Public displays of antisemitism on college campus over the last year
have focused attention on foreign entities funding
American higher education. But less publicized — and more insidious — are foreign influences in K-12 schools.
Many young adults are arriving on their college campuses already radicalized. Much of that is due to the subtle, hostile influences that they’re exposed to in grade school. Congress must address this critical problem for the sake of the next generation.
In September 2023, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing
about how the Chinese Communist Party was influencing the American education system in public and private K-12 schools. Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction at the time, told lawmakers that the “Confucius Classrooms” program was a national security threat, and that Congress should “pass a law to ban schools from accepting money from hostile foreign governments.”
Walters was absolutely correct. China is an expert at using “soft power” to exert its influence around the world. Rather than march an army into enemy territory or fund terrorist groups, China uses industry, infrastructure and education to undermine its competitors.
Whether through funding infrastructure in third-world countries, manufacturing necessary goods such as medical supplies, or providing loans to nations who ask, China understands how to wield influence. Any instance of its government funding an initiative in another country should be viewed with suspicion.
The college-level version of the Confucius Classrooms program, Confucius Institutes
, has come under intense scrutiny by legislators on both sides of the aisle over the past decade. These institutes are glorified Chinese propaganda arms that, at their peak, operated on nearly 100 American college campuses, including Columbia and Stanford. They are funded and staffed almost exclusively by an agency of Chinese government’s Ministry of Education. While the public and legislative attention caused many of these institutes to shut down, the K-12 version of the program, Confucius Classrooms, has continued to grow.
While the total number is unknown, the National Association of Scholars released a report
earlier this year documenting at least 164 Confucius Classrooms programs across the U.S., 79 percent in public school districts.
The Confucius Classrooms programs primarily teach Chinese language to students, but often they also include courses in history or economics. That may sound benign, but each Confucius Classrooms teacher is hired and approved by the Chinese Communist Party and is expected to promote China and socialism to students. These classes are a subtle way for the Chinese government to influence young Americans and make them more sympathetic to socialist ideology and China’s global aims.
Children should not be taught a history that excludes Tiananmen Square or includes economics based on communist theories.
To hide the appearance of direct financial ties to China, these programs are funded and sustained through nonprofit entities, which in turn receive their funds from China. The group Parents Defending Education released a report
last year detailing some of the funding streams from China-backed organizations into American public schools.
An example from the report is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a public magnet school in Virginia, which “received more than $1 million in financial aid from Chinese government-affiliated entities over the course of a decade.” A similar scheme is repeated in every school where a Confucius Classrooms is located.
While many of these nonprofits are relatively obscure, some are not, such as the College Board
. Best known as the organization behind the SATs and AP courses, the College Board has greater access to the public education system than almost any other nonprofit in the country. Its ties to China date back to 2003, when it began working with the Chinese Communist Party to build Mandarin language programs in the U.S. The College Board is responsible for planting at least 20 Confucius Classrooms programs, in addition to the AP Chinese course that it created in collaboration with the Chinese government.
To combat foreign influence in K-12 education, especially from hostile countries like China, there are a couple of legislative fixes Congress can pursue.
One solution is revitalizing the 1938 Foreign Agent Registration Act
, which requires the disclosures and registration of anyone with relationships to foreign governments. Unfortunately, this law has broad exemptions from its disclosure requirement for “religious, scholastic, academic, fine arts, or scientific pursuits,” and China’s interests in the education sector clearly fall into those categories. By amending the Foreign Agent Registration Act to remove some of those exemptions, Congress would force nonprofits and individuals connected to China or other hostile actors to be transparent about those ties.
While that would help cut off the funding stream, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a far simpler short-term solution: the TRACE Act
. This bill would give parents the right to know about any curriculum with ties to another country. If passed, parents would have the ability to review classroom and professional development materials funded by foreign governments and foreign entities of concern. If those materials are going to be in the classroom, parents have a right to know where they originated.
The American education system has plenty of problems without the outside influence of hostile nations. Yet countries like China are using our K-12 schools as just one more way to influence American society. A foreign-linked curriculum designed to teach the next generation to appreciate socialism and to empathize with America’s greatest competitor is a national security threat, and Congress has a responsibility to address it.
