Commentary Culture Investigations

With support from President Trump, Congress passed a bill to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) through April 30. The president seems to have forgotten FISA’s power to harm innocents, override the judiciary, and even threaten the executive branch. That invites a look back at how it all started.
Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced FISA in 1977, and in 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the measure into law. FISA established a secret court at which only the government’s side was represented, a body with no parallel in American history. The act was intended to protect the nation, but it didn’t exactly work out that way.
FISA failed to prevent the massive bombing of the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, with six people dead, more than 1,000 injured, and billions in damages. FISA also failed to prevent terrorists from crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sep. 11, 2001. That attack, the worst on American soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941, claimed 3,000 lives, with countless injuries and damage enduring for decades.
As Sen. Arlen Specter noted, if FISA had obtained a warrant to surveil al-Qaeda militant Zacarias Moussaoui, the attack of Sep. 11, 2001, might have been prevented. It wasn’t, and the secretive FISA failed to prevent terrorist attacks at Fort Hood (2009), the Boston Marathon (2013), San Bernardino (2015), and Orlando in 2016, all with massive loss of life.
To be fair, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency also failed to prevent those attacks, but that does not let FISA off the hook. A failure at its appointed task, FISA projected its power into domestic politics.
In 2010, President Obama appointed James Boasberg to the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia. In 2014, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Boasberg to the FISA court, but as with all the FISA judges, there was no public hearing to determine Boasberg’s fitness to serve on that body. (RELATED: This Mess Is of Your Own Making, Chief Justice Roberts)
James Boasberg served as presiding FISA judge from Jan. 1, 2020, to May 18, 2021. Consider his handling of U.S. Navy veteran Carter Page, who served as an asset for the CIA. (RELATED: Dictatorship of Obama Judges)
In 2016, Page was a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith falsified an email to say that Page had not served as a CIA asset. That exposed Page to surveillance under FISA, whose judges can slide down to their district court and rule on cases they handled in secret.
In August 2020, Clinesmith pleaded guilty to falsifying the Carter Page email, so in January 2021, the FBI attorney was an admitted felon awaiting sentence, not a “defendant,” as Boasberg described him. Boasberg also told the court Clinesmith had made a “misstatement,” a strange description of deliberate falsification.
For a felony commanding a five-year maximum, Boasberg gave Clinesmith 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service, barely a slap on the wrist. Such a miscarriage of justice invited impeachment, but by all indications, the judge was not even reprimanded.
The push to extend FISA comes at a time when the reasons for its elimination should be obvious. Here is a judicial body that operates in secret, deploying powerful surveillance against American citizens and foreign nationals alike.
In effect, FISA judges wield more power than Supreme Court justices and can easily indulge partisan activity behind a wall of secrecy. The failure to eliminate FISA could be the administration’s greatest failure. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.
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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
Image licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Ya can’t make it up.
There is the Democratic Party — the oldest political party in American history. It is the legacy of the likes of Democrat presidents with names like Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
And it is now a party hung up on… Republican Donald Trump.
Periodically in American history, this kind of crazy has happened before. Once upon a time, Republicans couldn’t get past their hang-up on Franklin Roosevelt. They were obsessed with FDR, and it showed in their inability to defeat him in four straight presidential elections from 1932 to 1944. So obsessed were they with FDR that even after his death in April of 1945, they could not defeat his supposedly hapless vice presidential successor, Harry Truman, in the 1948 presidential election. Indeed, Republicans laughed at Truman, quipping that “to err is Truman.”
But Truman, campaigning on the late FDR’s legacy in 1948, got the last laugh in the first election without FDR on the ballot in 16 years. Defeating the supposed sure-thing GOP nominee, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in a famous upset.
And today? Today, it is the Democrats who are lost in an obsession over President Donald Trump. Trump has not only beaten them at the polls; he has become the centerpiece of their opposition. And as they have done just about everything but foam at the mouth over Trump, the results have been zero. As Rush Limbaugh used to say, “Zero. Zilch. Nada.” All of which drives the Dems even battier.
