Dem
47
GOP
53
Boy, howdy, you would not believe how thoroughly the mailbag this week was dominated by one item. That would be the piece on Thomas Edsall's latest column, headlined "Why Do Democrats Insist on Taking Positions the Voters Hate?" We certainly got plenty of other messages, but we got around a hundred e-mails about that one, adding up to something like 100,000 words.
We want to do as much justice to the responses as is possible. So, we're going to run a bunch of responses today. Then, this week, (Z) has plans to write up HIS take on the Edsall piece. We'll run some more responses then. We don't usually divide things up in quite this way, but it's all we can think of to avoid overdoing it on any one day.
S.G. in Newark, NJ, writes: This week's Political Bytes pointed out The Convicted Felon's (TCF)'s unbelievably yet totally predictably crass response to Robert Mueller's passing.
I thought I'd mention that the day before that post, I heard Andrew Weissman interviewed on WNYC (a public radio station). Weissman, who wrote a book criticizing some of the decisions Mueller made in assembling his final report on the Trump campaign and Russia, had nothing but praise for his late boss, friend and colleague. Toward the end of the segment, the interviewer read the Trump quote and asked for reaction. Weissman said approximately this: "There will be plenty of time to talk about Donald Trump. Now we should remember Bob Mueller and the model of public service he represented."
Talk about a study in contrasts.
P.R. in Arvada, CO, writes: When I was growing up, I was taught, by parents and grandparents, that if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything. That is something that has stuck with me and so, if it isn't constructive, I tend to keep quiet. It also bothers me that there are so many people who would love to tell us that they are good people, and yet they are also constantly letting us know that they have the champagne on ice ready for a certain person's demise.
There is one scenario, however, where I feel it is ok to make an exception to the "if you don't have anything good to say" rule. That scenario is when someone makes it clear that they don't believe that you should be either nice, quiet or constructive when it comes to talking about others. Especially when they are outright lying about the other person. In that case, I tend to accept that is how they would like to be treated themselves or, at the very least, they are fine with people speaking their mind.
So, after seeing what a certain makeup-wearing lover of young girls had to say about Robert Mueller after he passed away, I feel it is only fair that everyone shows him the same respect and courtesy when he has either some misfortune or heads downstairs. Maybe add a little postscript in tangerine that the message would be approved of by a small, small man.
O.E. in Greenville, SC, writes: Your item about DHS and the airport collision got me thinking. As you know, the economy is losing jobs, and very likely to lose more with the impacts from our attack on Iran. However, even before that, there was a pressure to cut back on people. This was exemplified in the attempts to fire numerous government employees, force them to resign, etc. And this is very common in the private sector, and across numerous fields. People are being asked to do more work with fewer coworkers.
This is the second time in 2 years that an airliner has been lost due to a collision. There is a shortage of air traffic controllers, and has been for a while. Most are federal employees. However, the current administration appears to only want to increase staffing at the Pentagon and ICE and nowhere else. I have a feeling that we may expect more events like this in the future. As someone who is stuck in a job without enough co-workers (fast food), I can tell how rough it can be. However, if I mess up, we lose money or food. That's nothing compared to losing lives.
J.A. in Monterey, CA, writes: My sense about Donald Trump engineering all of these medals and awards is that it is:
- 27% seeing all these medals to remind himself of how great he must be
- 71% giving him little testosterone boosts for establishing how dominant he is over those feeling the need to give him these medals/awards
- 2% unexplained
C.Z. in Sacramento, CA, writes: Now with the new "America Fu**ed Award" that the Creepublicans just gave Disgusting Donnie, I think we could use a little levity from Randy Rainbow:
BTW, tRump has been giving himself fake awards for decades! He learned that publicity stunt from his Daddy, Friedrich Drumpf. (That is Daddy's real name, as he was 100% German, and not Swedish, contrary to what Fred and Disgusting Donnie have claimed. Fred was also a Nazi sympathizer, another thing, besides being a chronic liar, that he has in common with Disgusting Donnie.) The Drumpfs' fake "awards" were designed to generate free publicity to keep Fred and Donnie and their construction projects in the news constantly, in order to generate interest, loans, and cash for themselves and their businesses. Disgusting Donnie has now successfully trained his boot-licking cult followers to do likewise! As they used to say in Texas, when referring to men who pretended to be rich cattle ranchers, Disgusting Donnie is "all hat, no cattle."
J.P. in Lancaster, PA, writes: For what it's worth, there is a house in York, PA, that we have driven by many times per week for at least 6 years and probably more. It has had, hanging from its porch, a rather bedraggled Trump banner, which has been that way for almost as long as we have passed it. Quite often when we have passed it, I have "saluted" it in an uncomplimentary fashion. Late last week, when we drove past the house, the banner seemed to be gone. We confirmed its disappearance on Monday. It has not been replaced with a newer flag. I leave you and the readers to speculate about the meaning of this missing piece of fabric.
