater there by as much as 15 points recently.”

UPDATE: Link to Hot Air was to a story dated today, but Hot Air has retracted the story because it was actually reporting as new something that was rather old. Sorry — I did check the date on the Hot Air story because it sounded sort of familiar, but saw it was dated today and went on with that. In my defense, I was still on my first cup of coffee.

“WE ARE NOW 3 MONTHS POST-DEADLINE:” The Mystery of Blumenthal v. Trump. “Why the delay? Where is the decision? What is going on?”

SHE’S A MONSTER, REALLY: Ilhan Omar Knows Exactly What She Is Doing: The Minnesota Democrat is bringing Corbynism to the Democratic Party.

Related: Anti-Semitism within America’s gates.

UPDATE: Anti-Semitism’s Collaborators.

Also: Michael Walsh: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ilhan Omar?

BOB MCMANUS ON THE END OF MIKE BLOOMBERG’S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS. I remember when a lot of NeverTrumpers were saying that Bloomberg would wipe the floor with Trump if he ran. Apparently, Bloomberg concluded otherwise.

OH: DNC bars Fox News from hosting presidential primary debates.

ENDORSED: Daylight saving time starts Sunday. This bill could make it permanent.

WHEN I TEACH GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT, MY LAW STUDENTS ARE AMAZED TO HEAR THAT THE ONLY LEGAL SEX IN 1965 WAS BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE: Sex for unmarried in Utah may soon be legalized.

IT’S A LITTLE HARD TO BUY THIS GIVEN FACEBOOK’S PAST: Zuckerberg says Facebook’s future is ‘privacy-focused.’

IS ANYONE REALLY SURPRISED TO LEARN THIS? The Most Politically Intolerant Americans Tend To Be Urban, Highly Educated Whites, Survey Shows. “An Atlantic article makes the case that some very privileged people don’t want to hear from the other side.” Which is dangerous.

I DON’T: The 21st Century Belongs to China? Don’t Buy It.

As I write in Bully of Asia, China is becoming more totalitarian almost by the day. To give just one example, everyone’s social media is monitored all the time, and used as the basis for a “social credit score” that goes down if you criticize the regime, and goes up if you flatter it.

This score is then used by Beijing to determine whether you will be allowed to travel outside the country, obtain a low-interest rate loan, or even buy an in-country plane ticket. If your social credit score falls low enough, you will be sent to a re-education camp even if you have not committed a crime.

Runciman, our British cousin, argues that China’s lack of “individual dignity” is more than compensated for by a surfeit of “national dignity.” In this he is parroting the current party leadership which, in effect, proposes just such a trade-off to the people it oppresses.

Here is, in essence, what the Chinese Communist Party tells the masses: You may be under constant state surveillance, unable to speak freely, and prevented from forming political associations. But remember that to be Chinese is to be part of the greatest phenomenon in human history, and China’s growing economic and military greatness is your greatness.

The national narcissism that such xenophobic and nationalistic appeals are intended to stoke, however, are a poor substitute for the universally recognized human rights that the Chinese people are being systematically deprived of.

It’s also no way to drive innovation, without which nations and cultures go sterile and stagnate.

KEITH WHITTINGTON: Securing Free Speech on Campus, Part I: If universities do not take steps to address their campus free speech problems, politicians will do it for them.

Plus: Securing Free Speech on Campus, Part II: Universities should be proactive about articulating, defending and protecting the free exchange of ideas on campus.

IN NO SMALL PART BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT: Why politicians will talk about anything but our ballooning national debt.