The sensible thing, of course, would be to drop the Trump obsession and focus instead on a policy-driven platform that tells Americans as they approach the midterms what exactly Democrats would do if handed control of the House and Senate. And focus on an agenda that does not include impeaching Trump.
But no. Not a prayer. Trump is so much of an obsession for the Dems that they simply cannot bring themselves to focus on a serious policy-driven agenda to campaign on. Instead, it’s Trump! Trump! Trump! (RELATED: Democrats Won’t Win the Midterms)
Which doubtless has Trump himself laughing all the way to the political bank.
Over there at the Associated Press is a detailed look at the problem. Among other things, the AP reports this on the state of the party’s internals:
But nearly nine months after Republican Donald Trump won a second presidential term, Democrats appear to be harboring more resentment about the state of their party than do Republicans. Democrats were likelier to describe their own party negatively than Republicans. Republicans were about twice as likely to describe their own party positively.
….Overall, roughly one-third of Democrats described their party negatively in the open-ended question.
About 15 percent described it using words like “weak,” or “apathetic,” while an additional 10 percent believe it is broadly “ineffective” or “disorganized.”
Only about 2 in 10 Democrats described their party positively, with roughly 1 in 10 saying it is “empathetic,” or “inclusive.” An additional 1 in 10 used more general positive descriptors.
It is unclear what impact the Democrats’ angst may have on upcoming elections or the political debate in Washington, but no political organization wants to be plagued by internal divisions.
And all of this as the midterm elections loom.
History shows that incumbent presidents frequently wind up on the losing end of midterm elections. All the way back in 1966 was a spectacular example of this. A mere two years earlier, in 1964, Democrat President Lyndon Johnson had wiped the floor with the GOP nominee, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. LBJ carried 44 states to Goldwater’s 6. A mere two years later, in 1966, the GOP rebounded big time, winning 47 House seats and 3 Senate seats. On top of winning 8 gubernatorial races. (One of which victories went to a political newcomer, movie and TV actor Ronald Reagan, elected Governor of California.)
Moving on to the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon clobbered Democrat George McGovern, carrying 49 states to McGovern’s 1. Then came the 1974 midterms, with Democrats winning 45 House races, gaining 4 Senate seats, and 4 governor races.
This midterm type of loss following a big presidential win for a party, as noted, happens often enough in history.
But times change, to say the least. And time moves on. Here we are at another midterm election. And what will the midterm results be?
It is way too soon to say. But there is one sure thing about this. With the election almost nine months distant, anything can happen.
But it is worth recalling another moment in the history of midterm elections. Go back to that 1966 midterm that produced a GOP landslide.
A major factor in that GOP victory was President Johnson’s decision to expand what had been an ongoing, if low-key, skirmish in Vietnam. But in 1965, LBJ decided to expand that skirmish to a full-blown war. In July of that year, the president announced a major commitment to expand the number of American troops from 75 thousand to 125 thousand. No longer would Americans be in Vietnam as mere “advisors.” They would be engaged as full-fledged combat participants, with the number of troops deployed rising even more — to 180,000 — by the end of 1965.
The political result was a massive Democrat defeat in the 1966 midterms.
Which says, among other things, that a full-scale war in Iran that has not receded but grown by the time of the 2026 midterm elections could, in fact, have a negative effect on the campaigns of GOP candidates for the House, Senate, and gubernatorial races.
If, on the other hand, the result is an out-and-out defeat for Iran’s ability to get a nuclear weapon, that can only help not only President Trump’s poll numbers but also the ability of the GOP’s candidates across the country to win their various election races. It would be a triumph for the foreign policy Reagan used to call “peace through strength.” It would vividly illustrate that, yet again, the Democrats have been stumped by Trump.
But without doubt, the question that leads this column — Whither the Democrats? — will, one way or another, have an answer by November.
With, in turn, those results playing a key role going into the 2028 election to elect a new president succeeding President Trump.
