Sunday Mailbag

We have so many e-mails about World War II movies, we'll have to go another week beyond this one.

Politics: Independence Day

M.M. in Weaverville, NC, writes: From a curmudgeon of 73 years: My wife and I attempted to celebrate July 4th via the media's choice of televised national concerts, hoping to find that "spirit" we used to find. My father and I played clarinet in the Riverside, CA, municipal band in the 1960s (he being 1st chair and me being tail-end-Charlie buried in the 3rd chair section). On the 4th of July every year, we would play martial favorites (John Philip Sousa, mostly) and have the assembled picnickers standing and cheering. This year, at the National Washington Concert on the mall and Boston Pops Concerts, we had to endure multiple artists singing their most popular songs that had almost no regard for anything national (yes, one artist sang something from the play Hamilton—something that had to do with our nation's founding). The organizers obviously could not pay top-dollar for their performers as so many of the entertainers were retread singers and bands but, really, just giving each audience member a small U.S. flag does not make the chosen song patriotic.

Why does this strike home to me? Back during Trump v1.0, I was challenged one 4th of July by a woman at an event that I could not be a patriot (as she declared herself to be) because I was a democratic liberal. She, of course, without analytic explanation, WAS a patriot because of her support for Trump.

I told her that, to me, a patriot (while not a dictionary definition) was someone who viewed their country critically—extolling the positives but, more importantly, recognizing the negatives and then working to better them. A patriot understands the history of our nation; the reasons for our wars and our domestic struggles. A patriot understands our geography and why those places exist within our country. It is an optimistic outlook without covering up for our deficiencies.

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R.H.D. in Webster, NY, writes: I wasn't in any mood to celebrate this past Independence Day. Part of it is due to personal issues, part of it is due to our current national and global climate. Our country is once again led by a man with no conscience. We are badly divided on everything. The world is on fire with no efforts to put it out.

July 4 is when we celebrate our independence as a nation. But let me ask all of you, are we truly free today? Many of us are still paying various loans and are having a hard time making ends meet to support our families. We are beholden to insurance greed when we need assistance the most. Violence rages everywhere, everyday on our streets. Now, if you are of a certain group based on religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc., you can be targeted by either private citizens, or even the government, with horrible consequences. When we protest injustices done to us, or those we love, we risk being labeled an enemy. Our political system is a joke, with no true leaders willing to put the national interest over their own personal ambitions and political survival. The recently passed BBB is a prime example.

I can go on and on, but you get the point. This Independence Day, there was no reason for me to celebrate. Some might agree with me, some may not. I just tried to go through the motions this past Friday and get by. I want to think things will get better for me and for us very soon. But I'm not too optimistic today. Sorry.

I hate to tell you this, but from where I sit now at this moment, WE ARE NOT FREE!

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D.M.A. in Riverdale, NY, writes: T.L. in San Francisco asks: "How many Americans (of any political leaning) do you think have read and know about the contents of the Declaration of Independence?"

And (V) & (Z) answered: "The number of Americans who have actually read the document is surely very low, probably less than 1%. In the end, it's a somewhat dry legal document, written by a bunch of lawyers, in language that is now archaic."

For the past 13 years, on July 4th, I have taken to the public square in my neighborhood—actually in front of the local Starbucks#8212;to read the Declaration of Independence to the local citizenry. I get a nice-sized group of people to listen, I livestream it, and I have been on local TV news.

While a legal document, the Declaration is anything but dry, and it was made to be read aloud to the public. The Declaration is a powerful and stunning indictment of the Crown. It is a soaring closing argument by an attorney making a case to a jury, a jury that consists of the American colonists and of foreign powers.

The signatories of the Declaration knew they were committing treason against the most powerful nation then existing and when they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they knew fully well how terrible the consequences of their actions could be. Benjamin Franklin was only half jesting when he said, "We must all hang together else we will all hang separately!"

Read aloud and with the passion it merits, it is anything but a dry legal document.

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M.S. in New York City, NY, writes: From the children's book Benjamin Franklin, Inventor of the Nation:

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S.T. in Worcestershire, England, UK, writes: The question from J.C in Trenton about how "the commoners of England" viewed the Declaration of Independence, together with the response from (V) & (Z), raises interesting points.

It is certainly the case that some (but not all) of the English ruling class did view it as a "temper tantrum" but they were hardly representative of the commoners and neither was Parliament. At that time, probably only 10-20% of men had the vote—and, of course, no women. Further, there was no uniform right to vote and the franchise varied wildly between different counties and boroughs, sometimes based on office or land ownership.

What is clear is that events just a few years later in France from 1789 onwards, partly inspired by those in America, had a huge impact on political opinion and thought in England, both among radicals looking for reform and conservatives fearing instability or worse. A good place to explore this is E.P. Thompson's classic book—a historical item in itself, published in 1963#8212;"The Making of the English Working Class. As ever, though, it is worth remembering political activity is usually limited to just a small portion of the population (not unlike the readership of Electoral-Vote.com).

Politics: Protest

D.A. in Brooklyn, NY, writes: Regarding the Friday posting on the right to protest: I teach at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). Recently, four instructors were fired. Each instructor had top ratings from departmental observers, from students, and had full classes scheduled for 2025 with waiting lists. They also had one other thing in common: They had engaged in legal and peaceful expression of opposition to the Israeli army's actions in Gaza. With one exception, the instructors were not even formally given a reason for being fired. The CUNY Chancellor was scheduled to testify at Rep. Elise Stefanik's (R-NY) Star Chamber in the House later this month (now postponed), and there is considerable speculation that these four are red meat that the CUNY Chancellor plans to throw to appease the Trumpublican wolves.

From what I hear around the country, in various academic mailing lists, this sort of outrage is not unusual.

I applaud Electoral-Vote.com's celebration of and focus on the right to protest, and I know that it's well known in the Electoral-Vote.com community that this right is under the gun. So... I merely offer this information as yet another data point.

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T.L. in West Orange, NJ, writes: In light of your post focusing on protest as an American tradition, I'd like to cheer you on and weigh in.

At this point, the current regime has gotten its main legislative agenda accomplished. We fought the good fight, and we lost, at least for now.

But the broader fight for American values is not over. The budgetary abuse being heaped on everyone who's not MAGA is terrible, but the majority of it is fixable down the line. The abuse being heaped on civil liberties is far worse, and if we're not careful, it will not be fixable for a very long time.

The time for keeping our heads down and hoping not to be noticed has gone—keeping us isolated and afraid is exactly what the current regime wants and how they win. It is time to get active, and to metaphorically throw sand in the gears of the encroaching dictatorship. Get out there and make noise. If you live in a red district, make an appointment with your Congresscritter to make your dissatisfaction clear... hell, do it every damn day if you've got the means. If you live near D.C., stand near the White House and give it the biggest pair of middle fingers you can—speak the only language these clowns understand. If there are other ways you can think of to slow the federal government to a crawl, let us all know so we can sign on with you.

I'm sure some of you came to this realization earlier than I did, and I apologize for spending too much time feeling sorry for myself. But I am done being sad, and I am done being afraid. If the American experiment is to have any chance of survival, we need to be part of it now.

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J.M. in Albany, OH, writes: I appreciated your advice to protesters—very honest and understandable on all counts. Thank you for noting that a positive facial expression can be helpful, without telling people what kinds of signs/flags they should wave.

It is always helpful to write (in pen, on your arm, where it won't wash off) the number for your regional National Lawyers' Guild protest helpline—they can help quite a bit if you are given a single phone call (not guaranteed in the current context but still likely for white citizens). Visit this page for info on your local.

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D.A. in Long Beach, CA, writes: For protesters, consider something like this: Bluetooth Tracker Smart Finder... but placed in the sole of your shoe. A stop and frisk they may take your phone, or even your wallet. But no one is going to look in your shoes until the situation is much more serious.

As with anything, it requires a few minutes to set up. You want one that uses Apple's "Find My" network, as it will get tracking from any of the billion iPhones that are within range of you.

Politics: The Big, Beautiful Bill

R.L. in Alameda, CA, writes: I am so ashamed of my country. I don't believe there has ever been a piece of legislation like the Big, Beautiful Turd that has been this intentional about taking away rights and services from the less fortunate among us. I would like to live in a country that defaults to "How many people can we help?" rather than "How many people can we screw over?" I'm not sure we've even been "Great!" and this monstrosity of a (now) law moves us far, far away from great. Shame!

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D.B. in Athens, GA, writes: There is a last-minute provision that the Senate added to the BBB. It caps gambling losses at 90% of gambling wins. This means that, as a poker player (my profession for 29 years), I can win $400,000 in tournaments, having spent $500,000 in entry fees. and owe takes on $50,000 (10% of the $500,000 gross). This despite a net loss of $100,000. Before the BBB, this was a non-taxable situation, even though you still had to file paperwork on the winnings.

This is INSANE, and will destroy an industry.

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R.G. in Washington, DC, writes: In honor of Mel Brooks' 99th birthday last week, I found video footage of the Senate vote on the BBB. It's so accurate, I could swear it came from the C-SPAN video feed:

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D.K. in Iowa City, IA, writes: I sent an email to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

My Dearest Lisa:

You did the correct thing

We will see you in Hell.

Truly Yours,

The Devil (The Real Devil, not the would-be Devil, Donald Trump)

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M.M. in La Crosse, WI, writes: I received an e-mail this morning from Derrick Van Orden telling all of us who live in his district what a wonderful bill he helped to pass. It is filled with one lie after another. He just thinks we are all idiots.

Since I live in his district, I used the form link you posted to send him a few thoughts:

I received your e-mail this morning telling me what a wonderful bill you voted for. Every word of it is a lie and I am pretty sure you already know that. I also believe that you think we are all so incredibly stupid that we will accept anything you tell us. To tell us that this bill preserves SNAP and Medicaid is deeply insulting.

I know I will do everything in my power to make sure you are serving your last term in Washington. The residents of WI-03 deserve much better than you.

Also, in regard to a comment you made to a reporter shortly after the bill passed, yes you are Trump's little bitch. You and all the rest of the spineless Republican weasels in Congress.

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A.H. in Newberg, OR, writes: Your use of the word "Bitch" and its derivatives is totally 100% appropriate and meets with my personal approval!

I am conversant in five languages: English, Construction, Politics, Sarcasm, and Profanity. I can and have used much more profane descriptors to describe the candy a$$, mother f##king, sons and daughters of a female dog and shall proudly continue to castigate the bastards as long as the pi$$ ants continue to grovel and kiss the a$$ of the mango Mussolini!!

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J.O. in Portsmouth, NH, writes: You forgot to mention that Congressional Republicans are not just "little bitches," but whiny little bitches.

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R.T. in Sebastopol, CA, writes: I would put "spineless" in front of "bitches."

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J.M. in Sewickley, PA, writes: Freedom Caucus?

Seems more like the Freedom Circus.

Politics: This Week in TrumpWorld

D.S. in Querétaro, Mexico, writes: I just saw that Elon Musk has decided to start a new political party. I also read your item a couple of days ago about why it's doomed to fail. While I agree with you, I wanted to point out that despite all the obstacles you mentioned, there is recent precedent for success.

I live in Mexico, as I have since 2011, and in that time, Mexican politics has undergone some astonishing changes. Until 2000, Mexico was effectively a one-party state. The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) had enjoyed over 70 years of uninterrupted dominance at the national level. Then, in 2000, the PAN (National Action Party)—the eternal opposition—won a historic election, and held the presidency for the next 12 years.

In 2012, the PRI returned to power with the election of Enrique Peña Nieto. At that time, many U.S. observers likely assumed Mexico was settling into a two-party system, with the PRI and PAN alternating control, much like the Democrats and Republicans. Some guy named Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) challenged the legitimacy of the 2012 election and led protests in Mexico City for several months, but eventually, things returned to business as usual.

That is, until the 2018 election, when AMLO and his newly formed Morena party won the presidency. And before you think, "Well, winning the presidency of a republic with a strong legislature is a bit of a white elephant," consider this: Morena also secured supermajorities in both houses of Congress. Maybe it can't happen here. But it wasn't supposed to happen in Mexico, either—until it did.

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E.C.-R. in Helsinki, Finland, writes: In response to the question from J.M. in Arvada about the national debt, you wrote: "The time to worry is when the people who loan money to the government (i.e., the people who buy government bonds) lose confidence in the U.S. economy, and start to demand higher interest rates for their investments."

Another time to worry could be if foreign governments and wealthy people start to lose confidence that the United States won't simply seize their U.S. assets at a time when the U.S. is not at war with the foreign government in question or even any foreign government. Sanctions also enter into this, but the extra-territorial effects of such sanctions are well known and only bolster my case. One can imagine foreign governments and banks in possession of U.S. dollars, due to normal trade, becoming unwilling to hold U.S.-dollar-denominated assets for more than a few hours or days. This reassessment of risk, risk as perceived by foreign governments and individuals, could ultimately trigger a fire sale, as happened in the movie Margin Call.

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E.S. in Providence, RI, writes: Memo to CBS/Paramount: In the immortal words of noted oil billionaire J.R. Ewing, "You never stop paying a blackmailer" (as he blew up his own oil rigs).

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A.D. in Gaithersburg, MD, writes: I want to express my gratitude to M.I. in Jenkintown for their amusing curse directed at Donald Trump and his regime: "May they all have unending bouts of terrible diarrhea... in bed." This has given my friends and me multiple bouts of rolling-on-the-floor laughter.

And I sort of want to add "...with a new significant other."

Politics: Texas Flood

R.D. in Austin, TX, writes: I'm a Texas resident. I'm blind and live in Austin and, as I write this, my wife is out of town helping her elderly parents in another state. This afternoon, with some areas of my city and county in flood, a friend from Houston reached out and asked if I was OK and asked if I had a way out. I told her I was good, that I did not have anyone nearby that could get me, but that I'm in an area that should be in good shape because we have never flooded, that I felt I'd be putting others in danger unnecessarily.

I write all that to say that, when I have chosen where to live before, one thing I always check was "Am I in an area that is low and prone to flash floods or in danger from a river flood?" Tonight, I read where Donald Trump is approving aid for those harmed by the flood, but that angers me, given how he denied aid for those impacted by the fires. People who choose to live near rivers are taking on the same risks as those who live in areas prone to fire. Some of those river-flood areas have flooded before and they will flood again. Yet we will, in all these cases, rebuild, rebuild, and rebuild. Im this area of Texas, a lot of people with lots of money lost their property, yet they will expect a government assistance package, but damn those poor people who already had nothing who need aid.

It's the same problem with our other major infrastructure. We could build systems in ways that are more resistant to severe weather and other forms of damage, but rather than spend a lot now to save money later, we keep just burning money fixing something we know will become damaged again.

How did we get to such a broken place as a society where one person's disaster is somehow more important than another? We spent billions in the name of security after 9-11, yet we lose thousands of people every year in disasters. No, not every life could be saved, but we could do more to build smarter, have better alerting systems, and, frankly, have a better-educated society. Our weather service said that areas of Texas faced a real flash flood risk going into this weekend. I'm quite confident not a single person running the camps from which many children are missing, and likely dead, had even the slightest clue of that risk. "America the Beautiful" is now "America the Broken."

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D.E. in Lancaster, PA, writes: I think the Democrats would be well served if they took a page from the GOP playbook. With every Democratic administration, some very rich guy funds billboards across the country that show the deficit increasing. The Democrats should get some rich donor to put up signs that have four running totals. First is a running count of how many Americans have died because of Trump/GOP policies. The second should consist of a running totals of all the worldwide deaths brought about by Trump/Republican policies to withdraw from the world, like USAID. And just to make sure you show them up at their own game, the third field should show how the National Debt is still rising due to Trump's Big Beautiful Bill; and the fourth should show the amount of money the top 10% of the richest Americans have saved by getting tax cuts focused on them.

At first, it might seem crass to use people who have died to score points against MAGA governance, but there is justification. For one thing, the blame for people dying needlessly has already begun, as witnessed by the officials and citizens of Kerr County, TX. They have just experienced a horrific flood, where, as I write this, 51 people have died, and scores are still missing. And they are questioning why the weather service didn't provide timely warning about the flood potential. Kristi "I Kill Puppies" Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security and Crisis Cos-Player, has already started trying to shift the blame to Joe Biden and the state of Texas (there's no such thing as loyalty among the MAGA). The National Weather Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which it is a part of,tried to warn the country that its forecast would become less reliable as DOGE took its chainsaw to personnel and their budget. But hey, at least Trump got some liberal tears from proving climate change is a hoax by defending the agency that studies it.

To top that all off, Federal Emergency Management Agency seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach for if they might be able to function in a possible supportive role. And remember, both Trump and Noem have stated on many occasions that their desire is to shut down FEMA entirely. That all should give anyone living on the East Coast or close proximity some sleepless nights, as hurricane season starts to rev up and Tropical Storm Chantel is expected to make landfall in South Carolina on Sunday morning. While I pray everyone will be safe (remember these tropical disturbances don't have to be hurricanes to cause death and destruction), I do wonder if Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will be so eager to pose with that stupid ass thumbs up in front of scenes of destruction. As California has learned with their forest fires, the East Coast states are on their own when it comes to dealing with catastrophe. I fear the Kerr County Flood won't be the only example of Trump's incompetence and criminal lack of experience to manage.

Trump has his tax cut, he's safe from prosecution for his many crimes, he's making money hand over fist and he's as happy as a totally miserable human being can be. So what if some Americans die, or live diminished impoverished lives?

Politics: The Centre Cannot Hold

R.T. in Arlington, TX, writes: I'm usually a positive kind of guy, not in the sense of "everything is great," but in the sense that "things won't really be as bad as you fear." Your item "Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold" pointed out the pointlessness of moderation now, and sent me on a bit of a spiral, given that I identify as a moderate. I have to admit to myself that we have reached Peak America and it is the fault of We The People. I looked at the Preamble to the Constitution this morning and saw that We are on a trajectory to get less of everything the Constitution aspired to. And We the People did it to ourselves by not being grown-up enough to tolerate liberty for our fellow people, by demanding domestic tranquility at the point of a gun, and by looking out for individual welfare at the expense of the general welfare. I challenge the readership to remember that as much as we want to gripe about our politicians, politics is a means to better ends, and the ends are what really matters.

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D.R. in Harrisburg, PA, writes: Just to confirm this notion. I am very much a moderate Democrat. I live in Rep. Scott Perry's (R-PA) district and I feel like a left-wing nutjob here. Joe Biden was my kind of politician in a normal world, but today, there is literally nothing a Republican politician could say or do to make me vote for them. The Democrat need only put a (D) after their name and I'm filling in their circle on the ballot. The center (where I still consider myself to live in my brain) is dead.

Politics: Democratic Delusions?

J.L. in Glastonbury, CT, writes: Regarding "Democrats Are Deluding Themselves": Of course non-voters slightly favor Trump.

American voters are disproportionately those who think about politics. Some of them care about process, but the majority on both sides prefers to WIN policy disputes rather than lose democratically. Nonvoters simply go about their lives, at best unconcerned with politics, and at worst cynical and angry about politics. If forced to vote, they're not going to vote on abstract political ideals, but rather on who they can punish for their misery. Right-wing propaganda organs have been telling them, for over 40 years at least, that it is immigrants/brown people/Democrats who are to blame for their problems, and that civil servants are corrupt lay-abouts who fritter away their tax dollars.

The Cato Institute's annual 4th of July survey found that a majority of Americans don't even know why we declared independence from Britain in 1776.

So, America is an angry, ignorant nation primed to ignore our core, fundamental values as articulated in the Constitution. The "guardrails" of democracy and the rule of law are not inanimate objects; they are people—judges, elected officials, civil servants, juries, and voters. If these people choose not to enforce blind justice and the law, there are no guardrails. Donald Trump will do as he pleases, cheered on by his ignorant, angry, and fearful xenophobes. He's not going anywhere, and there's nothing he won't resort to in order to avoid accountability. The law—even the Constitution—is not self-executing.

Our nation—America—is Americans. It is who we are, and at this point we're a nation where masked men, claiming to be federal agents, are grabbing brown people off the streets and out of courthouses and Home Depot parking lots, to disappear them to concentration camps in the jungles of El Salvador, the desert of South Sudan, the barbed wire pens of south Texans, and the latest, Alligator Auschwitz.

It's a grim picture, but anyone expecting an intelligent, informed, civically aware American people to rise up needs a new plan. This is Us.

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J.F. in Salt Lake City, UT, writes: Jesse Ventura prepared me for just about everything I need to know about a politician like Donald Trump (as executives, they vary greatly, but as politicians, there are many shared pages in their playbook).

A professional-wrestler candidate brings out a lot of low-propensity and low-information voters. They just do, and have since Ventura became the surprise governor of Minnesota. If a Trump- or Ventura-type (macho, know-it-all, vulgar, and charismatic) is on the ballot, high turnout favors them. And so many of those low-propensity, low-information voters who show up for the wrestler are young men.

There's such an important HOWEVER, however.

I don't know if Macho Man Randy Savage simply isn't available, or whether the Republican establishment has realized two things to worry about before doubling down on this. The first is "candidate quality," which is what submarined them recently with Herschel Walker and others—some of these people are dumb as a box of Crocs. The second is there is a fourth quality these candidates must have, they need to have the telegenic charisma of a professional wrestler, and not every macho, know-it-all, vulgar guy has that. Most don't, in fact.

So, I don't think Democrats are deluding themselves as much as Trump circa 2015 created a huge stable of low-propensity, low-infomration voters that is time-limited, in all likelihood. Unless the GOP can get The Undertaker to begin taking poli-sci crash courses and start glad-handing donors, these people will disappear from voting booths as if they never existed and it was all a bizarre dream.

That's what happened in Minnesota.

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T.M. in Salt Lake City, UT, writes: With all due respect to your expert observation and analysis, Democrats are deluding themselves if they think turnout is NOT the problem. If the same 81,000,000 voters who chose Joe Biden in 2020 had showed up for Kamala Harris, the nightmare would have been over, instead of starting up again and getting worse by the minute. I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of that disastrous behavior. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Politics: Never Forget

D.J.M. in Salmon Arm, BC, Canada, writes: F.C. in Sequim tells the story of the service of his father and recounts that the sisters of his buddy "saw their big brother off at the train station when he left for war. And they received his coffin back at the same railroad station a year later. The Canadian singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith wrote a beautiful song with a similar story and another sad ending:

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K.H. in Albuquerque, NM, writes: N.A. in Asheboro mentioned the Battle of the Bulge and that triggered a memory from 1984. I was a post-doc in the Horticulture Department at NMSU. One professor I worked under was Dr. Roy Nakayama, who studied the New Mexico state vegetable, the chile pepper.

