Some commentators used to call it President Donald Trump’s “superpower.” For whatever reason, no matter the quality of the opposition research hurled into the public eye about then-candidate Trump or President Trump, it would just not seem to stick. &#8220;Teflon Don,&#8221; they have called him. For a day, maybe even a week, his poll numbers would drop — but for nearly an entire term, he has nonetheless hovered at around <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html">45% favorability</a>. Ultimately, he has seemed <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/06/15/trumps-superpowers-have-their-limitations/">“immune to the sort of gaffes that typically wound other politicians.”</a>
But as the Democratic Party presidential primary rages on, it has become clear that President Trump doesn’t have a superpower at all. The game of politics has simply changed from that which we were accustomed. In the previous era, where politicians were polished and consumers of political debate were competent, politics amounted to a game of gaffe avoidance. The first one to give up the act was clearly the less competent contender, so we voted for the other guy.
Times have changed. Pseudo media outrage has made nothing outrageous anymore. Hyper-partisan reporting out of Washington and New York has deemed quality reporting increasingly irrelevant. Between that and an ever-changing social media landscape, people simply have shorter memories than in the past. Things only matter as they are happening and are quickly deemed ephemeral or meaningless. Brett Kavanaugh was only an alleged rapist until his U.S. Supreme Court nomination could no longer be defeated. Net neutrality only killed people until it didn’t. And so forth.
With the media’s malpractice and the general populace&#8217;s consumption of their product, the important stories that matter are often overlooked. As such, it often seems that nothing that is actually helpful comes from our frenetic, never-ending news cycle.
Let&#8217;s then return to Trump’s ‘superpower,’ which is not actually exclusive to him at all. If it were exclusive, for instance, then gaffe machine former Vice President Joe Biden would not still be the frontrunner for his party&#8217;s 2020 presidential nomination. He would be long gone by now. But despite all his manifold gaffes, he stays at the top with the hypocritical ‘anti-1%’ one-percenter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
It’s quite clear that the non-charismatic and, frankly, not particularly talented Joe Biden does not have any such &#8220;superpower.&#8221; Certainly, no charisma has helped him remain at the top, yet there he remains. The lesson to learn for voters, then, is that President Trump’s steadfast base of support and &#8220;teflon&#8221; status is the new norm — and is likely not specific to him.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) made the mistake of thinking that bad press does sticks in our generation. He gave up his Senate seat for no reason. Not only did he make a mistake — <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/454135-al-franken-says-he-absolutely-regrets-resigning">he knows he did</a>. Governor Ralph Northam (D-VA), clearly more in tune with our political age, successfully weathered the storm and now is being affirmatively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-ralph-northam-came-back-from-the-political-dead/2019/12/27/941e4a46-282b-11ea-b2ca-2e72667c1741_story.html">supported</a> by the Left for having done so. By the time Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was <a href="https://time.com/5680759/justin-trudeau-brownface-photo/">busted</a> for the same offense as Northam, no one seemed to care.
In a world where nothing sticks to anybody and memories are short, in a world where journalists are so gutless that they will <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/01/the-media-is-lying-about-the-attacks-on-the-embassy-in-baghdad/">lie about events that led to the death of Americans</a> while also brutally under-reporting about the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/"> Afghanistan Papers</a>, politics is different. In many ways, actually, it’s much simpler.
Welcome to our new world, appropriately ushered in with the start of a new decade. Where the candidate who jumps into the race with the most name recognition and resources will nearly always hold on to his/her base, where the primary debates are rendered essentially meaningless, and where we don’t even force our politicians to act anymore.
They don’t need to, after all, because nothing sticks, nothing matters, and even if something significant does happen, it will be neglectfully reported anyway.
&nbsp;
Elliot Fuchs is a political consultant and writer. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Elliot_Fuchs">@Elliot_Fuchs</a>.