In short? Stay tuned.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed pied‑à‑terre tax is being sold as fiscal responsibility, but its real currency is envy. The measure would impose a new annual surcharge on roughly 13,000 luxury second homes in New York City, beginning at properties valued at $5 million and escalating to $15 million and $25 million. New York’s leaders must know that taxing a small class of part‑time residents will not rescue a city drowning in budget shortfalls. But what it will do and what it is designed to do is satisfy a political appetite for punishing the wealthy. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: A Quite Cranky 5QT)
[W]ealth itself is no longer viewed as an achievement or even a neutral fact of life, but as a kind of moral stain…
Recent survey data from the Pew Research Center underscores how deeply moralized attitudes toward wealth have become. According to the survey, which polled a random sample of Americans — and then analyzed the data by political affiliation — found that nearly one‑third of Democrats now say that “being extremely wealthy” is not just undesirable but immoral. That finding reveals a profound shift: wealth itself is no longer viewed as an achievement or even a neutral fact of life, but as a kind of moral stain for progressive Democrats. But the Pew data reveal that even 7 percent of Republicans now believe that “being extremely rich” is immoral.
In such a climate, policies like the pied‑à‑terre tax function less as fiscal tools and more as a sign of resentment and revenge. Such policy proposals allow political leaders to signal their solidarity with voters who increasingly see affluence as evidence of exploitation. The tax becomes a way of punishing a class whose very existence is perceived as offensive. The tax is a textbook example of how envy, once considered a private vice, is now being elevated into a public virtue. It is a ritualized shaming of those who can afford what others desire. New York City’s Mayor Mamdani appears to enjoy the public shaming of the City’s wealthiest individuals.
Earlier this week, Mamdani starred in a video that was filmed outside 220 Central Park South, the building where Citadel CEO Ken Griffin owns a four-floor penthouse he purchased in 2019 for $238 million, then the highest price ever paid for a home in the United States. In the video, Mamdani taunted Mr. Griffin and all billionaires by saying that: “When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich,” Mamdani said in the one-minute clip. “Well, today we’re taxing the rich.”
Using envy as a budgeting strategy, Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani provide a perfect illustration of mimetic theory, which holds that envy thrives in moments of perceived scarcity and vulnerability. When a community feels anxious, it seeks a target — a scapegoat — whose very existence seems to mock its insecurity. The pied‑à‑terre owner becomes that scapegoat: the rival whose success must be symbolically cut down so the rest of us can feel momentarily vindicated. Hochul’s tax is not a policy solution; it is a sacrificial gesture. A way of channeling collective resentment toward the rich while avoiding the harder work of governing.
But envy‑driven taxation is not housing policy, and it certainly is not a strategy for affordability. A genuine housing agenda would focus on increasing supply, reforming zoning, accelerating permitting, and encouraging private investment — the very mechanisms that actually lower costs and expand access. Instead, New York’s leaders reach for punitive symbolism, targeting a tiny group of second‑home owners while ignoring the structural barriers that make housing scarce in the first place. A surcharge on 13,000 luxury New York City apartments will not build a single new unit of affordable housing, but it will allow politicians to claim they are “doing something” while avoiding the politically difficult reforms that real solutions require. Envy offers emotional satisfaction; housing policy demands competence.
As I argued in my Politics of Envy, modern political movements increasingly rely on resentment as a governing principle. Policies like the pied‑à‑terre tax are crafted not to solve problems but to inflame passions — encouraging citizens to measure justice by how much discomfort can be inflicted on someone else. When leaders reward envy, they normalize a politics of punishment rather than a politics of possibility. (RELATED: The Politics of Envy Always Ends With the Guillotine)
It is worth restating a basic but often ignored fact about who funds the federal government. According to IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) data (Table 4.1), the top 1 percent of earners pay roughly 40 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay about 72 percent. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of earners contribute approximately 3 percent of federal income‑tax revenue.
