Call for TikTok Ban Grows Stronger, Democrats Leave Biden Administration, Expert Analysis
China watch: Ban TikTok Now
“In Hollywood, the conversation is no longer about market access and box office numbers inside” the People’s Republic of China, observes Chris Fenton at RealClearPolitics — it’s about “platforms we use to create, promote, and share content,” including China-owned TikTok. “The app provides Beijing an ability to understand, control, and influence Americans,” and it’s “much more damaging in how it shapes the opinions and perspectives” of the young. “Beijing will almost certainly use TikTok to study voter data and control the flow of information and news” in the 2024 election. So: “TikTok should be banned.” After all, “the Federal Communications Commission prohibits control of American broadcast networks by hostile foreign governments and entities beholden to them.” Or should we “just allow Beijing full control of our broadcast networks, too”?
From the right: Democrats’ Biden-era Exodus
“Democratic Party identification has been steadily dropping throughout” President Biden’s term; “recent data from Gallup shows that Democrats now trail Republicans by two points, factoring in GOP-leaning independents,” reports Henry Olsen at National Review. “Trailing the GOP nationally by two points means they surely trail by larger numbers in virtually every swing state,” which “gives the eventual Republican nominee, likely Donald Trump, a big leg up.” Biden “remains focused on generating enthusiasm among recalcitrant Democrats by talking about abortion and not making a deal on the border,” but this “doesn’t provide independents who are unhappy with him a reason to give him their vote.” “If Republicans can maintain their advantage and avoid antagonizing independents, they can do more than retake the White House and Senate: They can become the default majority party.”
Eye on November: Union Vote up for Grabs
“Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tussling over the union vote” as polling reveals “union members shifting away from Democrats,” notes CNN’s Harry Enten. In swing states won by Biden in 2020, polling shows he and Trump “tied at 47% among union members” now, where Biden previously “won the group by an 8-point margin.” Indeed, “non-college graduates of all stripes have become friendlier to the GOP.” It’s a class split: “Trump won non-college graduate union members by 6 points in 2020,” while Biden dominated union-member college grads (e.g., teachers), “winning them by 46 points.”
Harvard beat: Diversity Chief ‘Plagiarized,’ Too
“It’s not just Claudine Gay,” snarks the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium. “Harvard University’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, appears to have plagiarized extensively in her academic work, lifting large portions of text without quotation marks and even taking credit for a study done by another scholar — her own husband — according to a complaint filed with the university” and a Washington Free Beacon analysis. “The complaint makes 40 allegations of plagiarism,” and alleges that a fifth of a 2014 paper she co-authored, “including two-thirds of its ‘findings’ section,” was recycled from a 2012 paper by her husband. Ironically, Charleston’s office provides a glossary of “diversity, inclusion and belonging” terms including “gaslighting,” which can mean “taking credit” for some else’s ideas.
Conservative: Joe Rewards Failure
“Nearly two years after [President] Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are 150,000 Afghans . . . who put their lives at risk to work with the U.S. government, but are still waiting for their [special immigrant visas],” laments The Free Press’ Eli Lake. “Though the SIV process was supposed to provide an escape route for our Afghan allies,” it has failed many “Afghans who sided with America in its war against the Taliban” and “now live with a target on their back.” “And yet the woman in charge of the SIV Taskforce during the fiasco,” Tracey Jacobson, has been nominated “to be the next US ambassador to Iraq.” Fumes former Pentagon official Simone Ledeen, who now works to rescue Afghan allies: “It is shocking that someone with such a profound, demonstrated history of failure gets appointed to this job.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
