ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Isn’t the One Dividing Us by Race: He hardly mentions it, while his adversaries are obsessed with ‘whiteness’ and ‘white privilege.’

Long before the El Paso massacre, President Trump’s political opponents accused him of sowing “division” with his “racist language.” Mr. Trump “exploits race,” “uses race for his gain,” is engaged in a “racially divisive reprise” of his 2016 campaign, stokes “racial resentments,” and puts “race at the fore,” the New York Times has reported over the past several months.

Yet Mr. Trump rarely uses racial categories in his speech or his tweets. It is the media and Democratic leaders who routinely characterize individuals and groups by race and issue race-based denunciations of large parts of the American polity.

Some examples: “As race dominates the political conversation, 10 white Democratic candidates will take the stage” (the Washington Post); Mr. Trump’s rally audiences are “overwhelmingly white” (multiple sources); your son’s “whiteness is what protects him from not [sic] being shot” by the police ( Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ); white candidates need to be conscious of “white privilege” (South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg ); “white supremacy manifests itself” in the criminal-justice, immigration and health-care systems ( Sen. Cory Booker ); “ Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri” ( Sen. Elizabeth Warren ); whiteness is “the very core” of Mr. Trump’s power, whereas his “predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness” (Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic).

Liberal opinion deems such rhetoric fair comment, even obvious truth, not “racially divisive.” America’s universities deserve credit for this double standard. Identity politics dominate higher education: Administrators, students and faculty obsessively categorize themselves and each other by race. “White privilege,” often coupled with “toxic masculinity,” is the focus of freshmen orientations and an ever-growing array of courses. Any institutional action that affects a “person of color” is “about race.” If a black professor doesn’t get tenure, he’s a victim of discrimination; a white professor is presumed to be unqualified.

That interpretive framework explains asymmetries in how the political and media elites analyze the Trump phenomenon. . . .

But according to the academic template, to criticize a “person of color” is inevitably “about race.” Mr. Buttigieg ran afoul of this rule after firing South Bend’s black police chief for secretly taping officers’ phone calls. The idea that the mayor fired the chief because he was black is absurd, yet Mr. Buttigieg inevitably faced charges of racial insensitivity. Likewise, advocates and the media deemed Mr. Trump’s nonracial denunciation of Baltimore’s leadership racist. Never mind that the victims of the city’s almost daily drive-by shootings are black. Race shields minority politicians from criticism.

Ms. Warren recently provided an unwitting summary of academic identity politics. Mr. Trump’s “central message” to the American people, she declared, is: “If there’s anything wrong in your life, blame them—and ‘them’ means people who aren’t the same color as you.” She has in mind a white “you,” but change the race and you encapsulate the reigning assumption on college campuses—that white people are the source of nonwhite people’s problems, and any behavioral or cultural explanations for economic disparities are taboo.

The academy’s reflexive labeling of nonconforming views as “hate speech” has also infiltrated popular rhetoric against Mr. Trump. The president’s views on border control and national sovereignty are at odds with the apparent belief among Democratic elites that people living outside the country are entitled to enter at will and without consequences for illegal entry. To the academic and democratic left, however, a commitment to border enforcement can only arise from “hate.” Such a pre-emptive interpretation is a means of foreclosing debate and stigmatizing dissent from liberal orthodoxy.

Identity politics, now a driving force in the Democratic Party, celebrates the racial and ethnic identities of designated victim groups while consigning whites—especially heterosexual white men—to scapegoat status. But its advocates should be careful what they wish for. If “whiteness” is a legitimate topic of academic and political discourse, some individuals are going to embrace “white identity” proudly.

They’ve been trying to conjure that into existence for a decade, but they may not like the result. As John Podhoretz tweeted in November of 2016, “Liberals spent 40 years disaggregating [the] U.S., until finally the largest cohort in the country chose to vote as though it were an ethnic group.”

Related: Roger Simon: 90% of the Racism in America Comes from the Democratic Party and the Left. I’d say we’re up to 95% by now.

CLAUDIA ROSETT REPORTING FROM HONG KONG: ‘It’s All for Our Kids’: Hong Kong’s Protesters Double Down on Demands for Freedom.

USA TODAY: The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered. (Bumped).

VIDEO: ‘It’s a Large Real Estate Deal’: Trump Confirms He’s ‘Looking at’ Buying Greenland.

If it happens they’ll call it “Trump’s Folly” or something similar, but then it will turn out to have been a brilliant move.

CHANGE? 2020 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants mass pardon for nonviolent marijuana convictions.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Michigan State orders student employees not to say ‘but’ – it’s triggering.

EVERGREEN QUESTION: What Will California Ban Next?

Starting Tuesday, the sale of plastic water bottles will be banned at San Francisco International Airport, one of the few places they actually make sense. California has many dumb laws and statutes and bans, but this one is especially brainless—spurred by futile self-righteousness.

