Sunday roundup

Mexico's new president hits the ground running as the firebrand leftist he's shown himself to be throughout his career.

The Paris riots have metastasized beyond disgruntlement about fuel tax hikes. This is a wakeup call for the French people that they have something very fundamental about the present state of their nation's character that they need to squarely look at.

Jonah Goldberg's G-File for this week is a must-read. The whole thing is worth your while, both for the contour of the argument he builds, as well as the fact that it's one of the best examples of the particular style with which he composes these G-Files that he's offered in some time. I'l just tease with a couple of examples:

I’m on nobody’s side [regarding the Mueller investigation]. I don’t have a dog in this fight. To mix metaphors like a special blender for metaphors, I’m going to play the ball, not the man — or men. What I mean by that is that if the truth or facts or evidence is on Trump’s side, I’ll defend that. If it’s not on his side, I won’t be either.

That’s not going to be true for a lot of people who, for one reason or another, have invested way too much in Donald Trump and in the idea that he deserves their loyalty. That ain’t me.

I’ve spent the last couple years perhaps a bit too vexed by some of those people. I’ve finally figured out a way to make peace, in my own mind, with at least some of their behavior.

In print and in podcast, I’ve been talking a lot about how the two parties are shells of what they once were and how outside groups and institutions have filled the voids left behind by their shrinkage. The parties used to choose candidates and issues. Parties educated voters. Over the last 50 years, that function has essentially been outsourced to interest groups, media outlets, think tanks, etc. As a result, the dividers between different lanes shrunk or vanished. Writers and intellectuals on the left and the right became de facto political consultants and party activists. Many political consultants acted like public intellectuals or pundits. Intellectuals became entertainers and entertainers pretended to be intellectuals. Politicians quit their jobs to be TV talking heads, and TV talking heads run for office.

And

 There’s a reason why the Kavanaugh spectacle was the only time the broader American Right has unified during Trump’s presidency; it was because Donald Trump wasn’t the issue, even if he at times tried to make it about him. It was the one-time moment when all of the hats could converge or overlap each other.

There are those on the right who very much want the coming donnybrook to be like that again. It’s possible it will. It’s possible the Democrats will overreach or that Mueller will live down to the slanders grifters on the right have concocted about him. But I doubt it will happen. This will be about Trump. And while impeachment may not be warranted, he will not look good in this fight, because his true nature — and the nature of the creatures he surrounds himself with — will once again be exposed.

I’m not going to the mattresses in any of this, because I see no reason to give the president — or many of his most rabid opponents — the benefit of the doubt, never mind loyalty. The only major player here who deserves the benefit of the doubt right now is Robert Mueller. Because while we may learn that he made mistakes or overstepped, as of now, the one thing I know he cares about is the facts. About his slander-spewing right-wing critics — and to some extent his left-wing sanctifiers — I know no such thing.

Carl Cannon's Real Clear Politics piece entitled "Intersectionality and Today's Twitter Trotskyites" is likewise best read in its entirety, but this is a representative of its essence:

Unfamiliar with the terms “misgendering” or “deadnaming”? Don’t feel bad; they’re of recent vintage. Misgendering means referring to a man who’s transitioning (or who has transitioned) to a woman as a male – and vice versa. Deadnaming is even more Orwellian. It means you can’t refer to a famous U.S. Army traitor by the name under which he was court-martialed. Or mention the full name of the television star who captured Americans’ hearts by winning a 1976 Olympic gold medal in the decathlon.

Yes, the logic of intersectionality is a mystery. A Jewish woman is banned from Twitter for saying that gays have little freedom under Sharia law. But a notorious Jew-baiting black nationalist gets a pass for a “joke” comparing Jews to termites.

Looks like biofuel mandates live to see another day, thanks to a Republican Congress afraid to say no to King Corn and an economically illiterate president.