[View Article at Source]Keir Starmer is looking to reopen the referendum’s wounds to shore up his own political prospects. The post The Brits Can’t Seem to Move On From Brexit appeared first on The…

[View Article at Source]Washington’s decision to lift sanctions on a Bosnian Serb leader threatens the region’s delicate balance. The post The Trump Administration’s Policies Are Disrupting the…

Incredible Upset For Republicans

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Foreign Affairs The Rise of German Nationalism Exposes Washington’s Delusions More hysteria can only hurt the U.S. approach to Europe and the Ukraine war. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP via Getty Images) The recent electoral surge of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which secured 20.8 percent in February’s snap election and won state elections in Thuringia last year, has predictably triggered alarm bells throughout Washington’s foreign policy establishment. The usual suspects are warning of a new Nazi threat, the collapse of the transatlantic alliance, and the end of Western civilization as we know it. But beneath the hyperbole lies a more complex reality that American policymakers would be wise to understand rather than reflexively condemn. Let’s be clear about what’s happening. The AfD’s rise is not some inexplicable resurgence of fascism but rather a predictable political backlash against decades of failed policies—economic stagnation in eastern Germany, botched immigration policies, and Berlin’s costly entanglement in the Ukraine conflict. When the mainstream parties offered voters more of the same, voters looked elsewhere. Washington’s foreign policy blob has responded with its standard playbook: demonize, isolate, and lecture. Yet this approach fundamentally misunderstands both German politics and American interests. The same establishment that assured us NATO expansion posed no threat to Russia, that the Iraq War would be a cakewalk, and that Afghanistan could be turned into a democracy now wants us to believe that AfD supporters are crypto-Nazis rather than ordinary Germans fed up with bearing the costs of extreme liberalism and America’s geopolitical adventures. The AfD’s supposedly pro-Russian stance has become the primary focus of establishment anxiety, and here the panic reaches its crescendo. The party opposes sanctions on Russia, calls for an end to weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and advocates diplomatic engagement with Moscow. To the Beltway consensus, this represents treachery. To realists, it represents Germans acting in their perceived national interest. Germany imports its energy, and Russian gas was both cheap and reliable until Washington pushed for a confrontation that Germans never asked for. The AfD’s opposition to the Ukraine war is not driven by admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin—though some members certainly harbor such views—but by a cold calculation that bleeding Russia white in Ukraine is not worth Germany’s economic security. Right or wrong, this is a legitimate policy position, not evidence of Kremlin control. Yes, there are concerning ties between some AfD figures and Russian operatives. But let’s not pretend this is unprecedented. Gerhard Schröder, the former center-left chancellor, sat on the boards of Russian energy companies. German business has been deeply embedded with Russia for decades with the blessing of every government. The selective outrage now directed at the AfD while ignoring decades of establishment Ostpolitik is transparently political. The real question for American interests is what the AfD’s rise means for NATO and European security. Here, the conventional wisdom gets it backward. The foreign policy establishment warns that AfD’s skepticism toward NATO threatens the alliance. But NATO’s crisis predates the AfD and stems, in part, from a more fundamental problem: Most NATO members, including mainstream German parties, won’t adequately fund their own defense. Consider the poll showing that 61 percent of AfD supporters would fight to defend Germany, compared to just 22 percent of Green Party supporters—the very same Greens who most vocally support the Ukraine war and German rearmament in theory. The sovereigntist right wants a strong national defense but opposes using German resources to fight America’s proxy war with Russia. The establishment left talks tough about standing up to Putin but won’t personally risk anything and opposes conscription at home. From a purely American strategic perspective, which is more valuable: European allies who will fight for their own countries but not for Washington’s geopolitical projects, or allies who enthusiastically support American interventions but won’t fund their own militaries or risk their own soldiers? For decades, American foreign policy has been predicated on the notion that European interests automatically align with American interests, and that Germany in particular should subordinate its economic and strategic calculations to whatever Washington currently defines as the “rules-based international order.” This was always a delusion, and the AfD’s rise makes that delusion harder to sustain. German voters are increasingly questioning whether their interests are served by confronting Russia, by accepting unlimited immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, or by deferring to Brussels on matters of national sovereignty. These are legitimate questions for German voters to decide, not matters for Washington to dictate. The more the American foreign