The Mayor Has a Problem

Zohran Mamdani, born in Uganda, is a great political talent. However, his narrow-minded extremism on one topic should not be forgotten.

Appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week Without George Stephanopoulos, the New York City mayor did give a very good answer to two questions. One involved the constitutional requirement that the President must be a natural-born citizen which, if not superceded by an amendment, would prevent Mr. Mamdani from ever serving in the highest office in the land.

The other indirectly pertained to Israel. Host Jon Karl noted that an owner of a coffee shop in Brooklyn, at which Representative Dan Goldman had purchased coffee, had in a (since deleted) tweet stated that he would not do so again because of the congressman's support of "genocide." Asked whether he has "a problem with (that)," Mamdani stated "I do believe that that's a response that goes beyond that."

That's a good answer considering that the Mayor agrees with the coffee shop's position on Gaza and had supported the challenger who upended Goldman in the state's primary earlier this month. Nonetheless, Mamdani blew a more substantive question about Israel. This is how that segment transpired:

 

Karl: Israel is a Jewish state. That’s in the charter. Do you support that?

Mamdani: I’ve said time and again that I support the state of Israel as a state with equal rights.

Karl: As jewish state?

Mamdani: I believe that any state that privileges one religion over another is… pic.twitter.com/WFIqM9PAib

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 28, 2026

In October of 2017 Pew Research reported that out of 199 nations

More than 80 countries favor a specific religion, either as an official, government-endorsed religion or by affording one religion preferential treatment over other faiths, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data covering 199 countries and territories around the world.1

Islam is the most common government-endorsed faith, with 27 countries (including most in the Middle East-North Africa region) officially enshrining Islam as their state religion. By comparison, just 13 countries (including nine European nations) designate Christianity or a particular Christian denomination as their state religion.

But an additional 40 governments around the globe unofficially favor a particular religion, and in most cases the preferred faith is a branch of Christianity. Indeed, Christian churches receive preferential treatment in more countries – 28 – than any other unofficial but favored faith.

Although Christianity is the second most common official religion worldwide

Islam is the world’s most common official religion. Among the 43 countries with a state religion, 27 (63%) name Sunni Islam, Shia Islam or just Islam in general as their official faith.

Most of the countries where Islam is the official religion (16 of 27, or 59%) are in the Middle East and North Africa.

And in how many countries is Judaism is the official religion? That would be, of course, one (Israel), which as of 2017 was one-twenty seventh as many as had one form or another of Islam as its major religion.  For those keeping count at home, that would be 3.7% as many nations fully embracing Islam as there are embracing Judaism. Pew "coded" Israel as having an official religion " in part because the Israeli government gives legal authroity to the chief rabbinate and provides special benefits to Judaism, such as support for religous study."

Moreover, the country can be considered a "Jewish state" merely because 

Jewish individuals can obtain Israeli citizenship almost automatically through a process called Aliyah, which literally means “ascending” in Hebrew. Israel’s Law of Return grants every Jewish person the right to immigrate and receive citizenship upon arrival, and a 1970 amendment extends that right to their children, grandchildren, and spouses. The process involves proving your eligibility, gathering documents, applying through an authorized agency, and completing administrative steps after you land in Israel.

That is the situation within the country itself, which extends westward from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea and northward from the Gulf of Aqaba to the border of Lebanon (in the northwest, to Syria). Its territory is approximately .002% as large as the USA and slightly smaller than New Jersey.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia, which also has a state religion, is approximately 23% as large in area as is the USA. and is far larger than any USA state, including Alaska. Additionally, not only do Muslims have more rights there than do Jews or anyone else, Muslims in the Kingdom have less religious freedom and less political freedom than they do in Israel. And then Mandami and many others describe Israel incredibly as an "apartheid" state.

Still, Israel and Saudi Arabia have a few things in common. One of those is that the mayor and chief executive of the largest city in the USA, who says "I believe that any state that privileges one religion over another is one that I cannot support," has implied that they, along with roughly 80 other countries, should vanish.

Admittedly, Mayor Mandami couldn't be that ignorant. Rather, he was probably thinking only of Israel when made his remark.

Mamdani is smart. He surely knows that Israel has no state religion and that it's a Jewish state in that it's the state of the Jewish people, not the Jewish religion.

