Sunday Mailbag

The first three questions yesterday generated quite a response. And it was... all quite civil.

Politics: This Week in TrumpWorld

 

L.C. in Brookline, MA, writes: You wrote, in regard to Donald Trump's strategy in his War on Iran: "One cannot help but think of the definition of insanity often incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein: 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'"

You are making the assumption that Trump is actually expecting different results. He (along with his inner circle, and reportedly some similar people in Israel) has been grifting plenty off this war. He doesn't WANT different results. And that answers your next question.

You wrote further: "Since Trump keeps running the same playbook over and over, we have no idea when or how this is going to end."

That's an easy one: It will end some time after he can't grift off it any more.

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R.D. in San Diego, CA, writes: I think it's actually rather clear that the occupant of what's left of the White House has had a great success in his management of the Iran War. The goal is not the end of their nuclear program, or opening the Strait, or regime change, or getting a better deal than Obama. The actual goal is controlling the media spotlight.

On February 27, the Clintons testified effectively about Epstein before Congress, and the right was robbed of using them as a cover for the White House occupant's pedophilia. People were starting to state that their testimony meant that the occupant may have to answer questions under oath as well. On February 28, bombing started in Iran, and nobody brings up Epstein anymore. Whatever happens in the Middle East doesn't really matter to the occupant - the war only affects the 'suckers' in the military or the foreigners being bombed. The occupant couldn't care less about the inflation caused by the war, because it doesn't affect him personally. As long as he can tweet about Iran, possible peace deals, winning the war, how tough he is, etc ..., nobody is reminding Congress that there's a ton of documentation about how he raped children and asking them to do something about it.

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E.W. in Skaneateles, NY, writes: In regards to your write-up of Donald Trump's speech: Thank you for posting that redacted file, but I must beg to differ that it doesn't say anything. If you take the letters that aren't redacted, rearrange them, add a few and get rid of others, then drop a bunch of acid, it obviously spells "Jeffrey Epstein was murdered." It's clear as day! Glad I could help.

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E.F. in Baltimore, MD, writes: Let me educate the unenlightened about burn bags. Anyone who's worked in classified spaces has seen them. They look like those big brown paper leaf bags you buy at the garden store. Putting an old Chinese takeout menu into one doesn't make the menu classified. And except in special circumstances, they're not burned any more. Their contents get shredded and pulped. Must be the Green New Deal or something.

Recognizing that Trump lies constantly about everything, if it is even true that there were some old burn bags lying around from previous administrations, the most likely reason why they were never burned is that they contained nothing classified. More likely, they were being used as wastepaper baskets, or as temporary storage by someone moving from one office to another.

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A.S. in Black Mountain, NC, writes: I was very impressed and surprised to hear TCF mention Burn Bags!

When I served in the Navy many years ago, the unit I was attached to was the Fleet Intelligence Center Pacific (FICPAC). Naturally, we produced a lot of classified info on paper. So, once or twice a week an enlisted and an officer were assigned the "Burn Run." We would take 2 or 3 full duffel bags of all levels of classification to a funky "incinerator" on Ford Island consisting of a cinderblock wall enclosure about 3 feet square and 6 feet tall. Guess who did all the work being sure all the paper was incinerated down to ash, with our heads stuck into the smoky enclosure to be sure? On a windy day, keeping a sheet of paper from blowing away was a challenge.

Eventually the unit was given an industrial sized paper shredder that emptied into a small dumpster at the rear of the building and the burn run was a thing of the past. When we first used it, it created a large plume of paper dust because it was shredded to very fine particles. It was so bad something had to be done. So, someone came up with the idea if we sprayed the out flow with water we would eliminate the dust cloud. And that worked. Except when the truck arrived to haul it away it was so heavy the truck reared up on its rear tires and could not lift the dumpster! Several attempts were made. I think the building shifted as all the staff ran to the rear of the building to watch the truck rear up. They couldn't even move the dumpster so a new batch of paper could be shredded. It took several weeks for the water to drain out and evaporate so the dumpster could be moved. So, the burn run was reinstated for a while.

I am left with the question: Does the government still use burn bags or have we solved the problem with industrial paper shredders? And water sprays?

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O.E. in Greenville, SC, writes: In regards to the White House's comments on China allegedly hacking voter information, it is both worse than they imply and not as bad as they imply. Just like 10 years ago, there is no evidence whatsoever that China altered any election results. The hacks are also likely not intended to alter election results, so we should not fear that.

The likely motives are two. The first is that they may have been hacked because they are there. Second, the hack is to obtain information on voters themselves, such as age and addresses. (Social Security numbers may not be included, though I know some older election files had those numbers in them.) That gives them information on millions of Americans.

I definitely don't consider the recent actions to be reason to restrict the right to vote, as Trump implies, or a reason to doubt the legitimacy of the general election in 2020. That said, I don't want people getting their hands on election data, be it the Chinese, the Trump administration, or various companies...

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R.M. in Lincoln City, OR, writes: A couple of things about Trump's speech.

First, I listened to the entire thing on NPR radio, so they carried it in full.

Second, Trump complained that China has acquired voter data on millions of Americans. Just FYI, in our county, this voter data is public record, available to anyone. You do have to pay $10, but then you get a list of registered voters along with their addresses and their party registration. I don't know what China might want to do with all this vital info, but it's there for the taking.

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M.M. in San Diego, CA, writes: Was it really a mistake?

The "election interference" document dump contained one that indicated the Russians were actively trying to help Trump in 2020. Knowing the press would carefully comb through the trove, I imagine one overworked, underpaid, disillusioned junior staffer engaging in a perfect act of sabotage...