policy establishment demands German compliance with its agenda, the more it will fuel exactly the kind of nationalist backlash represented by the AfD. If we strip away the moralizing and focus on concrete American interests, what does the AfD surge actually mean? First, it makes clear that Europe will not automatically be a reliable partner for American military adventures. The Afghanistan and Iraq experiences already taught this lesson, but apparently it needs reinforcing. Europeans will not fight America’s wars in Asia or the Middle East, and increasingly they won’t even support proxy conflicts on their own doorstep if the costs become too high. Second, it demonstrates that NATO’s conventional deterrent depends on political will that may not exist. No amount of Leopard tanks or F-35s matters if the populations of NATO countries are unwilling to use them. The alliance needs to reckon with this reality rather than papering it over with empty declarations of unity. Third, it suggests that forcing a choice between relations with Russia and relations with America may not produce the answer Washington expects. Germany has legitimate economic interests in Eurasia that the United States cannot and will not compensate for. Demanding Germans choose between their own prosperity and America’s strategic goals is likely to backfire. Rather than treating the AfD as a threat to be contained, American policymakers should view it as a signal that current policies are unsustainable. This doesn’t mean embracing the AfD’s agenda wholesale or ignoring genuine concerns about extremist elements within the party. It means recognizing that German voters have agency and that their revolt against the status quo contains legitimate grievances that won’t disappear through demonization. A realistic American policy would accept that Germany will pursue closer economic relations with Russia when the Ukraine conflict eventually ends, that Berlin will prioritize European over global military commitments, and that German voters will not indefinitely subsidize American grand strategy at the expense of their own economic interests. These are features of a multipolar world, not bugs to be fixed through more American pressure. The alternative—doubling down on a failing strategy, escalating tensions with Russia, and demanding ever-greater German compliance—will only strengthen the very forces Washington claims to oppose. The AfD thrives on the narrative that mainstream parties serve foreign interests rather than German ones. Every American attempt to dictate German policy choices validates that narrative. The AfD’s rise challenges comfortable assumptions in Washington about European subordination to American leadership. The establishment’s hysterical response suggests they prefer the comfortable delusions to uncomfortable reality. But American interests are better served by clear-eyed realism than by wishful thinking. Germany will not become the Fourth Reich. NATO will not collapse because Germans question whether their prosperity should be sacrificed to support an unwinnable proxy war. And the transatlantic alliance will better survive if it’s based on genuine shared interests rather than enforced conformity to Washington’s agenda. The question is whether American policymakers can adapt to this new reality or whether they will continue insisting that any deviation from their preferred script represents an existential threat. Based on Washington’s track record, betting on wisdom would be unwise. But one can always hope. The post The Rise of German Nationalism Exposes Washington’s Delusions appeared first on The American Conservative.

UK Special Coverage The Brits Can’t Seem to Move On From Brexit Keir Starmer is looking to reopen the referendum’s wounds to shore up his own political prospects. UK Special Coverage It will soon be 10 years since the referendum on British membership of the European Union. But Brits just can’t seem to let Brexit go. The Labour prime minister Keir Starmer has, in a lengthy interview in the Observer newspaper, renewed speculation about the UK rejoining the EU. His deputy, David Lammy, has more or less said he supports rejoining.  It will never happen, for reasons to be explained. But why is the British government apparently seeking to revive the intense culture war that followed the original Brexit vote? The decision to leave the European Union, which Britain joined half a century ago when it was the European Economic Community, was on a very narrow result. In the Brexit referendum in June 2016, 52 percent voted to leave against 48 percent for remaining in the 28-nation-strong union. The result was a huge shock for the media, which had expected a Remain victory, and also to the liberal-left British establishment. The Conservative prime minister David Cameron resigned the morning after the vote. The losers refused to accept the result. Commentators in the left-wing Guardian and Observer newspapers claimed that voters had been duped by Russian misinformation spread by internet algorithms and that prominent Brexit campaigners had received Russian funding. An inquiry by the Electoral Commission found claims of interference to be baseless, but many on the left still believe that it was Putin who tipped the balance against Remain. Politicians of the left went on to argue that such a momentous decision should not have been taken on such a small margin of votes (though they would never have said this had it gone the other way). There were years of anti-Brexit marches and demonstrations outside Westminster. Starmer (before he became Labour leader) and Scotland’s then–First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP led a movement calling for a repeat referendum. Sturgeon said that, since Scots had voted to remain in the EU, Scotland should be allowed to leave the UK. Eventually, after epic late-night battles in the House of Commons over the exact terms of the Brexit deal with Brussels, Britain formally left the EU in January 2020. The new Tory prime minister Boris Johnson had won a near-landslide election victory on his promise to “get Brexit done.”  