Artificial intelligence brain network

FUCHS: The Short Memory Of Our Modern Politics

2020 Election

Al Franken

Bernie Sanders

Brett Kavanaugh

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

Justin Trudeau

Media

Media Bias

America and Israel have long been considered great allies, but it would be difficult to argue that the relationship has ever been as strong as it has been during the Trump-Netanyahu era.
The friendship makes sense. President Trump&#8217;s policies, especially as they pertain to Israel, are almost completely synchronized with the preferences of Netanyahu. In peace discussions, the Trump administration has uniquely implied that it isn&#8217;t married to a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-envoy-says-no-use-for-two-state-framework-in-peace-talks/">two-state solution</a> peace plan &#8212; thereby alleviating pressure former presidents had placed on the prime minister.
On a political level, it also makes sense. Trump is <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-two-years-later-israelis-love-trump-more-than-almost-any-other-nation-poll-shows-1.6515377">popular</a> in Israel and he likes Netanyahu a great deal. Netanyahu even named a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahu-inaugurates-trump-heights-israels-newest-town-on-the-golan-heights/2019/06/16/2207cd24-9041-11e9-956a-88c291ab5c38_story.html?noredirect=on">town in Israel</a> after the American president. Trump, on the other hand, is more than glad to appeal to the large pro-Israel base that consists of Republicans, independents, and some moderate Democrats by engaging positively with Netanyahu. By doing so, he can make his Israel policy critics appear to the laymen as fringe, anti-Israel extremists.
But perhaps, between the lines, there is a deeper reasoning that explains the nature of their relationship.
Since the beginning of Trump&#8217;s administration, and over the last few years of Netanyahu&#8217;s, both have had to deal with unreasonable political opponents, an overtly adversarial media, and distracting politicized investigations. These challenges have been specific to these two individuals; each is thus uniquely qualified to understand the other&#8217;s predicaments. Perhaps that explains their tremendous relationship.
But the core similarity has been the joint investigations into their respective actions. Specifically, the similarities lie in the way opponents and media alike have responded to the investigations. Instead of allowing the investigations to go to completion, foes and the media have turned them into distractions for political gain. This commenced before either of the investigations reached its natural conclusion.
The willingness of the media and politicians to assume and report negative outcomes prior to any information being released was simply irresponsible. In the American case, the media were made to look foolish when the results contradicted two years&#8217; worth of &#8220;bombshells.&#8221; Indeed, President Trump was correct to call the process &#8220;a hoax,&#8221; and Netanyahu has wisely borrowed some of the language Trump used in describing the investigations in Israel. Only Trump and Netanyahu can understand each other&#8217;s frustration in dealing with folks who were so blatantly willing to make brazen and, sometimes, even fabricated claims.
Both are also forced to deal with foes who are irrationally not accepting the results of democratic elections. In Trump&#8217;s case, Democrats continue to bemoan the results of an election that took place almost three years ago. They now refuse to accept the result of an investigation that they desired. Now, with all other options off the table, many Democrats are going with an impeachment narrative, which has no basis in reality.
In Netanyahu&#8217;s scenario, his political nemeses didn&#8217;t allow him to form a governing coalition, which has forced a repeat election for the <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/05/29/israel/why-israel-could-hold-a-second-national-election-in-2019">first time in Israeli history</a>. Thus, Israel will be forced to undergo a nearly identical election to the one it recently completed, and undertake the tremendous costs associated with that. This occurrence has led one Israeli <a href="https://twitter.com/LahavHarkov/status/1133840375133724674">reporter</a> to refer to the situation as &#8220;the dumbest thing [she has] ever seen in the Knesset.&#8221; Both Netanyahu and Trump have made attempts at bringing their adversaries to the table for the sake of compromise instead of partisan politicking, but to no avail. Not due to fault of their own, but because no one has come forward ready to have a reasonable discussion.
The media has also been complicit in the partisan onslaught each leader has faced.
Since the beginning of the Mueller investigation, the media have been <a href="https://insider.foxnews.com/2017/06/28/networks-obsessed-trump-russia-probe-media-research-council-study-shows">obsessed</a> with it. One study found 353 minutes of nightly news airtime devoted to the Mueller probe. The fact that an investigation (particularly one that concluded what this one did) so significantly outweighed tangible policy results, like a historically strong economy, is asinine. Frankly, it&#8217;s worse than that: It&#8217;s media malpractice.
Netanyahu faces a similar barrage. Throughout his career, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-unable-to-charm-the-media-netanyahu-sought-to-control-it-1.6704268">&#8220;Netanyahu would frequently complain about the media&#8217;s negative attitude toward him [and these claims have] some merit.&#8221;</a> As one writer <a href="https://www.jns.org/different-election-same-old-bias-media-takes-aim-at-netanyahu-yet-again/">put it</a>, &#8220;another re-election, another case of media bias against Netanyahu.&#8221; It forced Netanyahu to speak about how he and the media are looking at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/how-netanyahus-media-war-nearly-split-his-government/2017/04/09/87a62022-1951-11e7-8598-9a99da559f9e_story.html?utm_term=.0188792798c0">two completely different realities</a>.
Despite being geographically distant, Trump and Netanyahu face different, yet similar, challenges. And these challenges are, for the most part, imposed by the same types of people. It&#8217;s understandable that they seem to appreciate each other on a level more significant than what we have previously seen between the holders of these two offices. Maybe it&#8217;s that exact closeness that compelled Trump to support Netanyahu via <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1133031322912473093">Twitter</a> upon learning that a new election would be held. Indeed, during the electoral process, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-israeli-politics-messed-up-country-needs-to-get-their-act-together/?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter">&#8220;Trump was widely seen as overtly pushing to get Netanyahu elected, with a series of steps aimed at boosting Netanyahu&#8217;s popularity.&#8221;</a>
And so it is wholly feasible to suggest that their alliance stands on the fact that, when you pull back the curtains, these two leaders are working hard to serve their citizenry despite the intransigent obstacles they each face. It is a task that no one but the two of them can truly understand.