After running late for your flight after a 30-minute security line only to have TSA confiscate your Fiji water bottle, you’ll now have to stop at a crowded water fountain to fill your own metal flask. Or buy an overpriced glass or aluminum bottle at the concession stand, paying another 10 cents for a bag. And your teeth will chatter if you drink through a paper straw. Of course you could risk dehydration instead: Men lose up to a half-gallon of water during a 10-hour flight. Oddly, you can still buy sugary drinks in plastic bottles at SFO; only healthy, calorie-free water is banned in plastic. You can’t make this stuff up.

In California, you never have to.

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HAPPY 88^th BIRTHDAY TO ARTHUR FRY, CO-INVENTOR OF THE POST-IT NOTE: Fry didn’t actually invent the not-so-sticky adhesive used in post-it notes. That was his fellow 3M employee chemist Spencer Silver.  But Silver wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Fry’s contribution was to come up with a use.

The story goes that Fry sang in his church choir, where he would frequently use pieces of paper as bookmarks, which would sometimes fall out. One Sunday in 1973, it occurred to him that Silver’s adhesive used on a small piece of paper would make a great bookmark.

Yes, it does.  And sometimes invention is the mother of necessity rather than the other way around.

Here’s George Jones to sing about it.

(Full disclosure:  There is also another person who claims he, not 3M’s team, was the true inventor.  3M disagrees, and happily it’s not my job to sort this out.)

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student gov president faces calls for removal after asking people to respect others’ opinions.

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KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: RECESSION! (Or Probably Not). “Few things can turn the tide in an election like a tanking economy so the Democrats are now praying to whatever passes for a god over there and hoping that, absent a real recession, they might be able to scare voters into thinking one is on the way.”

It worked in ’92, when the media played along with Bill Clinton’s claim that the sharp (but short) ’90-’91 recession was the “worst economy since the Great Depression,” and that it was still going on months after it was over.

BUFF OVER THE PACIFIC: A USAF B-52 flies over the Pacific Ocean July 14, near the coast of Brisbane, Australia, after being refueled by a USAF KC-10 Extender in support of Exercise Talisman Sabre 19.

PARTY OF HATE: Illinois state senator apologizes for staged Trump assassination photos at fundraiser.

Photos posted by a woman who witnessed the mock assassination on Friday night show supporters of Sen. Martin Sandoval, who represents Illinois’ 11th District — including parts of Chicago — acting out in front of guests, according to WCIA.

One of them can be seen pointing a fake machine gun at a man wearing a Trump mask and Mexican costume. The individual appears to simulate being shot — grabbing his chest and leaning back.

In another photo, Sandoval can be seen standing next to the person holding the gun.

But it’s not a Republican state senator, so it’s not national news.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Red-light cameras undermine rule of law.

The Confrontation Clause grants criminal defendants the right to be confronted with the witnesses against them. Since it is a camera and not a person that witnessed the offense, such violations generally cannot be considered a criminal offense. The ticket is issued to the owner of the vehicle, not to the person driving it, leaving a lack of certainty as to the identity of the offender.

Therefore, the “ticket” in most places is nothing more than a civil fine, making enforcement and collection difficult. To date, governments have avoided this problem by requiring payment of the fine before motorists can renew their driver’s license or auto registration. Although there generally are appeals procedures, they typically do not give drivers a day in court. In other words, what happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

Indeed.

Plus:

There is more evidence that greater public safety actually depends on the timing of yellow and red lights. Longer yellow and all-way red times have been shown to significantly reduce accidents. Sometimes local governments actually decrease yellow-light timing to catch more red-light runners, a result of the perverse financial incentives that tempt government officials and camera companies. Studies also show motorists are more likely to hit the brakes hard at camera-enforced intersections, increasing rear-end collisions.

They’re just bad news.

PAUL BEDARD: Trump report card: A better than average 51% approval, but economic clouds forming.

Well, even if real clouds don’t appear, you can expect the Democrats and the media — but I repeat myself — to fire up the smudge-pots.

OH: James Comey and Wife Donated Nearly $20K to Democrats This Year. “Klobuchar, Harris, Abrams among recipients of Comey cash.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Cosmic Injustice: Politicians ignore felonies in their midst, preferring to hector the misdemeanors of the universe.

REMEMBERING THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION’S RED AUGUST (ADDENDUM): Last week I did a post about August of 1966, the month in which the Red Guard student gangs started going on the rampage. But where did these students come from? And what made them so angry?

I can give you only partial answers: During this early stage of the Cultural Revolution, they were very disproportionately the sons and daughters of privileged party members.  (Surprised?  I suspect not.)

