Has ESG investing peaked, behind Fetterman’s ‘heresies,’ and other commentary

Woke watch: Has ESG Investing Peaked?

The rise of Environmental, Social and Governance investing “appeared unstoppable — until 2023 arrived,” cheers Ashley Rindsberg at UnHerd.

Now, Republicans in Congress have “announced they would subpoena BlackRock, the asset management firm most closely aligned with ESG, and State Street, another Fortune 500 financial heavyweight, to investigate whether their ESG policies violate anti-trust law.”

Once, being anti-ESG was portrayed as being “against ethics itself.” But “in an even more existential blow to the ESG vision, money has become expensive.”

“When money is tight,” companies “take what they can get.” “If there is one thing businesses and markets hate, it’s uncertainty.

And ESG is starting to look like another unnecessary risk.” If that “rises higher” with no “substantial reward to follow,” ESG “might find itself on the corporate chopping block.”

Conservative: Behind Fetterman’s ‘Heresies’

It’s no “surprise to Pennsylvania political observers” that Sen. John “Fetterman has drawn the ire of the Democratic left for his unapologetic support of Israel, for his support of a bipartisan solution to the border crisis, and for his cheeky criticisms of the indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.),” notes Salena Zito in The Wall Street Journal.

Outsiders wrongly assumed “Fetterman was a card-carrying progressive,” though he “has often bucked the local and state Democratic Party” and “made local activists unhappy,” largely “over his support for the natural-gas industry.”

Now he has “emerged as a center-left senator in a style akin to that of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema.”

And: “If there is any stress in having the progressive and socialist wing of his party angry at him, it doesn’t show.”

Election beat: Biden Worries Gen Xers

“Tara Schoettle’s disapproval of President Biden can be traced back to her childhood” in the Carter presidency, when her family “had to wait in line for gas,” reports Susan Davis at NPR.

Prof. Jean Twenge says “political leanings of generations can be influenced by the popularity of the president when that generation is in adolescence or young adulthood.”

NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist polling shows “Biden has the highest disapproval rating from Generation X (62%)” and “has the highest ‘strongly disapprove’ rating from Gen X (52%).”

Gen Xer Ken Piccolo “feels good about where the economy is going, but he’s still concerned about Biden’s age.”

Danny Dotson, an independent voter, “doesn’t know whom he will vote for next year, but he said he will absolutely cast a ballot” — and he’s certain it won’t be for either Biden or Trump.

White House race: Iowa, Shmiowa

“The reality is that Iowa is historically unimportant when it comes to determining our presidential nominees, especially on the GOP side,” snarks Steve Krakauer at The Hill.

Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee each won Iowa “but ultimately each man fell short of the nomination.”

“You have to go back to 2000 to find a GOP presidential nominee who won Iowa, with George W. Bush.”

“The media spend an inordinate amount of time and emphasis covering Iowa and New Hampshire,” but “Iowa just doesn’t matter like it thinks it does — or we in the press want to convince you, and ourselves, that it does either.”

Liberal: Therapists’ Gender-‘Affirming’ Harm

“If you take a step back from the case of the detransitioners—young women shepherded into medical transitions they later came to regret,” an image emerges of “therapists ‘affirming’ teens’ transgender identity” but also making “adolescents’ bad feelings worse,” argues Abigail Shrier at Substack. 

And “it wasn’t only ideologically-motivated ‘gender therapists’ who were making mischief, reifying the idea in adolescents’ minds that they were really, truly transgender.

Ordinary, well-meaning therapists were doing the same.” Some “therapists were simply following the guidance of their accrediting organizations.

But just as often, affirming the adolescent — in place of treating her — was simply par for the course.”

Young people “are receiving unprecedented levels of mental health treatment,” but “also seem to be getting worse.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board