These numbers do not settle every debate about fairness or economic policy, but they do clarify the structure of the tax base: a small share of high‑income households provides the majority of federal income‑tax revenue. Any serious conversation about public spending, fiscal sustainability, or tax reform has to begin with an accurate understanding of who is actually paying for the system we all rely on. These are the high earners that we need to keep the city lights on. We should be grateful to them.
New York does not have a revenue problem; it has a leadership problem. A city that once prided itself on ambition now indulges in the small‑minded thrill of bullying billionaires. Envy may be a potent political fuel, but it is a disastrous governing philosophy. A city that punishes aspiration will soon find it has nothing left to tax. And when resentment becomes the organizing principle of public life, decline follows quickly: investment dries up, talent leaves, and the only thing that grows is the list of people to blame. New York cannot afford leaders who confuse spite with strategy. It needs the courage to build, not the impulse to destroy.
READ MORE from Anne Hendershott:
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Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

As predicted by The American Spectator, IRGC hardliners are blocking a deal with the U.S. to end the Iran standoff, which otherwise has the backing of all other regional powers, including, possibly, China.
As President Trump announced last week that a “deal” had been reached with Iranian negotiators following talks in Pakistan, the Pentagon has kept deploying warships, military aviation, and more troops to the Persian Gulf, in anticipation of a final takedown that seems increasingly inevitable.
Despite an agreement by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X, saying that Iran would concede to Trump’s main demands of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and handing over its enriched uranium, the fugitive terrorist heading Iran’s ruling cabal, IRGC chief Ahmed Vahidi, appears to have had the final word: enriched uranium will not be given up and Iran’s sea “blockade” — enforced with some mines, drones, and fast attack boats — would remain in place, according to subsequent official statements issued by speaker of parliament and IRGC officer, Mohammad Ghalibaf, who was a chief negotiator in the direct talks with Vice President JD Vance. (RELATED: Ahmad Vahidi Is Now Calling the Regime’s Shots)
Despite a creeping realization that its situation is hopeless, the terrorist group heading the siege keeps a pretense of negotiating from a position of strength…
The situation could be approaching the endgame of a hostage standoff. Despite a creeping realization that its situation is hopeless, the terrorist group heading the siege keeps a pretense of negotiating from a position of strength even as infinitely better armed, prepared, increasingly well-informed, positioned, supported, organized, and reinforced counterterrorist forces close in. (RELATED: Hormuz in the Crosshairs)
What could be described as a state of “paranoid inertia” sets in, by which the gun-toting cadre, knowing that their political survival diminishes with any concessions, double down on their demands, issue new ones, and resort to violent shows of strength and “armed propaganda.” Seasoned hostage negotiators use the conflicting emotions of helplessness and rage to generate divisions amongst besieged terrorists in last-minute efforts to convince them to stand down and weaken their ability to react to an armed intervention.
A combination of fatalism, revulsion, and cold calculation is discernible in some intercepted messages between IRGC commanders following Araghchi’s posted peace statement. Some, clearly worn down from weeks of incessant U.S. and Israeli air strikes, actually called it “good news,” while others said they felt “humiliated.”
“I wish I could die right now,” said one. “They want to martyr our entire leadership along with the blood of those already martyred.” Another seemingly senior figure, said Araghchi “should face imprisonment,” insisting that the group cannot turn over its enriched uranium. “Libya gave theirs up only to be attacked later,” said the note, drawing comparisons with Muammar Gaddafi, toppled by an internal uprising following weeks of Western airstrikes that ended in his death.
The U.S. has been clearing sea corridors along western entrances to the Hormuz Strait in waters off Oman, using destroyer-escorted lightly armed Littoral Combat ships equipped with mine detecting sonar and acoustic detonation systems, undersea drones, and helicopters. About 30 ships have crossed safely carrying oil and other cargoes from Iraqi, UAE, Qatari, and Saudi ports since last week’s ceasefire, and more U.S. minesweepers are on their way from bases in Japan.
But on Saturday, the IRGC attacked Indian, French, and British tankers with drones and machine gun fire from small speedboats. The U.S. scrambled Apache helicopters to hunt down the Taregh boats, apparently launched by an IRGC navy commander who had called Araghchi an “idiot,” declaring that he would not follow his orders.