Elliot Fuchs is a political consultant and writer. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/Elliot_Fuchs">@Elliot_Fuchs</a>.

President Donald Trump Welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu To The White House

FUCHS: Trump And Netanyahu: The Alliance Behind The Alliance

Benjamin Netanyahu

Foreign Policy

Israel

Leftism

Middle East

Robert Mueller

Trump Administration

Next week, talk show host and author Mark Levin will be making his debut as a Fox News anchor as the network will begin airing his new show, &#8220;Life, Liberty, and Levin.&#8221; This is an addition that his fans, who currently watch him on LevinTV, are excited about, and it also adds huge starpower to the Fox News weekend lineup.
Levin took to Twitter to remind his fan base of the new program earlier this week:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This Sunday night, 10 PM eastern, don&#8217;t miss my new show on FOX! Life, Liberty &amp; Levin!
&#8212; Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) <a href="https://twitter.com/marklevinshow/status/965707496680718337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Recently, Levin has been in the <a href="https://conventionofstates.nationbuilder.com/levin_the_push_to_amend_biggest_story">news</a> trying to use his influence to get politicians and voters fired up about the idea of a convention of states, where the goal will be to shrink government and promote the founding ideals.
In anticipation of Mark&#8217;s new show, I decided to analyze his contribution to the political landscape over the course of his long and successful career. Mark&#8217;s political and ideological contribution can best be recognized by contrasting his works with communist literatures dating back to the 1500s that have formed an ideology still active today.
In order to understand Levin&#8217;s contribution to American political discourse we must understand what exactly his goal has always been. It is clear to me, as a reader of his books, a subscriber to his television network, and a listener to his radio show, that he has dedicated a lengthy career to one thing and one thing only. Fighting tyranny, exactly the kinds of tyranny prescribed in communist discourse
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Thomas-More/dp/1512093386/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=4Q750BBPA8KM2BQ1VCDY">Thomas More&#8217;s </a>&#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Thomas-More/dp/1512093386/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=4Q750BBPA8KM2BQ1VCDY">Utopia&#8221;</a> is the first ever publication about the utopian state; in fact, it&#8217;s the work of literature from which we&#8217;ve drawn the word &#8220;utopia.&#8221; More is the philosopher behind many tyrannical concepts, but one of the things he goes after most is private property. This makes sense; his political philosophy is the foundation of tyrannical thought and stripping private property rights is the foundation of tyrannical government. More writes:
<blockquote>
I am wholly convinced that unless private property is entirely done away with, there can be no fair or just distribution of goods, nor can the business of mortals be happily conducted. As long as private property remain, by far the largest and the best part of the human race will be oppressed by a heavy and inescapable burden of cares and anxieties.
</blockquote>
Here&#8217;s how he describes the homes of the residents:
<blockquote>
The doors [to the houses], which are made of two leaves, open easily and swing shut automatically, letting anyone enter who wants to &#8212; so there is nothing private anywhere. Every ten years, they change house by the lot.
</blockquote>
To be clear, they aren&#8217;t changing houses because they want to. They are doing so because the government mandates that they do so. By making nothing belong to anyone, by default, it automatically belongs to the government, giving the Statist the control he has always desired.
But, lucky for us, &#8220;somewhere under the brick and steel of a nondescript building,&#8221; Levin explains to us why More&#8217;s societal recommendation would ruin lives, not help them.
He writes in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Tyranny-Conservative-Mark-Levin/dp/1416562877/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518726350&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=liberty+and+tyranny+by+mark+levin">Liberty and Tyranny</a>:
<blockquote>
Private property and liberty are inseparable. The individual&#8217;s right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and or physical labor. As the individuals time one Earth is finite, so too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial &#8230; of his private property enslaves to another and denies him his liberty.
</blockquote>
As Levin explains elsewhere, if the government can tell you what to do in the comfort of your own home, behind your closed doors &#8212; hence the leaf doors which literally can not be closed &#8212; then there is no area into which the government can&#8217;t dig their claws. 
That is exactly what happens in More&#8217;s &#8220;Utopia.&#8221; The government tells people what they must wear, what they must eat, and who they are required to sit next to. Allowing government to control something as sacred as your property is, essentially, allowing them to control your life in its entirety. 
