THE SHOW NOTES: Israel's Next Move, Iran's Big Problem, & The Case Against Trump

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Israel

Israel launched a precise airstrike against Hezbollah in central Beruit last night marking a gradual expansion of the war’s growing footprint. As the battle rages on in Lebanon, all eyes remain focused on how Israel will respond to Iran’s Tuesday onslaught that saw 181 missiles launched at Israel.

Context: Iran’s Supreme Leader prefers to operate under the strategy of “no war, no peace” meaning that while Iran may not be in a direct war with Israel, its proxies scattered across the Middle East could strike at any moment. Tuesday’s strike implies that this is no longer the case, but it comes at the most inopportune time for Tehran.

When asked about how Iran would defend against an Israeli airstrike, an unnamed source in Tehran told The Atlantic, “We don’t have a fucking air force, I don’t know what they (Iranian military) are thinking.”

The sentiment was echoed by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who said, “Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed temporarily and Iran is exposed… Right now, they’re naked, they don’t have the ability to protect themselves. Israel has the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East.”

Following Iran’s strike against Israel in April, Israel offered a tepid response following pressure from President Biden and with the looming threat of a fully armed Hezbollah to its north. But with US leverage in the region at an all-time low and Hezbollah substantially degraded in the north, Israel’s looming response could look very different in the coming days.

MUST READ: The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Problem Deepens

Democrats are steadily losing ground with Hispanic voters. The seriousness of this problem tends to be underestimated in Democratic circles for several reasons: (1) they don’t realize how big the shift is; (2) they don’t realize how thoroughly it undermines the most influential Democratic theory of the case for building their coalition; and (3) they believe that any Hispanic flirtation with the GOP is merely temporary—they will “come back home” to the Democrats.

On the second point, consider that most Democrats like to believe that, since a relatively conservative white population is in sharp decline while a presumably liberal nonwhite population keeps growing, the course of social and demographic change should deliver an ever-growing Democratic coalition. It is simply a matter of getting this burgeoning nonwhite population to the polls.

But consider further that, as the Census documents, the biggest single driver of the increased nonwhite population is the growth of the Hispanic population. They are by far the largest group within the Census-designated nonwhite population (19 percent vs. 12 percent for blacks). While their representation among voters considerably lags their representation in the overall population, it is fair to say that voting trends among this group will decisively shape voting trends among nonwhites in the future since their share of voters will continue to increase while black voter share is expected to remain roughly constant.

Full story at The Liberal Patriot.

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