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C.C.B. in Beavercreek, OH, writes: I would like to thank you for watching the speech. I did not. I told my wife that, should I ever want to hear an 80-something trafficking in conspiracy theories I would call one of our mothers. I was reminded of this scene from Phineas and Ferb:

Let me know when the President starts yelling at cheese.

Politics: ICE

 

P.R. in Saco, ME, writes: Here are some photos of the memorial site and the murder site of Joan Sebastían Guerrero in Biddeford yesterday:

My husband and I went this morning to the man's memorial; we left a candle. The death of a man here lawfully, working and with a social security number, happened on a street we travel frequently, around 3 miles from our house. Biddeford is sister-city to Saco, across the Saco River. I am torn between my taking photos being voyeurism, or witnessing, and I come down on the side of witnessing. A dear friend taught me the importance of witnessing. This terrorizing has now happened on our streets. I feel grief and anger. I will not be silent.

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J.E. in Manhattan, NY, writes: You wrote: "Note that we do not believe that ICE is actively looking to kill people in cold blood. However, we do believe it's a badly run agency, and one that is relying on many poorly trained, inexperienced agents. That is how you end up with 20 shootings and 4 fatalities in less than a year."

There's an old joke among engineers, and that is if a system is behaving a certain way, it is because it was designed to do just that. I would ask you if you thought the Gestapo (or perhaps more accurately the SS) wasn't seeking to murder people? And then I ask you how ICE is one teeny-tiny-bit different?

This is not a badly run agency; it is an agency doing exactly what it is intended to do: Terrorize people. Murder people. Make it clear that if you are "other" you are not a real human being and can be summarily executed at any time. More training is not going to help; it's like saying that the Gestapo needed to be told to take people to the death camps "the right way."

It isn't just the shootings, of which there have been many more than just the ones this year. It's also that as of June of last year, 52 people died in the custody of ICE and those are only the ones we know about. How many more have died in these concentration camps—that is what they are—that are not publicized? And in fact, actively covered up?

There is quite a lot of precedent in living memory in the United States. I point you to the residential schools set up to destroy Native people's culture (they might better be termed "re-education camps"). Do you know what people found when they dug up the yards? They found almost 1,000 Native children buried unmarked, and unnamed, and unrecorded. They were ripped from their parents and just disappeared. The last residential schools closed in the 1970s. Not one person who ran those schools was ever prosecuted for anything, or even fined. None of them were asked to even apologize.

What do you think we will find if we start digging up the land around ICE facilities? ICE already said they "lost" dozens, if not hundreds, of children. I hope with all my heart that I am wrong but I am not confident many of them are still living.

And it isn't just us lefty people saying this. The Bulwark recently ran a headline saying that yes, we have death squads in the United States.

So yes, if you join ICE you are very much looking to kill people, because that is your job. The difference is that you get legal cover, and you needn't shoot someone—you can take them to an ICE facility where they might simply disappear if you can't get them deported in time to prevent them from contacting a lawyer. If Markwayne Mullin and Tom Homan are ever prosecuted—and they need to be charged with murder—they deserve the same fate as the Nazis hanged at Nuremberg.

Politics: The Maine Senate Election

 

B.C. in Walpole, ME, writes: I continue to see much hand-wringing about the collapse of Graham Platner's candidacy, much blaming of the Democratic Party, much fear about what comes next. I don't really get it. Certain facts seem ignored.

First, say what you want about Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), she's actually very good at winning elections. Any thought about her political demise before November is premature, and the race will be too close for the polls to read. I was sure she would lose 6 years ago; I'm not making that mistake this time. Anyone who thinks Platner had the race in the bag is wrong.

Second, the hand-wringers seem to ignore the single most important issue here: Do Mainers want to re-elect Susan Collins, or would they like a chance for a Democratic majority Senate? I can complain, criticize, bitch, whine and kvetch as well as anyone, but in November, I'm supporting the Democrat even if it's a yellow dog. It's hot here in Maine; by this fall, we'll have cooled down.

Third, Graham Platner, despite his sterling personal qualities, had little on his résumé beyond his military service, and no government experience at all. I for one am very happy with the list of possible replacements for him. I think we'll get someone that the Democratic voters can unite behind and be happy with. But we can be certain that whoever is chosen will have far more government service than Graham Platner.

Fourth, everyone is blaming the national Democratic Party for this debacle when it was not the party that recruited and promoted Platner. Nor is it the national Democratic Party that is in charge of fixing the problem. The state party is under a lot of pressure to get it right, and they have the 2024 Biden-Harris situation as an example of what not to do. I only wish I'd seen half as much blaming of the Republican Party for not stopping Trump in his tracks in 2015.

As I write, the Republicans are solving their own Graham problem in South Carolina by appointing the former Senator's sister. And no one seems to think that's a problem. Maybe the Democrats should find out if Platner has a sister with no government experience.

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S.L. in Irwin, PA, writes: Read your item on the Maine Senate debate. While I admit I did not watch the full debate, your opinion is that Dr. Nirav Shah (D) helped himself most. I looked more into his background and discovered he was born and raised in Wisconsin before moving to Kentucky when he was in junior high school. His connection to the state is serving as the director for the Maine CDC from 2019-2023. While being a carpetbagger might not matter as much to some, to Mainers it seems like it would. Especially when the other three major candidates were born and/or raised in the state.

The more unfortunate item in Dr. Shah's past is his handling of a Legionnaires' disease outbreak that occurred when he served as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health in 2015. A total of 13 deaths occurred at the Illinois Veterans' Home in Quincy. He was heavily criticized for the department's response to the outbreak. Both current senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin (D) and Tammy Duckworth (D), have publicly stated Maine deserves better and he needs to drop out of the race.

