Sunday Mailbag

The "continuing resolution" was, not surprisingly, the dominant subject of the week.

Politics: The Democrats Blew It!

R.L. in Alameda, CA, writes: I just sent this to Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla (both D-CA):

I could not be more disappointed in how Sen[ate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer (D-NY) allowed the Republicans to roll over him and your caucus. Now the MAGAts know that they can push you around and do whatever the hell they want. Trump was doing this anyway. I can't see what you've gained by capitulating. I wish we were in a parliamentary democracy so that a vote of no confidence could be scheduled against Schumer.

Would Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have rolled over like this? Of course not. He declared that he would try to make President Obama a one-term president (thank goodness he failed) and used every tool available to obstruct him and the Democratic agenda. Why can't you guys do that? This isn't complicated. Start holding up cabinet nominees. No more unanimous consent. Force a floor debate on everything. The dumbest senator (Tommy Tuberville) did this during [Joe] Biden's term to hold up military promotions and appointments. You guys are smart. Obstruct! Give the people something to hope for. We need that!

You guys held onto the filibuster because you feared you would need it to push back against Republican overreach in the future. Well, the future is here and you didn't filibuster. What is wrong with you people? This was your one chance to push back and demonstrate to Convicted Felon Trump that you are an opposition party. Now, I'm not sure what you are. My wife and I have changed our voter registrations to "independent." I can't count on you. I guess it's up to the neo-cons, who actually know how to win. I can honestly say that I would vote for a Cheney-Kinzinger ticket in 2028 (if there are elections) and in spite of policy differences that I have with them.

This is no longer about left-right. It's about pro-democracy versus authoritarianism. Get with the program and start opposing and obstructing the Orange Menace!

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P.G. in Berkeley, CA, writes:

Dear Senator Schumer,

I live in Berkeley, as I went to college here. But I grew up in New York. I want to share with you what I learned here long ago from Mario Savio, also a New Yorker. You might find it enlightening:

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Please consider.

Thank you.

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J.L. in Mountain View, CA, writes: I am livid. I am not angry because the Democrats ended up giving the Republicans the votes they needed to pass the "CR." Your pieces on both Friday and Saturday do a good job of laying out the reasons that it would be reasonable to vote for or against this bill. The reason I am upset got a brief mention at the very bottom of your piece on Friday. You wrote: "The Democrats' current position was weakened by the fact that they did not get out ahead of the messaging, and waited until it was too late. But if they spend the next 2-3 months committing to a very firm, no-compromises position on the debt ceiling and Musk, they will be in a much stronger position when their next opportunity arrives."

It was Chuck Schumer's job to get out ahead of the messaging this time and he failed spectacularly. I have already already left drunken rants on my senators' voicemails about their failure to have a plan (Thursday evening was Purim, after all), and plan to leave more sober calls for them to cashier Schumer this weekend.

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P.W. in Springwater, NY, writes: I don't always agree with your positions, and that's to be expected, but this is the first time I've felt your opinion to be offensive.

You wrote: "So, the folks who are writing 'Senate Democrats just don't get it' or 'Senate Democrats have no spines'—and there are many of them—are, in our view, engaging in lazy, knee-jerk analysis."

I obviously can't speak for everyone who felt, like I did, that Senate Democrats should have gone with bad option B. But 32 Democratic senators plus one Independent obviously thought bad option B was the lesser of two evils. And many who wrote or called our senators likely did what I did, which was to read a variety of analyses from a variety of sources and came to the same conclusion, after which they took the time to repeatedly call and/or email senators. Whether you think that was the right choice or not, that's hardly "lazy" or "knee-jerk."

If I thought for a minute that the Democrats would bypass the filibuster in order to "lay the groundwork for the next fight," I might be less distressed about today's outcome. But where is the evidence that their messaging will improve? Every e-mail I get from the DSCC indicates to me that their goal is to retake the Senate in 2026 and then they'll be able to stop Trump and Musk. I simply don't think we can wait that long, and I do think that elected officials who think we can wait "just don't get it."