H.C. in St. Augustine, FL, writes: I look forward to redacting the name of any sitting U.S. president should it happen to appear on U.S. currency. I intend to do it with a black Sharpie, the pen most often used by presidents to alter weather maps. The purpose would be twofold: to protest the colossal hubris of any president who needs to mark his territory by squirting his name on everything, and as a reminder of other pieces of paper upon which the president's name has been redacted innumerable times. Please join me. Turn every bill into a ballot:
G.S. in West Lafayette, IN, writes: I have been seeing social media posts going viral that, when DJT-signed dollar bills start appearing, to:
- Black out his signature with a Sharpie (he claims he loves Sharpies, and the Epstein files have his name blacked out repeatedly)
- Add "is a pedo" or "is a felon" or similar after the signature
- Add "is a moron" or "is a co-conspirator"
Several vendors make twin-tip permanent markers in a variety of colors that are suitable for all of the above.
U.S. law makes marking of currency an offense only if the intent is to render it unfit for reissuance (see 18 U.S.C. 333). Simple annotation does not appear to be a violation (I am not an attorney, though, so don't take this as legal advice).
If MAGA gets such bills in exchange, it seems unlikely they would destroy them. And should only a few of the hands a bill passes through so amend them, it won't be long before a significant number are annotated. According to one source, a dollar bill changes hands on average once every 3 days. If only 10% are motivated to express themselves, then the average bill will likely be marked after 1 month (61.3%), rising to almost certain (94.2%) after 3 months.
D.R. in Ponderay, ID, writes: I wonder if anyone will cashier Trump cash?
Unlike coins, $1 bills are not durable. Bills that are "damaged" are taken out of circulation and replaced by fresh cash.
It is in fact illegal to intentionally damage money, but what would happen if criminals took their presidential Sharpie markers and crossed out the seismic signature? Or "accidentally" cut a corner, or 49% of a bill?
E.H. in Westford, MA, writes: You wrote: "Americans just don't use $1 coins. If you are American, think of how many times you've handled a Herbert Hoover $1 coin, or a James Monroe $1 coin. They exist, but the answer for virtually all readers must surely be 'zero times.'"
And yet, I well remember the Susan B. Anthony dollar. At the time, I felt it was a bit awkward to carry a coin of that size and value. Subsequently lived in Europe, enjoyed the chunky French larger-denomination coins. Given that the current U.S. dollar is worth about .25 of a 1980 dollar, a dollar coin makes a lot more sense today. Bring back the Susan B!
M.W. in Ottawa, ON, Canada, writes: You wrote "Americans just don't use $1 coins." When I was a frequent visitor to Portland, OR (until about 2015), the TriMet machines gave change in $1 coins. Maybe things have changed, but my wife and I still refer to U.S. $1 coins as "TriMet tokens."
R.B. in Cleveland, OH, writes: It's pretty striking to me that the commemorative coin "celebrating" Trump notably features him being bent over a desk. Are we certain that Commission of Fine Arts is actually trying to honor him? If they're attempting to capture the zeitgeist of Trump 2.0, then I'd argue they did a pretty accurate job.
J.A. in Forest, VA, writes: I imagine that when Trump's image appears on $1 coins that many of them will wind up decorating urinals from coast to coast.
R.L. in Alameda, CA, writes: The Alan Dershowitz screed that you so expertly took apart is an excellent example of how Donald Trump and his lackeys regularly use counterfactuals to fluff themselves up as so much better than everyone else. "Had President Trump been in charge in 1935, 1936, I think the Holocaust would have been prevented. I think he would have gone in after Nazi Germany, he would have destroyed it...". (Emphasis mine). The italicized words are the clue to look for. Trump himself does it all the time. "If I had been president, Putin never would have gone after Ukraine," (paraphrasing here).
It's easy to say things like this. But Star Trek isn't real and we can't actually go back in time and create a new timeline by making different choices. Here in the real world, people can only make choices based on the information they have at the time. No one knows the future.
When I was in Krakow last summer, touring the Jewish ghetto of Podgorze, our guide was teaching us about the early days of German occupation, starting in September of 1939. After Germany took the city, they moved all of the Jews from their homes in the Kazimierz district across the Vistula River to Podgorze. The question was asked why few people fought back or tried to escape. Our guide simply stated that it is easy for us to ask this question from a historical perspective. However, no one knows the future and in 1939, people couldn't have possibly known how bad it was going to get. Mass killing of Jews was still a couple of years off. It wasn't until 1942 that most of the death camps opened. At the time, it seemed reasonable to just try to live and take care of your family in the hopes that the occupation wouldn't last too long.
My point is that it is ridiculous to assert that anyone in 1935 could have known just how much of a monster Hitler and his Third Reich was going to be. Your Phase 1 of World War II-era history highlights this. Americans had plenty of problems at home and didn't know the Holocaust was going to happen. So why would anyone have tried to depose Hitler at that time?
Counterfactuals make for a fun thought exercise. But they aren't a basis to declare that, "I would have done better."
L.K. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: You wrote: "It also does not help matters that American culture was pretty antisemitic back [in the 1930s]."
Um, as if it hasn't become more so now? Much of it (all?), courtesy of Trump and Netanyahu. And Kushner. And Miller. And the billionaire oligarchy such as the Ellisons. And both Google boys. And Zuckerberg. And Dershowitz. And yes, Epstein. Saying this as a very shamed Jew.