My hope is the delegates at the state convention take this into consideration when they are voting.

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C.P.S. in San Jose, CA, writes: I want my vote back.

In the Electoral-Vote.com survey, I voted for former state Sen. Troy Jackson (D) solely because of his substantial lead in the polls, which I viewed as the strongest indication that he had the best chance of defeating Susan Collins.

However, after watching the debate, I've completely changed my mind. I believe that no Democrat—whether progressive or centrist—could watch Nirav Shah's performance and not want him to take on Susan Collins, the Trump administration, and the Republican politicians who continue to enable it.

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S.C. in Mountain View, CA, writes: I hope that at the next Maine Democratic Senate candidate forum one of the anchors asks Troy Jackson if he stirs his coffee with his thumb:

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J.D. in Rohnert Park, CA, writes: In your Maine Democratic Senate poll, I voted for Troy Jackson, since he was the runner-up in the governor's race, he has a record in the state legislature, and many observers seemed to favor him. But personally, I like Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. She's a woman, she's younger, and she has been elected statewide. So she could be more competitive against Collins than an older white guy.

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E.T. in Ondangwa, Namibia, writes: Let me get straight to the point: I believe Shenna Bellows should be the replacement Democratic nominee.

You wrote that "Bellows has twice run statewide. The first was in 2014, when she challenged Collins and lost bigly, with the Senator taking 67% of the vote and Bellows taking 31%. The second was this year, when she finished in fourth place in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. This is not a promising track record when it comes to mounting a (second) challenge to Collins." I'd like to nuance this assessment with two counterpoints:

1. Bellows is a stronger candidate than last time, and Collins is more vulnerable. Bellows was running in 2014 as the former director of the ACLU with little name recognition and no political experience. Since then, she's gained that missing political experience as a state Representative and then as Secretary of State, while Collins has only become more vulnerable as the Trump-led Republican Party has gotten crazier.
   
   
2. As the only current officeholder in the race, Bellows has a platform to fight back against Trump right now. She ruled that Trump was ineligible for the 2024 ballot because of his conduct on January 6, 2021. In response, she was doxxed, swatted and the Maine State Capitol received a bomb threat. Troy Jackson can talk all he wants about being a progressive fighter, but Bellows actually has some solid actions to fall back on.

Ultimately, my opinion should be taken with a heaping handful of salt, since I'm not a Maine voter. On the other hand, I think there is a unique poetic justice to replacing a grizzly man with a history of sexual misconduct with a civil rights leader who helped legalize same sex marriage, expand voting rights, and protect abortion rights in her state.

One last thing: Bellows served with the Peace Corps in Panama from 1999-2001. As a current Peace Corps Volunteer, I can personally attest to the strength of character required to live by yourself among people in a foreign country, building relationships across cultural barriers, and in a language you barely understand. I salute her for everything she's already accomplished, Senate or no Senate.

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K.G. in Hillsboro, OR, writes: Passing along an amusing anecdote from the Maine Senate race: Last weekend, I was sent what is possibly the least organized political fundraising text I've ever received. It had a picture of some guy I didn't recognize, mentioned Graham Platner dropping out, some words about Susan Collins, and asked for money as their bank account was starting at $0.

It was then I realized: Nowhere in the message did it mention the name of the candidate! As a daily reader of Electoral-Vote.com for 10 years, I literally had no idea who this man was. I wondered if it was a scam. The only clue was a link to a "jwood.to" website, which, since I do not click on random links, meant nothing to me until Wednesday, when (Z)'s post mentioned "former congressional aide and current progressive activist Jordan Wood" in the list of debate invitees.

Sending out messages saying "I am running" but neglecting to mention who you are says something about the state of organization of the race, or the seriousness of one's candidacy, I think.

Politics: Mitch-A-Palooza

 

T.G. in Salem, OR, writes: I'm generally not a big conspiracy person, but Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is not doing anything to help his case against conspiracies.

Nothing is going to change regardless of how many people have "about a 20 minute call" with him. Or how many times a picture is posted with a copy of "today's paper." The one thing that everyone can agree on is "AI can make anything look real" even if you don't agree on whether something is AI-generated or not.

The only way to dispel the "rumors" is for McConnell to sit for an interview with a REASONABLY acceptable reporter (forget about Hannity, Watters, Ingraham, Gutfeld), or with Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY).

Given that McConnell is a pretty savvy politician (and has been for over 40 years), he KNOWS this. Were he actually "in his right mind" he would have orchestrated some sort of interview within a week of being hospitalized. The simple fact that he didn't, and still hasn't, tells me that he's just "hanging on" until the deadline passes so a special election can't happen.

If that turns out to be the case, all the people who have perpetuated this fraud should be criminally charged with conspiracy.

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M.G. in Boston, MA, writes: You wrote:

Needless to say, many people on the Internet immediately called shenanigans. Here's a non-exhaustive list of some of the conspiratorial questions being raised:

• Why are they letting him wear a shirt and jeans in the hospital?
• Why isn't he hooked to any sort of IV or monitor?
• Why was there a "cardiac arrest" call at the Senator's house?
• Why can't McConnell provide something more substantive, like a video or phone call?
• Why did it take 4 weeks to provide an update?

I'll leave the 4th and 5th bullet points alone, as they are fair questions. However, as a longtime RN, these "conspiracy" points show just how little the lay public understands about how hospitals work, to the point of being laughable. These are, of course, personal opinions based on experience—I am not a physician and my statements are not intended to diagnose or treat anyone.