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D.B. in Deer Park, NY, writes: I agree with your analysis that the Senate vote on the continuing resolution was a no-win scenario for the Democrats. But like the Kobayshi Maru, it was a test of character which Sen. Charles Schumer and the other crossover voters failed miserably. It shows that their principles are no more genuine than those of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). I don't think I've ever been so disgusted with any of my senators than I am right now. And I was here for all of Al D'Amato's 18 years.

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A.G. in Scranton, PA, writes: You know what I hate more than a turncoat? An opportunist who sticks his finger in the air every few days.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) knows his sh**ty, former steeltown state was going to be all in on MAGA if things hadn't gone like they have gone and like they're going to go, and he was straight up looking to jump ship early on, before this unpopular nightmare began in earnest.

I feel for the people from these horrid towns... because I am one of them now. Scranton still kinda has something going on, though.

Braddock? Aquashicola? Nesquehoning? Duquesne? Coalburg? Steelton, Pottsville, Plymouth, Shamokin, the list is endless in this state alone.

There's a million towns worse than this and had the a**holes who went MAGA gone all-in on some third party out of frustration for no one giving a sh**, then I suppose I could forgive them.

The 60,000-employee steel mill supporting a region of a hundred towns and shops and school and churches and railroads is not coming back. Anthracite coal as the fuel of the world is not coming back. Iron from places not in Minnesota is not coming back.

They had grown frustrated with the constant broken promises about those things coming back but let themselves be taken for one last ride.

It's almost like that "one last score" cliche, the Hail Mary pass that either wins it all or loses it because there's not enough time left on the clock.

I wish it could come back, but isolationism doesn't turn back the clock on technology. It cannot change that we aren't growing, so we just don't need all that much steel anymore. It cannot change that gas is cheaper in many ways than coal is and that even if it weren't, then those thin, deep veins of Anthracite coal still won't ever again be viable alternatives to Powder River Basin coal.

If Braddock cannot look like the Main Line and Upper Bucks, make the Main Line and Upper Bucks look like Braddock.

Donald Trump is actually doing what his people want, but only coincidentally. Sen. Fetterman wanted to capitalize on that. Now that MAGA isn't popular because it is just lighting a match and dropping it onto the kerosene-soaked, varnished wooden floors of our nation, he's suddenly back.

I once admired him. I really have to stop doing that with political figures. They all disappoint me.

Politics: No They Didn't!

P.R. in Arvada, CO, writes: This may not be a popular opinion, but I totally agree with Chuck Schumer's stance. Voting for a shutdown would have, as you have pointed out, left Donald Trump and Elon Musk free to rip apart whatever parts of the government they chose. Regardless of the bubble people are in, Trump's base would be ecstatic about this. That is exactly what they want to happen. A shutdown would give them this on a diamond-encrusted-platinum platter. By letting the Republicans have their budget, they now have to own the results. If it is successful, we will need to eat crow. However, when a large portion of Trump's base see their friends and family losing healthcare and losing Social Security when we drop into a recession and people start getting laid off, they will turn against him because that isn't owning the libs.

For years we have been hearing how much of a mess the Republican Party is in, how it is tearing itself apart and will lose power for generations. In case you haven't noticed, this hasn't happened. How often do we hear about how the Speaker of the House isn't any good at his job and will never pass anything without Democrats? It just isn't true. He gets bills passed.

When Trump won election, there were several ways the resistance could play out. One option was to let the voters have what they voted for. This is part of that. No matter what little bit they thought they were voting for, they voted for Project 2025, a tariff war, cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. They voted for the removal of a key part of the workforce. They voted for the utter disaster of a foreign policy we now have. We told them it would be bad and then complained that they didn't listen. We didn't listen when they told us to stop being so condescending and so they dug their heals in.