But he's playing this little game to avoid saying Israel has a right to exist as it is.pic.twitter.com/C9JDcfXQMv

— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) June 29, 2026

And it could have been avoided. Asked whether he supports Israel "as a Jewish state," he might have replied "yes, I support the Israeli people and their Jewish state but vehemently oppose many of its government's actions in recent years."   Few who proudly consider themselves "Zionists" and/or support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have taken issue with that. The objections would have come almost exclusively from individuals and organization, who like Zohran Mandami, have a thing about Jews.

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Just a Sweet Kid

On Tuesday, three candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani for the United States House of Representatives representing New York City districts swept to victory in their respective primaries. This did not sit well with James Carville, co-hosting his regular podcast with very veteran journalist Al  Hunt. And

“I have the quote right here, I’ll get to it. She has attacked interracial relationships and the American flag. Lady, I ain’t in the same party as you. I’m sorry,” Carville said. “I’m just not, and I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk ‘the S-word.’ ‘Schism.’ I really do.”

“Everybody’s always said, ‘No, no, we’re coalition. We’re a big tent,’” he said. “And there’s some – there’s just some s— that I can’t be in the same tent with.”

Carville suggested that many of the recent far-left candidates do not actually like the Democratic Party, but are nonetheless running as Democrats, and proposed, “Let’s negotiate a terms of a schism here. Maybe we can part under some kind of advantageous terms for both of us, but I’m done. And I’m not in that f—ing political party.”

In turn, this sort of thing did not sit well with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York:

AOC: I actually think the more important advice that I would give would be to my incumbent colleagues, which is: you will create a self-fulfilling prophecy by deciding who these young women are before you’ve met them.

And if you are already panicking and sending little messages… pic.twitter.com/xj8CN0xE7F

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2026

Which of these individuals is correct.... or are they both wrong? One of the two candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier, is a 32-year-old investiagor at a public defender's office in NYC and doctoral student. She also is different than the other two. Three weeks before the primary, CNN revealed that it had undertaken a

review of hundreds of deleted posts and reposts found ones that called for abolishing police, prisons and borders; tweets about communism; calls for open borders and zero deportations; and expletive-laden attacks on Democrats….

In a statement to CNN, Avila Chevalier said the posts did not reflect who she is today and accused Espaillat of trying to distract from issues facing the district. Three weeks before the primary, CNN reported that it had undertaken a "review of hundreds of deleted posts and reposts (and) found ones that called for abolishing police, prisons and bordrs, tweets about communism, calls for open borders and zero deportations, and expletive-laden attacks on Democrats."  In response, Avila Chevalier explained "I have grown considerably since in the years since these tweets and I am focused on our community and our community's future"...

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine saved more than 3,600 tweets from Avila Chevalier’s account between 2018–2022. It’s unclear when the account was deleted but the last archived tweet is from May 2022.

In August 2020, Avila Chevalier reposted a tweet responding to a social media prompt that asked, “Israel suddenly disappears, your third emoji is your reaction.” The reposted tweet replied, “Trick question – Israel doesn’t exist!”

“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” read one deleted repost from September 2021.

During a three-day period in September 2021, Avila Chevalier also reposted now-deleted messages declaring, “Yes, literally, abolish the border” and that “all deportation is wrong.”

Her Twitter profile biography also at one point included the phrase “how communist of you,” the hashtags “#BlackLivesMatter” and “#FreePalestine,” and described her location as “Occupied Lenape Land” and later “Lenapehoking (NYC)” — an acknowledgment to Indigenous claims to New York City….

During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Avila Chevalier reposted a message calling for a sweeping government takeover of large parts of the economy. The repost advocated nationalizing utilities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies; suspending rent and mortgage payments; dissolving private health insurance companies; and “seiz[ing] all properties from landlords.”

Other deleted posts and reposts included references to communism and anti-capitalist politics. In one April 2020 post, Avila Chevalier wrote that while most of the political theory she had read was communist, “the pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me,” adding a laughing emoji.

“Seize the means of production,” she wrote in a since-deleted 2019 post, the phrase commonly associated with Marxism.

The deleted posts also included repeated calls for abolishing police.

During the nationwide protests in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, Avila Chevalier responded to a user asking what a better slogan would be than “defund the police,” by posting, “F**k you. We’re gonna defund and abolish. You don’t get to water down our movements.”

Two days later, Avila Chevalier rejected an argument that abolishing police meant ending policing only “as we know it.”

“No. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,” she replied, adding several clap emojis.

In another deleted post, she captioned a selfie showing her wearing a face mask with the slogan “Defund Police.”