Why are they letting him wear a shirt and jeans in the hospital? Wearing regular clothes—while certainly not the most common—is hardly a rare occurrence in a hospital, especially outside of an ICU setting.

Why isn't he hooked to any sort of IV or monitor? A fall and pneumonia do not automatically require cardiac telemetry and continuous IV fluid or medication treatments.

Why was there a "cardiac arrest" call at the Senator's house? It is not uncommon for lay persons to witness an injury or medical event, perhaps with diminished consciousness, and make less-than-accurate statements about what's going on, or perform unnecessary or situationally inappropriate interventions.

Sometimes it's actually a horse and not a zebra. Social media conspiracy theorists need a better hobby.

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T.B. in Winston-Salem, NC, writes: Facebook is so happy that the Senator is doing well!

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F.H. in Ithaca, NY, writes: As I peripherally danced around the topic on "another social media site" (as the saying goes), a smart-arse friend of mine came up with the quip:

"... well, there are rumors that McConnell is currently in the state of rigor tortoise."

Politics: Readers Won't Miss Lindsey

 

S.A.K. in Karnataka, India, writes: You were pretty mild and measured when writing about Lindsey Graham's war-hawkish tendencies. That, of course, is your style, not an accommodation you made. To add a bit more color, though, the man called for flattening Gaza and drew comparisons between the Americans nuking Japan and Israel potentially doing the same. I don't think even Sen. Tom Cotton (R-OK) or Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said something so appalling. Imagine being worse than those two.

He reminded me of Madeleine Albright and her casual acceptance that up to half a million Iraqi children dead from extreme post-Desert Storm sanctions was a price worth paying. Or George W. Bush's psychopathic jokes about missing WMDs in his speech at the 2004 White House Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner. I can already picture the nauseating hagiographies "centrist'" Democrats will churn out when Bush dies.

Talking about constituencies that will mourn Graham's demise, the military-industrial complex is another one that comes to mind. But with half of Congress already on retainer, they'll more than manage.

Borrowing the oft-misattributed words of Mark Twain, I read this particular obituary with great pleasure and satisfaction.

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C.N. in New York City, NY, writes: As a gay man, I'll remember Graham first as a slimy, Trump-supporting opportunist, and second as a traitor and hypocrite.

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A.S. in Chicago, IL, writes: Lindsey Graham's death reminded me of a Groucho Marx quote: "Those are my principles. If you don't like those, I have others."

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P.L. in Denver, CO, writes: Given the unexpected death of Lindsey Graham and whatever is going on with Mitch McConnell, I wonder if the GOP has considered they may be playing with fire in Iowa. Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R) term ends January 2029. There is a good chance Iowa may have a Democratic governor. Guess what would happen if Grassley died? The governor gets to pick his replacement.

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S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, writes: Seen on Facebook: "You can't tell me that Lindsey wasn't Mitch's horcrux."

Politics: Israel

 

B.F. in Laguna Beach, CA, writes: I wanted to thank (Z) for his thoughtful and nuanced response to the question from J.K. in Short Hills, N.J., regarding Israel and antisemitism. As a Gen-X American Jew, I wholeheartedly agree that "Israel is not Judaism and Judaism is not Israel." I would also add that American Judaism is not Israeli Judaism.

Before Benjamin Netanyahu, I would have said that I largely supported Israel, as well as American support to the country, which at the time, was generally operating as a liberal democracy. However, everything changed for me once Netanyahu came to power. I viewed him as cruel, power-hungry, and narcissistic, just like Donald Trump, and felt that he was leading his country astray from its founding purpose as a haven for the Jewish diaspora decimated by the Holocaust.

I was horrified by the attack upon the Israeli people by Hamas and hoped that Israel could bring Hamas to justice. What I have seen Israel do since has horrified me just as much as the attack on Israel by Hamas. The cruelty and devastation to the Palestinian people, whether a "genocide" or not, is unforgivable because Jews are supposed to be better than that. As Jews, we are taught the concept of "tikkun olam," that we have a duty to repair or heal the world, not purposefully cause pain and suffering like what was inflicted upon us in the Holocaust.

The other thing American Jews understand is that we should not be a "shanda fur di goyim," that is, we must not embarrass fellow Jews in front of non-Jews because if we do, it promotes antisemitism and does damage to the Jewish community's public image. Netanyahu and Israel's government are shandas, destroying the goodwill and support of America and the world. I try to differentiate the Israeli people from its government, but to the extent Israelis are supportive of Netanyahu's government and/or approach to Palestinians, I can see no difference.

Unless and until Netanyahu is out of power, Israel stops its destruction of the Palestinian people, and commits to a separate state, America should not support Israel, either financially or morally.

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M.F. in Des Moines, IA, writes: I'd like to explain some of why long-time liberal Democrats like myself are having trouble aligning with a lot of the pro-Palestine left.

Let me start with the places of agreement. Netanyahu is a corrupt right-wing wannabe authoritarian of the type that has become familiar in the 21st century, just a variant on people like Trump and Orbán. The Likud-led conservative government is of a kind with Netanyahu himself and other right-wing authoritarians. The Israeli military has almost certainly committed war crimes at Netanyahu's behest, and the Israeli response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks has not been proportional to the scale of that attack—a similar moral and strategic mistake to the one the U.S. made post 9/11. Netanyahu should be put on trial for his actions, but I have serious doubts that will end up happening.

