Opinion | CNN’s Chris Licht may be out, but ‘anti-woke centrism’ is rising

Well, on to the next guy (or lady). In the meantime, columnist Perry Bacon pinpoints something fascinating and telling about the opinions Licht revealed to Atlantic reporter Tim Alberta — opinions that largely pushed back on critiques from the left, not the right. It’s a brand of thinking Perry calls “anti-woke centrism.”

Licht’s “skepticism of left-wing causes, and his view that people who don’t agree with the left are constantly attacked and shamed, isn’t some outlier stance,” Perry writes. “These ideas are regularly expressed in many of the nation’s most prominent news outlets. If you spend a lot of time talking to White men in Democratic politics, as I do, you have to nod along as comments like Licht’s are made, even if you don’t agree with them.” Perry contrasts this attitude with that of “say, President Biden, who opposes some left-wing causes but doesn’t spend a lot of time deriding people who support them” — and stays focused on bigger problems, such as politicians rolling back rights and rejecting election results.

Once you have a name for this phenomenon, my hunch is you’ll see it everywhere. As Perry argues, “Chris Licht doesn’t have to be woke. … But Licht and others like him should definitely stop being so anti-woke” and keep their eyes on the real threats to civic welfare instead.

Flooding and a risky counteroffensive in Ukraine

David Ignatius takes a look at a high-stakes new Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia that unfolds against the backdrop of the anniversary of D-Day and that he says could turn the tide of the war. “D-Day stands as a reminder that an army must sometimes take huge risks to position itself for eventual victory,” David writes.

He notes the “devastating new trauma to the battle area” that has come with the breach of the Kakhovka dam. (Our news side is doing incredible reporting on the horrendous toll of the breach — entire villages washed out, thousands of homes flooded, no help coming in Russian-occupied areas, animals “drowning and howling.”)

In an op-ed, meanwhile, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst and former assistant secretary of state Daniel Fried argue that the road to victory for Ukraine has to lead through Crimea. They caution against perspectives that have recommended abandoning Crimea to Russia on the grounds that Russian President Vladimir Putin will never accept defeat there: “A stalemate born of an overabundance of Western caution … will just embolden Putin to keep trying — and needlessly prolong Russia’s hideous war of aggression.”

From Jennifer Finney Boylan’s op-ed on a Brown University anthropologist and international security professor who tracks how guns move from the United States into Mexico, fueling violent organized crime that in turn sends drugs and waves of asylum seekers back up to the United States. (By contrast, as of 2020 there were about 53,000 federal firearm dealers in the United States.)

“Our current challenge is that the people most eager to stop the flood of asylum seekers at the southern border are also the people least likely to want to reduce the availability of guns,” Boylan writes.

Speaking of a possible Trump indictment in the classified-documents case, as we did yesterday, how do you know how to interpret any charges if you’re not, say, a law professor?

Well, we solved that problem by getting a rundown from professors Andrew Weissmann and Ryan Goodman, who, full disclosure, “believe that the rule of law requires that Trump be charged.” They write, “If special counsel Jack Smith hands down an indictment, we will be keeping an eye on many open issues that might indicate how strong a case the government believes it has.”

• David Von Drehle writes about how the merger of the PGA Tour with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour proves that “professional golf is not, foremost, a sport. It is a B-word, a business.”
• Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and current North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (who?) both announced their GOP presidential runs for 2024 — but these are decided long shots. Christie is mostly just there to hobble Trump, Jennifer Rubin writes. Burgum, who has some idiosyncratic views alongside more traditional red-state planks, gets to introduce himself beyond his 4,000 Twitter followers and three-quarters-of-a-million constituents, Jim Geraghty writes.
• Josh Rogin documents escalating tensions between the United States and China, which seems to be ratcheting up anti-American rhetoric even as President Biden seeks more engagement.

I can’t stop thinking about this unbelievable AP investigation tracing the sinking of a boat full of about 180 Rohingya refugees, many children or pregnant women, off Bangladesh. For more on the crisis of this people who faced genocide in Myanmar and now suffer by the hundreds of thousands in refugee camps in Bangladesh, read this op-ed we published last year by Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Drugs and people streaming north

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/concerns. See you tomorrow!