“Felt cute. F**k 12,” she wrote, referring to a slang word for the police.

She also reposted a message stating, “In New York they don’t say ‘I love you,’ they say ‘NYPD suck my dick’ and I think that’s beautiful.”

In another repost from 2021 she shared a message declaring that “ALL PIGS EVERYWHERE ARE HARAM,” an Arabic term used in Islam to describe something that is forbidden. Avila Chevalier is a Muslim-convert.

The deleted posts also reflected hostility toward prominent Democrats couched in profane terms after Bernie Sanders ended his 2020 presidential campaign.

“This is for 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐍𝐂 u big 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 white nasty 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐨 bitch why u took 𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐞 off the muhfuckin 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 with ur trifflin dirty 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 ass u 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜 ass bitc,” read an April 2020 repost.

“I have no nuance to add. Fuck Kamala Harris,” she posted after Harris told Guatemalan migrants in September 2021 not to come to the United States illegally.

Lovely. Of course, Carville is wrong to recommend that the Democratic Party and some of these more outrageous candidates "negotiate a terms of schism." That would, obviously, result in Republicans being elected almost everywhere. 

But there is a way around this. Hunt (at 6:54 of the podcast) told Carville "They are a great gift to Donald Trump and, uh, unless other Democrats stand up, certainly people like Obama but also some of the younger Democrats, to say "this is not us...."

As he obviously realizes, it wouldn't help much for Carville and other veterans of the Democratic establishment to explain that much of vile invective is going to offend a great many voters. Barack Obama, who for some reason, remains extremely popular with Democrats, and the relatively young figures in the party do need to "stand up."

Reading out all the progressives- or even most- in the party is unnecessary and unhelpful. Hunt and Carville themselves cite Ocasio-Cortez as a reasonable figure, though that was before the congresswoman made it clear she believes that if candidates are "young women,"  all manner of wacky, hateful rhetoric is excused, even celebrated.

The worst offender, Darializa Avila Chevalier may herself deserve a little grace.  On 12/23/19, she boasted on Twitter "I forgot to get napkins so I wiped my hands on the Amrican flag before me."  To her, we should wish "Happy Independence Day!"

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Listening to What Is Said Publically

The President of the USA may not have been lying when

Mr. Trump said in a post on social media on Tuesday that Iran had “fully and completely agreed to the highest level Nuclear inspections,” adding that Iranian officials who claimed otherwise were making false statements. “If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!” he added.

The comments came hours after Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, responded with a flat “no” when asked if Tehran, in the latest round of peace talks, had agreed to permit inspectors from the United Nations to access its war-damaged nuclear sites. Mr. Baghaei told a news conference in Tehran that the two sides had not discussed nuclear issues in any detail, according to Iranian state media.

There also are other differences of opinion on what the agreement which, as described here, establishes "an immediate and permanent end to military operations while opening a sixty-day window to negotiate a final agreement. The sixty-day limit governs the initial negotiation period, not the duration of the ceasefire." 

Additionally, President Trump has contended that any Iranian assets unfrozen as a result of the "understanding" must be used to but agricultrual equipment or medical supplies, while Tehran argues "Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets."  Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will remain completely open but Iran insists it will maintain control of the Strait and it "will never return to its pre-war conditions."

 

One side may be lying. Or both sides may be; this is, after all, Iran and Donald Trump's government, neither of which has any credibilty. However, alternatively, the Vance team may be given assurances, or more likely indications, in private of improved Iranian behavior which don't appear in writing.

In such matters, it is wise to consider the words of Kian Tajbakhsh, a dual Iranian and American citizen detained with five other Iranian-Americans, all released in January of 2016 as part of the JCPOA negotiated by the Obama Administration with Tehran. Nevertheless, Tajbakhash has criticized that nuclear deal and supported President Trump's war of choice against Iran. He has been a professor in the USA in both urban planning and foreign affairs.

Tajbakhsh has periodically appeared on Abby Phillip's CNN NewsNight this year and on June 18 explained 

Unfortunately, they, you know, there's a kind of misunderstanding of how things work in the Middle East, in the Middle East.  In the Middle East, what people say to you in private in English is usually irrelevant and meaningless.  It's only- it's only what they will say in their own language publicly that actually counts.  So it's actually the opposite of the U.S., you know.  

