Sunday Mailbag

Quite the hodgepodge this week.

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The Buck Stops Here

V & Z: Reflecting on the Iran-Trump conflict, I can't recall any other situation where two such unpopular regimes have tried to bolster their fortunes by shooting at each other, and have so thoroughly shot themselves in the foot.

There could be an upside to this slow train smash if it ends with both sides kicked out of office—but I wonder if the Iranian regime will be the first to go, as huge crowds in the streets can be a whole lot more effective than a machinery as ponderous as impeachment. P.M., Grahamstown, South Africa

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V & Z: You wrote:

On the other hand, if it becomes clear that Iran shot down a civilian aircraft, either by accident or intentionally, it could help Trump. He could tweet something to the effect of: "Iranians are monsters, so we are fully justified killing them whenever we want to." Many people would no doubt agree with him on that.

I think this will actually work against Trump. Most people understand the Law of Unintended Consequences, and most of the people who dislike Trump will surely feel that these 176 people would still be alive if Trump had not decided to assassinate a high-ranking member of the Iranian military who was a de facto part of the Iranian government. I'd also argue that many centrists may start to lean that way also, as the assassination seemed a disproportionate response to the activities of Iran, given the lack of evidence supporting a direct "imminent" threat to the United States. T.S., Eugene, OR

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V & Z: I wanted to give a personal Canadian perspective on impacts of President Trump's reckless foreign policy.

When the Shah was deposed in the late 70s, there was a significant 'brain drain' from Iran and many Iranians chose Canada as their haven and new home. The recent downing of the Iranian passenger jet claimed 176 innocent lives, of which 63 were Canadian. This is the single largest loss of Canadian civilian lives since the Air India bombing. Of those killed this week, 30 were from the city where I live: Edmonton, Alberta—a city that rarely makes the news. It turns out, not surprisingly, that a high number were tightly affiliated with the faculty here at the University of Alberta, for which this has been a devastating blow. This crash claimed the lives of 1% of the Iranian community here. These were highly educated, contributing, and loved members of our community with extraordinarily bright futures ahead of them.

Our Prime Minister has clearly stated—and the pattern of the crash site debris field from satellite images supports—that the plane was brought down by a missile.

We Canadians—and especially we Edmontonians—are now asking (in our ever-so-polite Canadian way): Would "they still be alive if he hadn't sought a distraction from impeachment?" The answer is a resounding "yes." As you might imagine, our Prime Minister is now walking a razor-thin political tightrope because our biggest trading partner and closest ally just negligently triggered the killing of 63 of our friends, colleagues, and loved ones. T.H., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Note: We thank you for your perspective, and extend our condolences on the loss of your fellow Canadians.

IDK about RCV

V & Z: You responded to a question about ranked-choice voting, and you laid out 5 reasons why it hasn't caught on yet, but you didn't get to the reason that I am against it.

Representational democracy at its heart is about giving your power to another individual and letting that person use your power. By buying into the system, we are acknowledging that our power is being used, even if we voted against the person or didn't vote at all. The 9/11 Commission report was remarkably clear about the motivations of the hijackers and they were universally against U.S. actions in the Middle East. This largely had to do with their overt racism and hatred of Jews and Israel but it went beyond that. We can strongly disagree with them on the issue, but we cannot claim that it wasn't our power being used that they reacted against, even if we didn't vote for the politicians that used that power.

I think it is inherently dangerous to let people think they do not have the responsibility to use their power to the best of their ability. Our politicians represent us and people need to take a fundamental ownership of that. I think our system of government is most in trouble from those who refuse to do the work necessary to keep it running. Allowing these layers of disaffection and this belief that it is some other power that is at fault is dangerous. I hate Trump. I hated Bush. I wasn't overly fond of Obama and didn't like Clinton. It doesn't matter; what they do they do with my power and if I don't like what they are doing, I need to work harder to convince people to a different path (hasn't worked out that great for me, I was a Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris supporter). We might not like the choices we are presented with but we own the results and we need to buy into our ownership, or we might lose it all. Ranked-choice voting is just a way of allowing people to distance themselves from what their political power is being used for. J.G., Olympia, WA