M.S. in Knoxville, TN, writes: Another flaw in Alan Dershowitz's statement that the Holocaust would have been prevented if Donald Trump had been president in the 1930's? It is apparent to me that, had Trump been around in the 1930's, his leanings would have been toward the America First movement of the time, which was isolationist and had "distinct" (let us say) pro-German leanings. Even if 1930's Trump dropped his aversion to getting us into war as easily as 2020's Trump has, it seems far more likely that 1930's Trump would have supported the Germans than the Jews.
E.F. in Baltimore, MD, writes: Yes, we could have bombed the rail lines into the extermination camps, but even putting aside the optics of our being perceived as being too pro-semitic, it's hard to believe doing so would have significantly impeded the extermination. The Germans were rebuilding rail lines almost as quickly as the Allies could destroy them, at least up until late 1944, and there's no reason why they couldn't have unloaded the trains wherever the tracks ended, and machine gunned the prisoners right there.
As for Winston Churchill's abortive Balkans invasion, I'd point out that the Balkans are anything but flat, and only marginally less difficult terrain than Northern Italy. Stalin was desperate for an invasion, ANYWHERE, to take pressure off the Eastern Front. I've never read anywhere that he vetoed the Balkans plan. My understanding is that terrain and logistics were more than sufficient to disqualify it.
In any event, it seems obvious to me what is going on here with Dershowitz. He is prominently featured in the as-yet unreleased Epstein files, and as long as he keeps agreeing with everything Trump says and does, all those awful pictures (and videos!) will remain unreleased.
D.W. in Phoenix, AZ, writes: Alan Dershowitz isn't a serious dude. He's the kind of guy who deflects his raping little girls with a lawyerly "I didn't take my underwear off..." assumedly by having one leg with underwear wrapped around it.
Unserious dudes can say things they assume are serious but to the recipient they are contexted by a lack of credibility. The Dersh has morphed into Roy Cohn... a person only enjoying the opportunity of skirting the law, responsibility, consequence and uncaring about a functional society.
So, yeah, from a legal prospective Dershowitz and Trump share much...
B.C. in Forest Park, IL, writes: I am writing in response to the item about Thomas Edsall's column on the Democratic positions that voters hate. Let me start by setting aside the principle that trans people are human beings who deserve civil rights whether they, as a group, are popular or not. I will also set aside the nuances that should be involved in discussions of sports, hormones, aerobic capacity and frame size. I am loath to set these things aside, but if I don't, I'll be typing all day.
Elected Democrats (and the Kamala Harris campaign in particular) say/said very little, if anything, in support of transgender rights. Most transgender commentators I follow have been, and are, actually quite upset that the Democrats aren't more vocal on the issue and more supportive of their civil rights. The Fox "News" channel runs far more segments about trans people than the other cable news networks. The Fox "News" website runs far more articles about trans people than even queer-focused publications. The notion that Democrats are somehow preoccupied with protecting trans people is a hallucination promoted by the Right. The only possible way for Democrats to neuter this line of attack is a full-throated embrace of the GOP's most extreme positions on trans rights, and even that would most likely fail. Fox News and other right-wing outlets would simply continue to claim, falsely, that Democrats are still in favor of the most absurd "pro-trans" policies imaginable and their viewers/listeners/readers would just lap it up. The January 2025 vote in the House regarding trans women in women's sports was just bait to promote disenchantment among the Democratic base, and the Democrats, to their credit, did not go for it. The Democrats would have gained no one in the "middle" had they voted in favor of it.
Furthermore, working-class white men who are truly sensitive to economic issues would be voting for Democrats despite the party's (ostensible) support of minority groups because the Democrats have done something that actually benefits them, at least a little bit. Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden enacted substantial (albeit insufficient) legislation to benefit the working-class in the form of the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (which, to be fair, had nothing to do with inflation, though it did have goodies for working-class people). Republicans have done less than nothing on this front, as the only legislation they passed in Trump 1.0 or 2.0 was aimed purely at further enriching the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
Years ago, I thought that working-class Republicans were simply voting against their own self-interest. I no longer believe that. Rank-and-file Republican voters (at least, those still on the Trump train at this point) know they will suffer greatly under Republican rule, but they are okay with that, as long as the people they hate suffer even more. That is how they define their own self-interest. They are motivated by spite and sadism. Chasing these voters is a fool's errand, because the GOP has cornered the market on spite and sadism.
J.F. in Fort Worth, TX, writes: There are times when I can tell there is a bit of a divide between (V)'s opinions and (Z)'s opinions. Case in point, the item bemoaning (yet again) that the Democrats sometimes are in favor of issues which are not wildly popular. As a number of (Z)'s items have pointed out again and again and again, the Republicans almost have a fetish for being in favor of issues which are not popular (lack of reproductive choice, gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the war in Iran, DOGE, etc., etc., etc.), but they pay almost no price at the ballot box for this. Also, the idea that the trans issue might've cost Kamala Harris the election runs counter to the many items you've run (including one just a few days ago) saying that it was Biden/Harris's response to Gaza that cost her the election, as (reportedly) pointed out by the Democrats' own postmortem.