I don't want to insult any politicians here but politicians in the, you know, well, you know, politicians will actually say the truth only in public but in private, they'll say whatever you want to hear. So until we actually see what the terms are and how these negotiations go forward, on the face of it, I, you know, first of all, I wouldn't trust those backchannels and those, those commitments.  We'll have to see what they are on paper because that kind of vagueness is exactly where Iran is an expert at, basically using ambiguity for their own purposes. 

That's a little reminiscent of Donald Trump's game.  Donald, a talented former actor, has charmed Bill Maher, Anthony Scaramucci, and others when he has been in private with them. But that's the opposite of most American politicians who are typically more straightforward in private than in public. If Tajbakshsh is correct- as he probably is- it turns out that Iranian leaders are substantially the opposite. In private, they will tell you what you want to hear while being more revealing in public. 

We cannot know for sure whether President Trump and Vice President Vance understand this but know it's advantageous to claim the preliminary agreement is far more advantageous than it is. So they're either lying or being fleeced. Either way, this does not end well.

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On a Unique Plane of Existence

As this website notes, the National Review's Caroline Downey- who is not an over-the-top MAGAT - embodies "thoughtful conservatism."  When I've seen her, she seems earnest, of sober character, and not overwhelmingly partisan. However, she either lives in an extraordinary personal bubble in which politics trumps everything or has enjoyed a very sheltered life.

Downey: And you know why the electoral college really works is because it forces both political parties to try to court moderate voters in swing states.

Blow: 48 of the 50 states have a winner take all electoral college system, there is no reason to go into a state that you… pic.twitter.com/IHuq6UvIH3

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 23, 2026

Charles Blow argues, as is clearly the case, that the electoral college is dysfunctional in part because presidential candidates completely ignore solidly patisan states in favor of focusing on swing states. As the video confirms, Downey really did say "they can vote with their feet. They can leave the sate, which is what people do."  After Blow notes "nobody's gonna pack up and leave just so they can hear a campaign ad," Downey really did respond "yes, yes, if they don't feel represented in their state, they move."

What a charmed life Caroline Downey must live! Imagine a world in which you don't settle in a state because of : a job; family already living there; the climate, which may require you to live in the American south, southwest, or any other place because of health reasons; or a myriad of other restrictions. It would be a world in which you have so few responsibilities, problems, or issues that you can move anywhere you want so as to avoid living in a state in which your party's political candidate (virtually) always loses. You'll have to imagine such a country because it doesn't exist here, and possibly nowhere on the planet.

It's a universe in which you can completely ignore employment status, family, or health in favor of living in Oklahoma, Wyoming, West Virginia, or Mississippi simply because you are a Republican and in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Maryland if a Democrat. Even then, the move could backfire. At one time or another, a Democratic presidential candidate has won West Virginia and Republican presidential candidates have won Maryland.  It is not common, but these things happen as political winds blow blue or red.

Nonetheless, a partisan Republican living in Vermont recently goes to the polls in a presidential election year knowing that his or her vote will be irrelevant. Ditto the partisan Democrat in Kentucky. As a Democrat in New Jersey, I don't have to worry about that, at least for now; but if I lived in North Dakota, I'd have to put up with the knowledge that my presidential vote might as well be tossed into the garbage.  Also, with a whole lot of snow.

That's bad for a republic, for democratic governance. Even worse is the outcome when a plurality of voters nationwide opts for the candidate of one party while the other candidate garners a victory because of the peculiarities of the electoral college. Great, though, would a universe in which you could disregard all the needs and cares of this world and move to a state in which the presidential vote goes to the right (as you see it) candidate; the world of Caroline Downey. 

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Jim Crow?

This pro-Israel tweeter believes "of course, to Coates, the specifics hardly matter, as he admits this is less about what you believve, and more about getting elected."

In the relevant portion (way below) of the conversation betwee Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chris Hayes of MSNOW, the two fellows agree that Barack Obama probably wouldn't have been nominated for President in 2008 had he not opposed the Iraq War. (That's another reason for hating that war- that year, Hillary Clinton otherwise would have been nominated, probably would have won, and would have been a better President than Barack Obama. Ask Ukraine.)

Ta-Nehisi Coates: "I don't know how you stay consistent by claiming an anti-apartheid legacy here in the United States of America while enforcing it abroad."

Coates is implying that Israel, a state that guarantees full rights to all citizens regardless of background, is an… pic.twitter.com/BMTpCRGiJG

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 21, 2026

So, too, was Zohran Mandami wise to oppose Israeli actions in Gaza, without which, Coates notes (and Hayes agrees), Mandami likely would not have been elected mayor of New York City. Coates believes Mandami, in taking an anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic, others of us recognize) position "has the right and correct moral view. So I think even from a practical perspective there's no choice."

