2020 watch: The Risk of Blocking the Citizenship Question

President Trump has given up on adding a citizenship questions to the 2020 Census, but John Kass at The Chicago Tribune argues that Democrats’ position on the issue could prompt an electoral loss next year. Kass imagines he has illegally broken into the home of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who demands to know his identity and intentions — “simple, reasonable questions any homeowner might ask of a stranger.” Yet Democrats are appalled by Trump’s insistence that the government ask the same questions of people in America. “Every citizen should have the right to know how many citizens are here,” but the left dismisses supporters of a citizenship question as “tools of Trump.” Meanwhile, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showed that most people consider asking the question “legitimate.” This “is precisely this kind of thing,” warns Kass, “that will drive independents toward Trump in 2020.”

Foreign desk: Trump’s Cleaning Up Predecessors’ Messes

President Trump’s critics blast his foreign policy as muddled and unpredictable, yet Keith Koffler at NBC News believes “there is, in fact, a defining diplomatic strategy” to it: Trump is “cleaning up the messes left by his predecessors.” When it comes to China, Iran, North Korea and even Russia, “Trump is taking tough stances.” China “has finally been recognized as a long-term strategic opponent”; the prez is making clear that “a nuclear Iran is not acceptable,” now or in the future. And in North Korea, he’s “at least taking an unconventional approach rather than reenacting the failures of the past.” This has Washington “aghast,” notes Koffler, yet “business as usual” has only “strengthened our enemies.” So “Trump’s iconoclasm is worth a try.”

From the right: AOC Uses Dems’ Race Card Against Them

Nancy Pelosi “worked harder than anyone” to win her party a majority in the House, but “a decade of Democratic progress finally caught up to her” when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned on her for trying to “enforce some party discipline,” notes the Washington Examiner Editorial Board. AOC accused Pelosi of being “a racist and a sexist,” a defense mechanism Democrats adopted under President Barack Obama, when “the wolf-cry of racism became a shortcut for dealing with almost any disagreement.” Until AOC’s attack, the argument was typically aimed at Republicans, but after less than a year in Congress, “the freshman has already found a way to wield the Democratic Party’s weapons of mass destruction against its own leaders.”

Housing expert: Harris’ Plan Is Doomed To Fail

Sen. Kamala Harris is “understandably concerned about the black-white gap in household wealth,” but Howard Husock at City Journal warns that her plan to “provide up to 4 million households with a $25,000 federal grant toward closing costs or down payments on homes” would fail. Subsidies for a down payment eliminates the “key protection against foreclosure” and sidelines the practice of “thrift and savings, the traits that typically makes for successful homeownership.” Owners would “have no skin in the game” and thus be “more likely to walk away” in tough times. That’s what happened after the 2008 financial crisis and when “mortgage money flooded Boston’s black community in the late sixties.” The right path “involves wealth accumulation through employment, savings and financial acumen,” says Husock. “Harris’ plan would “only make things worse.”

Science beat: Rewriting the Tale of Human Evolution

A 210,000-year-old skull found in a Greek cave is upending “the standard story” of modern human evolution, reports Ed Yong at The Atlantic. Studies show the skull to be human, “the oldest specimen of Homo sapiens outside Africa,” beating the previous record by 30,000 years. It’s also considerably older than all other Homo sapiens found in Europe, as well as a Neanderthal skull found next to it. That “messes up” theories that Neanderthals slowly evolved in Europe, isolated from other hominins. And it suggests the “accepted story” of modern humans replacing them is “too simple.” The skulls also show, as researcher Katerina Harvati tells Yong, “there is much to learn in areas outside of western Europe and the Levant, where most of our research has concentrated.”

— Compiled by Ashley Allen & Adam Brodsky