FAST TAKES
Political scribe: The Trump Voter Story No One’s Telling
One Wisconsin Democratic legislator’s effort to figure out how Donald Trump carried her state last November turned up a surprising result, reports Daniel Allott at The Washington Examiner. In her mostly white, rural, traditionally Democratic county, fully one-quarter of those who went to the polls “had never voted before.” Indeed, those who voted in 2016 and those who turned out four years earlier were “two different sets of people.” Trump “motivated those voters,” despite his “urban sensibility” and “uncouthness,” and carried the area by 13 points. The lesson for Democrats: “Instead of placing voters on a political or ideological spectrum . . . put them on a continuum of engagement — from really engaged to ‘I don’t give a damn.’ ”
Security writer: Taliban — Terrorists or Peace Partners?
President Trump’s newly announced policy in Afghanistan provides “much-needed clarity,” says Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard, but also leaves unanswered “many outstanding questions” — the most important of which is: “What do we do with the Taliban?” It’s a question on which the administration “seems badly divided”: White House and Pentagon national-security officials “are deeply skeptical of negotiations,” but others “consider the Taliban a potential partner for peace.” And White House talking points after the speech gave a mixed message. But giving the Taliban political legitimacy “is absurd,” says Hayes. Indeed, “the administration’s confused language” actually “undercuts the president’s otherwise resolute message on the way forward.”
Submarine vet: More Evidence of a Beleaguered Navy
“What the hell is going on with the Seventh Fleet?” asks Bob McManus at City Journal, after the second fatal collision in as many months involving a US destroyer, USS John McCain. Actually, it’s hardly surprising, “considering the Navy’s current state.” It “has far fewer ships than it needs to carry out its assigned duties; its sailors are over-deployed and underrested; its equipment is often obsolescent, and it is emerging from eight years under the leadership of a Navy secretary . . . whose social-justice priorities almost always took precedence over tradition, morale, training and operational readiness.” As for destroyers like McCain, “there aren’t enough of them and there’s no money to build more, so they’re over-deployed, their sailors exhausted, their crew quality degraded.” Such conditions “are a recipe not just for mishaps but for unqualified disaster.”
Energy writer: Beware the Perils of Solar Power
This week’s eclipse has thrown the rapid increase in the use of solar power into sharp relief, argues Jamie Horgan at The American Interest. As of March, solar power generated 2 percent of our overall electricity, varying seasonally with the amount of sunlight. But “like its renewable cousin, wind power, solar is by its very nature intermittent,” supplying the grid only “when the sun is shining.” If we ever reach the point where solar provides 100 percent, that could “wreak havoc,” because “electricity needs to be abundant, cheap, but above all reliable.” And when “panels can’t produce power, backups need to be switched on, and that means continuing to invest in options that can be relied on” 24/7, like fossil fuels.
Historian: The Rebel General Whose Memory Was Erased
You’ll find precious few mentions on Confederate memorabilia of William Mahone, one of Robert E. Lee’s most able generals, notes Jane Dailey at Huffington Post. He hasn’t been totally forgotten, but rather is “selectively remembered,” having become “one of the most maligned political leaders in post-Civil War America.” Mahone “organized and led the most successful interracial political alliance in the post-emancipation South,” gaining significant power in his native Virginia. His majority-black Readjustor Party “legitimated and promoted African-American citizenship and political power by supporting black suffrage, office-holding and jury service.” After Reconstruction, Mahone “was characterized by whites in Virginia as a demagogic race traitor with autocratic tendencies.” So you’ll see no Mahone statues, because for the South, “interracial political cooperation had to be forgotten.”