The only way to change their minds is to let the leopard eat their faces. Then we need to be better and offer sympathy and understanding to get them to push for impeachment. We can't do it without them, and they will not listen to us, so let them see it for themselves. "No difference between the two parties" or "Trump cares about the working people of the country"? Let's find out. It is going to be rough, but the only way some people learn is to touch the fire.

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M.F. in Des Moines, IA, writes: I'm the apparently rare lefty Democrat who thinks Schumer, et al., made the right decision in letting the CR pass and avoiding a shutdown.

For those who advocate shutdown, I have a simple question: "Then what?"

I would ask everyone to think about the potential ways this plays out. First, the Democrats have to have specific demands, and if the exercise is to accomplish anything, they have to be demands the Republicans can meet. This means reining in Elon Musk and Donald Trump is off the table immediately; no Republican can vote for that without incurring a primary challenge and probably losing. So what are the victory metrics?

Equally as important, if those victory metrics aren't met, if the Republicans decide to dig in and say "no concessions," what's the exit strategy? Is it a bluff, and if the Republicans call we give in then? Or do we leave the government shutdown until the midterms, an outcome many Republicans, Musk included, would consider a positive outcome in and of itself?

The Democrats demanding a shutdown remind me of the Bush Administration going into the Iraq war. A fight you didn't have to pick, fought on the enemy's turf, with no victory metrics and no exit strategy.

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M.W. in Richmond, VA, writes: This is the best explanation I have seen why Chuck Schumer made the better bad choice:

I've seen lots of posts bashing Schumer for voting for the Cloture of the CR. I don't always agree with him, but in this instance, I think he made the right decision. We the people have been outsmarted by the architects of Project 2025. IMO, there is no way that Felon47 or the Muskrats were smart enough to have devised this perfectly horrible trap. The choice is between a terrible 6-month CR that gives Felon47 and the Muskrats greater power and essentially consents to the various violations of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, and a government shutdown. Ordinarily, I think a government shutdown is a great way to get a better bipartisan deal, but we are not living in normal times.

A government shutdown leaves the executive branch in power and after two weeks, many of the federal courts close. During a government shutdown, Felon47 and the Muskrats can fire (or re-fire) government employees, shutter agencies, decimate our intelligence and enforcement groups and the presently only effective curb on their power, the courts, will have been dramatically curtailed. Further, coming out of a shutdown will require participation from the executive branch. To the extent that they have greater powers during a shutdown, why would this administration ever cooperate with reversing a shutdown? That is the dilemma facing Schumer. I hate this, but I think he's making the right choice.

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R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, writes: During 2008 campaign, in reference to Iraq, Barack Obama often said there were bad and worse options for handling that situation. Well, there were only bad and worse options for Senate Democrats to pass the CR. You don't want to pass any GOP-written CR, but you don't want to shut down the Federal government either.

Sorta like: Is it better when your favorite NFL team loses 31-30 on a last second field goal, or loses 60-0?

There was no way for Democrats to achieve any win from this, only a lesser loss.

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J.D.M. in Portland, OR, writes: In the impulse to oppose the orange menace and Elmo, I understand the frustration at Chuck Schumer for not shutting down the government. However, people are overlooking a rather important fact: American voters don't do nuance. Let's say Senate Democrats shutdown the government for [X] days. Which message, in the aftermath, will get more traction?

Democrats: "We shut down the government by filibustering the not-an-actual CR [add explanation of what a CR is, and is not, here] because [long list of offenses, explanations, etc.]. Elmo isn't even qualified to do anything! And we achieved [TBD]."

Republican Option #1: "Democrats love corruption so much they even shut down the government to stop us from cleaning up fraud!"

Republican Option #2: "Democrats caused the recession by shutting down the government!"

For those who think option #2 is too absurd or too stupid to work, see "But her e-mails!" or Barack Obama's birth certificate. From my point of view, Senate Democrats knew they had a loser of an issue on their hands regardless of how they played it and took the least worst option.