In any event, I look forward to the new multi-part series called "Why Do Republicans Insist on Taking Positions the Voters Hate?" There's enough material there for at least 2 weeks.
S.S. in West Hollywood, CA, writes: Your coverage of "Why Do Democrats Insist on Taking Positions the Voters Hate?" made me want to scream! It's the kind of coverage that makes Republican political operatives giddy at their success using trans Americans as a wedge issue.
It really wasn't that long ago when gays could not serve in the military, teach in public schools, or work for the government. Gay sex was still illegal in many states. Discrimination in employment and housing was the norm. Something that still exists in many places today and we still have no federal protections from. Gays were (and still are, in some places) labeled perverts and pedophiles who groom children. Lesbians too, but it was gay men who were most targeted with the worst stereotypes and demonizing. The idea of marriage was beyond the realm of possibility for most of us.
I remember hearing Jesse Jackson speak at the 1987 Lesbian and Gay Rights march in Washington. I was 20 and cannot express what it meant to me to be seen by a presidential candidate from one of the two major parties. He acknowledged my existence as a human being deserving of all the rights and protections as every other American. It moved me deeply and changed how I saw myself. This was years before "mainstream" Democrats would stop throwing us under the bus as political inconveniences. Even longer before "mainstream" Republicans realized demonizing us was not the winning issue it once was. In time they simply moved on to demonizing trans Americans.
Thankfully, enough Democrats today either remember the past or have simply evolved to not want to throw trans Americans under the bus as political inconveniences as their first impulse. That's why I want to scream when I see coverage like this. I am completely baffled why you, apparently unironically and not for the first time, call for the political expediency of demonizing and throwing trans Americans under the bus.
I'd like to clarify a few things:
- Trans people are human beings deserving of all the love, opportunities, and protections as every other human being. Even more than sexual orientation, science understands why and how some people are born trans. It's really not even that complicated. Those nipples we all have on our chests serve no purpose for men. They are there because they are part of the human form before chromosomes and genetics signal to the body if it's going to be male or female. As with many things in nature, wires can get crossed. Gender is just one more thing that develops on a spectrum. It's not male or female. It's male, female, or some beautiful combination of both or neither. It drives me crazy to hear people who are not experts in gender studies and biology declare they know best on how trans people should live their lives and be treated by society.
- Trans women are women. Period. End of discussion. Trans men are men. Period. End of discussion. If you have trouble with that, then that's on you and only shows your ignorance and prejudices.
- Republicans are masters at using people's ignorance and prejudices to win elections. Republicans are also masters at finding solutions to problems that do not exist. For example, Trans women playing sports is not a problem in the real world. There is no groundswell of students being denied opportunities because of trans girls on their school teams. Professional sports already have rules based on science and developed by people who understand gender and biology. Again, not a real problem in the real world.
Similarly, trans women using women's bathrooms and locker rooms is not a problem in the real world. Trans women using women's bathrooms are women who want to pee. Trans women using women's locker rooms are women who want to change. Men disguising themselves as women to get into women's bathrooms and locker rooms are committing crimes and should be held accountable. A crime that almost never happens. FACT: More Republican congressmen have been arrested in public bathrooms than trans women. FACT: The handful of trans women who have been arrested in public bathrooms were arrested for challenging laws that kept them out of the bathroom that matched their gender identity.- Republicans are better at controlling the message and defining their opponent. We know this. That's not news. Let's not go overboard declaring who's fighting for trans Americans. Neither Democratic voters or politicians are falling over themselves to help trans Americans. For most, it's simply not an issue they think about or that falls high on their list of priorities. So when you say all those elected Democrats are fighting to help trans girls play sports and use women's bathrooms, what you're really saying is you believe the Republican talking points about things that are not happening and problems that are not problems. When you criticize Democratic politicians for not taking the bait and throwing trans Americans under the bus, you are criticizing them for doing the right thing instead of what's politically convenient. When you advise Democrats to do what's politically convenient instead of the right thing, you are allowing yourself to be manipulated by Republicans and have become part of the problem. (Not to mention a Republican political operative's wet dream come true.)
- Trans Americans are not some vague ghost-like idea, they are real people who exist in the real world. They are not a wedge issue or political inconvenience. Their lives are tough enough already. They have almost no legal protections in housing and employment. They are more likely to be murdered, more likely to commit suicide as teenagers, and less likely to get help from law enforcement, social services, religious organizations, or often their own families. All problems that have gotten considerably worse with the explosion of anti-trans rhetoric and laws. They are human beings deserving of the same love and opportunities as the rest of us. And they are Americans deserving of the same rights and protections as the rest of us. They don't need you adding to their problems by advising Democrats to throw them under the bus.
Anonymous in TN, writes: I have been following the site since the days when it was just (V) and you went dark between elections, and I read the item on the Edsall column, and I felt compelled to write in. I am a trans woman who lives in a country where "winning elections to save democracy" seems to allow for "and if we have to compromise and kill (or maybe just half) all those nasty transes to do it, the cost is worth it."
