A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
On Friday, a number of conservative writers cast their eyes across the pond to assess the fallout from Thursday night’s surprising electoral defeat for the U.K.’s Conservative Party. National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke, an English native, wrote that Prime Minister Teresa May is “soon to be reviled”:
As she surveys the wreckage she has wrought, she will come to ask, “What if?”: “What if I had waited a little longer?”; “What if I had run a good campaign?”; “What if I’d been grateful for the chances I’d been given?” Already, the spin has begun. “It’s not that bad,” the Tory party is insisting. “We can still form a government. We can still move forward.” Perhaps, and perhaps. But that’s rather beside the point. At the expense of all else, the Conservatives had asked for a mandate: to govern, to negotiate, to consider, to decide. At the expense of everyone else, Mrs. May had demanded an endorsement. Neither was forthcoming. Had the campaign been about taxes or schools or the future of Britain’s ports, the mouthpieces’ jobs would be easier. “It’s a divided country,” they could say, “but we still won.” But the election was not about those things. “Theresa,” promised the literature, “is the only one who can stand up for Britain.” And the chorus replied, “No she’s not.”
At the Weekly Standard, Dominic Green examined the result within the context of Britain’s other recent electoral surprises:
This is the third time in three years that the British voters have confounded the pollsters. In 2015, they gave David Cameron an unexpected majority. In 2016, they voted for Brexit, and forced Cameron to fall on his sword. And now they have defeated a prime minister who began an election campaign in a position of unprecedented strength, and promised to carry out the Brexit for which they had voted less than a year earlier.
The mood of Britain’s voters resembles that of the voters in other Western democracies. They are angry about globalization, fearful of Islam and immigration, and worried about money and their children’s futures. They are more than happy to accept a foolishly timed invitation to poke their leaders in the eye.
Breitbart’s Joel Pollak speculated that the surge in youth turnout for Corbyn may have been inspired by pop singer Ariana Grande, whose Manchester concert was the target of a bombing last month. “While Corbyn’s dalliances with Palestinian terror alienated some voters, the media were saturated by Hollywood celebrities like Ariana Grande telling young British fans—the primary terror targets—that the solution to radical Islam was to reach out and love one another,” he wrote. “Young voters appear to have responded in droves—sending a signal not only to May, but to President Donald Trump, who may face a surge in youth activism in the so-called ‘Resistance’ in the U.S.”
In other news:
At the Resurgent, Erick Erickson scolded conservatives for insisting that Trump’s right to fire the FBI director at will immunizes him from charges of obstruction. “Under federal law,” he wrote, “an otherwise legal act can be obstruction of justice if it was initiated to stop, hinder, or impede a lawful investigation.” The key, he argued, was Trump’s asking others to leave the room during the meeting when he asked Comey to let Flynn go:
If, as some in the GOP speculated, the President did this because every time he had met with Comey the room had been cleared, then the President is an idiot who should not have done it, but it is not necessarily obstruction.
If, however, someone had advised the President not to do so and the President did it anyway, then there is a very real case for obstruction of justice.
“The problem,” Erickson concluded, “is that in our hyper-partisan atmosphere there are a lot of people who are sure what the President’s motives were without actually knowing them.”
RedState and Conservative Review offered updates on Trump’s apparent failure to curb illegal immigration. “The latest betrayal to the Right is the confirmation that Trump’s DHS has issued almost 125,000 ‘DACA’ cards (per Obama’s unlawful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order) to illegal aliens through the second quarter of this fiscal year (January through March),” the Review’s Daniel Horowitz wrote in a post that was excerpted by the Daily Wire. “This surpasses the 122,000 level of amnesty cards issued during the final quarter of Obama’s presidency (Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2016), which means the Trump administration is not even slowing down the pace!” RedState’s Susan Wright highlighted a Washington Times report that illegal border crossings jumped by 27 percent in May. “Apparently, the Great Trump Border Scare has settled into the subconscious minds of immigrants looking to cross the border illegally,” she wrote. “Over four months with no border wall and Obama’s ‘Dreamers’ program (DACA) untouched does a lot to calm some formerly tattered nerves, I suppose.”
Breitbart’s Adam Shaw took notice of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s profanity at an event Thursday night:
Gillibrand, who has been floated as a possible 2020 candidate for the Democrats, spoke Thursday in front of a Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, and didn’t hold back in what she thought of President Trump.
“Has he kept his promises? No, F*ck No!,” she said, according to The Hill.
She also had a stark warning for other lawmakers, presumably including fellow Democrats, about being productive in Congress.
“If we are not helping people, we should go the f*ck home,” she said.
“The new R-rated Democratic strategy,” he wrote, “is a stark contrast to a central pillar of their presidential campaign—including an ad called ‘Our Children Are Watching’ in which young children were shown somberly watching President Trumps’ more colorful statements.”