Now where I, and a bunch of fellow Democrats and our Jewish friends have a problem: If what the pro-Palestine left was talking about was entirely about the above, Democrats would have shifted more quickly because you could correctly frame the problem as a rogue right-wing government using a tragedy to justify a more expansive, disproportional military project they wanted for other reasons, again like the U.S. post 9/11.

But the advocacy is not confined to that. Instead any pro-Palestine thread or group you go to online very swiftly reveals its own mission creep: the delegitimization and disestablishment of Israel as a state. And more frighteningly, to justify this position, we see rhetoric eerily reminiscent of the "Blood and Soil" ideologies used by fascist movements. I don't think these advocates are fascists, but this central idea is lifted from fascism. To be fair, both sides engage in this exercise and both need to realize the dangers inherent in that thinking. You can't, for example, simultaneously hold that blood and heredity are what matters to who gets to live in a place, while championing liberal immigration policies of the kind most on the left, myself included, favor.

Moreover, that thinking swiftly leads where it always does: ethnic cleansing. It's easy to use clean-sounding phrases like "illegitimate state" or "anti-Zionist." Even the more directly stated rejection of a two-state solution and desire for disestablishment of Israel as a state stays at arms length from the implication of the position.

The implication is a desire for Israeli society to be wiped out. This is certainly how most of my Jewish friends tell me they hear it. And to be plain, if this is a person's advocacy, that person is my enemy just as surely as MAGA is. I will not accept ethnic cleansing as a solution to ethnic cleansing.

I hope no one is naive enough to believe Israel will voluntarily dissolve itself, so If you are talking about eliminating Israel as a society, you are talking about dragging children from their homes and putting them on buses and planes while killing their parents if those parents resist. It doesn't matter if someone says "I don't mean that," because following the thought to its conclusion, they MUST mean that even if they don't want to say it outright. Otherwise, why are we talking about the legitimacy of Israel as a society, or who has ancestral blood rights to the land? I'm putting it that plainly because, like the murder of thousands of Palestinian children, it needs to be talked about plainly, not hidden behind euphemism.

If the pro-Palestine progressives could come back around to a 2-state solution, I think they'd find almost instant unity on the left and even much of the center against the Netanyahu government and its actions. But many of us are not going to stand all that close to people using "anti-Zionist" to mean "destroy an existing society and forcibly relocate its members". It's wrong when done by anyone, to anyone, and neither Israel's present actions towards the Palestinians, nor a desire for that to be done to Israel, are exceptions to that.

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G.B. in Kailua, HI, writes: "Deeply problematic acts"?

Really? I know you are an academic and are usually careful with words, but surely you could have found some more accurate words. Like "murder," "abduction," "torture," or summed it up as what is was—a "terrorist attack."

Everything else you said was spot on. I don't know why you whiffed on using more accurate language in that one sentence.

Politics: Genocide

 

N.K. in Carnlough, Ireland, writes: In his response to M.L. in West Hartford, (Z) writes:

Why does it matter if people use the word "genocide" or not? Why does it matter if I personally think it's a genocide or not? Whatever word people use, or whatever word I use, has not one iota of impact on how much suffering and death has taken place, and will continue to take place.

The simple and obvious answer is that the United States and other signatories to the Genocide Convention have an obligation to prevent and punish acts of genocide. Such an obligation is incompatible with, for example, selling arms to Israel as it commits a genocide, something which makes the U.S. and other sellers of such weapons legally complicit. Shortly after the ICJ found in January 2024 that there was a plausible risk of genocide occurring in Gaza, a Dutch court blocked transfer of F-35 munition parts to Israel as a result. Anti-genocide activism has a role to play in compelling the U.S. and other countries to face their international legal obligations by insisting that Israel's actions are correctly defined as genocide by the United Nations and the world's governments.

Such a cause is very much not served by your suggestion that "genocide" is not meaningfully distinguishable from "total war." Again, the first and most meaningful distinction is that of intent. The siege of Leningrad, the Battle of Britain, the Great Leap Forward and many of your other examples were not carried out with the intent of destroying the civilisations targeted, or at least I am not aware of any historian plausibly making that case. There is, however, a very strong case to believe that it is now the intent of the Israeli government (inferred from clear, repeated public statements by government officials) to destroy Palestinian civilisation in Gaza, by killing as many civilians as possible and driving away the rest, and that this explains why, for example, there have been hundreds of cases of children targeted by single-shot sniper fire in Gaza: something which has not been the case in any other conflict in recent history.

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J.W. in Victoria, BC, Canada, writes: I think there are two reasons that some pro-Palestinian folks and Zionists use the term "genocide" to describe the actions of the other side:

1. They are using the label to foreclose argument. "Surely, we with sympathy to my side cannot take seriously the arguments of those on the other side, as they are committing the ultimate crime!" I see this reasoning as widespread and lazy.
   
   
2. A more sound approach is to define genocide more broadly to include cultural obliteration. For example, in Canada, the Crown and white settlers did not attempt to literally kill all the First Nation people, but certainly did their best to destroy native languages and cultural identities.

One could argue that Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank amount to attempted cultural obliteration, but I see it as a particularly aggressive form of ethnic cleansing. Also, I'm with (Z) here: What we call the actions of Israel and Hamas is less important than that we document and evaluate each side's actions and motivations.

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D.E. in Fremont, CA, writes: Thank you, (Z), for your summary of the issue of genocide: "Whatever word people use, or whatever word I use, has not one iota of impact on how much suffering and death has taken place, and will continue to take place." I have long thought just the same and found the whole debate profoundly frustrating for this exact reason.