I don't even know what to say, because daily it's becoming more and more clear that the world wants trans people dead. Of course, they'll come for the rest of you after us (and new trans kids will still be born into a world that will disfigure their souls in its quest for eradication). I get that the point of the post was about "winning elections," and I know that I will still vote Democrat instead of Republican on the off chance Democrats don't vote for concentration camps for trans people. But if you want a good example of why so many people utterly hate the Democratic Party, this is a good one. I hate the people I vote for, but do so on the marginal chance I won't get sent to a death camp because it's certain the other side will vote for that.
D.E. in Lancaster, PA, writes: In all my years reading Electoral-Vote.com, I have never objected to something you wrote so strongly as today's "Why Do Democrats Insist on Taking Positions That the Voters Hate?" First off, the article that your piece is based off of seems to me to be yet another in a very long tedious line of how Democrats are just so God awful bad, incompetent, out of touch and really very icky people to be around. Since the article (which was titled "Why Are So Many Democratic Politicians So Far Out of Touch?, which is such a loaded headline that the people at Fox are jealous) was behind a New York Times paywall, I didn't get to read it—and there's no way I'm paying the Times, who has made a cottage industry out of these "Democrats have cooties and no one wants to go to the Prom with them" articles. So tell me, did the Times send out an intrepid reporter to a diner in the most rural area of Nebraska to find out what "real Americans" think about those pinko commie Demorats? Perhaps there was a hard-hitting paragraph or two about how the any-second-now Democrat Civil War will soon be upon us? If not, then the Times was really off their game for this article.
Let me answer the question the title posed: "Because it's the right thing to do and the Democratic Party tries very hard to remain morally committed to its values and beliefs and doesn't sell itself like certain other American political parties do." In 2004, George W. Bush ran on opposition to gay marriage and very successfully used it as a cudgel to beat over the heads of Democrats, who at the time gave little to very tepid support to the notion. Yet just 8 years after Bush rode to victory by demonizing gays, President Obama expressed support for gay marriage in his reelection year. In 2015, just 11 years after Americans voted in a majority their disapproval, gay marriage became the law of the land. Since that time, the support for gay marriage among Americans has remained consistent and high at 67-68%. What was in touch in 2004 is now out of touch in 2026, which brings to mind why do some Republicans today support measures that seek to curtail or overthrow the right to gay marriage? Did this "in-depth" essay broach that subject? Why are the Republicans not being dragged across the coals for supporting an idea so very unpopular? While MAGA has made great hay out of casting trans athletes as their new Supervillains of the Week, still support for transgendered protections against discrimination is at 55% to 70%. Yet opposition to transgender women in women's sports is between 65% and 80%. So the question should be which of those two contradictory positions is the one that is out of touch? Or better yet, perhaps the most pertinent question should be why is there such a contradiction in beliefs about this issue? Are there some factors that are causing this duality?
But let's play out this one better. There is a singular position on a subject that nearly everyone equates with the Republican Party. They have made it into a litmus test to drive out those Republicans who have tried to adopt a more moderating view. The party has become increasingly vocal regarding the subject of abortion. To be fair to the Republicans, they do view the matter as a question of morality, although I would argue about the consistency of their morals that will do everything in their power to assure a baby is guaranteed a birth only to say "screw you" when that baby then needs food, education, employment, and health care. Yet for all their fanatical opposition to abortion, polls show that support for abortion access remains high, with 64% approving of abortion in most or all cases; 30-35% approving of it in limited circumstances, such as rape, incest or the life of the mother; and only 8-13% believing that it should be illegal in all cases, which is a incredibly small minority. Yet a vast majority of Republican politicians pass or try to pass ever increasing draconian laws to make abortions in every possible shape illegal and to ensure the women are severely punished. It seems to me the question here should be "Why are Republicans voting so out of touch from what the American people want?" Not only are they supporting an out-of-touch position, but many Republicans make their hard-line stance central to their campaigns. The argument can be made that, like the Democrats, the Republicans have to please their increasingly strident base, but I think the real problem lies elsewhere. Republicans are usually very successful at running as far right as they can in the primaries and then pivoting back towards the center for the general election, mainly through the use of a lot of mush words, while Democrats much less so. That's because if a Democrat so much as deviates slightly in their word choice, the press is all over them, trotting out the old flip-flop and waffle memes. On the other hand, a Republican can run on "Death Camps for Gays" in the primary and when he or she adopts more humane language in the general the press greets that with a shrug saying, "Well, that's just what has to happen for a Republican to ever get elected." So why do the Republicans get a free pass and why do Americans support a party that is so unaligned with their values?
Of course, what makes Edsall's article so ludicrous is that many Republicans are supporting Donnie's War to Divert Attention from the Trump Epstein Files when so many Americans oppose it. I will be waiting with bated breath for Thomas Edsall's deeply thoughtful and insightful article about how Republicans will probably universally vote for an extra $200 billion for the Pentagon to run the Excursion in Iran even though many of them don't believe in forever foreign wars and/or blowing a huge hole in the U.S. debt. But we all know that when it comes to the GOP toadies that whatever Donnie wants Donnie gets and to hell with our morals and beliefs. You can take the same argument and extend that to protecting pedophiles; using ICE to murder citizens, setting up the system so it favors the extremely wealthy at the expense of the poor and "middle class;" destroying environmental protections; imposing tariffs that are causing inflation; building data centers for AI; and I could go on and on. From where I'm sitting it seems the party that is the most consistently out of touch is the MAGA Republicans and growing more so each day. Where are the essays about that? Certainly not in the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets, who have decided it is better to die on the cross of "fair and balanced," which translates to "the more Republicans fu** up, the more hit pieces they have to put out there about how the Democrats are bad bananas with greasy black peels!"
