Conservative Dem: Trump-Unleashed Anger Won’t Vanish

Liberals are already gloating over the election, which they see as hailing a “second progressive era.” But Joel Kotkin at The Daily Beast warns that the populist anger that fuels Donald Trump’s candidacy “will outlive him and could get stronger in the future.” In fact, says Kotkin, Trump may turn out to be another Barry Goldwater, whose “campaign set the stage for something of a right-wing resurgence that defined American politics until the election of President Obama.” If Hillary Clinton and her supporters “over-shoot their nonexistent mandate and try to impose their whole agenda,” he warns, American politics could move “in directions that the progressives, and their media claque, might either not anticipate or much like.”

Media critic: Brazile’s Deception and the Big Media Lie

It “pains” Jordan Chariton at Mediaite to say so, but “Trump is right — the [news] media is dishonest.” WikiLeaks has exposed the “jarring . . . alliance between supposedly neutral ‘analysts’ and ‘journalists’ with Hillary Clinton.” Case in point: interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, who was exposed “tipping off the Clinton campaign to a CNN town hall question she’d be asked the next day.” (She denies it.) But Brazile is just one in a “long list of phony ‘analysts’ and ‘strategists’ — as well as anchors and reporters —who were clearly in-the-tank for Hillary Clinton all along.” The “wider media lie” is that what you see on-air “is being delivered by neutral arbiters and journalists.”

From the right: Prez Won’t Listen to Reason on ObamaCare

President Obama’s refusal to heed mounting criticism of ObamaCare reflects one of his “cherished conceits” — that “disagreement with him can have no rational basis,” writes Ramesh Ponnuru at Bloomberg. In his most recent speech, Obama suggested that “only ‘ideology’ and ‘politics’ are keeping Republicans from working with him to expand Obamacare’s reach,” though he remains “the picture of reasonableness.” His core problem: refusing to accept “that conservatives have reasonable disagreements with him.” Obama “believes that only comprehensive insurance policies are real insurance,” while conservatives believe “that people should be free to buy cheaper policies that protect them only from financial catastrophes arising from their health needs.”

Foreign desk: Stop Iran by Stopping North Korea

Twice in the last week, North Korea attempted, but failed, to launch its new ballistic missile. Still, notes Josh Gelernter at National Review, a new Johns Hopkins report says that missile “could be perfected and operational next year — several years sooner than expected.” Ten years ago, he recalls, current Defense Secretary Ash Carter and former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry called for a pre-emptive strike to destroy Pyongyang’s then-current missile. “Needless to say, no such preemptive strike occurred,” says Gelernter, “and now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, it might not be prudent to revive the idea.” But “a strong, substantial response” would be useful — both to impede North Korea, and also to “remind Iran that that (Syrian red lines aside) the United States is not to be trifled with.”

Economist: Cuomo Energy Plan Robs Poor to Pay Rich

Gov. Cuomo’s climate-change policy “amounts to stealing from the poor to line the pockets of his crony friends,” charges Charles Sauer, president of the Market Institute, at The Weekly Standard. In fact, it exposes “the left’s moral failure” — “that much of the left’s goal in making climate policy” is to create “a political debate that they can use to benefit their friends.” Cuomo’s renewable energy plan “includes Zero Emission Credits” that will “take money from energy consumers and send money to the owners of nuclear power plants in upstate.” In the first two years alone, says Sauer, “the credit will take $965 million in one of the most regressive ways possible: increased energy fees.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann