News of the Day

Donald Trump didn't really think he was going to win in 2016. Between that, and the fact that he and his operation were pretty amateurish back then, it took a while to start putting an administration together. This year, he and his team expected a victory, and—nearly 10 years in—the amateurism is (mostly) gone. So, the picks for various slots in the administration are being made at a rapid clip. Here's a rundown of the Tuesday news:

• Secretary of Defense: For one of the most important posts in the government, Trump has chosen Pete Hegseth. If you just said, "Who?", you're not the only one. Quite a few Republicans in Congress were willing to tell reporters that they (the members of Congress) don't really know who he is. Hegseth is a former member of the National Guard, which is his main qualification for the job. In truth, however, he was picked because he is a Fox News contributor who often kisses Trump's you-know-what, and because he wrote a book called The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, which basically argues that the Pentagon has gotten too weak and too woke.
  
  
• DHS Secretary: Some of the people Donald Trump has chosen for his next administration are qualified. But when that happens, it's something of a happy accident. The real test, as everyone knows, is fealty to the Dear Leader. The Daily Show even had a supercut last night showing bits of the fawning speeches that various Trump appointees have made this year:
  
  
  
  One of the least qualified picks is Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who was announced as the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security yesterday (she has to be approved, of course, but it's not expected to be an issue). The #1 task of DHS these days is border enforcement, and Noem will make up for her near-total lack of qualifications by doing anything and everything Trump tells her to do. It is probable that things will go badly, in one way or another, and that in a year or two, she'll have to take the fall for him. Still, at least she has now achieved her dream of getting the hell out of South Dakota.
  
  
• CIA Director: To lead the CIA, Donald Trump has chosen John Ratcliffe, a former representative and U.S. Attorney who served as Director of National Intelligence during Trump's first term. Ratcliffe has the chops for the job, though he's got a history of lying about his résumé and he's enough of a hardliner that the Senate rejected him the first time they considered his appointment (they approved him on the second go-round). He toted a lot of water for Trump from 2019-21, though he reportedly opposed efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
  
  
• FBI Director: The FBI already has a director in Christopher Wray, who was appointed to a 10-year term by Trump in 2017. However, Wray is a professional who will not take marching orders from the President-elect. So, he expects he will likely be cashiered. The person who is rumored to be his potential replacement is Kash Patel, who will most certainly do what he's told to by Trump. Patel's a big fan of purging the intelligence establishment of those who are "disloyal," likes the idea of using the military to go after Black Lives Matter protesters, and wants to see left-wing outlets like MSNBC prosecuted by the federal government.
  
  
• White House Counsel: To be his chief lawyer, Donald Trump has selected William McGinley, who worked on the Trump 2024 campaign and who was also a member of the first Trump administration. White House counsels are usually lawyers who worked on the campaign, so that's par for the course. However, it's fair to assume that McGinley will be considerably more willing to tell Trump what he wants to hear, as compared to "traitors" Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone, who served as White House Counsel last time around, and who became key witnesses before the 1/6 Committee.
  
  
• White House Press Secretary: Reportedly, the frontrunner to be the new White House Press Secretary is Trump lawyer Alina Habba. To a very large extent, it does not matter who Trump picks. Whoever it is will come out on the first day, promise to tell the truth, and then will spend the remainder of their time on the job lying through their teeth. Yes, all WHPSs spin things, but the ones who serve Trump are just flat-out liars (starting with Sean Spicers' lies about the size of Trump's inaugural crowd). The only exception to this was Stephanie Grisham, who didn't talk to the press at all (she literally held zero press conferences).
  
  
• U.S. Ambassador to Israel: Do the Huckabees have photos of Trump in a compromising position with a goat, or something? We're not sure exactly why members of the family are always at the tip-top of the list when patronage positions are being handed out. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is busy being governor of Arkansas, of course, but her dad has nothing to do these days besides hawk sleeping pills of dubious merit. So, he was available to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
  
  If you don't remember Huckabee's 2016 presidential campaign, you are to be forgiven, because it was very forgettable. However, he ran on Israel hawkishness coupled with Islamophobia. Consider this graphic put out by his campaign:
  
  
  
  This was not an isolated thing; Huckabee also palled around with pastor Terry Jones, who was famous for holding Quran burnings.
  