Maggie McKneely is legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
Qatar has long promoted preventive diplomacy and mediation as the only path to resolving conflicts. For more than two decades
, these critical efforts have centered on acting as an honest broker and building trust and understanding between conflicting parties.
In our role as an experienced
international mediator, Qatar tries to ensure that our mediation efforts are recognized as genuine and free of hidden agendas.
It is against this backdrop that The Hill published an opinion piece
that made false statements about Qatar, its mediation role between Israel and Hamas and its strong counterterror cooperation with the U.S. government.
As the war in Gaza enters its 12th month, Qatar, the U.S., Egypt and other partners continue to mediate tirelessly to end the bloodshed and secure the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas. Our role has involved relentless shuttle-diplomacy across the region, relaying messages between the conflicting sides and working to bridge existing gaps to try to secure a cease-fire agreement. Qatar has also mediated between the powers of the region, using its contacts to try to prevent a wider regional spillover.
Over the last year, Qatar has been accused by certain nefarious actors of sponsoring Hamas and engaging in terror financing. These accusations focus on the presence of Hamas’s political leaders in Qatar but ignore the fact that this was a decision made in coordination with the U.S.
over a decade ago. The objective has always been to provide a communication channel with Hamas, to resolve conflicts and manage humanitarian assistance
to the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.
Multiple U.S. administrations
have relied on this channel, and during the current Gaza crisis, it has often been the only means of communication with Hamas — making it possible to secure the release of more than 100 hostages
so far.
Similarly, the delivery of all Qatari aid to civilians in Gaza prior to the current war was always fully coordinated with the U.S. and Israeli governments
. Qatari aid to Gaza was delivered directly to Palestinian families
in need of essential supplies such as food and medicine, while additional Qatari funding provided electricity to power the homes
of the Palestinian population.
The current instability in our neighborhood is especially significant because of the serious repercussions it could have beyond our region. Working together with the U.S., we believe that a negotiated peace is the only humane path forward — both to stop the violence and to prevent future global instability.
To that end, Qatar has taken some of the strictest measures to combat terror financing in the region and globally.
In 2023, the Financial Action Task Force mutually evaluated Qatar
, giving it one of the highest global ratings for technical compliance with the task force’s anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing requirements. Meanwhile, the latest U.S. Country Report on Terrorism
affirms that the United States and Qatar have “continued to increase counterterrorism cooperation, building on progress made after the U.S. Secretary of State and the Qatari Foreign Minister signed a counterterrorism [Memorandum of Understanding] in 2017.”
Building on this historic agreement, in 2019 Qatar introduced a new anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing framework
that strengthened national legislation and expanded the definition of possible offenses. Qatar has also implemented stronger sanctions to deter potential violators and has increased coordination with its international counterparts to combat cross-border threats.
Qatar and the U.S. remain strong strategic allies and partners in the fight against terrorism financing. Last month, the CIA awarded
the prestigious George Tenet Medal to Abdullah bin Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, the head of Qatar’s State Security Agency, for his efforts in strengthening intelligence cooperation between the United States and Qatar. The award comes at a time when Qatar-U.S. security cooperation has reached an all-time high
, following years of close coordination through Republican- and Democrat-led administrations, across issues of shared interest including the evacuation of over 100,000
people from Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, the ongoing war in Gaza and the threat of a wider regional conflict.
The war in Gaza has shattered too many families and claimed too many innocent civilian lives on all sides. In Qatar, we view our mediator role not only as a political obligation but as a moral duty to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable people and to advance global security. Our joint work with the U.S. and dozens of allies around the world has become more urgent than ever, and we vow to do whatever we can to stop the bloodshed, get hostages home and end these cycles of violence once and for all.
Ali Al-Ansari is Qatar’s media attaché in the United States, based in Washington.
Health care has emerged as a fault line in this year’s election campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris supports expanding the Affordable Care Act
, while former President Donald Trump wants to scale it back. Yet there’s one health care policy that the Biden-Harris and Trump administrations both supported and can coalesce around again: price transparency.