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V & Z: In your responses to questions about ranked-choice voting today, I think you missed a key point: Primaries and caucuses would no longer be needed, or would serve a very different purpose. In today's system, primaries and caucuses are used to select the one candidate for each party that will be on the ballot in the general election. In a ranked-choice system, that's not necessary; each party can put multiple viable candidates on the ballot. So, in 2016, the general election would probably have been a contest between Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Kasich, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. Clinton and Trump probably would have been the second choice for a lot of voters. Presumably, voters who chose Sanders or Stein first would have chosen Clinton second, and her final vote tally would have been larger, especially in the few swing states that Trump narrowly won to give him the electoral win. Cruz, Kasich, and Johnson voters might have wound up increasing Trump's tally, but given this choice in the general election, maybe Trump would not have even wound up on top. There were still a lot of Never-Trumpers around at that time. D.W., Bloomfield, NJ

Note: It depends on how it is done. One option would be for each party to have its normal primary system and then in the general election, people could rank the Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc. That would prevent presidents who didn't get 50% of the vote in the end.

The American Empire?

V & Z: In what sense is the U.S. democratic, or even a democratic republic?

I am entitled to vote for two senators, or 2% of the senate, and one congressional representative out of 435, or less than one-quarter of one percent. Yet all of these 535 legislators affect my life and health, war and peace, the climate, the economy, etc. On top of that, South Dakota, with about 2.3% of the population of California, gets the same Senate representation. And many House districts are highly gerrymandered.

My vote for president (actually for a presidential elector) is one in almost 130 million (based on the 2016 election). My candidate might be cheated out of the job through a dirty election, dishonest propaganda funded by hidden special interests, foreign interference, or voter suppression. But even if he or she still wins the presidential vote, the vote loser may take office due to the Electoral College system, as happened with Donald Trump and George W. Bush. The occupant of the presidency then appoints the federal judges, including supreme court justices. These judges for life, over whom no one has any substantive control, then determine the meaning and application of the constitution and the laws, including those pertaining to elections. (See Bush v. Gore in 2000.)

We are taught incessantly from our earliest school days that we live in the greatest democracy ever. Yet what about any of this is "democratic"? G.A., Berkeley, CA

No Joke

V & Z: I hate to be that guy, but when I read the item about your (un)biases, I was surprised to see that you explicitly pointed out that you wouldn't remark (joke?) about someone's weight. With Chris Christie playing a significant role in many posts across the years, I figured I would at least do a cursory search to see if you had ever remarked upon his oft-remarked-upon condition in this regard, and it did not take long to find your Republican Presidential Candidates list prior to the 2016 election, where you joke that one disadvantage to Christie's primary run was that "[the l]ast fat President was William Howard Taft; but White House bathtub is bigger now." That's actually a pretty good joke, but is, I'm afraid, a direct contradiction to your example of the topics you keep off-limits. C.G., Pacifica, CA

Note: That actually wasn't meant to be a joke. Those tables require "short" bullet points, so we were trying to squeeze a fairly wordy idea into a small space, something like: "There was a time when an overweight candidate could not win election, but it's at least possible that time is over now." That said, if we'd had a feedback setup like the one we have now, and someone had communicated that they perceive this as a fat joke, we would have changed it.

Some Democrats Feel They Got Berned

V & Z: Last week, a supporter of Bernie Sanders attempted to refute the notion that Sanders' actions in 2016 hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the general election. My issue with Sanders isn't necessarily that he wasn't active in helping Clinton once she was the declared nominee. My issue was that Sanders wasn't willing to concede even when it was mathematically impossible (or highly improbable) for him to win. I think if he'd conceded earlier, some of the hurt feelings vis-á-vis superdelegates and the thumb-on-the-scales narrative could have been minimized. The division that he allowed to linger certainly didn't help the Party and could only have helped Trump. Also, I might add that Sanders still has not joined the Democratic Party. Although membership is just symbolic, symbols are important and many supporters may take their cues from that. For that reason, I'll never vote for him in a primary even if I will gladly vote for him over Trump in the general. E.W., Skaneateles, NY

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V & Z: I don't believe Bernie Sanders is as much a team player as S.P., in Foster, RI, makes out.

