Why moderate Dems scapegoat Bibi, Dems should drop green energy and other commentary

Conservative: Why Moderate Dems Scapegoat Bibi

The left’s “anti-Israel litmus test is creeping into the mainstream” of Democratic politics, warns Commentary’s Seth Mandel, as “non-crazy Democrats” deal with how “the ‘genocide’ lie has gone from opinion to gospel” among much of the party’s base.

Running for cover, some “Democrats believe that if they criticize Netanyahu forcefully” over the war, “they can fool primary voters into thinking they are condemning Israel.”

But pro-Israel Dems have been trying this ever since Obama left office,” and jumped on it big when the Gaza war began.

“This, in other words, has been Democrats’ Plan A. If the party is already out of ideas” for escaping extremists’ censure, “the fate they fear is pretty much inevitable.”

Politics desk: Dems Should Drop Green Energy

Facing their “lowest approval ratings in recent memory,” Democrats should “reconsider some of their least popular positions,” explains Joel Kotkin at UnHerd, and start “preparing to jettison Joe Biden’s ‘Green New Deal,’” which “hurts middle- and working-class families by raising prices for housing, electricity and gasoline,” and is “out of step with [the party’s] once-reliable working-class base.”

Yes, “any shift back toward fossil fuels will meet ferocious opposition from progressives and their green allies,” and the most likely 2028 candidates look “set to continue the policy of their green agenda while punishing the ‘carbon economy.’”

Yet “without a broader shift, Democrats risk alienating working-class and minority voters who bear the brunt of high energy costs.”

“To rebuild its coalition, the party must balance environmental goals with economic realities — or face further political decline.”

Libertarian: Newsom, Bass vs. Housing

“California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are doing their best to ensure that no new net housing is created during the rebuilding of Los Angeles’ wildfire-ravaged neighborhoods,” marvels Reason’s Christian Britschgi.

The pair “issued twin executive orders” suspending “a state law allowing builders to build duplexes on single-family zoned properties” or to subdivide lots — a law explicitly enacted “with the goal of enabling more small-lot starter homes and ‘middle housing’ in the state’s lowest-density areas.”

But “local governments have actively limited its effectiveness” and now Newsom and Bass have “bent” to another “local pressure campaign” over fears of “enabling builders to profit off of the wildfire rebuilding efforts.”

From the left: The Times’ Atrocious Turn

Charlie “Savage and his colleagues at the [New York] Times have badly miscovered this story for nearly a decade, and continue to do so,” fumes Racket News’ Matt Taibbi of a Columbia Journalism Review piece praising Savage’s latest effort to downplay the latest revelations of chicanery in manufacturing “Russiagate.”

Savage seems “laser-focused on setting up a legal defense against perjury charges for [former CIA chief John] Brennan” by “arguing an absurd semantic point” about Brennan’s lies about how he promoted the fictitious Steele Dossier as valuable evidence.

The Times won a Pulitzer for reporting that’s now proved completely “wrong and embarrassing”; “isn’t it time someone at the Times stepped outside the bubble, and took a hard look back?”

Labor beat: Autoworkers Want Their Union Back

The storied United Auto Workers union was “hit hard” by the loss of manufacturing jobs and “forced to look to other industries” for members, notes Frannie Block at The Free Press.

Now, blue-collar workers are “outnumbered by a hodgepodge of white-collar defense attorneys, librarians” and other left-leaning professionals.

That’s produced a “chasm” between union veterans “who are moving toward the political right” and newcomers whose roots are in “campus activism.”

Labor “traditionalists” are “uncomfortable” with “an increasing embrace of the ideals of the far left,” including “campaign ads supporting . . . Zohran Mamdani” and advocacy for Gaza.

“DSA members” who have never “worked a day in an auto factory” now occupy leading roles in the UAW.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board