I learned from the other grad students that he had been in the infantry in World War II, and was captured during the initial German success of the Battle of the Bulge. He spent the last 7 months of the war as a POW. When liberated, he weighed only 87 pounds. Meanwhile, many American citizens of Japanese descent had been forcibly relocated to internment camps (see Sulu, Lt. Commander, a.k.a. George Takei). After the war, with hopes of continuing his education, Roy was initially refused re-admission to New Mexico A&M. I leave it as an exercise for the student to analyze why racism and U.S. internment policy in World War II was some seriously messed up sh**.

All Politics Is Local

K.C. in West Islip, NY, writes: I have to admit that when I read your write-up on the Alabama gubernatorial candidates, I read "Greenville, IL" as "Greenbow, AL," initially. Sure enough, even Forrest Gump would be better than Tommy Tuberville. And, to please the Alabaman electorate, he was even an All-American football star. Run, Forrest, run!

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D.H. in Boston, MA, writes: Since you discussed Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)'s chances of being primaried, I thought I'd offer some thoughts as one of his constituents. You suggested he might be primaried from the left. That would be hard to do, because he's pretty progressive. It might be easiest to describe him as a less-well-known Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorsed Markey when he last ran in 2020.

That said, there's talk of Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) running. Auchincloss might be a good fit for Massachusetts, but isn't to Markey's left, and is pro-Israel. Another possibility might be Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), but after the election last year, Moulton suggested Democrats should focus less on trans rights. So he isn't to the left of Markey either, and has turned off a lot of voters with his comments.

Two other plausible candidates who probably won't run are Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who is running for re-election as this year, and state Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who is in her first term and busy fighting many of Donald Trump's actions.

One very interesting possibility is if Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) were to challenge Markey. As a fellow member of the Squad, it would present AOC with a difficult decision for who to endorse.

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L.S. in Greensboro, NC, writes: It's been strange to watch the evolution of my state's Republican senators. First, Richard Burr was seen as an extreme right-winger, most famous for having his wife run to a series of ATMs to withdraw cash on the dawn of the Great Recession. Then, the architect of the infamous "bathroom bill," Thom Tillis, was elected and suddenly Burr was seen as "reasonable," and even voted to convict in Trump's second impeachment.

So Tillis was our even-more-extreme senator until we elected Ted Budd, who is flat-out bat**it crazy. Suddenly, Tillis begins to be seen as "reasonable," and even becomes one of the few Republicans to occasionally push back against Donald Trump (though not on his budget-busting tax cuts or inhumane immigration policies).

I just hope and pray that we don't elect another Republican so extreme that even Budd starts looking "reasonable"!

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D.S. in Urbana, IL, writes: I would like to provide some context on the AZ-07 Special Election Democratic Primary (to replace deceased Congressman Raul Grijalva) that you wrote about in "Another Test of Youth vs. the Establishment." The frontrunner is Adelita Grijalva, 54-year-old daughter of the late Congressman. You wrote, "Naturally, given her father's job, she is seen as highly establishment and is backed by the Democratic establishment."

Rep. Gijalva was a former Co-Chair of the House Progressive Caucus and had one of the most liberal voting records in the House during his tenure. He was a lifelong champion of Medicare for All, environmental causes, and sane and humane immigration policy, as well as being an outspoken critic of Israel's war in Gaza. Not exactly establishment policy positions.

Adelita has spent decades in local/county government and knows the issues that affect this Latino-majority district very well. She supports Medicare for All wholeheartedly, and is a fierce opponent of mining expansion in the Grand Canyon. Her younger opponent, Deja Foxx, has been relatively silent on this issue, and the centrist in the race, Daniel Hernandez, actively supports mining in the Grand Canyon.

Yes, Adelita has some establishment endorsers, including both of the Arizona senators, yet of her 24 endorsements from U.S. House members, the vast majority are also members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She also received early endorsements from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Organizations supporting Adelita include many labor unions, most notably National Nurses United, and dozens of progressive organizations, encompassing women's rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, climate action (Jane Fonda's Climate PAC is hardly establishment), healthcare, and other progressive issues.

Full disclosure: I work for Progressive Democrats of America. We endorse only the most progressive candidates, and we have been working hard for months on this campaign. The legacy/nepo baby/establishment candidate narrative has become a talking point that obscures Adelita's policy and character differences with her opponents. There's always more to the story.

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J.D. in Concord, NH, writes: I want to provide a Granite State update on a few of the issues that I've previously written in about.

First, New Hampshire's two required annual vehicle inspections were successfully abolished. The libertarian-minded state House narrowly approved the abolition, followed by the state Senate voting it down with broad bipartisan consensus. Why the different outcomes? Well, it's hard to effectively lobby the 400-member state House, where members often serve extremely small, ideologically-niche districts (NH also has floterial districts, which is a different conversation altogether). Meanwhile, the 24 members of the state Senate just LOVE lobbyists showering them with, um, "attention." Unfortunately, votes in the Senate are easily (and frequently) purchased, and the auto repair lobby made sure that the bill would die.

That wasn't the end, though! Once both houses of the legislature passed their versions of the state budget, the libertarian-inclined House members on the conference committee steadfastly stuffed the vehicle inspection repeals back into the compromise budget.

This leads to my second topic, the embarrassment that is the state budget, which did (barely) pass before the start of the new fiscal year. Overall, the new budget is a mess. It is a 7% increase over the previous biennial budget but contains devastating budget cuts to achieve the right-wing goals of reducing taxes for the rich and funding "Education Freedom Accounts" that pay rich families to send their kids to private schools. This is, of course, partnered with large-scale state government layoffs and a huge reduction in social and entitlement spending.

After coming out of conference committee, Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) promised to veto the compromise budget, citing three issues: (1) a $54 million cut to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) budget, (2) a $10 million cut to the City of Manchester's public school funding and (3) the lack of a fix to a state pension issue. Ayotte's promised veto led the state House to initially vote down the compromise budget and pass a continuing resolution setting expenditures equal to the previous biennium's budget minus 10%. This continuing resolution would have been devastating to the state!

However, with just hours to go before the legislature was required to adjourn, a compromise was announced. In exchange for Ayotte's signature, the legislature agreed to pass a supplemental bill addressing the Manchester school funding and pension issues, but not the DHHS budget issue. Both houses of the legislature then passed the compromise budget, which Ayotte signed into law. Notably, when the compromise budget came back to the House for a second vote, it tied, and the Speaker of the House, who typically does not vote, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor.

It's dire times here in New Hampshire. Ayotte considers herself a mini-Donald Trump and governs accordingly. She is a loud and proud culture warrior who once declared during a debate that kids should behave more like Trump and look to him as a "role model!" I'm sad for my State and hope that 2026 will bring a new administration that cares about all Granite Staters, not just the rich white ones.

History Matters

M.P. in Swansea, Wales, UK, writes: I haven't ever found a reason to actually write to you, but last weekend, a rare thing happened: you strayed into my turf, namely ancient Greek history.

For once, I thought, I might be able to repay your daily gifts of expertise in U.S. politics and history with a little contribution from my own line of work, responding to your suggestion that ancient Sparta might be a good place to visit for a woman.

Let me just say that, as somebody studying the ancient Peloponnese, I'd be extremely curious to see ancient Sparta, but as a "21st century woman, with feminist/post-feminist values," I would keep well away. It is true that lives of middle- and upper-class women in Athens were more restricted, and Athenian men produced most of the literature we have from the relevant period (mostly fifth and fourth century BC). What we see are the views of scandalized Athenian men about Spartan women who might show more than an ankle, participate in sports, and were even allowed to own property—Aristotle did, in fact, think that land-owning women with too much freedom caused the economic and societal downfall of Sparta in the fourth century.

The problem is this: Sparta was a tightly controlled hierarchical society (of the type beloved by 20th-century fascists and 21st-century alt-rightists), and the Spartans we are usually thinking of were the Spartiates—landowning warrior citizens and a very small (perhaps just 10%) extremely wealthy elite whose wealth relied on the labor of a large population of Helots (roughly similar to medieval serfs), and of enslaved people as well, with everything that being part of such a class entails for women. Spartan women of the citizen elite were, like the men, subjected to the strict regulations of the state, which included arranged marriages (and an extremely weird marriage ritual), an expectation to swap husbands or wives to optimize the number and quality of children, and the fact that every child had to be presented to the state which would decide whether the newborn would be killed or was allowed to be raised.

At the very least, if you took a time machine to Sparta, you'd want to be an invisible observer (think first-directive compliant research of pre-warp civilisations in Star Trek, even if such research in the series inevitably goes wrong). I am not sure how you'd fare as a strange woman actually visiting, since the Spartans were generally rather hostile to strangers without existing ties of friendship visiting their city, and, as everywhere else in Classical Greece, travelling women without an escort of male relations would probably have looked extremely suspicious and potentially fair game.

The ancient Mediterranean world would generally be a tough place to visit for a woman—but if I had to choose, I'd try middle Bronze Age (Minoan) Crete before the Santorini eruption in c.1600 BC, or perhaps Etruscan parts of Italy before they were conquered by the Romans. In fact, some parts of the Roman Empire (ideally in the second century AD) would probably also be less difficult than Classical Greece. In that period, you could even visit Sparta, which had become a bit of a tourist attraction by that point, although you would probably still not want to consider travel as a woman without being accompanied by a man.

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A.G. in Scranton, PA, writes: Wow, even Ken Burns has decided to state that both sides are at fault in the political tensions of our day.

I will never not adore Ken for The Civil War, a series I have watched a dozen times or more, and perhaps he feels that saying this might somehow smooth the divide... but I never thought he was that stupid.

There is one wrong and one right in this, and I am very much the sort of person to try to see all perspectives. I have taken the side of the steel town, coal town, Mill Town, factory town, railroad shop town Trump voter far more than any true liberal and written it indelibly on the Internet. I have done so to howls of derision because there is truth in how it started, with our arrogance. I painted 10,000 shades of grey... but we're beyond hues or any color when we starve children for the sake of the rich.

Ken Burns, a coward.

Sucks when heroes fall. Not the first time and it won't be the last.

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M.S. Highland Park, IL, writes: I thank all the readers who submitted their favorite works of historical fiction—though my wallet does not. My Kindle has never been so full.

World War II Movies, Part II

S.S.T. in Copenhagen, Denmark, writes: I am in general agreement with your list of great World War II movies, but I do think Stalingrad, with Jude Law and Ed Harris, should have been included.

Further I'd like to offer two Danish and a Norwegian take on the Second World War. There are quite a few movies with this theme in Denmark and Norway, but only a few with what I would call international class.

First up, The Good Traitor about the Danish ambassador to the U.S. in the 1940s, Henrik Kauffmann, who acted very independently (to say the least) and was instrumental in giving the U.S. rights to military bases in Greenland. Ulrich Thomsen is convincing as the ambassador, and most of the cast is American (he was married to an American).

Second is The Bereaved. This is a female perspective of the resistance movement with a focus on the terrible experiences in German prisons. It is a sequel to the much more heroic and Saving Private Ryan-like Hvidstengruppen. There is great acting and gruesome scenes galore.

Finally, the best of the three: The King's Choice, about the Norwegian king Haakon VII and the German attack on April 9, 1940. His brother, king Christian X of Denmark, stayed put, but Haakon chose to say "no" to the Germans and to fight before eventually fleeing to England.

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J.P. in Horsham, PA, writes: When I think of World War II films that legitimately deserve to be thought of as "great," I can't help but think of The Cranes Are Flying, the 1957 Soviet film that probably couldn't have been made before Stalin died, despite the way it helped infuse a still-hurting nation with a national pride and provided a glimpse into what it was like to defend itself on the eastern fronts.

