As the Democratic party tumbles into the morass of racial and identity politics, Joe Biden will find it almost impossible to unify his own party, let alone America. Donald Trump faced an unfairly hostile press and was burdened with innumerable deficits of his own making, but in comparison with Joe Biden he held one clear advantage at the outset of his term: he had beaten fair and square his ideological rivals in his own party. The GOP establishment retained considerable power in the House and Senate—and Trump couldn’t govern without them. But Trump had beaten—no, whipped—Bush and Rubio and Cruz, and…

he number of Hong Kong residents seeking emigration to Taiwan has reached new highs since China passed its national security law this summer, a new report said today. Applicants include professionals in industry and academia, but civil servants currently serving in the Hong Kong government have also joined the waiting list, according to World Journal, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States. Citing the latest figures from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong, as well as local immigration service providers, the report said there had been a marked increase in immigration paper submissions since the anti‑extradition bill protests in June 2019, despite Taiwan's…

Nearly all lawmakers present during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday expressed opposition to President Trump’s troop drawdown in Afghanistan from 4,500 troops to 2,500 troops by January 15, despite little public appetite for keeping U.S. military involvement going. Both Republicans and Democrats at the hearing expressed reservations about the decision, which was announced last week at the Pentagon by Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, in accordance with Trump’s goal to end the war in Afghanistan. Republicans and Democrats on the committee expressed concern about whether 2,500 troops were too few to stave off a takeover of the…

America’s longest war has just entered its 20th year. The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda. Now, nearly a decade after the death of Osama bin Laden, the Afghan war continues. And everyone expects that if the Americans ever leave, the Taliban will return to power. Yet the Taliban who take charge will not be the same as those who harbored bin Laden. The median age in Afghanistan is around 19 years old: half the country’s population was born after the war began. The US is not fighting a limited reservoir of Taliban militants; it…

1. One day near the end of 2014, a nineteen-year-old white University of Michigan student named Andrew Jacob was sitting in his dorm, thinking about the police. All he seemed to hear that fall were complaints: about the cop who strangled unarmed Eric Garner, the cop who shot unarmed Michael Brown, the cop who killed twelve-year-old Tamir Rice. Black lives matter, sure, Jacob thought, but what about blue lives? Jacob, who grew up in an affluent Detroit suburb, was not from a police family and had no interest in going into law enforcement, but his father had recently started a…