But Remainers still wouldn’t give up claiming that British economic growth had been suppressed by Brexit. In fact, UK growth since the referendum compares favorably with comparable economies like France and Germany.  The division over Europe became part of the wider culture war between the pro-immigration liberal UK elites in academia, the media and big corporations, and the so-called “left-behinds,” working-class voters in economically disadvantaged areas, who were opposed to mass immigration. Britain has never been more divided. This unresolved divide has disfigured UK society and is undoubtedly contributing to Britain’s economic and geopolitical malaise. So—can Keir Starmer be serious about reopening these wounds and setting off another Brexit civil war? He promised before he was elected prime minister in July 2024 that Labour would not rejoin the European Single Market, the Customs Union, or the Schengen free-movement zone. So what is he up to now? The prospect of staging another referendum on rejoining the EU would be madness, especially given the unpopularity of the Labour government and of Starmer himself. He is, in some opinion polls, the most unpopular prime minister since records began in 1977. Why would he seek to plunge into another minefield? He must know anyway that it will never happen. This is because the European Union will not welcome the errant UK back in with open arms. It will impose a heavy price on British reentry, if only pour encourager les autres. Only last month Brussels effectively barred Britain from joining the SAFE European defense funding arrangement by demanding a punitive entry fee, which the UK government simply could not accept. Brussels has made it abundantly clear that Britain would have to crawl on its knees back into the fold. Before Britain left the European Union, it had a rather privileged and probably unrepeatable deal. Most important, it had secured an opt-out from the euro—the European Single Currency. Countries that seek to join Europe normally have to accept the euro as their currency as a condition of membership. But not Britain. The UK also had a significant rebate from the European budget negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Britain would also have to adopt the very visa-free movement of EU citizens to Britain that was the source of much of the controversy over immigration before Brexit.  The idea that Starmer would again throw open Britain’s borders, throw billions of public money at Brussels, and accept membership of the single currency that has been blamed for repeated financial crises in Europe, is for the birds. It just isn’t going to happen. So again, why has Starmer reopened this issue? Sheer incompetence cannot be ruled out. Starmer has been hopelessly adrift since he entered Number 10 and this might just be another dimension of his government’s dysfunction. It is true that in some opinion polls voters seem to look favourably on the EU. Some Brexit voters are definitely experiencing buyers’ remorse. Publications like the Financial Times and the Economist think Britain has lost out because it is excluded, in various degrees, from Europe’s 500-million-strong market. But that is before they stop to think what rejoining might entail. Starmer is of course a diehard Remainer, and it may be that he believes he can secure more support in the fractious Labour Party, and see off political rivals, by raising the EU standard. Labour’s heartland is no longer in the working-class seats of the North and other areas of the so-called “Red Wall,” but in well-to-do urban seats in places like Oxford and central London. These tend to be very “Remainer” constituencies. It also helps Labour in Scotland. But this looks more and more like another political own-goal by a politician who became prime minister almost by accident. The most common observation of voters in focus groups, and among members of the Labour Party, is that they don’t know what Starmer stands for. It’s not entirely clear that he knows himself. He became Labour leader promising to nationalize utilities and scrap university tuition fees, and then dumped left-wing policies as soon as he was elected. For a prime minister at sea, perhaps the coast of Europe looks a bit like a safe haven. But he should know it is actually a deadly exposed reef. The post The Brits Can’t Seem to Move On From Brexit appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs The Trump Administration’s Policies Are Disrupting the Balkans Washington’s decision to lift sanctions on a Bosnian Serb leader threatens the region’s delicate balance. (Photo by ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP via Getty Images) Siniša Karan’s victory in the November 23 snap presidential election for Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constituent polities, reinforces the enduring grip of the former President Milorad Dodik. Declaring that his opponents had merely “got two Dodiks” this time, Dodik made clear that his influence remains undiminished. Dodik stepped down, following a court decision that required Dodik to pay a fine that spared him a prison sentence for actions undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s delicate order; yet the former president of Republika Srpska continues to loom large over the Bosnian-Serb entity’s political landscape despite being officially out of office. Karan’s win came less than a month after U.S. President Donald J. Trump suddenly and surprisingly lifted U.S. sanctions on Dodik, which had been in place since early 2017. The move, just 12 days after four of Dodik’s allies in Republika Srpska were removed from the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, stunned many in the Western Balkans. This development seems to have established a more direct line between Washington and Dodik.  