From a practical perspective, it appears so.  From a "moral" perspective, however, no. Fortunately, the tweeter notes that Coates took "a trip to the West Bank, which he concludes is an apartheid." That trip, "to Israel and teh Palestinian territories in the summer of 2023," formed the basis of an October, 2024 review of Coates' The Message. Helen Andrews writes of the author

The conclusion he comes to is that the Jewish state is the equivalent of the Jim Crow South. “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. “‘Jim Crow’ was the first thing that came to mind, if only because ‘Jim Crow’ is a phrase that connotes an injustice, a sorting of human beings, the awarding and stripping of the rights of a population. Certainly, that was some part of what I saw in Hebron, in Jerusalem, in Lydd.”

 If his luck had been different, and he were less self-involved, Coates could have come up with a better checkpoint anecdote than the lame one he offers. Something like the incident in November 2009 when a Palestinian music teacher on his way to teach a lesson was held at the Beit Iba checkpoint and forced to take out his violin and play it while Israeli soldiers laughed. There you have something more than inconvenience, a vivid and poetic illustration of the dehumanization ordinary Palestinians often face. There, too, you have a rebuttal: The 2001 Sbarro pizza shop bombing in Jerusalem, which killed 16 Israelis including a pregnant woman, was committed by a Palestinian who hid his bomb in a guitar case.

These are the kinds of complexities Coates has no time for.

Many supporters of Israel, especially on social media, also have no time for complexities. Their critics notice that Coates and others are consumed by a blind and ahistorical view of a democratic state while pining for a Judenfrei "Palestine". 

The latter are fabulists whose hatred of a country with a land mass one-sixth the size of Florida and less than 1% of the size of Saudi Arabia coexists with a lingering infatuation for a "'state' with no border, no government, no economy, and no control over its claimed territory".

Sometime after October 7, 2023, Ta-Nehisi Coates and his fellow ethnic-obsessed ideologues found a hill to die on. Worse judgement on the left would be nearly impossible to come by.

 

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Not Again

As Tim Balk of The New York Times reported on Tuesday

Hillary Clinton suggested in a new interview that the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 boiled down to a “terrible miscalculation” — President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s decision to run for re-election.

At an event in Manhattan on Monday, Mrs. Clinton told The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, that Mr. Biden had made a “terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country” in trying to run again at age 81.

If Mr. Biden had decided to “pass the torch” and the Democratic Party had held a competitive presidential primary, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Remnick, “whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the vice president, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump.”

Chris Cillizza acknowledges that there has been a bit of a rivalry between Biden and Clinton but believes that the latter was correct to note that the President should have bowed out considerably earlier than he did. However, he argues also (at 7:20)

Now, would someone who emerged in an open primary process had Biden dropped out in the summer of 2023- would that person have definitely beaten Donald Trump in November of 2024?

No, I think there was sigificant unhappines with the state of the econnomy, with Democrats, with Joe Biden in particular, with how he had led the economy, how much he understood about the economy. So I don't think it would have- it's not just an easy fix, that they just nominate somebody else in an open primary process and that person beats Donald Trump. But the way that it played out by Biden staying too long, he should never have run for a second term, staying on for too long, the debate, the three weeks of is he going to stay on, is he going to get out- and eventually he gets out and Kamala Harris steps in without any primary or anyone voting on anything, that clearly doomed them, right?

Wrong.

Cillizza adds "I'm not sure the Democrats would have won anyway but the way that played out doomed them.

        "

Of course we don't know if the new candidate, assuming it was not the Vice President, would have won. And Cillizza, admittedly, reflects conventional wisdom, as does The Times' Balk, who wrote "Mr. Biden ultimately left the race in late July 2024, immediately putting his weight behind Ms. Harris, his vice president, but leaving her just three months to build her own campaign before Election Day."

Do you see what they're doing? In the case of Cillizza- a straight shooter- it is unintentional, and perhaps also in case of The Times. 

It's in the title of Harris' memoir about the general election campaign.  Whether it was the decision of the ex-candidate, the publicher or someone else, the title of the book was 107 Days, in part as an argument that the Vice President faced an uphill battle to win the election.

