We know, we know.

We try to write as little as we can about politics here. But we're two weeks from a Presidential election. And there's always some overlap between politics and policy.

Who knows who's going to win, but what's pretty clear is that the Harris-Walz' campaign's internals are telling them they have a big problem with men.

It's become a cliché to point out that the political divide in the US is increasingly a gender divide. As the caustic French playwright Sacha Guitry once put it, "The problem with the war of the sexes is that we keep sleeping with the enemy." In other words, if the political divide is a gender divide, and the two genders are roughly 50% of the voting population each, then the key question becomes: which side defects more? In a recent podcast, Saurabh Sharma of American Moment described the Republican coalition in a very useful way, one which goes beyond simply noting the gender divide, as "Men and the women who love them, that is to say, men and married women." Men and married women? That sounds like more than 51% of the voting population.

And that is a policy issue, not just a political one, because men have indeed been falling behind.

Sadly the Harris-Walz campaign doesn't seem to take the policy issue seriously since, apparently, their way of trying to appeal to men has been, first, an incredibly awkward photo op with Tim Walz in brand new hunting clothes trying and failing to reload a shotgun, and, second, an incredibly tawdry attempt to buy black men's votes with "fully forgivable" loans and, somehow, cryptocurrency.

While it may be too much to expect of the Democratic Party in 2024 to question third wave feminism and wokeness (although, why not? In fact an electoral campaign may be the best time to do it) maybe it shouldn't be too much to ask for policies that would actually benefit men, such as an increased emphasis on apprenticeships, labor force participation, substance abuse, or mentioning the mental health crisis facing men.

Policy News You Need To Know

#RIP — William H. Mellor, founder of the Institute of Justice, recently passed away. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has produced a beautiful remembrance. If you don't know (but you probably do), IJ is a libertarian public-interest law firm. They do the best kind of work that libertarians can do, which is attack actual bone-headed regulations that make normal life more difficult in the real world. May his memory be eternal.

#RIP — Tom Donohue, the longtime CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, has also passed away. "Throughout his extraordinary life, Tom was many things—friend, mentor, statesman, storyteller, fighter, advocate, and patriot. Above all else, he was a dedicated family man, and our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones," the Chamber declared in a statement. "As a business leader, Tom was a towering figure, and across his decades-long career, his Irish toughness, combined with his genuine compassion, made him a unique and impactful voice in Washington and around the world," the Chamber also said.

#Bigotry — It's certainly not original to point out that elite liberals' concern for minorities can take the form of a soft bigotry, but it still should be pointed out that Kamala Harris's proposal, which focuses on crypto trading and marijuana, should win an award in that category.

#Plagiarism — Speaking of Kamala Harris being underwhelming, Chris Rufo has made magic happen again by exposing the plagiarism in her book on criminal justice, and then again by firing back against the predictable media dishonesty when it comes to their response to his proven and damning allegations. This is bad not just as a political scandal but because it's yet another expression of a problem at the heart of American elites, which is one of dishonesty and covering for each other. We were able to do an entire edition of the Briefing yesterday about scientific fraud because it is so widespread, and Rufo got his expertise in plagiarism from studying the works of prominent pro-DEI academics like former Harvard President Claudine Gay. A society or a democracy cannot prosper if its elites constantly and transparently lie and then refuse to hold themselves accountable for it.

#Housing — Over at AEI, Exward J. Pinto and Tobias Peter have an overview of Kamala Harris's housing plan. The problem is simple: subsidies often make the thing they're trying to subsidize more expensive, not cheaper. And this is what's likely to happen here.

#LGBT — The University of Nevada Reno becomes the fifth women's volleyball team to forfeit an upcoming match rather than play against biological males. "They're the first school to specifically cite fairness & safety concerns as reason for forfeit," Riley Gaines notes. Related: the WSJ ed board is pointing out that transgender sports is a "sleeper issue" in 2024, and notes that the left-wing media bubble has caused many Democratic politicians to step on a rake on this. If you can't oppose biological males competing against women in sports—good.

#Energy — Matt Yglesias points out something inconvenient: "A top [left-wing ]think tank put out a report about how to build solar power faster, but all of their recommendations — tougher protection for forests & 'arid landscapes,' more community benefits, project labor agreements — would make it harder and more expensive." This is the basic takeaway from the IRA: it has a lot of money for new "renewable" projects, but also lots of rules that make it impossible to build these projects.

#TaxPolicy — Donald Trump has proposed a new targeted tax cut: making auto loan interests deductible. The Tax Foundation estimates that it would reduce revenue by $61 billion from 2025 through 2034 and increase long-run output by less than 0.05%" and "taxpayers in the top quintile would be the main beneficiaries."