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J.E. in Akron, OH, writes: While I agree that all three positions taken by Democratic senators on the "continuing resolution" are defensible, I think the arguments for "Position 8" (don't filibuster, and so don't shut down the government) are the strongest. One of the central premises of the whole DOGE fiasco is that most federal workers aren't doing anything important, and that their salaries are a waste of money. This premise is harder to counter if Democrats insist on a shutdown, which could easily be spun as "even Democrats are OK with idling "non-essential' workers." Furthermore, most of the negative consequences of DOGE will happen in the medium-to-long term. In the short term, a relatively small number of people will face devastating consequences, a few more will face inconvenience, and life will go on as usual for most people, some of whom will conclude that maybe DOGE was a good idea after all, and that we can get by with a much leaner federal government. Forcing a shutdown could blur responsibility for the coming economic turmoil while undermining the case that federal workers are carrying out critical work.

Politics: This Week in TrumpWorld

M.S. in Newton, MA, writes: I wanted to note how disingenuous I believe you are with regards to the judicial "wins" against Trump. You railed often and consistently against Republican judge-shopping when it came to abortion or any other issue where you disagreed. These two judges who ruled against Donald Trump, on the federal firings, come from some of the most radically left areas of the country. Both are Democratic appointees, and both are Senior Status judges who really should be enjoying retirement, and not meddling where they shouldn't be involved. No district judge of either party should be able to issue nationwide anythings. The Fourth Circuit leans heavy to the left, overloaded with Biden and Obama judges, and will likely uphold the Maryland ruling, and the Ninth Circuit could go either way. I suspect that the Supremes will smack both judges down, and at that point you will discuss how radical the Supreme Court is while ignoring the radical rulings of these two judges.

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R.S. in Albuquerque, NM, writes: You wrote: "How could Musk cut the SSA budget? One way would be to use AI to evaluate all claims. It could be tuned to reject any claim that wasn't 100% documented or where the documentation did not exactly follow a complex set of rules. Your application form was not filled in using the Calibri 10-point font? We can't read it, so it is hereby rejected."

They already do this with many claims.

I lived and worked overseas. When I retired, I came back to the U.S. I signed up for Medicare Advantage (I had signed up for Part A at 65). I was told that there would be a $50 a month surcharge (forever) because I did not sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan when I was a legal resident of a foreign country.

This went on for over 2 years. Every time I thought I had met Social Security's demands, they came up with another. It took the intercession of a U.S. Senator to bring an end their nonsense.

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T.B. in Nowata, OK, writes: Over many years, I have had tangential experience in implementing new systems and populating databases. There are always fields that do not line up or read correctly. I was preparing the online "paperwork" for a recent wellness exam and was reviewing family history. A new system was adopted and installed since last year, when the same task was required. All of my grandparents were now shown as living, all four with age ranges of 120 to 140 years old. All the other data regarding their health issues had transferred properly. I corrected the records by toggling them all to deceased. Too bad I couldn't collect their Social Security checks. This reinforces your argument that database analysis by a bunch of Musk melons will likely be ripe with coding errors, which then produces reporting errors.

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M.B. in Bath, ME, writes: I feel so confounded about what we should be doing. What we are doing right now seems exactly wrong... but is it too much, or too little? I really do not know, and it's causing a lot of anxiety.

Every day, I read Electoral-Vote.com, as well as Heather Cox Richardson's calmly rational analysis of the day's events, and I am overwhelmed with the feeling that WE ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH! The range of assaults on our democracy, economics, the environment, our international relations, the rule of law, the role of the courts and Congress and the executive branch, the impact on education, research... the list goes on, but the assaults seem devastating. Even in a best-case scenario, the future seems irrevocably changed. In a worst case scenario, this looks like the end of the U.S., the global order, the environment. This might not be a bad time to exercise that Second Amendment option! Like one of those "What would you have done if you had met Hitler in the streets in 1925?" kind of things.