I remember following the primary fight in real time and I was livid with Sanders for not conceding as soon as it was implausible for him to win. I recognized that beating Trump was the priority and as soon as it was implausible for him to win he should have conceded and thrown his unconditional, full weight behind the nominee Hillary Clinton. The time to have done this was before the California primary where it was obvious he did not have the votes. I think I calculated that he would have to beat Clinton 90 percent to 10 percent. There was no way that was going to happen!

Despite the above I voted for Sanders in the California primary and really wanted Sanders to win but I think he and his team made a grave tactical error complaining about the primary rules and process even though he wasn't a Democrat when those rules were drawn up! Bernie didn't even win a majority of the pledged delegates or the popular vote and even so his campaign would not stop complaining at length that they were robbed of the nomination.

Even though Sanders had mathematically lost the nomination he went on and fought the D.C. primary on June 14th too; what the hell was he playing at? It also took him a month to finally fully endorse Clinton on July 12th. I remember saying to my wife that I think Sanders and the "Bernie or bust" rhetoric we were hearing was really dangerous and was playing into the Trump campaign's hands, because it would only take a small percent of the vote to swing the election. Sadly, I guess my fears were realized. N.P., Santa Rosa, CA

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V & Z: Your letters from the Bernie Bros just show how much they are in self denial. If he was a team player it would be D-VT and not I-VT. If he is the nominee and my vote counted I would still vote for him. However, from Texas my vote doesn't count, so I might just leave that part of the ballot empty. When he becomes a team player, maybe I could support him, but until then no. K.B., Dallas, TX

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V & Z: Having been a lifelong, pragmatic Democrat, and still bearing the wounds of the 2016 primary and the resulting general election, I think it is premature to suggest that Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) supporters would overwhelmingly fall in line behind Bernie Sanders. A great many of Warren's supporters were/are Hillary Clinton supporters (remember, Warren endorsed Clinton and campaigned for her with enthusiasm four years ago). I promise you they haven't forgotten, much less forgiven, Sanders for 2016. The fact that Sanders has never expressed regret, much less taken any responsibility, for his role in enabling the Trump presidency...has been noted.

If the time comes to choose, I suspect a fair number—perhaps even a majority—will go with Joe Biden over Sanders, if that is the choice they have. R.R., New York, New York

Video Killed the Radio Star

V & Z: Regarding your answer about the current state of news, I think you missed part of the equation.

News used to be considered a public service requirement for a broadcast license. We also used to have strict laws keeping any one media outlet from growing too big in any one media market This guaranteed a diversity of opinions. We also used to have a fairness doctrine that guaranteed both sides of an issue would be heard.

Ronald Reagan's FCC did away with all of these things setting the table for Fox "News" and other right wing media.

With these changes, news divisions became part of the entertainment divisions, which are now part of only 4 media conglomerates: Comcast/NBCUniversal, Disney, Viacom/CBS, and AT&T/WarnerMedia. They are all huge corporations that control over 90% of everything you see, hear, and read. Their only priority is making sure this quarter's profits are higher than last quarter's profits. (There were over 600 independent media outlets when Reagan took office.)

Entertainment heads know their jobs depend on quarterly profits and therefore put on what will deliver the highest ratings at the lowest costs. Investigative journalism and news bureaus cost money. Partisan talking heads deliver higher ratings for less money, which is all the "news" networks really care about. Like everything else, follow the money. Of course, all this helped the one political party that supported policies allowing mega media outlets to grow in the first place. We can thank Ronald Reagan for the end of quality news in America.

That said, I've never understood why no Democrat has made changing these FCC requirements back to pre-Reagan days an issue. Maybe because you can't win an election if 4 companies controlling 90% of the media don't want you to. S.S., West Hollywood, CA

Note: Let us clarify that you're referring to 90% of the television media.