  The posture that the Trump administration would adopt on Israel and Gaza was not a secret. It's taken just 1 week to affirm what everyone should have known.
  
  
• Your Next Florida Senator?: Assuming Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) vacates his seat to become Secretary of State, the MAGA crew in the Senate knows who they want as his replacement: First Daughter-in-Law Lara Trump. It's not clear how Dad-in-Law feels about this idea. However, we will point out that appointing an unqualified person to a "safe" Senate seat just because they happen to be well-connected has worked out very poorly for the Republicans in the recent past (see Loeffler, Kelly). That is not a done deal yet because the governor needs to keep himself relevant for the 2028 election (he is term-limited in 2026) so he will be sorely tempted to appoint himself to the seat. We shall see whether DeSantis' ambition trumps his pretend-loyalty to the Trumps.
  
  
• MuskWatch 2024, Part I: What is the opposite of schadenfreude? Freudenschade? Whatever the correct term is, this item is certainly an example of something that will make many people displeased about someone else's success (as opposed to being pleased about someone else's failures). Elon Musk's bets on the election have paid handsome dividends. He blew a few hundred million on GOTV and phony lotteries and other such electioneering, and in the last week he is... $70 billion richer. That is primarily because Tesla stock is way up. We wonder if that will hold, between the planned tariffs, not to mention the Trump administration's hostility to green technology. One plus of Musk's appointment is that when Trump tries to ban electric cars, Musk will surely try to talk him out of it. Having a big fan of electric cars deep inside the administration is like having a mole inside the Russian GRU.
  
  
• MuskWatch 2024, Part II: Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that he was appointing Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to be the co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). What? You haven't heard of that department? Where have you been? It's been a core part of the executive branch for at least... 24 hours.
  
  Even Donald Trump, aided by a compliant Congress, can't create a new executive department out of thin air. And DOGE isn't actually a department, it's an advisory commission. And it's so focused on improving efficiency that it has TWO masters (always a great way to get things done), neither of whom has the faintest idea how the government actually works. Since both of them have gigantic egos, they are well matched and will surely work well together. How efficient!
  
  
• MuskWatch 2024, Part III: We're not terribly surprised that Trump created a basically phony job with a basically phony title for Elon Musk. There are reasons that Trump wants to keep Musk happy and on board. After all, Musk has a fat wallet, and is willing to open it. He also controls eX-Twitter, which is a key source of misinformation for Trump's base. Oh, and to borrow a phrase from Lyndon Johnson, Musk is the kind of guy who's better to have inside the tent pissing out, as opposed to outside the tent pissing in.
  
  That said, Musk and Trump both have giant egos, and neither of them likes to be subservient to anyone. They also have grating personalities. Further, in Musk, Trump sees the business success he can never have, while in Trump, Musk sees the political success he can never have (after all, he's not a natural-born citizen, but he could be governor of Texas some day, a good job for someone with a big ego). That sounds like a collision course to us.
  
  We almost made that observation in yesterday's post. And then, as we prepared today's post, we received this from reader S.K. in Los Angeles, CA: "'Guest Who Wouldn't Leave' Elon Musk Is Reportedly Already Too Annoying For Trump Team."
  
  Exactly how long the Trump-Musk relationship can keep going without badly fraying is an excellent question. Will spinning Musk off to a meaningless job in a non-existent federal department be enough to keep him happy? We tend to doubt that the South African will be fooled. If he leaves the administration in a foul mood in, say, 5 Scaramuccis, he could start saying not-so-nice things about Trump on eX-Twitter.
  
  
• Weak Sauce: The Freedom Caucus has decided on a plan to express their frustration with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Prior to the internal party meeting at which a Speaker candidate will be chosen, they are going to put forward a challenger, probably Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). After Johnson wins that vote easily, the FCers will fall in line when the whole House votes for the new speaker.
  