It was a belated IRGC response to the U.S. Navy’s highly effective blockade implemented over the past week, which has stopped virtually all oil traffic from Iranian ports, costing the regime some $400 million per day in revenues and most severely affecting energy supplies to China, Iran’s main customer.
In a Pentagon-released audio tape, the watch officer of an American destroyer warns an Iranian tanker: “This is U.S. Navy warship 115 requesting you to return to port.” The captain of the intercepted vessel instantly acknowledges the order and turns back. At the time of writing, U.S. Marines were reported to have boarded a sanctioned Iranian ship after a destroyer stopped it by “blowing a hole in the engine room,” according to a Trump post on Truth Social.
Iran has so far fired no missiles in response to the draconian U.S. blockade. None of the dozen or so midget submarines armed with torpedoes, which, according to intelligence reports, remain concealed in underwater caves in Qeshm, Larak, or other islands on Iranian waters along the straits, has challenged U.S. warships.
Besides American naval power, another player is entering the standoff drama: Pakistan, the nuclear-armed Islamic power, which is hosting the peace talks and actively promoting a diplomatic settlement involving Iranian concessions. Pakistan’s armed forces chief and virtual ruler, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is a good friend of Trump and indebted to the U.S. president for helping stop a war with India last year. (RELATED: India and Pakistan: No Solution, Just Damage Control)
He has moved military assets into the Gulf region, deploying some 13,000 troops and a squadron of F-16s to Saudi Arabia since last week’s ceasefire. Pakistan has a mutual defense agreement with the Saudi kingdom, which is believed to have partially financed its nuclear program. Over recent days, Pakistani fighter jets have also been flown to Kuwait, the country hardest hit by Iranian missile strikes and hosting the largest number of U.S. bases.
Pakistan, which also has military ties with China, could be signaling a willingness to shield Arab Gulf states from the IRGC’s thousand or so remaining missiles, which the group is threatening to unleash against desalination plants and other vital infrastructure if Trump resumes air strikes to knock out all of Iran’s bridges and electric grid. Pakistan could potentially open a new front that the IRGC is in no position to handle. Pakistani warplanes have recently launched air strikes against the IRGC’s Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
The geopolitical picture is becoming increasingly complex in ways highly detrimental to the IRGC, but which may also complicate matters for Trump. It’s unknown what tradeoffs there may have been between the U.S. president and Pakistan’s strongman. Pressures on Israel’s Netanyahu to halt his offensive against Hezbollah and agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon, which was an Iranian condition to proceed with talks last week, could be one of them. (RELATED: No, You Morons, Iran Has Not ‘Won.’)
Munir may also want a say on the U.S. target menu if bombings on Iran resume. He might be interested in protecting certain regime politicians whom he is clearly trying to form into a faction that can eventually force a settlement on IRGC hardliners and survive to give him leverage in a postwar Iran. He may even have intelligence agents on the ground protecting Araghchi and others from Vahidi.
But mediators, however powerful, often fail in hostage negotiations whose success or failure ultimately depends on the extent of derangement in the violent minds of paranoid terrorists who, in Iran’s case, are particularly fanatical and indoctrinated in suicidal religious delusions.
Trump may have sent JD Vance, Witkoff, and Co. back to Islamabad on Monday, even as Iran said that they would not be showing up, as a gesture to Munir to keep him sweet. But following the hostage standoff script, plans are simultaneously underway for the SWAT team to take charge.
The IRGC is bracing for what they believe are imminent U.S. ground incursions. Some videos show buses and other obstacles placed on airport runways to prevent Tactical Airborne Landings Operations by U.S. paratroopers and special forces.
According to a former U.S. Air Force special operations officer, the intricate TALO near Isfahan to mount the rescue of a downed F-15 pilot last Easter weekend, which involved setting up a temporary helicopter base deep in Iranian territory, could serve as a dress rehearsal for operations that may include securing the enriched uranium sites.
