Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

Demystifying France’s ‘political miracle’
The whiplash-inducing headlines offer globally relevant lessons about the folly of journalists assuming the popular will ahead of its expression. But the surprising topline results risk masking a much more complicated ongoing story. For starters (and as many headlines did also attest overnight) it’s highly uncertain what will happen next: no party or bloc has a legislative majority, leaving the identity of the next prime minister unclear and elevating the odds of long-term chaos. (Macron is slated to remain president through 2027 whatever happens, but the new legislative arithmetic could significantly erode his power and force him to “cohabit” with a prime minister from a rival party.) Nor should the underperformance of the far right obscure the extent to which it has already eaten its way to the heart of French public life—not least in the media arena. The election campaign offered further evidence of this trend, even if many voters ultimately said no.
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The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage
But critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. Recognizing this inequity is the easy part, but here’s the harder realization: The double standard is a structural problem, it won’t change, and everyone in the prodemocracy coalition needs to grit their teeth and accept that reality.

The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.

Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior. The NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who regularly warns about Trump’s fascistic plans, posted in frustration yesterday that the top stories in several national publications were all about Biden, and not about “Trump and Epstein, Trump and Putin, Trump telling us to inject bleach, Trump wanting to deport up to 20 million.” (If you’re looking for in-depth reporting about the unique threats Trump poses to American democracy, I suggest revisiting the special package in our January/February issue, “If Trump Wins.”)
America, Don’t Succumb to Escapism
The nihilism seeping into American culture today resembles that which marked the last decade of the Soviet bloc countries. After the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, it took 18 full days before then–Premier Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a national address to explain the disturbing rumors. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. government officials tried to cope with perceived mask shortages by telling the noble lie that masking was unnecessary. Soon after, President Trump downplayed the pandemic and falsely claimed that a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin offered protection against Covid-19. Both contexts birthed innumerable conspiracy theories. [...]

Faced with a broken two-party system, growing partisan divisions, a deeply politicized Supreme Court ignoring serious charges of ethical misconduct, gerrymandered voting districts, a widely unwanted replay of the 2020 election, and the possible demise of American democracy as we know it, who wouldn’t want to lose themselves in a feel-good beach read during a vinyasa bootcamp at a spa retreat on a remote island? As the poet Audre Lorde once said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.”

But internal emigration can cultivate the habit of apathy. The very real desire to protect oneself from the pressures of an unjust system promotes disengagement and undermines our cognitive capacities for hope. More importantly, when the system unexpectedly changes, we may be unprepared to fight for a new world.
NATO’s New Boss: Affable, Pragmatic and Ready for Trump, if Required
As it celebrates its 75th anniversary with a summit in Washington this week, NATO, which was founded to deter the former Soviet Union from further expansion in Europe, has found renewed purpose in its support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Beyond that challenge, NATO faces a Russian government forging stronger ties with China and Iran, even as Beijing tries to dominate Asia and Tehran expands its nuclear program.

Leading member states like France and Germany are dealing with the empowerment of far-right parties with clear sympathies for Moscow. Hungary and Turkey are authoritarian democracies. And there are new demands to spend more money on the military. (...)

But Mr. Rutte, 57, has managed four difficult and different ruling coalitions in the Netherlands with aplomb, putting the need for agreement before personal ideology. He is a known quantity for other leaders, and has been praised both by President Biden, who pushed him to take the job, and by Mr. Trump, who once said after an Oval Office meeting, “I like this guy!”
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Black House Democrats embrace Biden at another critical juncture
With Biden once again on the political ropes, some Black members of the House appear ready to rally behind the embattled chief executive, in an embrace that will significantly influence whether the Democratic president can stay in his reelection race, according to five people familiar with the conversations.

The importance of the roughly 60-member Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) — which includes Clyburn and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — was on display Monday night as Biden met with the bloc in a Zoom call, the first with a group of elected lawmakers. The message that many Black Democrats planned to convey to Biden, according to the people familiar with the CBC’s thinking: We will stick by you as we always have. [...]

The desire to defend Biden appears to be so widespread among the CBC members, three people aligned with the group said, it is possible the group formalizes its support for him in a statement over the next several days. The group’s influence could blunt the widespread concerns of other colleagues about Biden, and possibly sway Jeffries’s opinion as to how House Democrats should respond in an unprecedented moment.

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