  The net result of this is that Johnson will avoid the sort of embarrassment that befell the party at both the beginning and the end of Kevin McCarthy's speakership. What will the FC get out of it? They will be able to say that Johnson was not renominated unanimously. Whoo, hoo—way to hit the Speaker where it really hurts.
  
  
• Merchan Delays: Donald Trump wants his New York convictions to be set aside. The prosecutors who popped him want more time to evaluate options, so they can suggest a course of action to Judge Juan Merchan. Merchan agreed and yesterday set a deadline of November 19 for the prosecution to submit their brief.
  
  
• DNC Chair: When a party takes a beating like the Democrats took last week, the chair of the party does not get to keep their job. Well, unless that person is Ronna Romney McDaniel, apparently. She got two mulligans before finally being cashiered.
  
  In any case, if the party includes the sitting president, then the president picks the chair. If the party does not include the sitting president, and the Democrats won't as of January 20 of next year, then it's a free-for-all. Among the candidates whose names are being floated are Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA), U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu, Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) and Wisconsin Democrats Chair Ben Wikler.
  
  
• How's It Going, Ferret Face?: Although the Democrats had a very bad night in Pennsylvania last Tuesday, they have retained control of the state Assembly, as blue dog state Rep. Frank Burns (D) has kept his seat in a very Trumpy district. It's one of a handful of silver linings on what was a black night for the blue team.

And that's the way it is. (Z)

How Well Did the Pollsters Do?

After every election, there are a lot of people screaming: "The polls were all wrong—again!" So, let's take a look. The #1 ranked pollster at FiveThirtyEight is Siena College. Its polls are done in coordination with The New York Times, specifically with Nate Cohn and Ruth Igielnik, two polling experts. A poll gives a range, the predicted value plus or minus the margin of error (MoE), separately for each candidate. Here are the predicted ranges, the actual vote percentage, and the actual value minus the predicted value for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, for Siena's final polls of the swing states:

President
	Harris							Trump
State	Low	Mean	High	Actual	Diff	Error?		Low	Mean	High	Actual	Diff	Error?
Arizona	41.5%	45.0%	48.5%	46.8%	-0.2%	No		45.5%	49.0%	52.5%	52.3%	3.3%	No
Georgia	44.5%	48.0%	51.5%	48.5%	0.5%	No		43.5%	47.0%	50.5%	50.7%	3.7%	Error
Michigan	43.5%	47.0%	50.5%	48.3%	1.3%	No		43.5%	47.0%	50.5%	49.8%	2.8%	No
Nevada	45.5%	49.0%	52.5%	47.2%	-1.8%	No		42.5%	46.0%	49.5%	50.9%	4.9%	Error
North Carolina	44.5%	48.0%	51.5%	48.5%	0.5%	No		42.5%	46.0%	49.5%	51.0%	5.0%	Error
Pennsylvania	44.5%	48.0%	51.5%	48.5%	0.5%	No		44.5%	48.0%	51.5%	50.4%	2.4%	No
Wisconsin	45.5%	49.0%	52.5%	48.8%	-0.2%	No		43.5%	47.0%	50.5%	49.6%	2.6%	No
Average					0.4%							3.5%

For those readers who were not math majors, sorry for all the numbers, but when we are discussing how well the polls did, well, we need a lot of numbers. That is what polling is about. As an example, let's consider Wisconsin. The poll said 49% Harris, 47% Trump. In the Wisconsin line above, in the column "Mean," there is a 49.0% entry in the row Wisconsin. "Mean" does not mean that Harris is a mean person. It is what mathematicians mean when they add up all the numbers and divide by how many there are. It means "average," as opposed to "median" (that's the number in the middle of the sample, with half above and half below) or "mode" (the most common number in the sample).

The margin of error for this poll was 3.5% (that is, the standard deviation of the sample was 1.75%) and by convention the margin of error is two standard deviations. The mean for the Wisconsin survey was 49.0% and the MoE was 3.5% so what the pollster is saying is that the probability of Harris' vote score being between the lower bound (45.5%) and the upper bound (52.5%) is 95%. When Harris got 48.8% in Wisconsin (the number in the "Actual" column), the pollster would say, "48.8% indeed falls in the range 45.5% to 52.5%, so we nailed it. Our error was 1.8% (the "Diff" column) and that is well within the ±3.5% MoE." Similarly, Trump's score for Wisconsin was predicted to be in the range 43.5% to 50.5% and, sure enough, his actual score was 49.6%, so the pollster would say they nailed both of them and the poll got it right.