This Week in Impeachment

V & Z: As we're going through the second presidential impeachment in (most of) our lifetimes, we must remember this was written into the Constitution by framers who had no knowledge that political parties would sprout and grow. Their intention was that both the House and Senate would be made up of people who didn't belong to any political party and would always put the country first. Obviously they never foresaw the hyperpartisanship that existed in the Clinton impeachment, and now the Trump impeachment. So what was intended to be a mechanism to check a president when he was growing out of control has turned into another grand political show to please the bases and truly not get to the purpose of finding out the truth, as it would be in a regular court proceeding. R.H.D., Webster, NY

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V & Z: You seem to think that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) might be willing to buck Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Donald Trump and vote to uphold subpoenas for John Bolton and others, partly out of a sense of fair play but also to try to save her political hide in November. However, she hitched her wagon to the administration when she voted for Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court and that isn't going to be forgotten by the left-leaning folks in Maine, even if she changes her tune and votes with the Democrats on subpoenas. I think her political future lives or dies based on the turnout of the Republican true-believers and a few leaners, and not on cross-aisle appeal. J.O., Columbia, MD

Note: We try to address all reasonable possibilities, as best we can. However, we too are skeptical that she will actually buck the Majority Leader, and believe that she talks a centrist talk, but walks a right-wing walk.

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V & Z: You wrote that, thanks to Mitch McConnell's maneuverings this week, Pelosi lost the battle yet perhaps not the war. That is one way of looking at it, but is it the best? Exactly what battle are we talking about that she has lost? There's the battle to slow the process down and make sure that the timing is as good as it can be. By delaying the vote to the New Year, perhaps that is a battle that she already won. Also, she's won the battle to insert enough of a delay that NSA John Bolton has been able to add new controversy to the ordeal, etc. C.K., Los Alamitos, CA

Poll Positions

V & Z: Friday night, on Chris Hayes' show (MSNBC), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) asked: "When was the last time you answered a phone call when you didn't recognize the caller ID?" The host immediately comprehended the point, and chuckles arose in the live audience. So not only are mobile-only users left out of polls, but many with functioning land lines can no longer be reached with cold calls.

If polls are to be representative, a different method of reaching the sampled population will have to be developed. Unfortunately, at the moment, identities can be spoofed in all of the relevant media (phone, text, e-mail), so how to convince a wide range of respondents to join in is a quandary. D.S., Palo Alto, CA

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V & Z: You wrote:

Right now, a lot of voters are saying "I will vote for Biden, but not for Sanders" or "I will vote for Sanders, but not for Biden." In other words, if we get a rerun of 2016, with a substantial number of Democrats saying: "I am not voting for the lesser of two evils," then Trump will probably win. Democrats are very picky. If their favorite candidate doesn't make it to the general election, they tend to go off and sulk.

I would love a pollster to dig deeper into that issue with questions such as:

• Would you vote for a Democratic candidate other than your first choice?
  
  
• Are you more or less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if he/she is not your first choice than you were four years ago?
  
  
• Are there any candidates in the Democratic race who you would definitely not vote for? If so, whom?
  
  
• You just said you would not vote for X. If X is the nominee, would you not vote, vote for a third party, write in a candidate, or vote for Donald Trump?

C.W., East Hills, NY

Chicago, 1968

V & Z: I take issue with the following, all of it:

The last conventions that were actually brokered were in 1952...by the time the 1960s rolled around, the primary/caucus system of choosing candidates was firmly established. There have been a few close calls, like in 1968, when the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy probably spared the Democrats a nasty convention fight.

Walter Cronkite must have been hallucinating when he referred to the '68 convention as a "bitter floor fight", or when he told Dan Rather, on live TV, that he was being knocked around by "a bunch of thugs." What do you mean by "spared?" A nasty convention fight is what they had.

