Fast Takes: Trump derangement boosts the left, Dems own transgender lunacy and more

The “effort by the liberal establishment to undo populism” will gain new life if “Democrats regain control” of Congress,” argues UnHerd’s Alicia Nieves.The “Democratic establishment” is in “panic” that the “MAGA revolution” may “become an enduring force in American politics that could outlast Trump himself.” President Trump’s “personality made it easy to cast him as a villain,” but that “narrative failed to stop his movement” as Trump has “institutionalized his populist revolt.” Now the Dem establishment is so “consumed with recovering its former authority” by killing MAGA that it’s “overlooking the socialist insurgency growing within its own party” — even as the left has “lost its grasp on political reality,” and “become incapable of formulating a convincing strategy for returning to power through democratic means.”“Transgenderism has become the tar baby for the Democrats: a thing they can’t let go, can’t help promoting and defending even when it costs them dearly,” muses Hadley Arkes at The Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration “sought to sweep away any barriers in federal policy to the promotion of transgenderism,” while the Trump team has worked “to counter and reverse these policies.” “Despite widespread public disapproval” of promoting “transgenderism in all of its forms,” Dems still fight even basic efforts “to scale it back” — so if they gain control of Congress, they’ll surely “move at once against” every Trump move diminishing federal support for transgenderism.“No power will overcome the willingness of the Democrats to fall on their swords on this issue.”Electing Democrats to tackle affordability “would be like making a pyromaniac fire marshal,” warns The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen, since “most of the higher prices Americans are paying today are a hangover from the last time Democrats controlled the levers of power.” Aiming to “...