This bipartisan health care fix is supported by 92 percent of Americans, according to a new poll
by Echelon Insights and SocialSphere. Thirty-two economists, including me, recently sent
a letter
to U.S. senators, urging them to pass the Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0
, co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
This bill requires providers and insurers to publish their actual prices, including their cash and negotiated insurance rates, empowering consumers with choice and competition. Such systemwide price transparency can substantially reduce health care costs while boosting the economy and worker paychecks.
Prices are a necessary component of functioning markets, and their absence in American health care is a major reason for runaway costs that burden patients, employers and workers. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation
, the average annual employer-sponsored family health insurance premium is $24,000, a 50 percent increase over the last decade.
Hidden health care prices cause an information asymmetry that gives hospitals and health insurers unfair pricing power over consumers who are forced to pay with the equivalent of a blank check. It’s no surprise that health care costs are a top concern
for voters.
The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University recently analyzed hospital
and health insurance
charges in Houston and found wide price variations for the same care — a sign of market failure.
For example, among patients covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, the average price of a hospital stay for 25 common diagnoses was $18,858 in the Houston Methodist hospital system, more than twice as much as at several independent hospitals in Harris County.
The average price for 32 outpatient services negotiated by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas in Harris County varied from $1,500 to $3,000, depending on the hospital. The average price for 19 outpatient services negotiated by Aetna in Harris County ranged from less than $2,000 to more than $6,000, again depending on the hospital.
Our analysis was only able to compare prices for a limited number of diagnoses and services because the data was non-standardized and incomplete. The Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0 would finally unleash all prices throughout the health care system in a standard format, allowing consumers to spot price variations and choose high-value care.
Armed with this price information, employers could steer employees to less expensive care and share savings through lower premiums. Employers would also finally get access to their complete claims receipt data, which they could compare with health plan spending and posted prices to avoid overbilling, errors and fraud.
Prices foster competition, greatly reducing pervasive waste and unproductive middle players that proliferate in the dark and drive-up costs. According to a 2019 JAMA study
, 25 percent of U.S. health expenditures, which reached $4.5 trillion in 2022
, is administrative waste and unnecessary overcharging. This study implies an annual economic stimulus of around $1 trillion from an efficient and transparent system.
Economists of all backgrounds support price transparency as a fundamental solution to the American health care cost crisis. But you don’t need to be an economist to understand the importance of upfront prices. Ordinary Americans already price shop for all other goods and services and would do so for non-emergency health care if given the chance. With the help of tech innovators and consumer-friendly apps, health care price disclosures would empower patients and businesses to choose affordable care.
This Congress should conclude its term by passing the bipartisan Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0. It would bring Republicans and Democrats together during this contentious campaign season. More importantly, it would take a big step toward a pro-consumer health care system that reduces costs, raises worker pay and stimulates the economy at this time when it’s needed most.
Vivian Ho, Ph.D., is the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics at Rice University.
Six moderate House Republicans signed on to a bipartisan letter spearheaded by centrists pledging to respect the results of the 2024 election.
The “unity commitment” released on Friday
is led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and has the support of 32 House members.
By signing the letter, members pledge — after “all legal means to challenge election results in the courts have been exhausted” — to acknowledge the election winner certified at the January 2025 joint meeting of Congress as the legitimate president; to attend the president’s inauguration; and to “[serve] as a voice for calm and reconciliation and [speak] out against those who endorse or engage in violence that harms people, property, or public spaces.”
The Republicans who signed the letter along with Bacon are Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Wash.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), and Anthony D’Esposito (N.Y.). Only Bacon and Fitzpatrick members of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, and neither supported objections to the 2020 election results that day.
In a statement, Gottheimer said that the pledge is a “a framework for Members to work together and communicate their respect for the electoral process, regardless of who wins.”
“Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have a responsibility to demonstrate true leadership ahead of this critical election and serve as a voice for calm,” Gottheimer said.
Former President Trump’s pressure campaign to Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 election culminated in a violent mob storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, when Congress was set to certify the results of the election.
Asked in a CNN town hall
last year if he would accept the 2024 results no matter the outcome, Trump said: “Yeah, if I think it’s an honest election, absolutely.”
Democratic members of Congress have also filed formal objections to election results during Congress’s formal certification process following Republican presidential victories in the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections, though they accepted the outcomes.