This recalibration raises pressing questions about the role of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s government. Though Belgrade has long criticized U.S. sanctions targeting Republika Srpska’s leadership, many in Serbia’s political circles now think Dodik effectively sold out Banja Luka’s closest ally, Belgrade, to secure an understanding with the United States at Serbia’s expense. To say that 2025 has tested Vučić’s government would be an understatement. As political polarization deepens and public discontent swells over corruption scandals and environmental threats, the once-delicate East–West balance of Serbia’s foreign policy has been faltering. Accused of betrayal by Moscow for supplying arms to Kiev via Western  countries while facing heightened pressure from the United States and the European Union over its ties to Russia, Belgrade now finds itself squeezed from both sides almost four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Amid these converging crises, Vučić’s primary focus has been on shoring up his government’s position at home, even as he tries to prevent the country’s geopolitical tightrope from snapping. The result is leadership consumed by domestic survival while navigating an increasingly unforgiving international landscape.  These internal pressures heightened Belgrade’s hopes that the second Trump administration would provide Serbia’s government with relief. But this hope has so far proven misplaced. What Vučić and his inner circle had optimistically heralded as the start of a new era in Serbia-U.S. relations has instead revealed itself to be an unexpectedly rocky chapter. Far from finding easy rapport in Washington, Serbian officials have struggled to gain meaningful traction with Trump’s team, leaving expectations unfulfilled and strategic hopes adrift. As winter approaches, one problem looms especially large: the status of Pančevo, Serbia’s sole oil refinery. U.S. sanctions on Serbia’s Oil Industry (Naftna Industrija Srbije, NIS), which has been majority-owned by Russia since 2008, recently forced Pančevo to suspend operations after Belgrade failed to secure an operating license from Washington. Now energy security constitutes a major front in an already mounting list of challenges facing Belgrade. The refinery crisis only compounded a broader sense in Belgrade that Washington has become increasingly difficult to manage. It is no secret that officials in Vučić’s government were not pleased with the recent lifting of U.S. sanctions on Dodik and his Bosnian-Serb associates. The main reason has to do with the fact that this deal between Trump’s administration and Dodik was done autonomously from Belgrade.  “Both Vučić and Dodik made a bet on Donald Trump, expecting that they will build a stronger relationship with his administration. As it turned out, Dodik’s bet paid off by having sanctions against him lifted,” explained Vuk Vuksanović, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, in an interview with The American Conservative. He noted that Serbia, of all Western Balkan countries, was in August hit with the stiffest tariffs at 35 percent.  Vuksanović observed that Vučić has been unable to form any coherent policy toward the second Trump administration. He added that it remains unclear why the planned May meeting between the Serbian and American presidents in Mar-a-Lago, Florida was cancelled under “dubious circumstances,” even if Vučić’s health was the official reason. Since 2012, Belgrade routinely played a role in calming the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina through its leverage over Republika Srpska and, more specifically, over Dodik as an individual Bosnian-Serb leader. This helped Serbia present itself to the United States and EU members as a stabilizing player in the Western Balkans that Washington and European capitals had to work with in order to preserve the balance established by the 1995 Dayton Accords.    “During previous U.S. administrations, Vučić had been the Serbian leader that Washington dealt with. Indeed, Vučić marketed himself to the West as someone who could ‘keep a lid on Dodik’ or ‘keep Dodik under control.’ This was one of his big selling points, integral to depicting himself as a standard bearer of regional stability,” Lily Lynch, a journalist and Balkan expert, told TAC. “However, with Dodik going directly to the Americans himself, and making real inroads with some of Trump’s inner circle, including people like Laura Loomer, Vučić appears to have been cut out. This eliminates one of Vučić’s main selling points to the West,” she added. This loss of diplomatic relevance helps explain why Belgrade reacted angrily to the Trump administration’s decision to lift the sanctions. Vučić’s media surrogates quickly launched coordinated attacks on Dodik; the most prominent allegation claimed that Dodik had agreed to support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entry into NATO, which would clearly be at odds with the former Republika Srpska president’s longstanding and unwavering opposition to Bosnian membership in the transatlantic military alliance. Nevertheless, as Lynch noted, it’s unclear whether this claim about the Bosnian path toward NATO membership is accurate. “In fact, we don’t really know any details of the deal Dodik made with the U.S. to have these sanctions lifted—but the fact that the reaction from Belgrade was so swift and strong really indicates that they were unhappy with it,” she explained to TAC. Nonetheless, despite the extent to which Vučić’s government is displeased with the deal that Dodik and his inner circle reached with Trump, Belgrade stands to gain in some respects. This mostly concerns Serbia’s financial interests. The removal of sanctions on Dodik will “relieve a certain amount of pressure from Belgrade in an economic sense because there was unconfirmed information that actually throughout this crisis Belgrade was financially helping Republika Srpska to sustain the isolation,” commented Igor Novaković, senior associate at the International and Security Affairs Centre, ISAC Fund, in an interview with TAC. He added that “now with all of this funding again at the disposal of officials in Republika Srpska, Belgrade will probably not be forced to step in again.”  As much as Serbia’s government must contend with the loss of influence as an intermediary between Washington and Banja Luka, Belgrade will maintain its relationship with the U.S. albeit with bilateral affairs undergoing various strains. The Trump administration’s decision to lift the sanctions on Dodik and others in Republika Srpska is one of many factors—and far from the most significant one—impacting Serbia-U.S. bilateral affairs. There are other cards that the leadership in Belgrade can play to curry favor with this highly transactional White House, which takes a mostly business-first approach to the Western Balkans, particularly when it comes to the Trump family’s interests in Serbia and Albania. “To secure Trump’s support, Vučić will likely have to continue making concessions to Washington. His decision to allow the construction of the Trump Tower in Belgrade on the ruins of the Army Headquarters, which was bombed by NATO in 1999, seems to be an attempt to gain Trump’s backing amid ongoing protests and Serbia’s gradual shift away from Russia,” Nikola Miković, a Belgrade-based geopolitical analyst, told TAC. On balance, the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Dodik and his allies in Banja Luka has left Belgrade more anxious than empowered. For years, Vučić skillfully leveraged his influence over Republika Srpska as a diplomatic asset, presenting himself as an indispensable interlocutor for Western powers who sought to preserve Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Daytonian equilibrium. Now, Dodik proving his ability to bypass Vučić and secure a direct channel to the Trump administration undermines Belgrade’s carefully cultivated role, unsettling Serbia at a moment when the country’s geopolitical balance is already under immense strain.  As Serbia confronts rising domestic unrest, fraying international partnerships, and deepening energy vulnerabilities, the Trump administration’s sudden moves vis-à-vis Dodik underscore a broader reality: Belgrade’s margin for maneuver is narrowing, and its long-favored strategy of controlled influence in the former Yugoslav space may be entering a far more unpredictable phase. The post The Trump Administration’s Policies Are Disrupting the Balkans appeared first on The American Conservative.

Too many classics. The post Which works are entering the public domain in 2026? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Tuesday, Melissa and I did a Spectacle Podcast segment talking about Jasmine Crockett jumping into the 2026 Texas Senate race this week, which is probably the best electoral news for the Republican Party we’ve had for a while. You can check that out here: The Spectacle Podcast: Three Cheers for Jasmine Crockett! Texas Celebrates! with hosts @MelissaTweets and @RVIVRdotcom Available on @rumblevideo and all podcast platforms. pic.twitter.com/4JlEKDfrrY — The American Spectator (@amspectator) December 10, 2025 Crockett getting in will make for an absolutely magnificent spectacle. There is no one more aggressively obnoxious, ferociously entitled, or maliciously ignorant on the national political stage at present; she is the politician more Americans love to hate than perhaps any other. That Crockett is as fake as a $3 bill in her ghetto-queen act — she went to just about the most expensive private school St. Louis has to offer, but when she speaks to the folks in the slums of the South Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas she represents, you’d never know it — makes her an even more inviting target. And Crockett’s launch ad will only invite even further negative criticism: This is a perfect ad if you’re trying to galvanize support from a niche group. It isn’t an ad you want to run if you’re trying to get over 50 percent in a statewide general election. I said in the podcast that if you’re a Republican voter in Texas, Crockett getting in and becoming the favorite on the Democrat side — after Beto O’Rourke, Joaquin Castro, and Collin Allred all passed on the race — does one specific thing for you: It gives you the freedom to vote for whoever you want in the GOP primary. Against Allred or