DC elites loathe their protectors, Gen Z’s capitalism complaints and other commentary

Conservative: DC Elites Loathe Their Protectors

“DC’s electorate may be the most lopsided in the nation,” observes Mary Eberstadt at The Free Press.

Last year, the nation’s capital “90.3 percent voted for Kamala Harris, as opposed to 6.5 percent for Trump.”

But even deep partisanship can’t account for “the rancor to which the National Guard and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been subject along the Potomac.”

Though the Guard is credited with substantially “reducing and deterring violent crime,” this “turn, too, has been disparaged by many locals,” whose “enmity toward the National Guard betrays” a “disconnection from fellow Americans.”

These soldiers “are neither seen, let alone loved, as neighbors, nor welcomed as strangers” by wealthy progressive locals, so it is “no wonder some people in the heartland . . . suspect that fellow citizens in places like DC hate them.”

From the right: Gen Z’s Capitalism Complaints

Gen Z is eyeing socialism “because the ‘capitalism’ they were sold was already broken — rigged for insiders, punishing for everyone else,” argues Cortes Investigates’ Steve Cortes.

“They weren’t around for the Cold War,” but “what they were around for was collapse,” watching “their parents lose homes in 2008,” and “entire towns swallowed by fentanyl,” while elites get bailouts when things go bad.

Among a group of over 2,000 ages 18-25, “43% said they view socialism positively,” but it’s not “because they want state control. They’re drawn to something else — something different — because what’s here now DOES NOT WORK FOR THEM! What they’ve seen isn’t free enterprise. It’s a crony system where power protects power.”

So it’s up to Gen X to “persuade them of a better economy, built on widely-dispersed prosperity that prioritizes American workers and small businesses.”

Eye on China: Warn Xi on Martyring Jimmy Lai

Although “Jimmy Lai will spend his 78th birthday in a prison cell in Hong Kong,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board sees “reason to hope that the newspaper-owner-turned-political prisoner could be released.”

Eyeing his April meeting with China’s Xi Jinping, President Trump can argue that Hong Kong activists’ “imprisonment is a public-relations disaster” and if he “dies in jail, it will be a permanent stain” on Beijing; so what if reports of “Lai’s medical care and overall incarceration” annoy Hong Kong authorities.

“We hope Mr. Trump reminds Mr. Xi that the only way he can take Mr. Lai off the table and prevent the press from publicly asking embarrassing questions is to release him well before President Trump arrives in Beijing.”

Foreign desk: Musk’s Right — EU Is a ‘Menace’

“Europhiles” are “coming for Elon Musk,” snarks Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill.

After the billionaire called for the EU to be abolished, “EU-loving centrists of Renew Europe” accused him of doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding.

Yet “Musk is right about the EU,” and “to say it is a menace to the ‘sovereignty’ of European nations.”

Critics have long noted that its “entire purpose” is “to hoover up the sovereign rights of member states. And to fashion a Brussels superstate whose laws and courts would enjoy primacy over those of silly little nations.”

And it ensures “compliance” by threatening, bullying and fining defiant nations. As Musk argues, “the dismantling of the EU is the first step to European governments ‘better representing their people.’ ”

Iconoclast: The ABA Has No Clothes

After decades of decline, the American Bar Association’s membership now accounts for just 17% of the nation’s lawyers, notes Jonathan Turley at The Hill. Why?

“For decades, the ABA has moved steadily to the left,” needlessly taking stands “on an array of divisive issues on the side of liberal interpretations and agendas.”

So now “the question is why states and universities should continue to treat the ABA as if it represented a significant percentage of lawyers in the US, let alone the values of a majority of such lawyers,” when it’s become just another “leftist echo chamber.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board