Next, we examine Edward Bellamy, who started a philosophical revolution in the 1800&#8217;s with his book called &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Backward-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486290387/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518726379&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=edward+bellamy+looking+backward&amp;dpID=513qkeraxsL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch">Looking Backward: 2000-1887</a>.&#8221; In it, he argues that the ideal form of government is one that combines political and financial powers:
<blockquote>
The nation&#8230; [is] organized as the one great business corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which all previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and the economies of which all citizens shared.
</blockquote>
It sounds like a wonderful time, doesn&#8217;t it? That is until you realize that the residents of Bellamy&#8217;s world have no currency; rather, they are given a &#8220;credit card&#8221; with the amount prescribed to them by their government overlords. That same government, which is naturally incentivized to pay its people as little as possible, also decides the amount of hours their constituents work. In other words, in this system, people don&#8217;t have the freedom to choose their employment nor the quantity of hours they work at that profession.
I don&#8217;t know if Levin has ever read Bellamy, but what I do know is that he outlines this form of tyranny in his <a href="https://www.crtv.com">8-episode review</a> of his most recent book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rediscovering-Americanism-Progressivism-Mark-Levin/dp/1476773084/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518726427&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=rediscovering+americanism">Rediscovering Americanism and the Tyranny of Progressivism</a>&#8220;:
He says that capitalism &#8220;separates political power from economic power &#8230; and enables the one to offset the other.&#8221; This, of course, is the exact opposite of what Bellamy&#8217;s system does. Without capitalism, Levin explains, &#8220;we cease to be a free people.&#8221;
Much of the sentiment discussed by these philosopher kings can be found in Karl Marx&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Communist-Manifesto-Karl-Marx/dp/0717802418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518726483&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+communist+manifesto&amp;dpID=51vHCno0a4L&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch">The Communist Manifesto</a>.&#8221; Any &#8220;Levinite&#8221; has certainly heard Levin rail on Marxism in myriad contexts. Perhaps the most abhorrent part of the manifesto, however, is when Marx and Engels call for the end of freedom of religion outright:
<blockquote>
Communism abolishes eternal truths [can also be read as &#8220;natural rights&#8221;], it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis.
</blockquote>
In other words, all of the rights that the Constitution of the United States of America preserves because they are imperative to our freedom the Statist seeks to destroy by way of &#8220;political supremacy.&#8221; 
Parenthetically, it is tough to blame Marx&#8217;s ideological descendants (the leftists) for the manner in which they protest, when it is Marx himself who alludes to their tactics.
But this is why, I&#8217;d imagine, Levin spends so much of his time defending the constitution and its originality at all costs. Because he understands that even the slightest alteration to the framers&#8217; original intention can lead us down the path of what is reflected by Marx in his manifesto.
This is what Levin meant when he said:
<blockquote>
What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.
</blockquote>
The last form of tyranny I would like to reference &#8212; although I have barely scratched the surface &#8212; is one that I fear is growing mightily here in the United States: judicial tyranny.
In the first book penned by Levin that I ever read, titled &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Men-Black-Supreme-Destroying-America/dp/1596980095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518726513&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=men+in+black+mark+levin">Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America</a>,&#8221; Levin outlines clearly how the courts have overstepped their constitutional boundaries.
First, he shows how many of the justices on the Supreme Court are not as &#8220;clean&#8221; as we think them to be. Next, he shows that the Supreme Court has been wrong more than just a few times on very important cases. But the most important argument he makes &#8212; in my opinion &#8212; is that the job of the court is to interpret the law, not actively make it, as he states:
<blockquote>
Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes&#8211;contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny.
</blockquote>
I was introduced to Levin when I was a young high schooler who knew and cared little about politics. Until, one day, my friend showed me a video of Mark Levin. That day my life was changed. He persuaded me to dedicate my life to fighting for freedom. In addition to his great work, Mark must be recognized for creating an army of energized freedom fighters that will continue to promote the cause long into the future. 
<div>Elliot is a New York-based political writer. He enjoys organized debate and reading anything he can get his hands on. You can follow him on Twitter @Elliot_Fuchs.</div>

An Ode To The Great One, Mark Levin

Communism

Mark Levin

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FUCHS: The Short Memory Of Our Modern Politics

FUCHS: Trump And Netanyahu: The Alliance Behind The Alliance

An Ode To The Great One, Mark Levin