From the right: Brand’s Lefty Enablers

Guardian columnist Owen Jones just issued “a masterclass in unwitting self-damnation” on Russell Brand’s rape conviction, snarks Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill. “ ‘I’ve met Russell Brand twice (I think)’, Jones writes. Yes, and one of those times was to sing his praises at a huge middle-class Brand love-in. Jones neglects to mention that he also wrote columns lauding Brand as a leftish messiah.” Then Jones admits “he was aware of Brand’s history of misogyny. ‘I saw him as a crude means to reach disillusioned younger people with left-wing politics’, he writes,” so “ ‘I was willing to overlook, or just not look into, his history of problematic behaviour / statements, including sexism.’ Willing to overlook. Is it possible Jones doesn’t understand the magnitude of what he is saying here” — in effect, “that women’s dignity is a small thing to throw on the bonfire of brocialist opportunism?”

Election epilogue: One Bright Spot for the GOP

For disheartened Republicans, The Hill’s Nicole Russell sees “a lighthouse flickering edge of the tsunami”: Even as they elected Democrats, many states passed “conservative-leaning ballot measures” like “voter ID, protecting female spaces and taxes.” That shows “how badly Trump” tainted the GOP. Indeed, an AP poll found “4 in 10 voters cast their ballots ‘to express opposition’ to Trump”; candidate quality “mattered too.” Above all, voters seem to “want the best of both worlds: politicians who aren’t aligned with Trump, but ideas rooted in conservatism.” It’s a “powerful lesson” for 2028: The “blue wave hides a red undertow,” and if Dems move left “on voter ID, female sports or taxes, it could drag them under.”

Libertarian: This Was Another Vote Against

“The midterm elections may have been primarily a rejection of corruption and ineptitude among GOP officials,” but “it’s not clear that voters booting one party from office are eager to embrace what the other major party has to offer,” warns Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. “Americans are hate-voting in election after election,” with neither side “very good at accepting that they’re regarded as slightly less awful than the alternative”; instead, “they always take the ball and run.” “To live our lives through cycles of severe policy changes,” best “emulate those Americans of the past who largely ignored government dictates.”

Israel update: Less Divided Than We Look

“Israel’s politics seem bitter and divided” and it is “far from clear” that Gadi Eisenkot “can muster a majority in the time allotted,” so Israeli leadership faces a “much-needed realignment,” argues Benny Gantz at The Wall Street Journal. “Israeli society has been changed by the wars that followed” the Oct. 7 attack, as mass “mobilization changed the people who took part in it,” and their “giant personal sacrifices” “reduced the Israeli public’s tolerance for naked partisanship.” Voters just “demanded, in huge numbers, a strong military posture and domestic policies that will hold the country together”; parties supporting that agenda “hold more than two-thirds of the Knesset’s 120 seats.” Between “unfinished business with our enemies” and “huge economic opportunities,” “we have a unique chance to arrive at reasonable compromises on issues like the judiciary and conscription.”

Conservative: Losing Charlie Primed Blue’nami

Charlie Kirk’s killing “marked the shattering of the American Right,” mourns City Journal’s Christopher F. Rufo, as Kirk “was always tethered to political reality” and “kept in touch with an unbelievable number of people in the real world,” serving to steer “elements of the Right” away “from delusion and conspiracy theories.” Without him, “that restraint disappeared” as crank obsessions spread and “President Trump, too, lost an important influence” who’d been urging him “to pay attention to voters who were feeling the stress of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis” and “warned against getting drawn into a prolonged war in the Middle East.” Now “the Right should be honest about what happened” in the midterms and find “the strength of character to allow justice to proceed against corruption, while fighting unjust political reprisals.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board