Insight

“The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.” —Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907)

For the Record

“Biden says we need to ‘shut down’ [coal] plants and the jobs that come with them because we need to combat climate change. One problem: Most of the rest of the world is using more coal even as we use less. Even the sanctimonious Europeans are turning to coal because their natural gas supplies from Russia are no longer reliable. Germany is even burning wood now for home heating, which is about the most environmentally damaging way to get energy. But the biggest polluting villain by far is China. Beijing is now powering its rapid industrial expansion with fossil fuels. The Chinese have more than doubled their coal production and consumption over the last decade, even as we in America have cut our domestic coal by almost half. Beijing recently announced it is building dozens of massive new coal plants. Does it sound like this nation of more than 1 billion people is concerned about climate change?” —Stephen Moore

Upright

“One of the things I’ve learned in this job is when you’re leading, when you’re getting things done, you take incoming fire. That’s just the nature of it. I roll out of bed in the morning, I’ve got corporate media outlets that have a spasm — just the fact that I’m getting up in the morning. … I don’t think any governor got attacked more, particularly by corporate media, than me over my four-year term. And yet, I think what you learn is all that’s just noise. And really what matters is, are you leading? Are you getting in front of issues? Are you delivering results for people? And are you standing up for folks? And if you do that, then none of that stuff matters. … At the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night. The fact of the matter is it was the greatest Republican victory in the history of the state of Florida." —Governor Ron DeSantis, refusing to take the media bait of a war of words with Donald Trump

Political Futures

"Following last Tuesday’s elections in which Trump-backed candidates lost, Trump began denouncing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for no reason, other than to try to weaken the governor should he decide to run for president. Trump claimed he has ‘dirt’ on DeSantis. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. … Trump then dumped on Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, saying his name ‘Young-kin’ ‘sounds Chinese,’ and claimed credit for Youngkin’s victory. … Reagan was a consummate optimist. Trump behaves like a petulant child whose toys have been taken away from him for bad behavior. … If Trump couldn’t win in 2020 and if his acerbic personality helped Democrats win both houses of Congress then and kept Republicans from scoring overwhelming victories in last week’s election, what makes anyone think he can do better in 2024? … Living in the past is for losers and Trump is the greatest loser.” —Cal Thomas

“One hopes that the lesson has finally been learned that Trump — no matter how much Republicans admire his combativeness, appreciate his entertainment value, and detest his enemies — is not a sound electoral guide, to put it mildly. … At the end of the day, he’s a plurality, not a majority, candidate. And he’s drawn to other plurality candidates, who, lacking the advantage of running in races with an electoral college or against Hillary Clinton, tend to lose. Winning 46.1% worked for Trump in 2016, but it’s a formula for failure for everyone else.” —Rich Lowry

“Since 2020, Trump could have used his clout to lead, orchestrating conservative reforms — perhaps trying to clean up shady voting systems. Instead he spent this time whining, merely endorsing candidates who indulged his grievances. Republicans need a fighter, not a grump.” —Tom Elliott

“Currently, Democrats are miles ahead of Republicans at targeting specific races and voters. Through mail balloting, they put those voters in the bank early. This year, they executed and focused and performed; that’s why they have probably saved their U.S. Senate majority, based on vote counts as of this writing. It’s why they were able to limit Republican gains in the House to maybe just a handful, or maybe none at all. A lot of pollsters missed this, because Democrats had timed a lot of their advertising to hit right when the early voting began — especially their messages on abortion. This paid dividends. They banked their voters and created a mirage for analysts who thought the races were closer than they calculated. Republicans can complain about the current rules all they want, but what they need to do is wake up and start competing with the Democrats where they are. Otherwise, they’re just leaving winnable races on the table.” —Salena Zito

The BIG Lie

“This is something no president has done since John F. Kennedy — to hold Senate seats and potentially even go up one Senate seat.” —White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain (“In 2018, Republicans increased their senate majority by 2 seats under President Trump.” —Greg Price)

Dumb & Dumber

“Not only do I disagree with my respected colleagues that having a judicial philosophy is important, I also think that … originalism … is a political signal that is actually inappropriate for judges to bring to the bench.” —Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

“Vaccine hesitancy, which was much higher among Republican voters than Democrats during COVID, led to disproportionate deaths among conservatives, and may have cost them the mid-term elections in close races.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson

And Last…

“Looking forward to Katie Hobbs auditing the results of the election Katie Hobbs was in charge of and was declared the winner of… to conclude that Katie Hobbs did nothing wrong while in charge of the election that Katie Hobbs was declared the winner of.” —Tim Young