LA wildfires expose progressive failure, for peace, Hamas must end and other commentary

Urbanist: LA Wildfires Expose Prog Failure

The disaster of the LA fires “reflects the failure of the one-party progressivism currently dominating governmental structures,” warns Joel Kotkin at UnHerd. In progressive eyes, “basic infrastructure is less important than addressing climate change and ‘social justice.’ ” “While the fire may not reverse this mentality, it has demolished the reputations of two major adherents: LA Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.” Bass “cut the fire department budget” while crowing “about how the city would defend illegal immigrants.” “Newsom presides over a California” where “precious little has been done to boost water systems critical in a perennially drought-threatened state.” “Simply put, progressive Democrats don’t seek to build capacities that made life better for people.” “Clearly, a new more pragmatic mindset, not necessarily a conservative one, is desperately needed.”

Conservative: For Peace, Hamas Must End

“Pressuring Israel to freeze its conflict with Hamas in place is more than immoral; it is irrational,” thunders Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Postwar settlements are “judged by whether they make renewed conflict more or less likely.” Making “ceasefires the end goal of negotiations is a recipe for permanent war.” For Israel, temporary ceasefires are unacceptable as “Hamas will not end the war.” Israel is pretty good at permanent peace: It’s been at peace with Syria “since Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981.” No one worries about “the status of Israel’s agreements with Jordan.” Since “Hamas will not allow this war to end” — only favoring “pauses to rearm and resupply,” to bring real peace, “Hamas must be ended.”

Foreign desk: Trump’s Euro Problem

“Europe is facing a multi-dimensional set of problems,” notes Keith Naughton at The Hill — and though “Trump seems to view Europe as a secondary concern,” “that might not last.” “Emblematic of Europe’s problems” is the Euro, which “forces one-size-fits-all monetary policy. It prevents borrowing in their own currency for the 20 countries using the Euro, despite their very different economies, fiscal policies, national debt and domestic politics.” So “when growth falters and the books are cooked, trouble arrives.” “While establishment pundits in the U.S. panic over Trump’s commitment to NATO, it could well be that European economic and political decay causes NATO’s collapse” as “Europe fragments further politically and cannot afford its own welfare state, let alone its own security.”

From the right: ‘Experts’ Losing Ground

“The balance of power in the perhaps eternal battle between the experts and the masses has been shifting starkly,” declares the Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone, “with the former losing and the latter gaining clout.” “The most striking shift came this week,” when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end its fact-checking program. Previously, “it was embarrassingly obvious that Facebook was doing the bidding of the Democratic Party” by squashing articles suggesting “arguments that the virus that causes COVID-19 came from a lab leak in China.” The political winds have changed, so “perhaps we are watching just an opportunistic switch.” At the least, it’s now plain “that the voters who are most educated . . . have been the most eager supporters of suppressing ‘misinformation’ — and that over the past dozen years, so much of that ‘misinformation’ has turned out to be true.”

Libertarian: Biden’s Hollow Accomplishments

“When stacking up [President Biden’s] list of accomplishments next to what the private sector has achieved in the same amount of time,” it’s clear private companies “outperform government grant programs at every turn,” argues Reason’s Joe Lancaster. Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “included $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle (E.V.) chargers across the country,” but “only 183 chargers have come online at 44 stations across the country.” Another program was allocated “$42 billion to expand broadband internet access across the country,” yet “ three years after its creation, the program has disbursed no money and supplied broadband to zero households.” “Biden’s big-spending dreams were hamstrung by bureaucracy and red tape.” Meanwhile, “Tesla Motors more than doubled its public charging stations in the U.S.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board