On the other hand, I know the Congress is staffed with many intelligent people who are well-familiar with how the sausage is made, and they don't seem anywhere near as alarmed as I think they should be. It seems completely irrational that they'd be fiddling while the Capitol burns, so maybe things aren't as bad as my silo is telling me? I know that many of TCF's XOs are being held up in the courts, or overruled by heads of departments, or just ignored or lost in the turning of the wheels. Also, there are natural resistances to things... oil companies unwilling to "drill, baby, drill!" even though the gates are open, economic pressures forcing adjustments to the tariff wars, the approaching midterms (if they actually happen), etc. Is it possible that I am just seeing a hyped-up microscopic view of how things generally work and WE ARE TOO ANXIOUS?

I am completely torn between these two viewpoints, but at the very minimum, where I am right now (watching and waiting as either the fatal, devastating tidal wave approaches, or just a slightly above-normal high tide is coming in) feels like the wrong thing to be doing. As my grandmother used to say, it feels like time to SOGOTP.

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D.K.O. in Helena, MT, writes: I'm an Air Force veteran, so on Friday, I attended the rally to support the Veterans Administration (VA) at the Capitol in Helena, MT. Naturally, there was a lot of anger expressed at the cutting of 80,000 positions in the VA staff. The speakers were excellent and all of them declared Trump's presidency to be treasonous. We need to take him out. My suggestion is that we organize a January 6th style "Tour" of the White House, complete with wooden structures, and take selfies in the Oval Office to send to our grandchildren. "Big protest in D.C. on the 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

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L.C. in Boston, MA, writes: J.R. in Berlin wrote in, objecting to calling Germany's AfD a neo-Nazi party: "We could just as justifiably call the Republicans, now dominated by the MAGAt party majority with their own 1930s-style fascist proclivities, a neo-Nazi party."

Apart from some fake outrage over antisemitism (but essentially never over the antisemitism of their own people), that's what the Republican Party actually has become under Trump, and will continue to be so even after him.

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C.R. in Washington, DC, writes: I have no doubt that you're going to receive at least two dozen versions of this same letter in response to J.R. in Berlin, but if the litmus test of whether the AfD is a neo-Nazi party is whether or not the modern iteration of the U.S. Republican party is a neo-Nazi party, than the AfD passes with flying colors.

Let's call a spade a spade: Any party that is supported by neo-Nazis is a neo-Nazi party. Full stop. This goes for the AfD and U.S. Republicans. It cannot be overstated how extreme a party ideology must be in order to be appealing to self-professed Nazis.

It's an illustration of how normalized extreme right-wing ideology has become in the modern world, that people can rub shoulders with that filth and still have the gall to consider themselves moderates.

Politics: What Is Trump Doing?

L.O.-R. in San Francisco, CA, writes: Over and over, I see questions or assumptions about what the Co-Presidents and their cronies are doing. But there's a narrative that needs to be hard-baked into our thinking and that is not lifted up often enough: their goal is to destroy government.

We're only seeing the logical extension of Ronald Reagan's "government is bad" mantra. If government is bad, then it should be eliminated. You can track a straight line from Reagan to Gingrich to W to the Tea Party to Trump, each time moving towards the end goal of destroying government. With that in mind, then every action taken by this administration is logical and effective. That decades-long effort has landed us where we are now, little different than Putin's Russia: We are run by a strongman enamored of power alone whose only policy is to reward the richest oligarchs that support him and who succeeds by skillfully manipulating mass communications. That goal is not possible with a functioning government.

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F.H. in Pacific Grove, CA, writes: K.B. in Hartford wrote: "Jamelle Bouie wrote in the NYT this week, in broad strokes, that the president's retribution is not limited to his political enemies but is directed to America itself. After all, we rejected him in 2020 and such disrespect can't go unanswered. If you start with this understanding, all the chaos and destruction makes sense. The pain he is inflicting is not a bug, it's a feature."