Note that the pollster did not predict that Harris would win Wisconsin, only that each candidate would end up at the predicted value ±3.5%, and that happened. So someone who doesn't understand polling might say: "Trump won, so you got it wrong," but the pollster would say: "We didn't try to predict who would win, we just predicted what ranges the two scores would fall in with 95% probability, and we did it." Please note that this is not necessarily a zero-sum game because Trump going up does not imply Harris going down due to the variable third-party vote.

The same discussion above applies to every state independently. Note that for Harris, all the values in the Diff column are under 3.5%, so the pollster got all of them right. The average error is only 0.4%, so the polls predicted Harris' score in the swing states extremely well. The column "Error" indicates whether the pollster blew it—that is, the poll was off by the MoE. None of the Harris scores were off by more than the MoE, so we put "No" there.

Now look at the Trump scores. The differences between the predicted value (the mean) and the actual value are outside the margin of error in three states (Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina) and are positive in all states, meaning that Trump overperformed the polls. The average overperformance is 3.5%, just at the limit of the MoE.

Now back to English. The pollsters predicted Harris' score extremely accurately but greatly underestimated Trump's score. Why? This is not a math question. It has to do with who was polled and also who was a likely voter. Trump's campaign put a huge emphasis on getting (young) men who normally don't vote to show up for him. The campaign went to sports events and certain music festivals and bars, and places where low-propensity male voters tend to show up and pitched their candidate. These people probably didn't answer when asked to take part in a poll, so they were probably missed. And those that did would be asked screening questions like "Did you vote in 2020?" "Do you think voting is everyone's duty?" "Do you think your vote will count?" A "no" on everything will get you marked as an unlikely voter.

It is also possible that the "undecided voters" really were undecided and then broke for Trump nationally in the last couple of days. A huge question is whether this effect holds when Trump is not on the ballot. It is noteworthy that while Trump won North Carolina, by 3.3%, downballot Republicans didn't do so well. People in the Tar Heel State elected Democrats as governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction. They also broke the Republicans' supermajority in the state legislature, so when they pass a bill and governor-elect Josh Stein vetoes it, they can't override his veto. That means that despite Trump's top-of-the-ticket win, downballot, the Democrats did well in some places.

Now let's look at the Siena polls for the Senate races:

Senate
	Democrat							Republican
State	Low	Mean	High	Actual	Diff	Error?		Low	Mean	High	Actual	Diff	Error?
Arizona	46.5%	50.0%	53.5%	50.1%	0.1%	No		41.5%	45.0%	48.5%	47.9%	2.9%	No
Michigan	44.5%	48.0%	51.5%	48.7%	0.7%	No		42.5%	46.0%	49.5%	48.3%	2.3%	No
Nevada	48.5%	52.0%	55.5%	47.6%	-4.4%	Error		39.5%	43.0%	46.5%	46.7%	3.7%	Error
Pennsylvania	46.5%	50.0%	53.5%	48.5%	-1.5%	No		41.5%	45.0%	48.5%	48.9%	3.9%	Error
Wisconsin	46.5%	50.0%	53.5%	49.4%	-0.6%	No		42.5%	46.0%	49.5%	48.5%	2.5%	No
Average					1.1%							3.1%

The effect is similar, but a bit smaller. The polls got the Democratic Senate candidates' vote share fairly well, but again underestimated the Republicans' vote share. The low-visibility, low-propensity voters were missed by the polls, but showed up and tended to vote for Donald Trump's party.