READ MORE from Martin Arostegui:
Ahmad Vahidi Is Now Calling the Regime’s Shots
Seizing Iran’s Gulf Islands
Putin, Iran, and Europe in a Post-NATO World
Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

To this day, well more than a decade after the deed was done, an empty pedestal stands in one of New Orleans’ most prominent locations.
The pedestal, some 50 feet high, once housed one of the great triumphs of public art. It was a magnificent statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee built in 1884, and the small park around the statue was known — and still is known — as Lee Circle.
Lee’s statue was never very controversial in New Orleans, but amid the Hard Left’s outbreak of bowdlerization in the 2010s, it suddenly became a “public nuisance” in the eyes of the city’s mayor.
Whose name was Mitch Landrieu.
Landrieu spent most of the second term of his highly-unsuccessful tenure as New Orleans’ mayor (an unremarkable status; every mayoral tenure since that of Vic Schiro in the 1960s has been highly-unsuccessful) tilting at Lee’s windmill before finally toppling the statue off that pedestal and creating one of America’s most pathetic eyesores in its place.
Landrieu didn’t stop at Lee, of course — he also sent the New Orleans Fire Department to get rid of a statue of Jefferson Davis, which was later relocated to Davis’s memorial site in Mississippi, a gorgeous equestrian statue of P.G.T. Beauregard which had graced the entrance to City Park in New Orleans, and another monument — one to a riot staged by Democrats in New Orleans in order to seize power from the Reconstruction-era Republican government in office at the time.
The Lee and Beauregard statues are currently gathering moss in a police impoundment lot in one of New Orleans’ slum neighborhoods, or were, the last I checked.
Landrieu’s legacy was that of destruction. Not renewal.
He wasn’t the mayor who brought New Orleans back from Katrina. Ray Nagin, whose famous meltdown on CNN following the hurricane and the flood that deluged the city stands as one of the worst political moments of the current century, was actually the man deserving credit for that. Nagin didn’t even have to do much — it was the private sector, together with a mountain of federal aid dollars, which rebuilt New Orleans. Nagin’s second term, which began in 2006 with a race-baiting electoral campaign that bested, ironically enough, Mitch Landrieu, was marked more by anarchy than anything else. It turned out that anarchy was a lot more effective economic development strategy than the hard-core socialism favored by New Orleans’ political class.
What Landrieu did was to strangle the recovery by bringing back the hard-core socialism.
And New Orleans has not recovered, nor will it likely recover, from the damage Landrieu did — to its public art, and to its economy.
I mention all of this because Mitch Landrieu is somehow attempting to make himself relevant as a — no, this can’t possibly be true — presidential candidate in 2028?
Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans and a central figure in recent federal infrastructure efforts, has quietly begun exploring a potential run for the presidency in 2028. During a recent gathering of Democratic activists and the Young Democrats of America in his hometown, Landrieu delivered an unscripted and impassioned speech that many observers categorized as the opening notes of a future campaign.
Drawing on his extensive experience leading New Orleans through its recovery after Hurricane Katrina, Landrieu spoke to the crowd about the necessity of dreaming about what America “should be.” He emphasized that the country cannot simply return to the status quo but must instead look forward to a new day. His message centered on the idea of constructing a future that corrects the mistakes of the past, a theme he applied to both his local governance and the national political landscape.
I neglected to mention Landrieu’s role as Joe Biden’s “infrastructure czar.” Remember that? You might also remember the hundreds of billions of dollars the Trump administration reclaimed last year from the trillion-dollar fund that Landrieu was too lazy to shovel out the door. That was another bit of Landrieu’s “extensive experience” and “unique strength” that somehow qualifies him to dream about what America should be.
Political allies, including Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, have praised Landrieu’s charisma and his ability to connect with a wide array of voters. Lucas noted that Landrieu possesses a unique strength in relating to diverse communities, a quality that could be pivotal in a competitive primary field. Supporters believe his “retail politics” approach, honed on the streets of New Orleans, provides him with a level of authenticity that resonates with Americans who feel the social contract has been broken.
