Commentary on Wall Street, Texas, and Europe’s Nationalist Rebellion
Eye on the economy: Wall Street, Texas?
“The new Texas Stock Exchange is another sign,” warns Allison Schrager at City Journal, that New York is “losing its dominance in finance.” The industry “is what made Gotham’s growth into one of the world’s greatest cities possible,” but “the link between New York and finance has weakened” as finance has evolved to make “physical presence” less salient. “Jobs, in finance and other industries, have moved south — especially to Texas.” Plus, “the TXSE is promising to cut red tape and regulations” imposed by the New York exchanges. New York leaders beware: “Technology that enables people to do their jobs anywhere, zero state income taxes, and Texas’s better business climate” all “stand as warnings that New York can’t take finance for granted anymore.”
Conservatives: Europe’s Nationalist Rebellion
“Until European and Democratic Party leaders accept that migration must be limited, expect more victories for supposedly ‘extreme’ parties that don’t deny that obvious truth,” argues the Washington Examiner’s editorial board. As “some 360 million voters in 27 European countries” elected a new European parliament, “nationalist parties gained ground while leftist parties, such as the Greens, crumbled.” “Many news outlets and other political participants refer to the nationalist parties as ‘extreme’ or ‘far right’,” but “do not justify that obvious effort at denigration.” These parties “share a deep unhappiness with the admission of millions of immigrants from around the world into their countries.” Many Europeans are “enraged” by “immigration policies foisted on them by their ruling classes.” And “it is a moral imperative in a democracy that citizens choose who may enter their country and who may not.”
From the right: EU Establishment Under Siege
Despite striking gains by rightists in Sunday’s EU parliament elections, “the new populist MEPs will likely be shut out of key decisions, including the vetting of new EU commissioners. The EU has never allowed the democratic wishes of the public to intrude on its affairs before, so it is unlikely to start now,” snarks Spiked’s Fraser Myers. “European elites have pulled every trick in the book to try to put the brakes on the populist surge,” and “in recent weeks and months, challenger parties have been denounced in the strongest terms imaginable.” But “populist voters are more motivated than ever.” “Voters have used these elections to deliver a powerful challenge . . . The mainstream elite consensus — on borders, climate change and ever-greater EU integration — is coming under unprecedented populist pressure.”
Culture critic: The Debate Dems Don’t Want
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) “found himself unfairly maligned as hankering for the old days of Jim Crow” after he noted the black family was “together” during that period, reports William McGurn at The Wall Street Journal. He “was saying the black family was more intact during Jim Crow, while his critics pretend he was saying these families were more intact because of Jim Crow.” The Biden campaign fueled the outrage on Twitter, and MSNBC’s Joy Reid amplified it. Too bad: An “honest national debate might help clarify what went wrong and what we ought to change today.” Yet the last thing Democratic critics want is “an honest debate about the Great Society — especially within the black community.”
Foreign desk: The Islamist Stabbing Epidemic
“The last time Islamist violence swept Europe,” notes Peter Savodnik at The Free Press, “it felt like a much bigger story. Now, people seem resigned.” Amid a wave of stabbings (and worse) across Europe, “media outlets and senior elected officials” urged “everyone to withhold judgment” on obvious acts of terrorism. Why? Elites think “the danger is not the people who did the killing, but the people who might be provoked by the killing” — a nebulous “far right.” Worse, some “victims themselves are transformed into the instigators of the violence.” “Can the West fight the Islamist threat without turning its back on the values, like democracy and liberalism, that made it the West? Without that conversation, the far right — the real far right — will indeed step into the void.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