B.Z. in Baltimore, MD, writes: You wrote: "Protecting women is why sports teams are gendered in the first place."
Incorrect, at least in many cases. Sports are gendered because men can't deal with losing to women. There are many sports were women would be entirely safe competing with men, from rock climbing and running to chess, and yet they are still made to play apart. It is about men's egos, and little else.
J.M. in Albany, OH, writes: In his latest piece critiquing the Democratic Party having progressive policy positions on complex social issues, (V) unfortunately recommends embracing a far greater weakness for the party than taking concrete stands on civil rights issues: total surrender to bigoted, MAGA framing on these issues. Surrendering to Republican framing in the Culture Wars is a big loser, and MAGA media will immediately make up something else of little real-world importance to fire up low-information and bigoted voters about... moving the Overton Window towards total rejection of human equality and civil rights, yet again.
The real tack Democrats should be taking is not the "just saw the baby in half" centrism (V) and Thomas Edsall seem to recommend, because that serves to do nothing but alienate everyone and hollow out broad support. The key here is to find catchy, robust means of rejecting the framing itself, especially by relentlessly harping on how these are invented controversies with little to no evidence to back up any need for political action and waste of government resources chasing ghosts. It would be more effective to repeatedly and firmly remind voters that there is an infinitesimally small number of trans athletes (most of whom are far from competitive) and passing/enforcing laws could involve adults inspecting the genitals of children, that affirmative action still requires people to be more-than-qualified for the positions they are competing for, that asylum seekers are hardworking immigrants doing it the right way and are statistically VERY unlikely to be involved in crime, and acknowledging to kids that LGBTQ people exist and are just people like us.
Hemming and hawing, and pandering to bigotry, is what weakness actually looks like.
R.O. in Portland, ME, writes: When I encounter someone who complains about trans equality and the Democrats, I always ask them "What part of 'liberty, and justice, for ALL' is it that you object to? Did you have an asterisk added in your school?"
Another way to put it is, "As a Christian, who is it that Jesus says it's OK to hate?"
Someday I'll actually start producing my bumper sticker idea:
Democrats: Liberty and Justice for All.
Republicans: Liberty. Just us.
P.S. in Plano, TX, writes: You wrote: "And the U.S. might well have done enough to damage its soft power, at this point, that it cannot be fixed. Meanwhile, this spending of $1 trillion/year on the military is not sustainable, long-term. So, the U.S. is likely to recede further and further in terms of both types of power... It will settle in as one of the next-tier powers, along with the U.K., Russia, France, etc., with all looking up at China."
I don't see this future occurring. Our allies need us just as we need them, and they want Donald Trump to be an aberration. If it's proven he was, I expect they will be happy to mend fences with us. Nor does our military spending seem unsustainable to me, since it is currently near historic lows as a percentage of our GDP.
All of that aside, the big thing I want to respond to is Electoral-Vote.com's belief that China is on track to be the premier world superpower, because I fear that China is on a very different track.
Much attention is paid in the West to China's technological advances in electric cars, robotics, and space technology. What is not understood is that China has distorted its economy to create those advances. Perhaps this sounds familiar to (Z), because this dynamic happened between the United States and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. The United States saw with fear how the U.S.S.R. was first in space, first in human space flight, and possessing of a military might competitive with its own. What we did not see was that the U.S.S.R. certainly should have been accomplished in those ways since it was allocating over a fourth of its entire GDP towards its military-industrial complex. What we saw from the U.S.S.R. may have been impressive, but it was also the result of an alarming perversion of the U.S.S.R.'s national economy.
We now know that the U.S.S.R. was unable to stop itself from distorting its economy for political purposes and that it failed as a state partially because those distortions eventually turned its economy into a twisted, unsalvageable abomination. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme, and China is on a rhyming path: China is fudging its GDP numbers, distorting its economy in favor of politically impressive accomplishments at the expense of needed goods and services, and masking inefficiencies in state-owned enterprises by throwing good money after bad. China does still have time to course correct before it's too late, but the Rhodium Group's depressing analyses make me fear that China lacks the will to prevent itself from continuing down the U.S.S.R.'s path.
I would love to see China reach fully developed status. A more prosperous China would be good for the world economy, and developed countries tend to become less authoritarian, which would be good for world peace. What I am instead seeing is a slow-motion train wreck that will likely lead to Chinese poverty, political unrest, and potential war with the United States as the government of a failing China attempts to conquer Taiwan to regain its internal legitimacy and international sphere of influence.
Let's hope I'm wrong.
