Of note: we apologize for the delay in today's Briefing. Your usual correspondent is currently traveling to report on the election and the transition (if there is one) starting today, and there is some housekeeping to be done. But never fear, the Morning Briefing will continue in his absence, with your Substitute Correspondent.

It’s Election Day 2024, and you know what that means: storefronts in Washington, D.C. are boarded up and generally look like they’re preparing for the arrival of a tropical storm.

Of course, they aren’t preparing for an act of God. They also aren’t preparing for a Kamala Harris victory; whatever else MAGA grannies are capable of, they typically don’t do smash and grabs at high-end retail. DC is bracing for the victory of Donald Trump and the unrest such an outcome could generate.

It is a strange feature of the realignment of American politics that the Democratic Party is at once the new party of big business—its supporters now include many of the stores now nailing plywood to their display windows—and also the party of activist rioters and street criminals. If Trump wins, one fears the outcome will be met with at least some amount of unrest, partly cathartic, partly calculated to cast the incoming administration as illegitimate or hopelessly chaotic.

Never mind that such protests are generally counterproductive; domestic disturbance tends to strengthen the hand of the party of law and order. Unrest is an unwelcome feature of politics in the present age, and of a major party backstopped by radical NGOs and black-masked street soldiers.

Ironically, unrest could be muted if we don’t know the election results tonight. If the nation is left in suspense about the outcome for days, or subjected to protracted 2000-style lawfare, an immediate outpouring of anger could be averted. That might be the silver lining of our increasingly dysfunctional and broken election machine.

We hope for an orderly, peaceful, and fair election, with results produced swiftly in key swing states and accepted as legitimate by the candidates and general public. Reality is often messier, however. It pays to prepare for every eventuality.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Chyna #Cybersecurity — Josh Rogin of the Washington Post has a bombshell story on a Chinese spying operation called “Salt Typhoon.” He reports that hackers linked to Beijing “burrowed inside the private wiretapping and surveillance system that American telecom companies built for the exclusive use of U.S. federal law enforcement agencies.” The hackers were able to monitor the calls and messages of U.S. political figures, including Trump and J.D. Vance. This revelation is certain to spark debate about FISA and the wisdom of granting law enforcement technology back doors at all. It also shows the sophistication of China’s cyberespionage capabilities. If China can listen in on our presidential candidates, it can listen in on anyone.

#Education — AEI’s Rick Hess has a helpful Q&A about what this election means for education policy. He brings the campaign rhetoric down to Earth, noting that transformative policy like abolishing the Department of Education is unlikely. A lot can still be accomplished via executive order and federal rulemaking, however. Whoever wins the election will determine such hot-button issues as “Title IX, the shape of civil rights enforcement, student-loan ‘forgiveness,’ and the federal response to campus protests.”

#Education #DEI —  Speaking of, Hudson’s John Fonte has a piece in the American Mind on Tim Walz’s education record in Minnesota. It’s not pretty. Walz appointed a self-proclaimed “critical race theorist” who believes the United States is “irreversibly racist” to design the state’s ethnic studies curriculum. The Biden-Harris administration tread lightly on CRT for fear of political backlash, withdrawing a proposal that would have required federal grant recipients to incorporate materials like the 1619 Project into their curricula. Will a Harris-Walz administration take a more aggressive posture?

#Immigration — In his latest newsletter, Oren Cass point out that elite media like the New York Times has done something strange the past few months. While typically pro-immigration and pro-open borders, these outlets have gone out of their way to insist that their preferred candidate is a border hawk. Never mind the Day One executive orders and millions of new illegal immigrants. There’s an election on!

#Life — Amber Lapp of the Institute for Family Studies talked with normal people in swing states to get a sense of how they think about abortion. The conversation is revealing. Many Americans hold muddled and conflicted views on abortion, struggling to reconcile the rights and claims of unborn babies, pregnant women, and fathers. These Americans will decide abortion-related ballot questions in 10 states today. 

#TheEnvironment #Energy — A Kafka-esque nugget from the FT: Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to power an AI data center using nuclear power hit a snag when an endangered species of bee was discovered on the power plant’s site. That stings.

#Crime — Wallace White of the Daily Caller has a rundown of left-wing District Attorneys who are facing recall elections today, including Los Angeles’s notorious George Gascon. Will this be the year voters turn on so-called “progressive prosecutors.” Polls suggest it is.

#Trade — AEI’s Jim Pethokoukis argues against the natcon contention that high tariffs were essential to America’s rise as an industrial power. He points to a new working paper that examines the relationship between tariff levels and labor productivity during the Gilded Age. It finds that America’s industrialization during this period happened despite high trade barriers, not because of it. Worth a read.

#Congress — The Conservative Partnership Institute points out that there are other elections worth paying attention to, namely Republican leadership elections in Congress. This brief article breaks down the procedure and candidates for leadership positions in the House and Senate. Notably, Senate Republicans will pick a new leader for the first time in 18 years, with Senators Thune, Cornyn, and R. Scott vying for the title. Also of interest: the contest between Senators Cotton and Ernst for conference chair.

#FertilityCrisis — Patrick Brown brings to our attention an interesting study, which tracked the fertility preferences of Kenyan women (i.e. how many kids they want) over a nine-year period. The paper found that preferences are not stable over time, typically increasing with age. Moreover, the paper found that respondents are unreliable when asked to recall how many children they wanted to have in the past.  Anyone who said they didn’t want kids in college, then “grew out of it,” can relate.