Spectator A.M. #2098

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Wildfires

President Trump levied a surprise 50 percent tariff on most Canadian goods on Monday. The wisdom of this, leaving aside its legality, seems suspect. Adam Smith-purists who forget that Adam Smith worked as a customs officer reflexively reject any tariff. A strange anti-Adam Smith purism embraces any tariff. Why such an onerous levy on a friendly nation on our border whose standard of living resembles our own? Canada strikes as one the countries the United States should trade with freely (and this would require Canada’s cooperation in dropping its tariffs). The Trump administration denies that the Canadian wildfires prompted this seemingly sudden move. I similarly deny that my love for Molson Canadian and Labatt’s Blue inspired my opposition.

The Prolonged Implosion of the Maine Democratic Party

Shenna Bellows, the woman who I depicted in this video as best suited to stand athwart the populist wing of the Democratic Party in the convoluted contest to nominate a U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, withdrew from the race over the weekend. “Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy are only accelerating,” she wrote, “and the best way that I can serve our state and country at this moment is by focusing exclusively on my role as Secretary of State.” A kind word for this characterization is “spin.” Really, Troy Jackson, who in style and substance resembles the former nominee Graham Platner, essentially wrapped up the nomination over the weekend when 16 counties chose 500 delegates to the democracy pantomime that selects a Democrat to face Senator Susan Collins. Most of those delegates support Jackson. Several other candidates dropped out. Nirav Shah, for example, withdrew and immediately pledged his support for Jackson. Bellows tellingly did not do this in her withdrawal. The party people who wished to stop Platner’s movement by stopping Platner succeeded in replacing him with Teemu Platner who lacks Platner’s je ne sais quoi. A rule-or-ruin mentality usually results in much ruin and no rule.

Lost & Found

A week into my trip to Spain, I remain innocent of the country’s Ubers, taxis, and public transportation. My favorite way to see a city relies on my sneakers and not a tour bus. To this end, my iPhone records my number of steps on the first four days of my trip as follows: 10,978 (Toledo—Tuesday), 13,384 (Seville—Wednesday), 18,195 (Seville—Thursday), 14,459 (Malaga—Friday), 10,512 (Malaga—Saturday), 18,567 (Malaga—Sunday), and 10,507 (Madrid—Monday). The phone stayed at home when I jogged to the beach in Malaga on Saturday and Sunday (nobody to mind it when I swam), so some steps went uncounted. The pedestrian approach forces you to visit places that you normally would not and saves cash. Everyone prioritizes. I prefer good food to splurging on transportation and accommodations. So, I walk everywhere and sleep anywhere (sketchy hostels, dorm rooms sans private bathrooms, and airports on past European junkets). In exchange for sneakers serving as my chauffer, I eat good paella and tapas. The most memorable steps thus far came on the ascent to the top of the Giralda in Seville. You find things when you get lost.

The Contras Were Right About This Guy

Leftists who carp about Francisco Franco more than a half century after the generalissimo’s death ignore the very much alive dictators in the Spanish diaspora who oppress their fellow citizens right now. Daniel Ortega, the Communist who returned to power 17 years after his defeat in elections held in 1990, apparently does not wish for history to repeat itself. “There will be no more elections here so that they [the opposition parties] can try to seize the government, seize power,” Ortega said in a speech according to the UK’s Guardian, a left-wing publication. The octogenarian dictator explained, “We will work with the National Assembly and the relevant institutions on laws, because we need laws that build a wall, a barrier, against the coup plotters and the traitors who sell out their country.” Before Ortega more fully embraced this underwear-on-the-outside-so we-can-check mentality by unilaterally deciding to infinitely extend the term of the co-presidency he shares with his wife, his lackeys in the legislature last year voted to delay elections by one year. In 2021, he “won” an election that he rigged. In 2018, his regime began a murder spree against hundreds of its opponents. “There won’t be any more elections,” Ortega said Sunday. “Parties put in place by the Yankees, put in place by the Somoza regime, coming back to power — that story is over.” Where dissent equals treason freedom does not live.

There’s Not a Name for This Phenomenon, Is There?

My experience in the World Cup Malaga mayhem lent itself to the video I posted on my YouTube channel better than written word. But just as the written word can fail to convey what video can, video frequently serves as an inferior means of communication to the written word. I sensed that the video did not capture a feeling that the celebration induced. How can a recording of events capture a feeling? So, I turned to my go-to—words (in my head, on paper, on screens)—to write this article @ The American Spectator on why the celebration felt simultaneously like the place to be in the world and something from which I needed to quickly escape.