“In America we respect election results especially once the courts and appeals work through the process,” Bacon said in a statement. “We fight hard to win during campaigns and then respect the results when the votes are counted. We are the greatest country in the world, and we are governed by the rule of law. The citizens are sovereign, and they decide.”
Democratic signers of the letter include Reps. Don Davis (D-N.C.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Vicente Gonzales (D-Texas), and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.). Signer Rep. Elisa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is seeking a Senate seat. Two Democratic signers will not be in Congress in 2025: Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) opted against reelection as she mounts a gubernatorial bid in 2025, and Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) opted against a reelection bid for his redrawn district.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is capitalizing on superstar Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Vice President Harris by launching a new advertisement campaign.
The ads will be placed in Times Square in New York City and on the Las Vegas Strip, asking voters if they are “Ready For It?” in a nod to one of Swift’s songs. The ads will provide information on how and where to vote this November, the DNC said.
Swift is coming off the European leg of her hit “The Eras Tour.” In a post that has over 10.5 million likes on Instagram as of Friday morning, Swift endorsed Harris
after Tuesday’s presidential debate, saying she “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
The DNC said the Times Square ad will feature rotating images celebrating “our ‘Kamala era’” and in Las Vegas, the ads will contrast Harris with her GOP opponent, former President Trump.
“As we drive the contrast between Vice President Harris’ New Way Forward and Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, which would rip away reproductive rights and rig the economy against working families, we’re reminding voters that it is critical to speak now to dump Trump and enter our Kamala era by visiting IWillVote.com and doing their research on how, where, and when to vote in this election,” DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin said in a statement.
Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), welcomed the endorsement
and said he was grateful for Swift’s courage to speak up.
The Harris campaign began selling friendship bracelets, a nod to the singer’s fans. The bracelet two-pack is already sold out
on the Harris campaign store.
Former National Security Advisor and retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster became the latest official to make eyebrow-raising comments about UFOs, now formally rebranded as “unidentified anomalous phenomena
” or UAP.
Asked about UAP during a Sept. 6 appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” McMaster stated
that “there are phenomena that have been witnessed by multiple people that are just inexplicable by any kind of science available to us.”
McMaster’s intriguing comments come at a critical moment in a growing national discussion about UAP. The Senate is poised to take up the bipartisan Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act
, arguably the most extraordinary legislation ever introduced in Congress.
Sponsored
by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), the Disclosure Act alleges that a decades-long government “legacy program” has secretly retrieved and is attempting to reverse-engineer UAP of “unknown” and “non-human” origin. Not only is “non-human intelligence” formally defined, but the attention-grabbing term appears two dozen times throughout the 64-page legislation.
Astoundingly, the Disclosure Act would also require the federal government to take possession of “any and all” recovered UAP and “biological evidence of non-human intelligence” transferred to private defense contractors.
With multiple
seemingly credible sources corroborating
the existence of such secret programs, it is imperative that Congress pass the legislation without delay.
The introduction of the Disclosure Act, along with fascinating
public comments like those from McMaster, marks a seismic shift in the official tone on the UFO phenomenon.
But the December 2017 publication of a bombshell New York Times article
fundamentally transformed the discourse on this long-stigmatized topic.
Asked in 2020 about seemingly inexplicable, years-long
U.S. Navy encounters with UAP, former CIA Director John Brennan made a jaw-dropping statement, suggesting
that “a different form of life” might be behind the perplexing incidents.
John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under former President Trump, injected fascinating context
into recent military encounters with the UFO phenomenon. In a 2021 interview, Ratcliffe stated
that UAP “have been picked up by satellite imagery [and] frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for.”
U.S. intelligence analysts, Ratcliffe continued, have “high confidence
” that foreign adversaries such as China or Russia were not behind one of the most extraordinary, best-documented
UAP incidents.
Alarmingly, Ratcliffe stated
that UAP exhibit “technologies that we don’t have and, frankly, that we are not capable of defending against.”
In late 2021, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson suggested directly
that recent military encounters with UAP could have extraterrestrial explanations.
