Dems’ duty to dump Kamala Harris, Joe, Don wrong on US Steel

From the right: Dems’ Duty To Dump Kamala

“Voters are asking Biden to do the one thing that he’ll never do: Throw Vice President Kamala Harris overboard,” observes National Review’s Christian Schneider. “Running mates represent only one piece of the election puzzle. The VP pick is meant to fortify some shortcoming in the nominee.” Yet Harris “is not just a piece of the puzzle. She is the puzzle,” with an approval rating of 37%, “roughly that of salespeople who squirt lotion on you” in malls. She makes “Trump’s election eminently more possible.” If Dems believe “another Trump administration could mean the end of democracy,” then “replacing Harris would demonstrate they actually mean it.”

Libertarian: Joe, Don Wrong on US Steel

The Biden/Trump opposition to US Steel’s sale to Tokyo-based Nippon Steel shows “that when it comes to trade there is little difference between the two presidents,” gripes Reason’s Veronique de Rugy. The proposed merger is “a good deal for investors, employees, and the U.S. economy” — and, by “saving U.S. Steel and enhancing the domestic production of steel, will bolster our national security.” Protectionists fail to “recognize that this buyout will save the company from eventual bankruptcy” and “might secure the jobs of U.S. workers” while leaving the combined companies positioned to respond to the growing “demand for high-grade steel in the United States” spurred by “increased domestic production of electric vehicle motors.” Don’t succumb to European-style statism “where intrusive government control impedes private enterprise.”

Conservative: GOP Must Harvest Ballots To Win

“While it may be honorable for Republicans to want to shun ballot collection and focus on get-out-the-vote efforts to earn in-person votes, doing so dooms Republicans to playing by a totally different set of rules than Democrats,” argues The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman. “Democrat operatives have long used” ballot harvesting “to help their candidates win,” even getting “caught trafficking ballots in states that prohibit the practice.” “Republicans rightly point out” that these practices “reduce the voter’s personal investment in the election, and make it easier for outside groups to take advantage of low-information voters or even vulnerable populations.” But “with dozens of states permitting legal ballot collection, Republicans can no longer sit back and hope Election Day turnout will be enough to combat Democrats’ tactics.”

Israel watch: Lieberman Slaps Schumer

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s demand that Israel hold new elections and boot Bibi “crossed a political red line,” thunders Joe Lieberman at The Wall Street Journal. Schumer’s true audience clearly wasn’t Israelis, but Americans — the “majority of Democrats” who “oppose Israel’s war policy in Gaza.” And while he “undoubtedly pleased American critics of Israel, for the Israelis,” who overwhelmingly support the war, “it was meaningless, gratuitous and offensive.” “Particularly troubling” was the suggestion that Washington “play a more active role in shaping Israel’s policy” if its government doesn’t change course. Schumer is a “close friend,” but his speech was still “a grievous mistake” that harmed “Israel’s credibility among its allies and enemies alike.”

Eye on ’24: Dems’ Rural-Rage Delusions

If Democrats keep demonizing “the outsized influence rural whites supposedly wield over the political process,” contends Sohrab Ahmari at the New Statesman, “not a little of the blame” for a Biden defeat “will lie with the progressive pundits and dubious experts” like those who wrote “the Washington book du jour, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.” Supporting “aggressive policing” and being concerned that more “than half of immigrant-headed households use at least one public welfare programme” isn’t “bigoted” or “anti-democratic.” “In the early republic, America’s conservative elites tried to justify class-based inequality as a way to resist democratic demands from below.” “What’s astonishing about our moment is that some Democrats should join the old-school right in trafficking nonsense about the ignorant and uncouth countryside.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board