Red Guard students also tended to be the beneficiaries of preferential treatment in admissions. All during the 1950s and 1960s, the children of party members and at least in theory the children of peasants and workers received a kind of “affirmative action” in admission both to elite schools and to colleges and universities. Frequently a revolutionary pedigree was a more important credential than a good academic record. Early on, a popular meme (if not exactly a Shakespearean couplet) was “If the father is a hero [of the Revolution], the son is a good fellow; if the father is a reactionary, the son is a good-for-nothing—it is basically like this.”

Like students who receive preferential treatment here in the USA—diversity students, legacy students, and athletes—on average the Chinese recipients of preferential treatment got poorer grades than other students. Mao is reported to have acknowledged this: “The political performance of the children of revolutionary cadres in schools can only be rated as second-class, but students with bad family backgrounds [i.e. the children of alleged capitalists, landlords, rich peasants, and counter-revolutionaries] have performed very well. However, no matter how well they have performed, revolutionary tasks cannot be put on their shoulders.”

Loyal Instapundit readers know that I have written extensively about the problem of affirmative action “mismatch” in this country. (If you haven’t already read one of my essays, they are here and here. Please take a look.) Alas, large gaps in academic performance between identifiable groups tend to cause resentments. Perversely, a group that has been given preferential treatment may come to believe, against all evidence, that the system is rigged against them, when in fact the problem is that the system was rigged in their favor.

In China, the myth that the “Born-Reds” (as they sometimes called themselves) had been mistreated by the educational system prior to the Cultural Revolution was a strong one. “We Born-Reds gasped for breath under the suppression of the cow ghosts and snake demons [i.e. the teachers and school administrators], and bourgeois bastards [i.e. children with “bad” family backgrounds] in schools,” wrote several of the Red Guard crybullies. In fact, in the years leading up to Red August, school administrators were often far too inclined to indulge the “Born-Reds,” in part out of fear of their political clout.

Mao pandered to these students. For him, poor academic performance was not really a problem. He was contemptuous of the Chinese system of education anyway. And he was especially contemptuous of its examination methods: I am in favor of publishing the questions in advance and letting the students study them and answer them with the aid of books.” He seemed not to be troubled by cheating. “If you answer is good and I copy it, then mine too should be counted as good.”

Mao complained about too much emphasis on “foreign dead people” much the same way that leftists today complain about about “dead white males.” And he sympathized with students who dozed off during lectures. “You don’t have to listen to nonsense, you can rest your brain instead.” He accused the schools of favoring students from “bad” family backgrounds.

No wonder the Born-Reds loved him (and weren’t too fond of their teachers).

LEON IS GETTING LARGER:

In 1969, Americans were, it would appear, much thinner — men and women equally. (That guy picking his way through the crowd at Altamont has not an ounce of body fat.) As it happens, this superficial impression is borne out by the available data, since in 1971 the average 19-year-old man weighed just 159.7 pounds, according to figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, and the average woman 131. A hippie now at Woodstock 50 — if such existed and if a planned anniversary concert had not fallen apart — would have added an additional 14 pounds to his frame and a woman another 20.

My own impression from being around a campus is that while older Americans started getting fatter in the 1980s, it wasn’t until after the turn of the millennium that you saw 19 year olds looking fatter, and the change seemed fairly swift. Also, the male students aren’t just fatter but it’s often a more female-like fat distribution — not the sturdy frat guy with a keg belly, but a kind of soft overall fatness, around the hips, lower back, and thighs. I suspect there’s something hormonal going on.

NOW THAT’S THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: The U.S. Navy Wants To Build the World’s Largest Robot Warship.

HE’S RIGHT. BOTH ARE DUMB VIRTUE-SIGNALING BY DEMOCRATS WHO NEITHER UNDERSTAND NOR CARE ABOUT THE ACTUAL PROBLEM. Cedric Richmond (D) Compares Banning Assault Weapons to Banning Plastic Straws.

HMM: In blue Seattle, Trump supporters are starting to come out of hiding.

The latest federal-election reports show that Trump is doing surprisingly well getting backers in this bluest of blue places. With nearly 15 months to go before the 2020 election, he already has drawn more donations from Seattle addresses than he did during the entire 2016 campaign.

In Washington state, where his approval rating is 28 points underwater, Trump has still racked up far more donations, big and small, than any of the Democratic candidates — in fact more than the top six Democrats combined.

I’m not talking about total dollars raised — though on that front Trump is a juggernaut, too. But the total number of donations reflects how many people are inspired enough by a candidate to send any amount of money, sometimes repeatedly. As I wrote in 2016, about how democratic socialist candidate Bernie Sanders was swamping the field in the donations category, “it’s like a measure of people power.”

Well, now Trump, of all candidates, has nearly three times as many donations from Washington state as Bernie Sanders does. The Vermont senator has 8,080 itemized donations here, while Trump has the most ever recorded at this point in an election, by any candidate in either party, 21,657.

We just saw an almost identical story last week, but in California.