For the better part of a week or two, the daily news cycle was hijacked away from the actual issues that matter to the American people and transported to a bizarro world in which the corporate media deemed an offhand 2021 comment from J.D. Vance about "childless cat ladies" to be a matter of great public concern. Very odd, to put it mildly! This left-wing disinformation operation was laughable on its face—but even taking it head-on, Vance's comment was actually correct insofar as America does need to have an honest, upfront national conversation about its broken dating and marriage markets, as well as declining family formation and fertility rates. I explained this in my most recent syndicated column.

Meanwhile, on the actual pressing issues that the American people tell pollsters they most care about—such as the economy, inflation, border security, and illegal immigration—the Democrats are between a rock and a hard place. Their policy positions on all the important issues are deeply unpopular and wildly out-of-touch with the sentiments and preferences of the American people. But if they try to pivot too hard to the center, they will risk alienating their far-left base—indeed, the very base that party elites just capitulated to when they passed over the popular governor of battleground Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, for VP solely due to the fact he has a very Jewish-sounding name. The Hamas/Hezbollah wing of the Democratic Party simply will not countenance a VP Josh Shapiro, as even liberal commentator Van Jones conceded yesterday on CNN's airwaves.

That is, of course, disgusting—as I explored in our two most recent episodes of Newsweek's "The Josh Hammer Show." It says absolutely nothing good about the current state of the Democratic Party. But it also creates a golden opportunity for Republicans to wage a straightforward, hard-fought presidential campaign on the many issues where the Democratic Party's left-wing base is highly unpopular and out of sync with the median American. Fortunately for the GOP, that is essentially every major issue out there. The Trump-Vance campaign should hammer the Harris-Walz campaign on the tanking economy, stubbornly high inflation, wage stagnation, industrial jobs offshored to China, skyrocketing violent and property crime, foreign policy disasters all over the world, and so forth. Good luck to Harris-Walz on pushing back on all that—they're going to need it.

To keep up with everything I'm doing and all my various media hits, make sure to follow me on Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can listen to all episodes of "The Josh Hammer Show" at the Newsweek website or on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. (The show is also on the radio in multiple markets, and we are looking to expand our presence on terrestrial airwaves!) As a reminder, I also have a second show, "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," with The First; you can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe to both shows and leave your reviews! Make sure to also check out my new Subtext chat, which you can read all about and sign up for here.

Our highlighted Newsweek op-eds from the past week includes selections from Aron Solomon, Arsen Ostrovsky and John Spencer, Robert Barron, Paul du Quenoy, and Riley Moore.

We'll see you next week!