Similarly, the prospect of a sitting high-level national security official openly discussing otherworldly origins for UAP was long unthinkable. But current Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines raised eyebrows in 2021 when she pointedly did not rule out
“extraterrestrial” origins for UAP.
Former presidents Clinton, Obama and Trump generated headlines
when asked
about the phenomenon
in recentyears
. Echoing McMaster, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley said
last August that some reported UAP incidents are “really kind of weird and unexplainable.”
Such notable comments from top-level officials align with publicly available data. Sophisticated mathematical analyses
of the most recognizable UAP footage and best-documented incidents, for example, corroborate
fighter pilot and radar operator accounts
of craft exhibiting highly advanced technology. Moreover, several
other perplexing UAP videos
, in tandem
with supporting context
and data
, stubbornly resist prosaic explanations.
Perhaps most alarmingly, mysterious objects exhibiting seemingly astonishing technology
conducted a series of brazen incursions around sensitive U.S. military assets — including nuclear missile silos — in recent years.
In light of these remarkable developments, Congress must get to the bottom of the decades-long UFO mystery and pass the UAP Disclosure Act.
Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the Department of Defense.
CNN political commentator Van Jones said late Thursday that Vice President Harris “humiliated” former President Trump at this week’s debate
, adding that the Democratic nominee could’ve stopped the “elder abuse” toward the end of the event.
“Kamala Harris did something that no politician has done, ever,” Jones said during an appearance on “CNN NewsNight.” “She didn’t just beat him. She humiliated him. She humiliated him.
“He has been the Pac-Man of American politics,” Jones added in remarks highlighted
by Mediaite. “He has eaten up, gobbled up politicians, spit ’em out, went through 16 Republican governors and senators like it was nothing. And even when he does badly, he usually has something he can point to.”
The Tuesday night debate was the first time the candidates met in person. They clashed
over a variety of issues such as the economy, immigration, abortion, health care. Harris repeatedly tried to get under Trump’s skin and, at times, seemed successful with the GOP nominee appearing visibly irritated in exchanges. A CNN flash poll
, released following the debate, showed that 63 percent of registered voters said that Harris outperformed Trump. Around 37 percent thought that the former president was victorious.
“She whooped him so badly that I think he’s literally afraid to come back,” Jones said on CNN. “And so, now I agree the last 20 minutes, she could’ve stopped with the elder abuse at that point and then turn more to her program. I wish that she had, but she’s got plenty of time now. And now, the funk is off.”
Jones, a pundit and a Democratic strategist, added that Harris should do more media appearances, but that during the debate she showcased her ability to deal with political leaders, at home and abroad.
“I think she’s going to do a bunch of interviews,” he said. “I wanted her to do interviews. I agree with you, she needs to get her program to find, but she first had to demonstrate this is a woman who can deal with any man, Putin, Donald Trump or anybody else and she established that.”
Earlier this week, the CNN pundit said
Harris put the ex-president “in his place” during the debate.
Trump on Thursday said
he won’t do another debate with Harris.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (N.D.), the No. 2-ranking Senate GOP leader, says former President Trump should agree to a second debate
with Vice President Harris.
Thune, a leading candidate to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as the next Senate Republican leader, said Trump needs to do a better job of highlighting the substantive differences between the two presidential candidates, something Thune believes was glossed over in the first debate.
Asked whether Trump should agree to a second debate, Thune told the Associated Press in an interview: “Yes, I do. I think it would be helpful.”
“I don’t think they got enough into the substance of their differences and I think elections are always about differences. The contrast this time around couldn’t be more clear in terms of their records, their positions, their vision for the future,” Thune said.
“Litigating that in a debate setting would be really important and I don’t think they got enough of that done [Tuesday] night,” he said.
Trump has said we will not agree to a second debate, claiming there’s no need to face off against Harris again on stage because he won their first debate, citing unnamed polls in battleground states.
“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH,'” Trump wrote.
Many Republican senators, however, came away from the debate disappointed.
GOP lawmakers said the ABC News moderators pushed back on Trump’s answers but failed to fact check Harris or ask tough follow-up questions when she dodged their initial queries.
Thune said he doesn’t think debates have big impacts on races but he said Trump needs to do more to highlight the policy differences with his opponent.