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D.M. in Alameda, CA, writes: Consider The Bridge, made in Germany in 1959. At the very end of the war, boy soldiers try to hold a crossroads as the Allies advance. Great performances from very young actors, and a moving anti-war statement.

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G.R. in Tarzana, CA, writes: While there are probably many reasons to dismiss it, my favorite World War II movie, and one of my favorite movies regardless of subject, is The Great Escape. Now, it might have been due to my age when it was released, and the fact that I saw it on the big screen, but it's one of those films, along with The Shawshank Redemption that if I'm scanning the television and I come across it, I always hope it's near the end. Otherwise, I know that the film runs almost 3 hours, and I'm not going to be moving until I hear the reprise of Elmer Bernstein's all-time classic score and the thump-bump sound of Hilts' baseball.

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J.O. in Centralia, MO, writes: Additions to the list: (1) Kelly's Heroes, because hey, why not pull off a bank heist in the middle of a war? and (2) The Big Red One, because it in no way shrinks from the fact that war is absolutely awful.

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J.P.B. in Shawano, WI, writes: For this bubble Boomer (born under Kennedy, weaned on Johnson, and educated by Watergate), any meaningful list of the best World War II movies must surely include William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives for a host of reasons, including a groundbreaking portrayal of PTSD (Dana Andrews), an Oscar-winning performance by an actual World War II combat amputee (Harold Russell), and last, but certainly not least, that panoramic shot of the fighter plane graveyard. Ah yes "the costs of war."

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D.M.A. in Riverdale, NY, writes: I nominate 12 O'Clock High as one of the best World War II movies. It clearly shows the devastating physical and psychological toll the air war took on those who fought in this endeavor. Under attack for hours on end from enemy fighters, flak, and frigid temperatures in unpressurized aircraft, the air war in Europe killed many and broke many others.

The opening scene at the airfield clearly communicates the horror that these men endured. One pilot says another pilot's skull was shot off and he could see his brain. One aircrew member asks what to do with an arm that was shot off. Not as direct as the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but direct and explicit in its own way.

Yes, 12 O'Clock High needs to go on your list.

Poets' Corner

P.A. in Redwood City, CA, writes: In your list of influential poets, how could you leave out Dr. Seuss? True, we think of him as more of a book writer than a poet, but the books are all in verse, so he definitely qualifies. Generations of Americans learned to read from his books, and along the way we learned important moral qualities without seeming like we were being talked down to.

A few years back, the Dartmouth alumni magazine ran a cover story about him, with the title, "Our Most Influential Alumnus?" I think the answer might be "yes"!

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P.D.N. in Boardman, OH, writes: You have to have Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and, even though he was a snobby Anglophile, T.S. Eliot. And at least they're all American.

Everybody in high school and college read Eliot's "The Wasteland" or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" as we were studying Existentialism. (Does anybody read that anymore?)

I once argued that of Frost, Eliot, and Pound, Pound was the most influential poet because he streamlined poetic language in his time the same way Hemingway did prose in his.

I'd always put Emily Dickinson at the top of any poets. Was she influential? Not in her lifetime, but enormously popular and therefore influential later. She certainly saw familiar things in new ways. (I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. Or, To make a prairie takes one bee and reverie. If bees are few, reverie alone will do.) Mary Oliver has likewise been popular and therefore influential. She helped introduce Buddhist thought to the American public.

Frost had an enormous influence on mid-twentieth-century America. I once quoted a few lines from "The Road Not Taken" in a sermon and people nodded in recognition.

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K.R. in Austin, TX, writes: I love that Shel Silverstein was on your list of influential poets. He has a big influence on me.

In fact, less than an hour before seeing his name on the list, I was telling my 10-year-old son about why there are no unicorns.

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J.H. in Lodi, NY, writes: You are correct that Rodyard Kipling was not an American, but he was an American resident for about four years. He lived in Dummerston, VT, from 1892 until 1896. While there, he wrote some of his best-loved works, including The Jungle Book and Captains Courageous, as well as some imperialist poems less famous than "The White Man's Burden." If it wasn't for a feud with his brother-in-law that led to an unpleasant court case and bad publicity, he might have settled there permanently.

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B.J. in Arlington, MA, writes: Since we're talking about poets, I just wanted to remind everyone of Amanda Gorman's performance at Joe Biden's inauguration:

I just watched it again. Wow.

Science Fiction

L.K. in Groningen, the Netherlands, writes: G.B. in Collin County asked about rivalries between members of the United Federation of Planets in the Star trek Universe. Those obviously depend on the economics of the Federation. That has been treated in relatively general terms (although as he writes, not in general relativity) by a then-young, but later a Nobel Economics Prize winner, Paul Krugman, in International Trade (written in earth year 1978).

This was just a small extension of international trade theory, as far as I understand. The economics itself is a couple of light years over my head, but shows that interstellar trade is quite feasible and can be profitable. The paper is easy to read, has in its figure II a correct picture of a Wick rotation in Special Relativity, and was financed by the Committee to Re-Elect William Proxmire. Maybe worth reading in the context of G.B.'s question.

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M.N. in Madison, WI, writes: Probably the most important factor in the United Federation of Planets stability is the fact that the UFP is a post-scarcity society. If you remove economic uncertainty from people's lives, there's a lot less tension overall, and a lot less incentive for creating an out-group to blame for problems.

It's been a long time since I watched Star Trek of any flavor and I never got into the books, so I don't really have any recommendations for insight into the UFP's politics. That said, I'd be remiss if I talked about post-scarcity society without recommending Iain M. Banks' The Culture novels. Like Star Trek, the books tend to focus on how The Culture interacts with other galactic civilizations as their source of motivation.

(V) & (Z) respond: Note that Earth and other key Federation planets are post-scarcity, but not all Federation Planets have gotten there yet.