When songwriter/musician Randy Newman talks about or introduces his song "I Want You to Hurt Like I Do," he often jokes about it being his response to "We Are the World." I figured he was poking fun at "We Are the World" for being ineffective and/or too big for its britches.

But now it's playing out on a scope I doubt Newman ever dreamed of. Trump and Elon, with their parents/childhoods, bullied and hated and made fun of for decades, are making sure everyone in the U.S. (and probably the world) will hurt like they do. There's no humanity or empathy left in either of them.

Another apt analogy/precursor: The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" from 1961, where an all-powerful, compassionless child makes everyone around him pretend they love him and love everything he does... and sends anyone who upsets him in the slightest "to the cornfield," or simply mutates (tortures) them for his amusement.

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R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, writes: In reply to J.K. in Silverdale, who wondered when America was "great," per the MAGA crowd, I was talking about this topic with one of my friends this week and we both agreed most Trumpers under the age of 70, especially the Generation X Trumpers, want the U.S. to return culturally to the 1980s. Many of them seem to think Bill Clinton's presidency was the country really started to go off the rails.

Coincidentally, on Friday, I came across this YouTube clip of 1980s TV commercials that—to put it mildly—have aged very badly:

I laughed so hard watching this I was wiping tears by the end, imagining how angry people would be now if these ads aired today. Bill Cosby sarcastically lecturing people about the "benefits" of using drugs? The McDonald's clip seems like it could have been written by xenophobic Trumpers. And the final ad features a person now called Caitlyn Jenner discussing vehicle safety long before she caused a multi-car accident that killed a motorist.

My challenge to everyone is to see if you can make it through this clip without laughing.

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C.J. in Boulder, CO, writes: I have to wonder if Electoral-Vote.com readers are fully grasping the magnitude of the administration's war on science.

While the administration has hit some roadblocks on some of their other initiatives, and some seem to stumble over each other, hammering science seems to be full speed ahead. Despite court orders to rehire many federal workers, including scientists at a number of different agencies, there doesn't seem to be any hurry to actually obey this order. I can tell you right now that there are scientists who were dismissed burning up the phone lines looking for work elsewhere—and a number of them are looking overseas. NOAA has already been hit with a second round of cuts, and the first round has already diminished the quality of forecasts in the country, as important data is not collected (e.g., weather balloon launches have been cut back because of staffing).

Of course, there has been the demand that NIH indirect costs be limited to 15%; this at least has been temporarily blocked, but you can be sure that university staff are exploring how this might play out. Holding back $400M from Columbia? How much of that is science, do you think? Using protests as a justification is quite the backdoor for punishing science for the sins of the university administration. The CDC and FDA are canceling key scientific meetings while occasionally promoting very borderline advice. And now to add to the joy we have NIH actually canceling dozens and plausibly hundreds of grants, a procedure previously only used for extreme misbehavior (e.g., fraud).

It seems hard to imagine this will be limited to NIH; NSF, NASA, NOAA and USGS all run similar procedures for making grants. It is one thing to say "we're shifting priorities in this programs and so future awards will need to focus in these directions"—that happens (though probably not with the extreme redirection we'll likely see), but to say "Hey, that 5-year grant you are working on isn't of interest any more; you are done. Today. Too bad if there are patients participating in your study who have shown some benefit." To imagine that this could possibly save money is insane; it makes all the money spent to this point of little value.

I don't think it an exaggeration to say the this war on science will drive good science right out of the country. Scientists are not great advocates on their own behalf; while they can be snippy and arrogant and obnoxious within their research realms, in dealing with the broader community, they tend to be quite reserved.

If you think this is outrageous, do yell at your representatives. There are few pressure points that are available, so they need to be pressed hard.

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M.M. in San Diego, CA, writes: The unintended consequences of the government purges underway will be an abundance of highly qualified, highly motivated Democratic candidates up and down tickets all across the country in 2026. By firing well-educated and competent federal employees, a pool of pissed-off professionals will find ways to fight back, flooding races with their candidacies to wrest back our government from those wishing to destroy it.

