POLITICS: Dems no-risk strategy will fail, Kimmel will just keep on lying and other commentary

From the left: Dems No-Risk Strategy Will Fail

After Kamala Harris’ defeat, The Atlantic’s Marc Novicoff figured, “surely more Democrats would start coming out of the woodwork to advertise their moderate cultural views, and the idea of a radical Democratic Party would begin to fade away.”

But no: Even those who make the argument that “the party has weakened itself by being out of touch” “haven’t followed it to its natural conclusion by moving significantly rightward on any major issue.”

Most leading Dems “seem focused on adjustments to the party’s communication style, rather than to its substantive positions.”

The “fear of backlash” from those espousing “radical left-wing cultural views” results in “tactical silence.”

Sorry: Choosing a strategy that “offends no one and incurs little risk” is “unlikely to work.”

Culture critic: Kimmel Will Just Keep on Lying

“Judging from his opening monologue,” Jimmy Kimmel “has learned nothing about his own behavior, he’s not sorry, and if anything, he’s now emboldened to do it again,” thunders National Review’s Dan McLaughlin.

Yes, the late-night comedian “hit a few good notes,” like “praising Erika Kirk for forgiving her husband’s murderer.”

And he said he never meant to blame any “specific group” for the killer’s actions.

Yet “nowhere does he say the least bit to correct the lie he told his audience previously” — that “the shooter was not a MAGA right-winger.”

It seems “sincerely recanting and apologizing” was beyond “Kimmel. And now, he knows that he got away with it. Which makes it that much likelier that he’ll do it again.”

From the right: The Conservative Counterculture

The “new American youth counterculture movement looks very different from” the 1960s, focusing on “a renewal toward more traditional American values,” marvels the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito.

“Every counterculture movement is a rebellion against the dominant culture”; today, that’s the far-left ideology rampant in “government, institutions, technology, academia, corporations, Hollywood, and legacy media.”

“What has been missing for many young people is a relationship with God,” and that’s driving people in their 20s and 30s to “return to church.”

Last Thursday, “600 college students showed up for a first-ever ‘Pitt for Jesus’ event,” at the University of Pittsburgh. Though such events “are happening under the radar from the national press,” the movement “centered on faith and purpose” is very real.

Foreign desk: ExxonMobil’s Russia Squeeze

“ExxonMobil made the right call” by ending rumors it was “in secret negotiations with Russian officials” about returning to the country, argues Edward Verona at The Hill.

ExxonMobil already “had to write off $4 billion” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to sanctions forcing the company to scrap its Sakhalin I project.

“What would it have meant to go back to Russia?” The United States “would have to lift sanctions.”

And even then, investors would be “subject to the whims of Vladimir Putin.”

Plus, “companies rarely make capital-intensive, long-term investments on the strength of good relations between two political leaders, especially Trump and Putin.”

And consider the optics: “It was hard for the company to recover its reputation after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe. That was oil; now it is blood that is being spilled.”

Educator: The Secrets of Jewish Endurance

After the Six-Day War, recalls Eric Cohen at The Wall Street Journal, Jewish intellectual Milton Himmelfarb “quipped: ‘The number of Jews in the world is smaller than a small statistical error in the Chinese census. Yet we remain bigger than our numbers.’ ”

Amid the “struggle for the Western soul,” the National Endowment for the Humanities last week granted Cohen’s organization, the Jewish educational center Tikvah, its largest gift ever.

The purpose: to respond to antisemitism “with the serious study of Jewish civilization.”

“Classical Jewish texts” focus on “enduring truths,” “Jewish ideas are central to the American character,” and Jewish endurance “is a sign of Jewish exceptionalism.”

Perhaps by studying “Jewish civilization, the U.S. will discover the secrets of ensuring our own national flourishing for millennia.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board