One pollster who has a whole chicken farm's worth of egg on her face is Ann Selzer. She released a poll just before Election Day showing Harris +3 in Iowa. The media went wild thinking this could presage a landslide. It sort of did—but the other way. Trump won Iowa by 13 points, meaning Selzer was off by 16 points. The reason is that unlike every other pollster, Selzer uses random digit dialing and does not apply any corrections to the raw data. Her sample this time had far too many college-educated voters and she didn't correct for that. (V)

James Carville Wants You to Get Off His Lawn

Like Karl Rove, James Carville has a reputation for being a political genius. So, like Rove (and Frank Luntz, and a couple of others), the media treats his words like manna from heaven. That same media does not seem to take note of several facts: (1) Carville's great success was getting Bill Clinton elected... 32 years ago; (2) It's a very different country and a very different Democratic Party today; and (3) He's often very wrong (for example, he predicted a comfortable Kamala Harris victory).

Yesterday, Carville was railing against the "problem" that cost the Democrats the election. He believes the party leadership is stuck in a bubble in Washington, that said leadership is pushing the wrong issues, and that "this identity sh** was a disaster."

We'll likely say more about this soon, but this is worthless analysis, in our view. Less than worthless, even, because it suggests to us that Carville can't separate Republican propaganda from actual Democratic messaging. How many times did Kamala Harris embrace identity-politics-type issues during the campaign? When did she talk about BLM, or defund the police, or women's sports, or any of that? She didn't do these things because she knows talking about these issues alienates centrist voters. The connection between Harris and trans rights was 99.9% a creation of Donald Trump's messaging, including $65 million in TV ads on the subject.

And that is the real problem here: The Republican propaganda apparatus is devastatingly effective. John Kerry was ruined by the swift boaters. Barack Obama's birth certificate did not stop him from being elected, but it did become deeply embedded in the right-wing psyche. Hillary Clinton's e-mails most certainly did stop HER from being elected. Joe Biden's age/infirmity did not derail him in 2020, but did do him in this year. And Harris' allegedly radical-pro-trans agenda hurt her badly this year.

As readers probably know by now, the House will have its first transgender member in Representative-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE). The Republican propaganda mill will do everything possible to make her the face of the Democratic Party, just as it has done with The Squad, and with Nancy Pelosi before that. This has nothing to do with party-wide Democratic wokeness, it's how the modern-day GOP works. And, as a sidebar, we really hope the Capitol Police agree to assign McBride a security detail, because she is likely to become an object of obsession for some people who are not mentally well.

We do not deny, incidentally, that Democrats need to be thinking about their messaging, and how well it connects with various constituencies. But that means something like "figure out how to better communicate the Party's ideas on kitchen table issues" and not "stop talking so much about the woke stuff," because the latter isn't actually happening, except with a few officeholders on the fringes, and a couple of Squad members who won't be back in January. The blue team also needs to be thinking about solutions for countering the GOP propaganda flamethrower (which is no small task). Carville's carping is, dare we say, out of touch, reactionary, and not terribly insightful.

However, it is surely true that Beshear/Cooper 2028 would be stronger than Pelosi/Ocasio-Cortez 2028. Until the Democrats figure out how to win back FDR's base, they probably should not run women or minorities or especially minority women for president (no matter how well they do and have done in the Senate and House or as governors). (Z)

Trump/Vance 2028?

Before sending us an e-mail telling us about the Twenty-Second Amendment, think out of the box. Donald Trump loves running for president, what with all the adoring crowds (even if they were much smaller than Kamala Harris' crowds). He didn't actually like being president the first time around, but he is warming to it. Besides, implementing the entire 900-page Project 2025 will take more than 4 years, so he will need another term, assuming he hasn't gone to the big White House in the sky by then. With his stock in DJT now worth billions of dollars, he can afford to hire a good constitutional lawyer, even if the lawyer requires a nonrefundable payment of $5 million in advance before starting to work on it.

Let's start with the basics. Here is Section 1 of the Twenty-Second Amendment:

Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2 describes the ratification procedure, which was fulfilled on Feb. 27, 1951. For the textualists among our readers, please note that the Amendment is about being elected to the presidency, not about serving as president.

