Insight: “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.” —Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838)

Upright: “BLM has been co-opted, and when I say co-opted, I mean teachers unions who show up to these woke BLM marches. … So if we’re talking about propaganda, we need to be looking at the teachers unions, and the sick mess that they’re putting out there that’s keeping our children out of schools these past couple of years, keeping the masks on our children. We need to unmask the illiteracy machine … with our education system.” —Rashard Turner

Observations: “As a society, we are growing increasingly self-interested. Citizenship brings responsibility beyond self-interest. … The social and cultural segregation in our country is directly contributing to the coarseness of our national culture and politics. We no longer just disagree in America; we vilify those who don’t share our views. … When you have little interaction with those who don’t share your background or beliefs, it’s easy to view them as caricatures. It becomes easier to demonize or marginalize them. This results in the sort of fissures we have in America today and the normalization of summary political violence; we’ve all seen it. Left to fester, these dynamics lead to the downfall of societies.” —Neil Patel

Political futures: “With Republicans restored to the House next year and Sen. Mitch McConnell on the cusp of regaining power, why on earth would Democrats want to scrap the filibuster? They will need it against McConnell and House Republicans. Unfortunately, Democrats cannot be honest. They must instead, with help from friends in the press, go through the ritualistic and stylized dance of defeat that signals to the base they care and are fighters while privately knowing defeat was always the only outcome. Democrats will inevitably have hell to pay from their base as Republicans did. The difference between them and Republicans is Trump was actually far closer to mainstream America than the far left. That gives the GOP one more advantage moving forward, even if the press and Democrats cannot admit it.” —Erick Erickson

Re: The ruling class: “The Biden administration has recently called for a 90-day intelligence community review into the origins of the pandemic, which is welcome news for those of us who have called COVID-19 a ‘Chinese Chernobyl’ demanding serious geopolitical accountability since day one — but sad news for those who may have presumed a modicum of intellectual honesty from our political elites. American politics is currently in the throes of a populist moment. That populist moment is characterized by widespread distrust of elites and a perceived ever-widening chasm between the ruling class’s prerogatives and the wishes of the American people at large. As we finally begin to emerge from COVID-19, that chasm will only grow wider. The ruling class has finally sullied itself one time too many.” —Josh Hammer

The bottom line: “The butchers of Beijing got away with the Tiananmen Square massacre. They got away with seizing Hong Kong. Almost immediately after communist China violated the treaty it made over Hong Kong’s sovereignty, it was ‘back to business as usual.’ The world shrugs as communist China suppresses free speech, oppresses religious liberty and commits genocide against ethnic minorities. But as I have repeatedly argued, trade with communist China has not changed communist China. It has changed us.” —Gary Bauer

For the record: “January 6th was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. … President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office, and I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day. But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.” —Mike Pence

Re: The Left: “One of the most disturbing developments of the past few months has been the Biden administration’s wholehearted embrace of the radical left’s all-encompassing assault on American culture and values. Under the Biden administration, patriotic education has been replaced with political indoctrination.” —Mike Pence

And last… “Just saw a guy riding a bike on a major road [with] lots of cars — without a helmet but … with a mask. People have lost all sense of risk analysis.” —Tom Elliott