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G.N. in Albuquerque, NM, writes: I went to Denver's pride last weekend. While it wasn't exactly a protest, it felt like it in a lot of ways. I had a sign that said "Free Jawa Hugs" and I probably got 30 hugs:

I hope it was as meaningful a moment for those folks as it was me.

The Sporting Life: Soccer Edition

B.C. in Walpole, ME, writes: R.M. in Norwich asks: "Why do you think it took so long for soccer to become popular on a professional level in America?"

I didn't write in because I assumed everyone else would say this: I was in high school in the 1960s; we knew about soccer and even played it some in gym classes, but high school sports were governed by state athletic associations, and state athletic associations were governed by football coaches who saw soccer (correctly, I would guess) as competition to football and to the pool of football players. Football coaches did not want to promote soccer. When soccer did come in, a common tactic (based on stories I've heard over the years from various people) was for the football coach to suggest, to the player on the fence about what sport to choose, that football was a sport for manly men, and soccer was a sport for... you know...

Another factor blocking interest in soccer: We only had three TV channels in those days. There was a limited amount of airtime, and it was already taken up by football, basketball, baseball and, of course, The Wide World of Sports (plus Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom).

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A.B. in Lichfield, England, UK, writes: The reader comments about why it took so long for soccer to take off in the U.S. seem to miss one critical part of American soccer history. There was indeed a period back in the 1920s when soccer was every bit as popular as American football, and where the original American Soccer League (1921-33) was drawing crowds that rivaled the nascent NFL. The ASL was mainly based in the Northeastern U.S., though this was hardly unusual for professional sports leagues in the period. By the mid 1920s, the high quality of play and strong reputation of the league was drawing European players good enough to turn out for their national teams. Yes, there was a bit of franchise churn, but the league was arguably more stable than the 1920s NFL (some 35 NFL franchises folded in the 1920s). The future looked very bright for soccer.

What killed the league—and set back soccer's popularity in the U.S. for decades—was an arcane and self-defeating (on all sides) dispute between the league, on the one hand, and the sport's international governing body FIFA and the national USFA (as the USSF was then called) governing body, on the other; this was then exacerbated by the Great Depression. I won't risk boring your readers by getting into the fine details of the 1928-30 "soccer war" that crippled the ASL. The full story is freely available online. The short version is that the USFA tried to force ASL teams to play in what's now the U.S. Open Cup (first held in 1913-14, and the oldest existing competition in US soccer). The ASL tried to boycott the Cup due to the financial burden it would place on its teams, but three ASL teams decided to enter anyway. The league suspended those teams, the USFA and FIFA responded by designating the ASL as an rebel league, and started a competing "official" league that included the three former ASL teams that had offered to play in the Cup competition. At that point things get complicated, but the upshot is that while the ASL eventually conceded, and was granted official recognition again, it was left financially crippled just as the Great Depression hit, and the league was forced to fold in 1933.

But the USFA and FIFA lost, too. The soccer war not only destroyed the strongest U.S. league until the rise of MLS more than 60 years later, it also reinforced a perception that soccer was a sport controlled by those pesky European foreigners at FIFA, who had deliberately conspired to undermine a proper American league—and this in a period where pre-World War II American isolationism was at its peak. As a result, soccer lost almost all of its local American audience, and spent decades relegated to the status of a niche ethnic sport followed by foreigners. Much of the negativity in U.S. newspaper sports pages towards soccer ultimately stemmed from the antipathy that developed in reaction to the collapse of the ASL; columnists who complain about low scores or other supposed un-American peculiarities were retrospectively justifying a situation that never need have happened had the ASL, USFA and FIFA not engaged in their destructive pissing contest.

You can see the impact of the ASL in the results from the very first World Cup in 1930. The U.S. topped its first-round group undefeated with two 3-0 victories over Belgium and Paraguay; and if they lost 6-1 to Argentina in the semifinal, then that was at least no worse than Yugoslavia's loss to Uruguay by the same score in the other semi (and games were also typically higher-scoring in this period, anyway). That remains the only time the U.S. has ever made the semifinals of a World Cup—but it was also no fluke, it genuinely reflected the strength of the ASL.

For what it's worth, I may be based back home in the U.K. these days, but I have a long connection with soccer in the U.S. going back more than 40 years, from struggling to watch the 1982 World Cup final in a North Carolina parking lot with a small black-and-white television plugged into the car's cigarette lighter, to attending a Team America game at RFK Stadium in DC in 1983 (who else remembers the farce of the dying NASL's Team America?), to attending a game between France and Qatar at the 1984 Olympic Football tournament (in, erm, Annapolis—a long way from Los Angeles), to attending the first MLS Cup final between DC United and Los Angeles Galaxy in 1996 (in horrendous weather). If anyone had told me back in the 1980s that soccer would eventually prove to be as popular and established in the U.S. as it is now, I very likely would have laughed at them.

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B.J.L. in Ann Arbor, MI, writes: As a faculty member, I taught two accomplished male D-1 soccer players and I asked them about the support structure at the school for soccer. They mentioned that every one of the 90-100 gridiron football players on the team received a full scholarship while the entire soccer team shared two scholarships. "Enough to buy books," one quipped in 1997. Now that our incoming QB from high school essentially has a higher salary than the university president based on NIL deals, well... you get the picture. Until football is NOT a revenue sport in college, the pipeline for the best athletes transitioning to football will keep happening.

Final Words

M.N. in San Francisco, CA, writes: Shown here are the graves of Jacobus Warnerus Constantinus van Gorkum and his wife, Josephina Carolina Petronella Hubertina van Aefferden, which are located in Limburg, Netherlands:

Jacobus was Protestant and Josephina was Catholic, and their "mixed" marriage was looked upon disapprovingly by most members of Dutch society. They did not let that bother them, and they stayed married for 38 years, until Jacobus' death. The cemeteries of that era were segregated by religion but, as you can see, Josephina found a way around that little problem. Malicious compliance, indeed!

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