We are not lawyers, but here are a couple of things we have thought of in 5 minutes (imagine what one of J.D. Vance's brilliant Yale Law School buddies could think of given 4 years and $5 million):

• Consecutive Terms: Trump could argue before the Supreme Court that the Twenty-Second Amendment, which was approved by Congress in 1947, was adopted in response to Franklin Delano Roosevelt being elected four times in a row, so it applies only to consecutive terms and thus his first term doesn't count. There is some precedent in barring consecutive terms in the states. Virginia, for example, bars governors from serving two consecutive terms, but does not limit the total number of terms they may serve. It would ultimately be up to the Supreme Court, stocked with five or six Trump appointees, to rule on this and they could well agree with Trump.
  
  
• No Enabling Legislation: The Fourteenth Amendment bans anyone who participated in an insurrection against the government from holding federal office. Colorado banned Trump from the ballot based on this Amendment. Trump sued and the Supreme Court said that since Congress never passed any enabling legislation, the Amendment doesn't count. Based on that precedent, the Court could rule that the same holds for the Twenty-Second Amendment. Of course, there is not actually a requirement that Congress pass enabling legislation, although some Amendments explicitly grant Congress the power to pass laws to enforce that Amendment.
  
  
• The Vance/Trump Route: How about this? The 2028 ticket is J.D. Vance for president and Trump for veep. Could a twice-elected president run for vice president (or be appointed vice president)? The Twelfth Amendment says that no person ineligible to be the president is eligible to be vice president. However, some legal scholars have argued that "eligibility" is determined by Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause 5, and yes, a twice-elected president can be elected vice president. The paper linked to above makes that case in 57 pages with 226 footnotes. In this scenario, Vance/Trump runs and wins, then Vance resigns the presidency right after inauguration followed by Trump succeeding to the office of president. Then Trump nominates Vance to be vice president. Again here, the Supreme Court would have to rule on this.
  
  
• The Speaker Route: This one is slightly more complicated, but probably constitutional. The 2028 GOP ticket is Vance and, say, Ivanka Trump or someone else Trump trusts. On Jan. 3, 2029, the House elects Trump as speaker. This would require a compliant Republican majority, of course. There is no requirement anywhere for who may be speaker. The speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House and doesn't even have to be an American. The House could elect King Charles III as speaker if it wants to. After being inaugurated, Vance resigns. Then Ivanka also resigns. With the presidency and vice presidency both vacant, the order of succession places the speaker of the House next in line. So Speaker Trump becomes President Trump and then nominates Vance to be vice president. Of course, to pull this off, the plan would have to be public and people would have to believe it will be carried out as planned.

We're not trying to be predictors of doom here. We just wanted to point out that, fundamentally, there is a bug in the Twenty-Second Amendment. It should not have mentioned elections at all. It should have said: "No person may serve more than 10 years as president." This bug opens the possibility of succeeding to the presidency in some way other than being elected.

We think it is unlikely that Trump will find a way to remain president beyond January 20, 2029, especially given his physical and mental health. But if he tries it, it will almost certainly involve working within the system, and trying to find a loophole, as opposed to merely declaring himself president-for-life. This being the case, it's useful to keep in mind what to look out for. (V)

In Conversation: The Banhammer

Yesterday, we announced that we were going to have far less tolerance for, and to give far less oxygen to, trolls. We continue to welcome disagreement, including strong disagreement, as long as it takes the form of respectful discussion. But we've had enough of personal attacks, rants and raves, etc.

There was quite a lot of response to that announcement, and we thought we would share a few of those:

K.H. in Maryville, TN, writes: First, I have to say I'm as shocked as everyone else that E.G. in The Villages is a woman. They are absolutely an angry, old white guy in my mind's eye. Someone Trump-like, in fact, even down to the golf cart.

Second, thanks so much for your decision on being more aggressive with the banhammer, and for exactly why you described. Respectful criticism is fine and should be welcomed. Much as it might be nice to live in a like-minded bubble, it's not a healthy diet for us. Thinking of your analogies to palate cleansers, we must have some vegetables, and not only desserts. But the pointless, angry vitriol is a waste of your time and effort, and ours as well.

Thank you both SO MUCH for the hours and hours you devote to this site. We appreciate you!