A good part of the conflict in 1968 was over delegate selection. You're contributing to the fiction that RFK was on the verge of being nominated. He had just won the California primary, but in most states, primaries had little or nothing to do with how delegates were chosen: RFK was nowhere near to having enough. Participation in caucuses was pretty much limited to party officials and functionaries, by no means open to all comers. To keep the peace at future conventions, it was agreed to have a commission that would reform the delegate selection process, with the goal of having a more representative party gathering at future conventions. What we have today is the product of the interaction of that with the finance reforms of the 1970s. By the 1960s, the current system had by no means been established. G.H., Chicago, IL

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V & Z: I'm surprised that you wrote that the death of Robert Kennedy "spared the Democrats a nasty convention fight." Perhaps you are too young to remember, but 1968 was as nasty a convention fight as the Democrats have had in generations. In fact, New York Times columnist Russell Baker called it "the nastiest convention." Maybe you should look up some documentary footage of Sen. Abe Ribicoff or Mayor Richard Daley on the convention floor, or the contest over which Mississippi delegation to seat, or the forcible eviction of NBC's John Chancellor, or the thousands of protesters and rioting Chicago police in the streets outside the International Amphitheatre and the hotels where the candidates and delegates were staying. That was not a generic anti-war protest; it was a "nasty convention fight," even if it had no prospect of derailing the nomination of Hubert H. Humphrey. (And don't forget, Humphrey's ensuing loss to Nixon in the general election, like Clinton's loss to Trump, is an example of what happens when sore losers in the nomination fight sit on their hands in November. Compare voter turn-out numbers in 1964/68 and again in 2012/16. That's the Republican party's best hope again in 2020.). A.B., Tucson, AZ

Note: Inasmuch as (Z), who wrote that, was six years from being born in 1968, it's true that he's too young to have personal memory of that convention. But, of course, the nastiness of Chicago 1968 is well known. This is a matter of a word choice that is clearly open to being misread. The original sentence was referring to one specific issue that was "resolved" by RFK's death, not asserting that the 1968 convention was free of all nastiness.

Corny Letters

V & Z: In response to your item about the Iowa caucuses, I would generally agree with the idea that Iowa shouldn't have a protected status as the first caucus. The selfish reason I have for that is that it's almost always campaign season here. By the time we get to the conventions, when many people feel "election season" starts, we've already been through it for over a year, and we're typically a swing state to boot.

However, if there's a real transition to a regional, national, or rotating primary with a condensed schedule, here's something to consider: You're almost certain to wind up with more Bloombergs and Steyers, and fewer Sanderses and Obamas. We really shouldn't forget that Obama and Sanders REALLY took off nationally after building on their grassroots campaigns in Iowa. It's a cheap place to campaign, and there's a pretty strong history of voters here being very swayable and open-minded rather than dug in on a particular well-known candidate. If you have a 10-state opening primary, then the biggest checkbook, and most well-known name, will probably win the day. P.S., Marion, IA

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V & Z: As a South Carolina native living in Iowa, I appreciate your item about the Hawkeye State's dwindling electoral importance. I think "Iowa first" is terrible for our Nation, though I think you missed a few of the reasons that it endures.

On a (slightly) more serious note, if someone has to go first, who should it be? As a poli sci and public policy nerd with long military, academic and nonprofit experience, I did my own analysis in 2015, and came up with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as the two best "looks like America" states.

It is interesting to me that those two states (and Michigan, most notably) ended up playing such a crucial role in the 2016 general elections, essentially carrying the country with them as they shifted in surprising directions. Might we have learned more about the viability and quality of the GOP and Democratic candidates had we begun there instead of Iowa and New Hampshire? J.E.S., Des Moines, IA

The Trumpian Style

V & Z: I'm sure that I am not the only reader who watched American Experience's McCarthy: Power Feeds on Fear this week on PBS. Over and over again, I said out loud, "insert 'Trump' here!" The accusations, the fear-mongering, the lives he destroyed/attempted to destroy, the "they" are out to get me, but "you" the people are on my side. They even showed a rally (I'm sure there would have been more than one!) where McCarthy had his own theme song! And finally, at long last, his own party turned against him. And when Joseph Welch finally shut him down, and McCarthy lost his spotlight, and his fellow Senators and media just began ignoring him, he finally went away to his pathetic end. And, I thought, if America survived McCarthy, we can surely survive Trump? K.H., Maryville, TN

Note: We did not see that documentary, and so we do not know if it covered exactly why the stylistic similarities are so striking. In any case, McCarthy's assistant/right-hand man was a New York lawyer named Roy Cohn. After McCarthyism was over, Cohn returned to his home state of New York and tutored generations of Republican politicians in the art of dirty politics. We're talking people like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Cohn's final pupil, before he died, was...Donald Trump. See this very fine article from Vanity Fair if you would like to read more.