But she did not. Almost to the moment that Biden dropped out, the nomination of Harris was a fait accompli. In a review of her book, Vanity Fair explained that on that day

By 10 p.m. at the Naval Observatory, jigsaw pieces were still strewn across the kitchen table. But the puzzle of Harris’s nomination had been solved. She’d called more than 100 people. Not a single potential rival had challenged her. By Monday, Harris had the backing of a majority of Democrats in Congress. Within 48 hours she had the support of most delegates who would be at the convention. A senior adviser summed up Harris’s two-day marathon as a political tour de force: “A lot of people were like, ‘We need a process.’ Well, there is a process: getting the delegates to commit. We just needed to do it and we did it.”

Aside from incumbents, most candidates for a presidential nomination- especially in the Democratic Party- have to run a gauntlet before securing sufficient delegates. Not so, Kamala Harris, behind whom most prominent Democrats, including virtually any possible challenger, quickly lined up. The national convention was highly successful, Harris won her debate with Trump going away, the Party was united behind the nominee, enthusiasm was impressive, and victory seemed likely. However 

One hundred seven days later, as history will recount, Team Harris hit rock bottom. Yet it didn’t seem so as Election Day dawned. Though Harris was behind in the battleground states, her spokespeople were oddly upbeat. Appearing on MSNBC back on October 27, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon had declared, “We are very confident we’re going to win this thing.” On Friday, November 1, senior adviser David Plouffe posted on X that late-​breaking undecided voters were going for Harris by more than 10 points.

A campaign has a gravitational pull, and chief of staff Voles was feeling it. “You get sucked into the momentum,” she said. “Like you believe it. I’ve been on winning ones and losing ones, and this felt more like [Bill] Clinton’s [in 1992] than [Michael] Dukakis’s [in 1988].” Voles wasn’t talking poll numbers or analytics, but intangibles. “The rallies were so big and so enthusiastic. People were lining the streets.” But Harris’s pollsters didn’t share the kumbaya cohesion.

Although Biden should have withdrawn from the race earlier, his failure to do so did not doom his replacement on the ticket- far from it. Harris had a great opportunity to win, especially given that the GOP had less timefor opposition research about her than it would have if it had been clear for months that she would be the nominee.  It was not the brief nature of the campaign nor the quality of her campaign; it was her.

After she lost to Donald Trump in 2016, Hillary Clinton could have opted to seek a rematch. However, she realized that she might not win the 2020 nomination and if she did, couldn't be certain that she'd win the general election. She understood the limits to her popularity and electability.

Individuals in or around Joe Biden in 2023 and the first half of  2024 refused to warn the President that he was old and appeared too feeble to mount a successful campaign for re-election. Now Harris, she of  the "107 days," is reportedly eyeing a run for the 2028 presidential nomination.  Self-awarness is not her strength. The Democratic Party cannot afford another loss. For the good of the Party, someone needs to read Kamala Harris the riot act. 

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As If It Never Happened

"I want to be clear that when I spoke of really dumb basketball the other night, I was talking about the players. I wasn't talking about their coach. I don't want to be criticizing young white coaches because we need more young white players in the NBA to maintain diversity."

If anyone had said this, he would immediately, and roundly, be branded a "racist". He wouldn't be, of course, because "racism" is the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over another, or of one race being inferior to another or all others. However, the speaker clearly would have been racially biased in his words and would have deserved condemnation.

And so,this was a "wait- what?" moment:

Charles Barkley on this comment:

"I got a couple of NBA coaches call me and I want to be crystal clear: when I said it was really dumb basketball the other night, I was talking about the players. I wasn't talking about coach Johnson. I don't want to be criticizing young black… https://t.co/vSvdHclMhX pic.twitter.com/9668GnWQOf

— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) June 13, 2026

The outcry was.... virtually nonexistent. There were a few individuals on Twitter critical but otherwise, crickets.  And when Yahoo Sports ran a story about the controversy, it pertained to the issue of whether Barkley should have blamed the coach (as he appeared to do initially) or the players (as he did with his clarification).  No one questioned whether a very popular sports personality should be asserting that race plays a dominant role in his commentary.

Charles Barkley should not be fired for this. It is not a capital offense and he should not have been cancelled. But if a white analyst on ESPN (as this was) or on any network had said that he didn't want to be criticizing whites- of whatever generation, for whatever reason- he or she would have been raked over the coals, forced to apoligize, then terminated. A career wiped out in a matter of moments.

What Charles Barkley said was reprehensible. And the virtual complete disregard to this is as reprehensible, and more dangerous.

 

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