D.C. in Portland, OR, writes: You ended your item "This Week in Freudenfreude: Save the Planet, Trump Be Damned" with this thought, that continues to resonate in my mind:
That is a somewhat dark observation, we know, but the continued survival of the planet and of the human race is more important than the continued dominance of any one nation-state. And so, the inexorable march towards the hopefully more eco-friendly future of energy is a freudenfreude moment, even if it leaves the United States trailing the pack.It strikes a chord that has been forming for a while, that America is marching blindly through a multi-generational fog of arrogance, towards an ultimate, catastrophic collapse.
It reminds me of a thread that has persisted through Electoral-Vote.com posts of the last 20+ years: a sober, realistic and open minded reflection on the absurdities of the day, set in the context of the comically flawed electoral lifebelt we all cling to.
With (V) at the helm, always ready to throw down the rusty anchor of optimism and positivity, I'm often reminded that there may be no "good" way out of the mess, but rather always more mess to come. And so (Z)'s concluding remarks almost tie a ribbon around that ever present but rarely spoken, endpoint of seeming inevitability.
I made the same observation myself the other day, that I almost find myself wishing for that collapse as a means to reset the current, unustainable hellscape.
P.B in Lille, France, writes: I am a French guy who is 42 now. I always have seen myself like a great admirer of your beautiful country. I know what my country owes to yours; I visit the beaches of Normandy quite often.
For 10 years now I contemplate what your country is becoming with pain and disbelief. With a great sadness too. I don't know if you know Claude Malhuret, but he is a French senator who enjoyed a little fame recently, with some terribly accurate and scathing speeches about Donald Trump and his presidencies. He captures pretty well, I think, my state of mind when I consider Trump and America. Last year, he compared Trump and his government to the court of Nero. This week, he quoted a Turkish proverb: "When a clown enters a palace, he does not become king, but the palace becomes a circus."
I am really depressed about the state of America. How can America become that great and admirable country again after Trump? Is it possible? I don't know, I am not so sure... Any silver lining to bring me some hope for the future of America?
S.T. in Worcestershire, England, UK, writes: Some thoughts on your response to the question about whether the U.S. is in decline.
It is important to distinguish between relative and absolute decline. The former, where a previously strong or dominant state underperforms against others, is relatively common. So, for example, the U.S. economy has remained buoyant in recent years, albeit with the growth being very unevenly spread but has not matched the growth rate of China in particular and southeast Asia in general. The latter is far less common. Obviously military conquest, such as the fall of the Western Roman Empire, falls into this category. Spain's decline in the seventeenth century is a good example of clear decline through exhaustion. Arguably Russia, whose economy is now only on a par with that of Italy, and the U.K., which has endemic growth problems, currently fall into this category.
It is a mistake, however, to assume that past performance will be continued into the future. Back in the 1980's it was wisely assumed that Japan, based on its economic success, would emerge as a major power. It failed to happen, as growth stuttered and demographic problems revolving around an aging population kicked in. It is not inconceivable that China will experience similar issues. Its growth is also heavily dependent on external trade and successive attempts by the Chinese leadership to boost internal demand appear to have been largely unsuccessful partly due to the property boom and bust in recent years. Further, China is also facing demographic issues partly caused by the previous "one child" policy. An aging population requiring more support will be a challenge for their existing economic model.
Finally as is being clearly demonstrated day-in, day-out at present, there is the issue of hard and soft power. The former clearly has limitations and sometimes throws up unexpected surprises. Who would have guessed a few years ago that the use of drones would lead to the battlefield in Ukraine currently turning into a World War I-style stalemate with exchanges of territory measured in the odd kilometer or so? Soft power, however, continues to be underestimated. Certainly countries such as France have been particularly adept at using it to retain influence far beyond their notional status.
S.P. in Harrisburg, PA, writes: I am not necessarily defending Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), but one thing to point out about his frequent votes with Republicans is that Pennsylvania has very traditionally had an appreciation for its moderate politicians. Think Arlen Specter, who was never a solid Republican vote before he switched parties; Bob Casey Sr., who was an anti-abortion Democrat; and Tom Ridge, who was a pro-abortion Republican. More recently, Pat Toomey had a moderate streak and gained fame for a gun-control bill cosponsored with Joe Manchin. So while it may not be helpful for him in 2028, I see Fetterman as catering to the long-standing appeal of moderates in Pennsylvania.
C.C. in Camano Island, WA, writes: I wanted to clarify for you that the Centralia Coal Plant is located in Centralia in western Washington and it serves Puget Sound Energy customers who are also located in western Washington. There is no north central Washington being served by the plant. Puget Sound Energy serves large parts of King, Island, and Whatcom Counties, all in western Washington. At one time it burned coal which was mined very near to the plant location. In 2006, the open pit mine was closed. The plant then started burning coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
Puget Sound Energy is now owned by an LLC made up of several Canadian entities. Transalta is a Canadian Company out of Alberta. Originally the Centralia Coal Plant was owned by a consortium of private power and public power utilites from the northwest. It was sold in the early 2000s to Transalta.
Meanwhile, Joe Kent recently saw the light and resigned from his position in the Trump administration. Kent is from District 3, where the coal plant is located. I do not think there is any connection; that's just a sidebar. However, Kent did run against Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) twice, and he lost both times in fairly close elections. I believe that is the reason for his resignation. I expect to see him running against Perez again, only this time he can claim he did not support the war against Iran with the hope that he can get a few of the more normal people in District 3 to vote for him and not just the crazy MAGA Republicans. While Gluesenkamp-Perez does not always vote the party line, she is still considered a Democrat and I think she does try to represent the voters in her district, although I am sure she falls far short of satisfying the Trumpers among her constituents.