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V & Z: Even if Donald Trump Jr. was innocent of the white supremacy association, having a Crusader Cross or anything referring to the Crusades is damning in and of itself. It's the 21st century, not the 11th. J.C., Taguig City, Philippines

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V & Z: Take a look at this video of Bill Clinton paying tribute to George H. W. Bush (and also tipping the cap to George W. Bush):

How things have changed. M.O., Elsinore, Denmark

Incumbency Ain't What it Used to Be

V & Z: The Massachusetts senate primary may deviate from the past some, but it is not a complete departure from the past. Of your four traditional reasons for a primary challenge, one is certainly a factor: "The incumbent is seen as old, weak, or otherwise easy pickings." The Kennedy name is still magical in Massachusetts, not for the young perhaps, but for older voters. His polling told him so. Markey's seat is relatively easy pickings.

As you know, party politics have changed over the years. Prior to 2018, primary challenges to good incumbents were outside the norm and frowned upon. In Massachusetts, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D) broke that rule and beat the well-liked, ideologically similar Mike Capuano. Those younger and closer to the tip of the left-wing view the traditional norms concerning incumbents with skepticism, if not disdain. Kennedy differs in that he is arguably less left-leaning than the incumbent, but he is young. The norms have changed, expect more challenges to incumbents.

We are seeing another one in Western Massachusetts with the young, progressive Mayor Alex Morse (D-Holyoke) taking on Congressman Richard Neal (D). Morse is definitely more to the left than Neal, but Neal chairs the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Their biggest policy difference: Neal raises a lot of money from big spenders and corporations, anathema to the younger and those in the more left part of the Democratic Party. He also gives a lot of that money to Democratic candidates for Congress.

Kennedy's decision to run, however, may also be due to Massachusetts state politics. As Vox reports:

A major reason for Kennedy's decision to mount a challenge now could be driven by the fact that Markey would be his most accessible opponent in the near future... there's a pretty deep bench of Massachusetts lawmakers who could vie for another Senate seat down the line if [Elizabeth] Warren's were to open up, for example. Those younger, similarly progressive lawmakers might prove to be tougher opponents than Markey currently is.

These potential challengers include Attorney General Maura Healey (D), Rep. Katherine Clark (D), and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D).

In the end, this Senate primary isn't so strange. The general reasons you outline still stand, but the terrain to which they apply has shifted. In our hyper-partisan era, small, ideological differences become more significant and party norms break under the pressure. We also appear to be experiencing a generational shift that we still don't quite understand. M.B., Granby, MA

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V & Z: I was living in Chicago in 1992 during Carol Moseley Braun's primary run. There was a third challenger to Dixon, Al Hofeld, who spent all his time and money campaigning against Dixon, which allowed Braun to triangulate and come out ahead. No one really thought she could win until she did. I.H., Washington, D.C.

Getting Ahead of Ourselves?

V & Z: I love your site and really appreciate all the work that you do. I think I have not skipped a single word you have written or put out there since I discovered your site during the second Obama election. Until today, that is. I had to skip your evaluation of the 2024 possibilities. Do you really think it is necessary to start thinking about 2024 already? As you like to point out, one week in politics is a long time. How can I take any of those names seriously in 2020 when the Memory of Beto O'Rourke is still fresh? There is more than enough to fill up the 24-hour news cycle these days without the self indulgent fantasizing of a piece like that. M.L., Havertown, PA

Note: It's true that the future is cloudy. However, it's also true that possible 2024 runs, even if they don't come to pass, influence politicians' behavior in 2020. And so, that item is definitely germane to the current election.

It Is For Now, at Least

V & Z: We're America, bitch? I thought our motto was: "We're Russia's bitch, bitch." W.S. Sedro Woolley, WA

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