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G.R. in Carol Stream, IL, writes: Thank you for your willingness to take on difficult questions with courage and honesty. Let me start with my two main takeaways from your remarks about antisemitism and genocide:

1. Israel is not Judaism, Judaism is not Israel. That's the main thing. More clearly, the current incarnation of the country that calls itself Israel is not Judaism and vice-versa.
   
   
2. What difference does it make? Exactly. The words used are not the point. The point is human beings are being treated horribly. All the activism in the U.S. and other countries still have not moved the needle a single degree. (See "Africa, South" and "Apartheid")

I do use the word genocide for what is happening in Gaza, and I don't do so lightly. My main reasons are: (1) the air is awash with genocidal rhetoric—for example, calling the Palestinians "Amalek" and vowing perpetual war; (2) I am not Netanyahu's confidant, but it seems clear to me that the goal of the Gaza project is to empty the land from a particular group of people: kill them all or force all of them to leave to another place; in service of a Trumpian dream of turning Gaza into a big beautiful Mar-A-Lago for rich light-skinned people. Having said that, you use whatever word you think best.

As with many Christians, I started with having a very rose-colored view of "Israel," the little country that could, the only democracy in the Middle East, the Heirs of the Divine Promise of The Land, Leon Uris' "Exodus" sung by Pat Boone, and so on. This view started getting more complicated one night when I watched horrified on television as the Israeli military pummeled a bunch of hippies singing "Sim Shalom" around a campfire. The closest to Kumbaya you can come in Hebrew, I suppose. I was a child then, and I asked my Dad, "Why is Israel doing such bad things"? And he told me then, basically, that "Israel is not Judaism, and Judaism is not Israel." He also told me: "Don't think the modern country of Israel is the same thing you read about in the Bible." That advice has stayed with me. Now I'm older and I have some criticism for the people in the Bible too, but I digress. Another important moment for me was listening to news, I don't know how many years ago, that Israel was bombing a number of Lebanese villages in order to create an exodus of refugees to Beirut and destabilize the Lebanese economy. I was a teenager then, and horrified by these tactics. There are things that are just capital-w Wrong. Having the power to do them doesn't mean they should be done, no matter the goal.

I think the most devastating criticism of Israel is pre-Gaza, by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his 2024 book The Message, where he shows that reality in the country Israel is highly copacetic with Jim Crow U.S.A.

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L.B. in Savannah, GA, writes: "Genocide" in its current usage has not just become a synonym for "wars I don't like;" it's an identity marker demonstrating that the speaker holds the currently approved anti-Zionist position. Citing the U.N. commission or Amnesty International or some other organization's statement as "proof" that the Gaza war is a "genocide" is just an appeal to authority. These organizations merely issue statements based on the opinions of their members. Genocide is a serious charge, but none of them have solicited Israel's response to these accusations, as would be required under due process in a court of law. As far as I know, the only place where that is happening is in the International Court of Justice, which will not render a verdict until 2029. That verdict will be the official historical record of the conflict, which we will all have to accept, regardless of our personal feelings.

Of course, that won't satisfy the protester marching in the street and chanting "free Palestine," who can't provide a coherent definition of "Zionism," but believes that is the only thing preventing the world from becoming a paradise.

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R.W. in Brooklyn, NY, writes: I very much appreciate you weighing in (again) on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide, and particularly you reminding your readers that "genocide" is a legal term with a specific definition. I have raised that point more times than I can remember, and the responses are instructive. Basically I point out that people can use other, very strong terms—atrocity, mass murder, abomination, etc.—rather than diluting the concept of genocide. Some people are receptive, most are not. And here is where I disagree with your second point ("Why does it matter if people use the work 'genocide' or not?"): Many people who insist on continuing to use it, even though they know that it's inaccurate, are doing it to wound Jews where it hurts the most—by equating us with the Nazis who murdered our people. That's why it matters.

Politics: Censorship

 

B.C. in Phoenix, AZ, writes: Boy, I'm all-in with C.L. in Fairbanks regarding your unwillingness to publish letters which don't align with your personal prejudices! I, myself, have sent you MASTERPIECES of logic and critical thought which have NEVER been seen again! Probably because, I don't know, it's like you think Electoral-Vote.com is a site that belongs to YOU, and only YOU have the right to decide what content it contains!

AND, just to be clear, your lame excuse that "We get a lot of comments and a lot of questions" as a way to weasel out of publishing EVERY CLASSIC RESPONSE you get to EVERY ISSUE on EVERY DAY of EVERY WEEK of EVERY MONTH of EVERY YEAR of EVERY DECADE the site has been in existence falls on deaf ears with me!

Awww! Too busy, are you? Maybe you should get in touch with Santa Claus to find out how he handles all his mail!

(Santa is real, BTW! I could give you dozens of citations and links to confirm that, but since you've shown an unwillingness to view contradictory FACTS, if you know how to Google, just put in "Yes, Virginia" in the search field and you will get a wealth of information to substantiate that FACT!)

Lastly, all of my correspondence with you has NEVER, EVER devolved into a simple rant, but has ALWAYS been on point and irrefutable! You would do well to listen to all the stable geniuses like C.L. and me!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

(V) & (Z) respond: You are on to us.

Politics: Fixing the Department of Justice

 

K.R. in Austin, TX, writes: I enjoyed reading (L)'s comments about what she would do if they were AG. I support (L) for AG! The comment about strict rules regarding communication between the President and the AG reminded me of when former President Clinton met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac at an airport.

It seems quaint now, but in this article, the CBS reporter called the incident shocking!

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D.E. in Lancaster, PA, writes: After reading the Q&A this week, all I want to say is "(L) for AG '28!" This is exactly what I would love to see from every candidate for every office in 2028. Someone who has actually put some thought into what they want to accomplish and not just what has been focus-grouped into oblivion. I also love that there is equal parts accountability, prevention and improvement.

