Longtime columnist George Will has officially left the Republican Party, he told a group of conservatives on Friday. Will, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, confirmed to PJ Media that he switched his Maryland party registration from GOP to unaffiliated.
At a meeting of the Federalist Society Friday in D.C., Will told the group it’s worth refusing to back Trump even if it hands the election to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “This is not my party,” he told the group. “Make sure he loses. Grit their teeth for four years and win the White House.”
A new CNN/ORC poll finds President Obama’s approval rating remains on the upswing, with 52% now approving of his performance as president, now five points above the 47% who approved in January.
The Associated Press on the big difference between the UK and the US: “Widespread economic angst. Intense opposition to immigration policy. The rise of populist and nationalist sentiments, particularly among less-educated and older white voters. The politics behind the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union sound awfully familiar to the politics that have propelled Donald Trump to the Republican presidential nomination.”
“But before saying the victory by the ‘leave’ side is a harbinger of a Trump victory on Election Day in the United States, it’s wise to consider the many differences between the two allied nations with historic ties like few others.”
“The greatest difference: The United States is a significantly more racially diverse nation.”
The Democratic Party Platform looks pretty progressive:
The platform draft committee took a first step toward giving Sanders a major concession, voting to adopt language in support of a $15 minimum wage. […] The panel also aligned itself with progressive ideas such as abolishing the death penalty and expanding Social Security, the Associated Press reported. The minimum wage language adopted echoes a common refrain by Sanders, calling the current federal minimum of $7.25 a “starvation wage.”
New York Times: “When Mitt Romney traveled to Europe as a presidential candidate in 2012, he created an uproar when he wondered aloud whether London was sufficiently prepared to host the Summer Olympics… When Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey went on a trade mission to Britain, he was roundly criticized for an errant comment about vaccinations amid a measles outbreak back home.”
“Those moments seem quaint when compared with Donald J. Trump’s news conference in Turnberry, Scotland, a day after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Over the course of 40 minutes, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee made pronouncements, predictions and asides that would have set off serious backlash for almost any other candidate.”
Dan Balz: “Here’s one example of a connection between what happened in Britain and the rise of Trump in the United States: In Britain, nearly the entire political establishment was aligned in favor of staying in the European Union. The ‘remain’ campaign was in some measure an effort by these political elites to scare rank-and-file voters with dire forecasts about what a post-Brexit economy might look like that included threats of spending cuts and higher taxes.”
“But when voters went to the polls, in a huge turnout, they either weren’t afraid of those forecasts or didn’t believe what they had heard because they had given up on the political leaders of their country. In either case, it was an explicit rejection of what they were being told and an embrace of their own instincts and personal experiences.”
Michael McFaul on why the conservative’s favorite strong man loves the Brexit vote.
When Vladimir Putin worked in Dresden, he watched helplessly as Soviet ally East Germany slipped out of Moscow’s orbit, united with West Germany, and joined the democratic side of Europe. … Putin then witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, an event that he later described as one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. Former Soviet allies and parts of the Soviet empire peeled away, also joined the democratic side of Europe and eventually became members of NATO and the European Union. For nearly three decades, the West was consolidating as the East was disintegrating. The momentum toward a Europe whole and free was so powerful that earlier Russian leaders even flirted with joining as well.
That trend has now reversed. The decision by a majority of British voters to exit the European Union was not the first event in this reversal but maybe the most dramatic. Europe is now weakening as Russia, its allies and its multilateral organizations are consolidating, even adding new members. Putin, of course, did not cause the Brexit vote, but he and his foreign policy objectives stand to gain enormously from it.
Alex Massie was on hand for Trump’s contribution to the Brexit discussion.
Friday, as it turned out, was an appropriate moment for Donald Trump to arrive in the United Kingdom. “Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said in a statement issued as he landed to visit his golf course at Turnberry. “I hope America is watching, it will soon be time to believe in America again.” The implication was clear: Where Britain led this past week, the United States might follow in November.
But that gets it backward. This people’s revolt represented, in many respects, the Americanization of British politics. The “leave” campaign’s slogan — its devastatingly effective slogan — of “take back control” was positively Trumpian. Indeed, some of the same forces of alienation, discontent, economic insecurity and racial animosity that produced Trump in the United States have now hauled Britain out of the European Union. This past week’s revolution, arguably the greatest political insurrection since the dawn of the democratic era, offers further evidence that some political trends recognize no borders or boundaries. It was more than just a political battle; it was a culture war, too. And it bore the hallmarks of the one that began in the United States 50 years ago.
A new Sunday Times poll shows that more 52% of Scottish people would vote to leave the U.K. if they would hold a second referendum on independence following Britain’s exit from the European Union.
A new Sunday Post poll shows that 59% of Scots now support independence.