O’Rourke, who both raised a mind-blowing amount of money and ran reasonably good campaigns against Ted Cruz in previous Senate races (neither won, but neither lost in a landslide), an argument could be made that electability was a real issue Republican primary voters would have to keep in mind. That argument was the one incumbent John Cornyn was prepared to make. But if RedState’s Teri Christoph is correct, Cornyn’s friends at the National Republican Senatorial Committee might have inadvertently destroyed that argument by having been too successful in baiting the race just right: Apparently, the people least surprised by Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) jumping into the Texas Senate race this week are Republicans, and specifically the folks at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). And that’s because they may have secretly led a campaign to convince Crockett to throw her hat into the ring. If true, it’s some seriously tasty and astro-turf-y political intrigue. According to a source close to the apparent under-the-radar campaign to get Crockett to run, the NRSC decided earlier this year that the congresswoman would be the easiest Democrat to beat and began floating her name. This decision came after a summer meeting at which Texas Democrats Colin Allred, James Talarico, Beto O’Rourke, and Joaquin Castro met to discuss who was the best candidate to take on Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term. (Cornyn has his own primary worries to consider, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) The NRSC allegedly decided to follow up that Democrat confab by putting out a poll that showed Crockett leading the field. Crockett leads a hypothetical primary field with 35% of likely Democratic voters, followed by former Democratic Texas Rep. Colin Allred at 20%, former Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro tied at 13%. Just 18% of voters said they were undecided about their preferred nominee to challenge Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is seeking his fifth Senate term. Other surveys done by the NRSC showed Crockett as the runaway favorite to nab the nomination, so they reportedly took that information and ran with it. “When we saw the results, we were like, ‘OK, we got to disseminate this far and wide,'” a source close to the process revealed. They then decided to “orchestrate the pile on of these polling numbers to really drive that news cycle and that narrative that Jasmine Crockett was surging in Texas.” The electability argument is the one the Cornyn camp has started to use against Texas’ controversial but extremely effective attorney general, Ken Paxton, who leads the polling on the GOP side. Paxton is an unapologetic conservative with a messy personal life; conservatives in the Lone Star State generally excuse his foibles because Paxton is willing to do the dirty work others won’t — whether filing the Texas v. Pennsylvania case over the 2020 election irregularities, fighting abortion and transgenderism, hammering the Biden administration over its tyrannical censorship efforts, slapping down local governments for trying to lock down cities and counties with COVID restrictions, fighting voter fraud, and going after Antifa following an attempted assassination of ICE officers. Making him precisely the right candidate for the Senate from Texas. But a viable Democrat, given the backing of the legacy corporate media, would make Paxton a heavier lift than the milquetoast Cornyn or the relatively non-controversial Wesley Hurd, the black conservative Houston-area congressman who is also in the Senate race. Hurd has also climbed over Cornyn and now sits second in the GOP primary race, according to a new poll by John McLaughlin that has Paxton at 33 percent, Hurd at 28, and Cornyn at 27. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Paxton’s support grows. He’s less of a risk against Jasmine Crockett — because no matter how divisive or aggressive Paxton might get, he’ll never hold a candle to the obnoxious craziness and idiocy flowing out of Crockett like a machine gun over the next several months. It’s hard to image the NRSC has grown competent enough to fix a race on the Democrat side. Maybe they’re just lucky. But however the result was achieved, saddling the Democrats with Jasmine Crockett would go down as one of the signature feats of starting fires in the enemy’s camp that the Republicans have pulled off over the past 100 years. It isn’t a done deal that Crockett will be the Democrats’ candidate. A state representative from Houston whose name is James Talarico is also in the race; Talarico has raised more than $6 million so far, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. But Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and middle school teacher before he got into politics, doesn’t carry the kind of oomph among national Democrats that Crockett does. He has all the bona fides — the fake progressive Christian veneer while pushing the cultural Marxist abortion/LGBTQ/climate change agenda, but effeminate white guys like Talarico who swear they aren’t gay are far too low on the intersectional totem pole to mobilize a Democrat electorate. No, it’ll be Crockett on March 3, barring something unforeseen. And if the NRSC could bait her into the race, it’s a pretty good bet they can get her the nomination. Especially since the national Democrats can’t get enough of her. But Texans absolutely can. And that’s good news for Republican voters. Particularly if they’re for Paxton. 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