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M.S. in Canton, NY, writes: "Trade wars are good, and easy to win." — Donald J. Trump, 3/2/2018

Given that the stock market is down roughly 10% in the past month, we appear to be in the "Fool Around and Find Out" phase of that particular point of view.

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B.B. in Detroit, MI, writes: Trump's erratic behavior and comments (and overall appearance) prompted me to offer this suggestion for a nickname: Caligulump.

Politics: Learning Curve

C.S. in Philadelphia, PA, writes: Director of Student Conduct at a community college here. Without reading details of the individual cases, since they are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we are often replying on incomplete information from the Columbia students regarding revoking degrees. Looking at Columbia's Code of Conduct, revocation appears to be limited, as you noted, to academic misconduct:

Degree Revocation: A former student may be subject to degree revocation if the University finds by a preponderance of evidence that the student engaged in research misconduct during their enrollment or obtained their degree through deceit, fraud, or misrepresentation. Columbia University may impose a sanction up to revoking those degrees, certificates, and/or decertify credit. Sanction decisions to take such actions will be made only after careful consideration of all the available evidence and in consultation with the former student's school. Revocation of a degree is noted on the academic transcript and renders the former student ineligible to enroll in any school within Columbia University.

Our College's Code gives a little more leeway for outside-of-the-classroom conduct: "Revocation of Degree: The College may revoke a previously earned degree should the College be made aware of misconduct committed while still enrolled but reported after the accused student has graduated."

What is likely happening is graduating students committed behavior before graduation but their hearings were concluded later. They were likely suspended for X semesters/years and at the end of the suspension, they will be eligible to officially get their diploma/call themselves graduates.

An example of an extreme case would be if, say, during the last week of the semester, one student commits sexual assault against another student. The investigation and hearing would not be done in time for commencement. Yet the behavior still occurred while they were a student and the college is obligated to investigate and determine what happened. If the student is found responsible, even after graduation, the college could revoke or delay the degree.

Again, not knowing details of the Columbia student's cases, violations of harassment, destruction of property, unauthorized entry/trespassing, etc. would be in the realm of possibility of suspension.

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J.P. in Lancaster, PA, writes: As the holder of two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, I would fully support the revocation of TCF's Wharton degree from 1968, especially given that he was not a very dedicated student, according to some of his professors and classmates.

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P.M. in Port Angeles, WA, writes: I feel compelled to comment on the question posed by P.D.N. in Boardman, about AI usage in universities and their acceptance by the various administrations. I find it appalling that AI is substituted for new thoughts on any topic.

I offer an anecdote from my personal experience in academia: I was a postdoc talking about research efforts with a grad student. The student was complaining that the machine his advisor had bought was not working as he would have liked. I responded that nothing works until you make it work. A bit later, the student's advisor related that he just happened to be behind us and had overheard our conversation. He thanked me for my statement and hoped that it inspired the student to address the issue and get things working. I have taken my own advice for the past half century: It is up to you to make things work. If you don't, then who will?

I hope that this anecdote can be of use to people.

Politics: Abundance?

J.W. in Newton, MA, writes: Thanks for covering the piece from Ezra Klein, which I think was spot-on. I live in a formerly normal and now exceedingly expensive suburb of Boston. The Commonwealth tries to force the suburbs to commit to building more housing near train stations, but the locally approved plans are insufficient, and community support is lacking. In my town, the NIMBY coalition includes many working-class residents, who know from experience that development comes first to their neighborhoods, where land is cheaper. Also included are many folks who are driven by self-interest but cosplay as defenders of the working person. The bull**it spouted by these highly educated folks is astounding; they are as ignorant as TCF of Econ 101. Yet they win city council seats, in a dynamic that reminds me of how nonsense-spouting MAGA politicians win in purple states.

