Voters distrust their reps, still smearing Kavanaugh and other commentary

Pollster: Voters Distrust Their Reps

“Washington, you have a problem,” quips TIPP Insights’ Terry Jones. In a new poll, 66% of registered voters “said elected officials represent mostly the views and values of their big donors, not average Americans.” That’s 61% of Dems, “68% of Republicans and 73% of independents.” “Among white voters, 71% said their representatives worked for their big donors;” the number was 52% for blacks and Hispanics. Overall, 52% of voters “said they were not satisfied” with their own reps in Congress. Though “50% of Democrats called themselves “satisfied,’” “both major parties would be wise” to note “restive voters, who see Washington as out of touch and venal.” Maybe “swift action on energy, taxes and spending and immigration” — the top issues driving dissatisfaction — can “help restore voter confidence.”

Congress: Behind the Debt-Limit Fight

“America needs a fiscal intervention,” cries the Boston Herald editorial board: “A mere five months after President Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act was signed, the U.S. hit the debt ceiling” — again. For must, “maxing out on a credit card means cutting back and getting one’s fiscal act together. On Capitol Hill, many lawmakers are calling for the debt ceiling, now at $31.3 trillion, to be raised,” but while “Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans do not.” Expect “political posturing, impassioned speeches and denigration by Democrats of those who dare suggest fiscal responsibility as the solution,” along with “calls to raise taxes,” especially on “those liberals consider to be evading their ‘fair share.’” But “tax receipts are at a record high by any measure,” which means Uncle Sam “has never collected more money, but is still managing to spend it all, and then some.”

Higher-ed beat: College Taken Hostage

Critical race theory and “coercive” diversity, equity and inclusion have taken Florida’s New College “hostage,” warns City Journal’s Christopher Rufo, now a trustee as part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid to “recapture” the school. Staff and students “whisper” of the “culture problem,” in which “left-wing activist students” exploit the “DEI-style bureaucracy” and target critics, while the college does “little.” There’s no “guarantee” DeSantis can reclaim the school from the “bullies” and recommit it to “the pursuit of truth,” not “ideology.” Some already suggest Rufo cancel a planned Town Hall to avoid the risk of physical harm. But changing the culture “must begin with defiance of such intimidation” — and “a willingness to speak the truth.

From the right: Still Smearing Kavanaugh

“The people who tried to kill the Kavanaugh nomination never gave up,” laments the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. A new Hollywood documentary, “Justice,” rehashes how “three women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct decades earlier when he was in high school and college.” But the film doesn’t offer new proof, so investigations by “Senate Democrats, then by friendly journalists, and now by friendly moviemakers, have all served to illustrate how flimsy the accusations against Kavanaugh were.” The film’s only purpose is simply to “keep the protests going” and “fuel efforts on the Left to delegitimize the Supreme Court.”

Liberal: Democrats’ Climate Derangement

The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira shows how Democrats in the Trump years came to embrace “the catastrophist view of climate change already held by activists,” as the Obama approach “which was attentive to standard Democratic concerns about jobs and prices, has been left in the rear view mirror.” Yet this view “is neither particularly accurate nor practical”: The immediate threat is far less dire, and: “You simply cannot get rid of fossil fuels as fast as climate activists and their supporters in the Democratic party want,” when 84% “of world energy consumption is from fossil fuels and that is only a point lower in the United States.” In reality: “Climate change is a serious problem, but a solvable one that will take decades and massive technological innovation,” not “a quixotic attempt to remake the global economy around renewables in a short span of time.”

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board