Politics: Re-Education

 

S.N. in Sparks, NV, writes: West Virginia is not the only Republican state trying to force-feed a conservative viewpoint to students. The Des Moines Register reported that the Iowa legislature passed a law requiring students at the three public universities (Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, and the University of Iowa) to take three-credit courses in introductory American history and American government. The mandate is effective beginning in the 2028-29 academic year. At the University of Iowa, the previously established Center for Intellectual Freedom is responsible for offering the only classes that meet the requirements for this part of an undergraduate's general curriculum. Just as in West Virginia, almost nobody enrolled in the Center's courses when it was on a voluntary basis.

I think these courses will offer students a fabulous opportunity for malicious compliance.

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R.B. in Cleveland, OH, writes: I expect West Virginia University will begin mandating their Washington Center courses similar to The Ohio State University and their Salmon P. Chase Center.

Hard to believe that the party of "small government" and " freedom of speech" is now requiring re-education, even if that's exactly what they've been promising for decades.

(V) & (Z) respond: The Republicans who funded that center do not appear to have noticed that Chase was a fire-breathing leftist.

Politics: Go, Joe!

 

P.M. in Edenton, NC, writes: It took the better part of five years to finally make it happen, but today my wife and I attended Mass at Joe Biden's church in Wilmington—and he was there. After Mass, he spoke with us out front for a few minutes:

He was really friendly and gracious. He asked me what part of Wilkes-Barre I was from, and when he shook my wife's left hand he said he did so because "it is closer to the heart." He's older—he had trouble moving around and was shaking some; clearly cognitively completely there, though. He offered to take the selfies with my wife's phone. It was so nice to have this encounter with him!

History Matters

 

J.H. in Edison, NJ, writes: Just finished James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, following your suggestion. Excellent (but somewhat depressing) analysis of history textbooks and of how most people learn history. Thank you.

(V) & (Z) respond: The good news is that Loewen's book had a big impact, and textbooks are considerably improved over when he first started writing.

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W.V. in Andover, MN, writes: Not having heard of A Patriot's History of the United States, my interest was piqued enough to follow your link to its Amazon page. I was struck by several of the comments left in the reviews. This first comment tells me a lot about the corrective history that MAGA followers want to introduce in our public schools:

...Professors Schweikart and Allen, "set out to correct the doctrinaire biases that have distorted the way America's past is taught." That may be, but in so doing the authors have introduced their own biases. This is especially true for the book's treatment of President Franklin Roosevelt declaring that the New Deal "must be considered a failure," that "Roosevelt and his staff were becoming habitual bullies, pitting Americans against one another," and even writing off John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as just "another application of leeches or a dose of castor oil masquerading as social commentary."

I fear that the people who read and advocate for books such as this will come away with the very incorrect perspective of another commenter:

"absolutely the truth. Stop reading Howard Zen's[ sic] rubbish. This is what really happened and this is who we really are. Indigenous people are the ones that came from Europe and settled this country. Prior to that, there were just tribal entities that fought among each other. It was no country. It was no government. If they could kill their enemies they did. That is not the indigenous people that built this nation.

Aborigines in Australia, Incans of Peru, Aztecs of Mexico, Mayans in Central America, and Native Americans of North America are all indigenous peoples. Obviously, settlers from Northern and Central Europe and conquistadors from Spain can hardly be labeled "indigenous" people, just because they created the first recognizable "nations" or government, as understood by the Europeans.

(V) & (Z) respond: Because of James Loewen and Howard Zinn, nearly all modern textbooks have a LOT more "history from the bottom up." We mentioned the Schweikart and Allen book because it's far and away the most notable book that is still in print and that completely rejects what Loewen and Zinn had to say. And Schweikart and Allen's evidence is OK, they just grossly misinterpret it most of the time. To do the comparison we suggested, you can also go with a standard modern text, like Thomas Kidd's American History. But if you really want to see what Loewen and Zinn were reacting to, you need to go to a used book site or a library, and get a U.S. history textbook from the 1960s and 1970s.

Honor-Shame Cultures

 

J.C. in Fez, Morocco, writes: In your response to R.W. in Santa Barbara, you wrote about which cultures are the most honor-shame oriented. I've studied Arab culture in grad school, lived in Qatar and Morocco, and visited Lebanon, Egypt, Mauritania and Yemen. I'm married to a Filipina, and have lived there, as well as in China, Mongolia and Vietnam. Salva reverentia, I find all these cultures to be very driven by honor and shame, but a key difference is that the Arab cultures tend to be more concerned, in my view, with whether they are perceived as having honor, while the (East) Asian cultures tend to carry within them an internal sense of honor and shame, such that they will feel the shame (self-perception of community perception of them) whether or not others know it.

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D.N. in Silver Spring, MD, writes: In your answer to R.W. in Santa Barbara about honor-shame orientation in various cultures, you began with this: "I'm unaware of anyone who has tried to assess this systematically, and can't quite think of how one might do so."

One way is to look at the amount of "honor talk" in various cultures. A group of social psychologists led by Michele Gelfand, compiled an Honor Dictionary for that purpose. In the appendix of a paper published in 2015, they examined honor talk in the constitutions of about 80 different countries:

The regions highest on honor language are East Asia (18.56%) and the Middle East and Africa (17.10%). The regions lowest with regard to the use of honor language are northern Europe (15.17%) and English-speaking countries outside of Europe (13.88%), including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

I think this agrees well with the rest of your answer to R.W.