D.S. in Layton, UT, writes: I did like your list of the greatest players in MLB history, (despite the lack of any Cubs on it), but did find what I felt was one glowing omission: Why didn't Joe DiMaggio get at least consideration?
(V) & (Z) respond: First, note that Rogers Hornsby was on the list, and he played several seasons with the Cubs. Second, DiMaggio was an exciting and popular player, but his career WAR was 79.1. Even if you assume he had three 10-WAR seasons instead of serving in the military (and his career high was 9.3 WAR), he would still be at 110 WAR or so. That's not enough to make the Top 20 in baseball history.
M.M. in El Paso, TX, writes: I think you need to include Yogi Berra somewhere in this review.
R.P. in Alexandria, NY, writes: I wanted to share a few thoughts on Willie Mays. I wonder how his time in the Negro Leagues and the one full season and nearly ¾ of another when he was drafted into the military affected his overall numbers, particularly with regard to career home runs. I've seen the case made that playing in Candlestick Park certainly hurt his stats, and the deep, deep center field in the Polo Grounds that gave him the opportunity to show off his defense certainly also robbed him of some homers. It's fun to think of him having the ability to show off those five tools for another couple of seasons.
(V) & (Z) respond: There may be no player who was hurt more by their home park(s) than Willie Mays.
K.R. in Austin, TX, writes: The current Banana Ball league, which is a version of baseball that is meant to be more entertaining, added a team this year called the Indianapolis Clowns. They are a tribute to the original Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. Thanks to them, I learned that Hank Aaron had a short stint in the Negro Leagues, playing with the Clowns: Hank Aaron on his time in the Negro Leagues: 'It gave me opportunity'.
M.S. in Canton, NY, writes: May I make an argument that Frank Robinson should appear on the list of contenders for the Top 10 best baseball players ever?
Robinson began his MLB career in spectacular fashion, with a record number of home runs for a rookie, which won him the 1956 Rookie of the Year award in the National League. He went on to exceed even those lofty expectations. He was an All-Star 14 times. He was the first player to win the Most Valuable Player award in both leagues (which only Shohei Ohtani has done since). He won the batting Triple Crown in 1966. He played in four World Series, twice on the winning team, and in one of those wins was named World Series MVP. He hit 586 home runs for his career, which was the fourth highest total ever at the time of his retirement; that put him in excellent company with the players ahead of him: Aaron, Ruth, Mays. There are now statues of him in front of the ballparks in Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Cleveland.
Two footnotes:
- Robinson was also an excellent basketball player in high school, but he was only the second-best player on the team. The best was Bill Russell.
- Can we agree that the best-ever last name in baseball was "Robinson"? Jackie, Frank, and Brooks.
(V) & (Z) respond: "Robinson" has three Hall of Famers, but we would be remiss if we did not point out that it's only the fifth most-productive last name in baseball history, behind #1 Williams, #2 Johnson #3 Davis and #4 Jones.
A.D. in Pittsburgh, PA, writes: I've been reading your site since the Bush administration, and I've never actually written in before, but your recent bit about students whose names were improbable cultural references brought to mind a story I couldn't pass up the chance to tell. I'm a college biology professor, and a few years back I was taking attendance in a new class, calling out students... and stumbled upon a Norman Osborn. I've been a comic book geek all my life, so that name automatically stuck out; the Spider-Man movies have brought it into the zeitgeist, and this kid was definitely old enough to have been born at a time when the earliest of those had been released. Maybe his parents just didn't know?
I resisted the urge to make a Green Goblin joke, figuring he'd grown up hearing it all. But when I called his name, another kid in the room swiveled his head sharply in that direction, and then turned and looked at me with an "you've gotta be kidding me" expression. I flipped my roster to the next page, and he turned out to be the student at the very top... named Peter Parker.
They ended up in the same lab group. I later learned Norman Osborn had somehow lived his whole life up to that point with no awareness of the secondary meaning of his name. Peter Parker very obviously knew what his meant. They ended up being good friends. Given that I teach a biology lab, I figure that was way better than the alternative.
S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, writes: Recently, you wrote: "(Z) often has students, including a few right now, whose names would surely have been off limits 20-30 years ago, due to teasing.... Maybe [their parents] even did it deliberately."
I have to assume that this is how noted serial killer John Wayne Gacy was named. I, having grown up in Chicago's North suburbs, became aware of him well before learning of noted actor John Wayne.
M.B. in Montreal, QC, Canada, writes: I just have to share this with you. Yesterday afternoon I was at a concert and was surprised to see a man wearing a MAGA hat. Except that when I got close, I realized it said "Make America Go Away."
O.B. in Santa Monica, CA, writes: Something biblical, in view of events in the Middle East spinning out of control. Samson's (reported) final words: "Let me die with the Philistines," followed by his knocking down the pillars of the Philistine temple, killing himself and all who were inside.
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