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J.H. in El Segundo, CA, writes: Great idea on stopping negative comments the rest of the year and banning certain obnoxious commenters. You guys do a great job and are very fair and respectful to respectful views of all types. You don't need to hear that swill. It will be better for all of our mental health to not have to view that.

Thanks for all that you both do. I am very thankful to have your site to follow. I will be cutting out completely almost all of my news sources, even NPR, and your site might be my only source of news for a while.

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A.N. in St. Joseph, MI, writes: I, for one, will not be saddened by the elimination of the complaints department section. I understand that constructive, substantive criticism or debate is always welcome and enjoy reading well-written arguments, even if I fundamentally disagree. Rants, however, can be left to the cesspool that is Twitter...

On a related note, I'm sure E.G. in the Villages will be SHOCKED (much like Inspector Renault in Casablanca) when TFG's goon squads round her up in one of their forthcoming raids and send her "somewhere" just because she "fits the profile"... her red hat is unlikely to save her.

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G.K. in Blue Island, IL, writes: I imagine you will get some blowback about your decision regarding E.G. from The Villages, and that most of the rationale will be spurious arguments having to do with balance, free speech, discrimination, etc.

You may or may not remember, but in 1988 Oprah Winfrey invited a group of Nazi skinheads on her show, the rationale being she would expose their hate-mongering for what it was. Instead, things got out of hand and, in the end, she only succeeded in amplifying their message and arguably aided their recruitment. It was a pivotal moment for Winfrey, and she decided thenceforward that "ignorance should not be given a platform." She also let her producers and network types know that any attempt to attract more eyeballs by emulating, for instance, Jerry Springer, would not be welcome.

Donald Trump's ignorance—about economic issues, how government works, complex societal problems, etc.—was given a platform by the Republican Party and here we are now (heaven help us all). I can't help but applaud your decision regarding E.G.in The Villages, and hope for some future world where the Flat Earth Society is not given control of NASA just because someone wants to "hear them out" on their show.

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G.L. in Chicago, IL, writes: I'd like to express my... well, not gratitude exactly, but certainly approval, of your decision not to publish rants from E.G. and their ilk anymore.

The tragic lesson that we as a society have failed to learn over the past few decades is: The only prize for indulging dipsh**tery is more dipsh**tery.

I don't know precisely how to have a society where it's possible to have constructive discussions but some basic ground rules of decency are a good start.

Despite the prediction from G.K. in Blue Island, we didn't get any negative feedback about this (unless we missed a message). It was overwhelmingly positive. After all, we're not shutting down letters that express disagreement. We're only shutting down letters that express disagreement in a highly disagreeable fashion.

And we do think there was merit in showing readers what a truly out-of-bounds message looks like, but we also agree with the semi-implication that we made the same error as Oprah did. Feeding the trolls just encourages them.

On a somewhat related note, we are vaguely toying with a notion, though it's just concepts of a plan right now. We are nothing but disdainful of performative bothsidesism. We don't believe that, for example, when CNN hires a Scott Jennings, or The Washington Post hires a Marc Thiessen, they are really trying to enlighten their audience.

That said, we think there would be merit in finding someone who has a right-leaning perspective, and could contribute something to the site once a week (or maybe every other week). To be more precise, we're thinking someone who could pick one (or two) items that we wrote that week, and could say "Here's how this particular story/issue/etc. looks through my eyes." Sort of a conservative ombudsperson. But the candidate needs to have some kind of track record of being intellectually honest and capable of reasoned debate. Someone who pines for how The National Review was when William F. Buckley Jr. was in charge would be nice. Being one of J.D. Vance's Yale Law School classmates would be a plus, but is not a requirement. The person should also expect some of what electrical engineers call "negative feedback" from us and others.

Anyhow, if readers have thoughts on this—good idea, bad idea, the best way to execute the idea, etc.—then we would be glad to hear them at comments@electoral-vote.com. As K.H. in Maryville points out, a bubble is something to be watched for, and actively resisted, and this might be a good step in that direction. (Z)

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---The Votemaster and Zenger