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Douthat: … [I]t will be interesting to watch Obama on the campaign trail, since he’s distinguished himself thus far as the most Zen of all prominent Democrats about the Trump phenomenon: The sheer, deliberate normalcy of his post-presidential conduct has been an interesting counterpoint to the prominent Democrats determined to reject anything that smacks of “normalizing” in our Trumpian times …
Bruni: … Obama is something akin to but slightly different from the road not taken. He’s the boulevard sorely missed … He’s the opposite of the boy who cried wolf. He’s the man who communed with his inner lamb. And voters may well be in the mood for something soft and fleecy right about now.
Douthat: But my general take on this election is that it’s really Trump vs. Trump. By which I mean, whether the Democrats can turn their advantage into a rout will depend on something beyond their control — the president’s own conduct in September and October, which could be worth a few extra points to Democrats if it’s manic and authoritarian and kooky, and a few extra points to Republicans if it’s (relatively) restrained. What do you think of that framing?
Bruni: Will Trump’s conduct be a central factor? Yes, yes and yes. A few weeks ago, I talked extensively on background with a prominent Republican strategist who’s involved in the party’s efforts this fall, and he made the point that the party can find the right messaging, get all of its candidates in line, deploy the right amount of money to the right races — all of that — and then be utterly foiled by a presidential temper tantrum in the final week. The strategist noted that there’s one person in the party who can never, ever be expected to swallow his pride, suppress his emotions and follow a prudent script, and that’s the party’s leader, one Donald J. Trump.
Ross Douthat in dialog with Frank Bruni.
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[T]he Reformation never was necessary, though much needed to be reformed back then. As it turned out, the Reformation didn’t reform what needed to be reformed. Instead, it reformulated Christian beliefs and fashioning a new religion, Protestantism.
D.G. Hart. Full disclosure: This is cherry-picked from a longer blog, of which it is not representative. The blog — on the departure from Catholicism of Damon Linker and matters related thereto — is interesting in its own right.
Linker, by the way, appears to have gone into hiding — okay, maybe just on vacation — after renouncing his Roman Catholic faith eight days ago. I hope he’s well.
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I follow Seth Godin’s blog, though I’m retired, because he occasionally comes up with a gem like First, Fast and Correct.
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Ms. Heng isn’t your father’s GOP nominee. In 1983 her parents arrived in the U.S. as penniless refugees from communist Cambodia. She grew up working after school at the little grocery store in Fresno that her family still runs.
A product of Fresno’s public schools, Ms. Heng was valedictorian at Sunnyside High School. She then got her bachelor’s degree from Stanford, where she became student body president. She helped start a string of T-Mobile stores with her brother, earned a master’s in business administration from Yale, and worked for Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She also served on the Trump inaugural committee.
It seems her time spent running a business with her brothers was what drove her into politics. She found the combination of state and federal regulation overbearing. “Instead of focusing on jobs, we were focusing on government regulations,” she told the Fresno Bee. Today she is running as a strong fiscal and deregulatory conservative.
William McGurn, An Ocasio-Cortez for the GOP? (extolling Elizabeth Heng of California’s 16th Congressional District)
How do you say “I am not a crook” in church Latin?
Rod Dreher on the Viganò letter and the Pope’s response so far.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 