“There was a lot of discussion about the moderators and them fact-checking Trump and not fact-checking Harris,” he said.
“I do think that she in some ways has gotten by without having to defend her record and she’s going to have to do that at some point and I think President Trump is in the best position to do it, to force her in having to defend her record on the border and on inflation,” he said.
“I think that case has to be prosecuted. Frankly, it could have been done better [Tuesday] night,” he added.
Presidential debates are often like Rorschach tests for partisans who see what they want to see in the performance. Instead of imagining the random ink stain to be a “beautiful butterfly,” they view it instead as a decisive win for their candidate.
Since the debate, many in the media and many Democrats have viewed Kamala Harris’s well-practiced non-answer answers as a decided victory for her. While they may see it that way, there’s a very good chance that most working-class Americans do not.
After the debate, I conducted my own snap poll of friends and family members living paycheck-to-paycheck while getting battered daily by the harsh realities of life — harsh realities that everyone I spoke with believed have gotten worse under the Biden-Harris administration.
While ABC News, David Muir, Linsey Davis and Kamala Harris were seemingly in lockstep that Jan. 6, the debate about Roe v. Wade, climate change, the racial divide and a “2025 transition plan” Trump has nothing to do with were winning issues, none of those I spoke with — including working-class Democrats — had any of those on their lists of things to worry about as they struggle to pay rising bills while navigating increasing crime, crumbling infrastructure and failing bureaucracies.
To that point, Reuters headlined its debate story
“Some undecided voters not convinced by Harris after debate with Trump.”
As they reported: “Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday’s presidential debate against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the better candidate.” The news service interviewed 10 undecided voters. After the debate, six said they would vote for Trump or lean toward him. Five said they found Harris vague on how she would improve the economy. Those who switched to Trump — the majority — said that while they may not like him personally, they trusted him more on the economy and that their personal financial situation was better when he was president.
Next, we come to the left-leaning CNN. Although its post-debate snap poll
showed Harris the winner by a wide margin, there was some very bad news for the vice president folded into the report. Before the debate, Trump was leading Harris on the economy 53 to 37. After the debate, Trump jumped up two points to 55 while Harris fell to 35.
Next, we come to some less conventional so-called polls. First, at a small bakery in blue Montgomery County in swing-state Pennsylvania, we have the “cookie poll.” As reported by Fox News
, 4,228 cookies were sold expressing support for Trump, whereas only 369 were sold expressing support for Harris.
Is this remotely scientific? Of course not. Does it have some real meaning? Yes. In a blue suburban county, a vast majority of cookie buyers “voted” for Trump with their cookie purchases. To be sure, one of the reasons they did so was because it was an anonymous vote. In some ways, that gives it more weight than an “official” poll.
Back in 2016, I came across a similar food “poll” at a restaurant in blue Boca Raton, Florida. Customers could “vote” by either ordering a “Hillary” burger or a “Trump” burger. Walking into that establishment in early October 2016, I was shocked to see the Trump vote dramatically ahead. To me, that silly, anonymous vote in a blue stronghold represented a “canary in the coal mine” warning for the Clinton campaign. That warning was proven correct when Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency one month later.
As we enter the homestretch of the 2024 election, Harris is trying to pull off the greatest magic trick in the history of American politics. She is attempting to make the Biden-Harris administration disappear. She wants to convince voters that she and President Biden had nothing to do with the last three-and-a-half years.
More than that, Harris seemingly wants to pretend that Trump is somehow the incumbent president, and that she is the upstart “change” candidate fighting against the failed policies of the last three-and-a-half years. It is surreal to say the least.
It is a slick sleight of hand doomed to fail, because people will believe their “lying eyes.” For tens of millions of voters, the number one failure of the Biden-Harris administration is the economy, quickly followed by immigration, crime and health care. These voters will tie the incumbent vice president to those failures.
Harris, elitist Democrats, academics, media personalities and celebrities existing in entitled bubbles of luxury and personal safety can embrace Jan. 6, Roe v. Wade, etc. all they want, but this election is still going to come down to the bread-and-butter issues of the economy, immigration, crime and affordable and reliable healthcare.
And on that score, it will be the Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck who will push Trump over the top to victory in November.