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B.W. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: I was interested in the discussion of honor-shame culture in response to R.W. in Santa Barbara.

Your response mostly identified geographic regions, but the best answer is right in front of us: honor-shame culture is the dominant social framework online, particularly in social media.

Clapping back, cancellation, doxxing, screenshotted receipts, "sick burns," getting ratioed...

Dogpiling, deplatforming, publicly-announced blocking and muting, brigading...

Blue verification checks, follower counts, publicly-displayed statistics...

And when the disgraced are trying (in futility) to recover a scrap of their honor, the screenshotted "notes app" apology.

You mentioned the more urban areas of the U.S. as a potential counterexample, and my first thought was "if that's ever true, it's certainly not while we're online."

The Most American State

 

J.E. in San Jose, CA, writes: California is indeed the most American state. Besides the examples (Z) gave, there's the Gold Rush, reinvention (the Valley of Heart's Delight is now Silicon Valley), and redistribution of wealth (giving Southern California all of our water). California has it all!

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L.C. in Brookline, MA, writes: So let's do the next state in the rankings: New York. Diverse? Check. Lots of open spaces and nature? Check (surprisingly, even in a part of Manhattan). Very capitalist? Check (even more than California). Very wealthy? Check. People can pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Check (to the extent that any of the U.S. really checks that box). Didn't invent fast food, and not so much military as in California. Technologically innovative? Check. Dramatic impact on culture worldwide? Check. Lots of tourism? Check. Lots of religion? Check (also despite stereotypes to the contrary). So I would say a strong second-place finisher. Anybody care to do third place?

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E.S. in Maine, NY, writes: What state is the most "American"?

Oh boy, did you ever step in it! You MUST want lots of e-mails to read this week!

And I would put in a plug for New York. As a born-and-raised resident of UPSTATE NY for my whole life, I must say you missed the boat, which is how most of our ancestors got here and arrived in... you guessed it, New York City! A city of immigrants, in a country of immigrants, the very definition of America! Statue of Liberty, New York Stock Exchange, first capital city! And all the other things that New York City has. But what all you from the hinterlands don't know about New York is the upstate part (aka New York's own hinterlands). Catskill and Adirondack Mountains, Niagara Falls, Finger Lakes, a real abundance of natural beauty. The birth place of Endicott Johnson (Square Deal version of welfare capitalism, like progressive movements of the early twentieth century), FDR and IBM. Major and minor universities: Cornell, RPI, NYU, Columbia, SUNY system, etc. And you know what New York has that California doesn't? Water! Loads of it! We also have the rust-belt type of deindustrialization that California lacks, the need of rebuilding ourselves from the moving of our industrial base overseas.

(V) & (Z) respond: But you also have Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Woody Allen and Andrew Cuomo. That cancels out all that other stuff.

Gallimaufry

 

J.H. in Lodi, NY, writes: You wrote: The second problem is that foreign characters, like the one in Türkiye, violate the rules of "preferred English spelling."

If Türkiye, then why not Côte d'Ivoire?

If Turkey, then why not Ivory Coast?

I'm not trying to pick on the Ivory Coast, nor Turkey. Maybe I'm just an old fogey lamenting the loss of the countries' names I grew up with, but I'd like to argue for consistency. If the AP is going to insist on Côte d'Ivoire, shouldn't the AP also use not just Türkiye, but Suomen, Daehanminguk, Magyarország, Rzeczpospolita Polska, Deutschland, and Österreich? Not all of them use foreign characters.

We shouldn't blame the AP wholly. I read that in the AP Stylebook, for geographic names, the AP defers to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN). It is a federal body that was created in 1890 and established in its present form by Public Law in 1947.

In addition, both Ivory Coast and Côte d'Ivoire harken back to imperialist colonial days and the massive slaughter of elephants. Can't they come up with a better name? The leading crop of the country is cocoa beans. In fact, the country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans. Wouldn't a better name be Cocoa Coast or Côte de Cocoa? How about simply Chocolat? When the color of certain Labrador Retrievers was changed from "liver labs" to "chocolate labs," they quickly increased in popularity. Just think of the public relations boon the country formerly known as Ivory Coast and Côte d'Ivoire would have.

(V) & (Z) respond: First, we almost made the point that if you do it for one, you have to do it for all. We deleted that because it sounded flippant. Second, AP style IS Ivory Coast, and not Côte d'Ivoire. We just checked and confirmed (we have a subscription to the AP style guide online). Third, we suspect that the racial overtones of "Cocoa Coast" would be... problematic.

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J.R.A. in St. Petersburg, FL, writes: Thank you so much for adding that feature I've been requesting for about 5 years now—the direct links to letters and questions.

It sounds as if you are suggesting that you've gone back and re-rendered all the old pages with letters and comments to add those links, is that correct?

And finally, the part of this that might vaguely be a correction, note that somewhere between nearly all and all browsers have a right click menu item labeled something akin to Copy Link Address, which makes that whole process a lot quicker.

(V) & (Z) respond: We are only doing this going forward, not backward, at least for now.

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J.S. in Columbia, MO, writes: I don't have a guess for this week's headlines. Just wanted to comment that I like to read the locations where the correct guessers for the weekly theme are based, and I'm amazed that 10 to 20 percent of the correct responses are from outside the U.S.! Way to go, Electoral-Vote.com! You have a wide-reaching, smart and well-versed readership!

(V) & (Z) respond: With no intent to be self-congratulatory, we concur!

Final Words

 

T.B. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: Composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, on his deathbed: "What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune."

If you have suggestions for this feature, please send them along.

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