POLITICS: DC Dems out to get John Fetterman, crackdown on dissent and other commentary

Reporter: DC Dems Out To Get Fetterman

Sen. John Fetterman’s “mental acuity was just fine to Democrats. But then he stood up for Israel,” observes the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. Now, anonymous staffers are trying to paint him as “Joe Biden 2.0” In fact, “there is nothing wrong with Fetterman’s mental acuity” and “the only thing wrong with him is that his staff could no longer control his message.” The effort to take him down is rooted in “his unapologetic support for Israel and for securing the border.” Democrats thought they could “control” Fetterman and still don’t get “his unique appeal to voters” or “that he marches to the beat of his own drum.” Should he seek reelection, “Pennsylvania voters will once again teach Washington, D.C., experts and strategists that they still don’t get Pennsylvania.”

Eye on Germany: Foolish Crackdown on Dissent

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency classified the rising Alternative for Germany party as a right-wing extremist group is “a shocking escalation in the establishment’s crackdown” on the AfD, warns Spiked’s Sabine Beppler-Spahl. The classification “paves the way for an outright ban of the party.” AfD’s leaders have used “undoubtedly inflammatory rhetoric,” but this “should be challenged through open debate and contestation, not banned.” “Germans are turning towards the AfD because they feel betrayed by the mainstream parties on immigration, terrorism and Net Zero,” even as “the party’s more extreme leaders . . . remain personally unpopular.” The real problem: “The political class does not see any dissent on migration or multiculturalism as legitimate, leaving the AfD as the only game in town for those who want these issues to be addressed.”

Conservative: Fixing Joe’s Student-Loan Mess

President Joe Biden created a mess by repeatedly promising “the more than 40 million federal student loan borrowers either outright loan ‘cancellation’ or payment plans that were greatly reduced or completely zeroed out”; now President Trump is cleaning it up, cheers USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques. “Biden essentially fashioned a new entitlement program — on the backs of taxpayers” and in defiance of multiple court rulings. “After years of being made to feel their debt wasn’t really their problem, many student loan holders are finding themselves in difficult situations,” with “a record high — 20.5%” now “seriously delinquent” on payments. “The Trump administration is bringing sanity back” by confirming “loans should actually be repaid.”

From the right: Start of the ‘Golden Age’

“Trump is the opposite of the Republicans who preceded him,” argues Dan McCarthy at The American Mind: “They specialized in telling conservatives what they wanted to hear, but they were afraid to act.” Now, “on Roe, on racial discrimination against whites and Asians, on immigration, on fulfilling Ronald Reagan’s pledge to dismantle the Department of Education, and on most other priorities for the American Right,” Trump has “done more for conservative principles” in his first 100 days back than “the last two Republican presidents, the Bushes, did in their combined 12 years in the White House.” He “won’t win every battle, either in the law courts or in the court of public opinion. But he changes the political landscape just by engaging in the fight.”

Ed desk: Who Is Mohsen Mahdawi?

Recently freed Columbia anti-Israel agitator “Mohsen Mahdawi has portrayed himself as a blameless victim of a heavy-handed effort by the Trump administration to punish foreign students for their political opinions,” notes The Free Press’ Maya Sulkin. But “court filings, a police report, and social media posts paint a very different — and much more troubling — picture.” Per one police report, Mahdawi told a Vermont gun-shop owner he wanted to work there, for free, to learn about weapons and that he had used custom-built guns to “kill Jews while he was in Palestine.” He also called his terrorist cousin a “fierce resistance fighter” and “dreamer of liberation.” Odd choice to join “a new group whose members were paid a stipend” by the university to create “‘an opportunity for students to learn from each other.’”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board