Despite his high-profile background, Landrieu faces a crowded field of potential 2028 contenders, many of whom have already begun the groundwork of staff building and fundraising. At 65 years old, Landrieu himself has acknowledged that if he is to pursue the presidency, this current window is likely his final opportunity. While he has not yet established a formal campaign operation, his recent speeches have focused on rebuilding the Democratic coalition and addressing the resentment felt by many workers across the country.
Mitch Landrieu will not be the Democrats’ nominee in 2028. Nobody is going to give him money to run a presidential campaign; it’s insane to think that he’s qualified for that job or that a straight white guy from a red state where he couldn’t crack 30 percent of the vote in a statewide election has any hope of winning the nomination. (RELATED: Gretchen Whitmer’s Cringe Wokeness)
There is a level of sociopathic narcissism inherent in these dried-up has-been pols…
But there is a certain fascination one has to have with the genus of political animal that encompasses a Mitch Landrieu. He is a freak, of sorts, to be examined.
There is a level of sociopathic narcissism inherent in these dried-up has-been pols — the Andrew Cuomos, the Mitch Landrieus, and even the Mark Sanfords — which compels them to continue running for office or seeking the public limelight after they’ve been disgraced or put to pasture.
Small-d democratic politics was designed for citizen leadership. We impose term limits on most major offices (though unfortunately not on the House and Senate) because we want to put some distance between ourselves and the Landrieus and Cuomos. Our Founding Fathers understood that the Roman Republic was superior to the Roman Empire because Cincinnatus returning to the plow is a healthier ethical ideal than Caligula trying to appoint his horse as consul.
Or Mitch Landrieu defenestrating the various landmarks of New Orleans in order to please his African-American mistress, as the inside story went.
We recognize that there is much truth in the old joke that politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.
But there is a problem. In the mass media age, we have mixed politics with celebrity, and it’s a toxic mix on both sides of that equation. (RELATED: Meet Neppo Marx, the Democrats’ Great White 2028 Hope)
It’s toxic because celebrities think, for no good reason, that their opinions on politics are fodder for public consumption, and this gives us grotesqueries like George Takei, Jane Fonda, and Robert DeNiro.
But on the other side, it gives us people like Mitch Landrieu who think that holding political office offers validation in the form of celebrity, and the heady mix of TV cameras and the power over one’s fellow man afflicts them like the most powerful virus imaginable. For them, what would be utterly intolerable — putting one’s family through the sewer-pipe that is the modern political campaign, complete with the nonstop defamation, personal attacks, vilification, death threats, intraparty backstabbing, bribery, extortion, and abject insincerity of every aspect of running for office — is something like paradise.
They would rather endure it — and inflict it on others — than anything else on God’s green earth.
You can’t ask a Mitch Landrieu — or an Eric Swalwell, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, or Gavin Newsom (or a Lindsey Graham or John Kasich, for that matter) — to give up politics. No more than you could ask a vampire to take a walk in the sun.
Of course, Landrieu is talking about running for president. He won’t likely do it, but not because he doesn’t want to.
So yes, he will give high-sounding speeches about remaking America in his image. It’s a grift, and we can all see it as that. Landrieu is begging for some rich sucker to notice him and act as his stakehorse for an even bigger grift — actually running for office.
But the one thing about the sociopathic narcissists who latch onto politics for their validation is that if you ever give them power over you, it’s just like inviting the vampire into your house.
He’ll come in and suck you dry.
Just like Mitch Landrieu sucked New Orleans dry.
Anybody who can’t give up politics and go back to the plow is someone who shouldn’t be hanging around power. Landrieu needs a political stake through his heart. Maybe it’ll be up to the Democrats’ voters to do that.
But hopefully it won’t get that far.
READ MORE from Scott McKay:
Five Quick Things: A Quite Cranky 5QT
No, You Morons, Iran Has Not ‘Won.’
The Democrats’ Swalwell Follies
Image licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.