It will be very difficult to defeat NIMBYism in blue enclaves. Building sufficient housing and transit would take radical reform of zoning laws and eminent domain, which would create an immense backlash. I fear that the problem is not solvable in my lifetime.

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C.A. in Cincinnati, OH, writes: I read Ezra Klein's piece on how Democrats should focus their efforts on ensuring that the government works by cutting regulations and streamlining permitting so that housing, energy, and transit projects can be built quickly and delivered for the public. I also read your response/summary to it, and I think two things are missing from the discussion.

The first is that new projects always sound good... until they decide to build them in YOUR neighborhood. No doubt that both you and Klein are familiar with NIMBYism (Not In My BackYard, for the uninitiated); where a new development or rail line gets a ton of public support right up until it's time for the actual building and the residents pitch a fit. It's happening right now where I live in Cincinnati: There's a four-story apartment project being planned in a nicer neighborhood that would provide more than 100 rental units, ground-level retail, and a small parking garage. While it wouldn't solve all our problems, it would address housing costs and provide homes with decent transit access (a couple of higher-frequency bus routes go through the neighborhood). But guess what's happening? The homeowners are rioting with the same complaints these projects always get: It will cause traffic congestion, renters are not invested in the community, and it will tank home values. I am sure living in California has given (Z) plenty of experience with this phenomenon.

Despite what current events may lead you to believe, we are, in fact, still a democracy. The voters have a lot of say. The problem is that voters are unreliable narrators. They will tell you in polling and focus groups that they care about addressing homelessness or expanding transit service, but will fight you tooth and nail to keep you from implementing anything that solves the problem if it's near their home. Klein is telling Democrats they need to make government work for the people, but what happens when people don't want that? How do you get them to eat their vegetables? Do you ignore the public pushback and bad headlines because you know it will serve the movement's overall goals? It's more than just a policy or messaging issue. You've got to do a lot of persuasion with voters, many of whom may not be in your coalition, to accept that the downsides of any new development or rail line are either worth the benefits or (perhaps more accurately) not based in reality. Not so easy, especially for a party that's constantly being painted as condescending and out of touch with voters.

The second is that conservation goals have changed since the 1970s. Half a century ago, one of the main goals of environmentalists was to preserve as much habitat as possible. This led to the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. However, that has changed in the years since: Climate change is now the main threat to the integrity of ecosystems. The main objective now is to lower carbon emissions as quickly as possible. And the best way to do this is to build dense housing and provide options for getting around that aren't based on driving a fossil-fuel-burning car. Dense housing provides the triple whammy of having scalable utilities; providing businesses and services to residents that can be easily reached on foot, bus, or bike; and fitting more homes in less area, which means less developed land. Indeed, if people care about spotted owls, as you say, the best thing for them might be to build that 35-unit complex in the empty lot down the street instead of the 20-acre subdivision in the suburbs.

All that said, I am encouraged by the current movement within progressivism to grapple with our paltry say-to-do ratio. There are Democratic-led states and cities that have made these sorts of projects work. But it's going to take more than just a think tank putting out some white papers on streamlining regulation and permitting. It's going to take a mindset shift on the public's behalf, and I am not sure Klein is ready for that kind of long-term project.

(V) & (Z) respond: Indeed. 200 yards to the west is Santa Monica, a city so liberal that locals call it "The People's Republic of Santa Monica." But that liberalism goes right out the window whenever someone suggests building more housing.

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W.F. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: You wrote: "This transformation will not be easy because it will mean Democrats fighting other Democrats with different priorities. More houses probably won't work out so well for the spotted owl."

I understand the spotted owl reference was possibly facetious, but I believe this mostly mischaracterizes the opposition from NIMBYs, when it comes to housing, at least. NIMBYs who oppose new housing are not doing so because it degrades the environment but rather because they don't want single-family neighborhoods to become densified, changing "neighborhood character" or property values. Relaxing restrictions on densification would lead to less sprawl and therefore fewer "spotted owls" at risk from new developments in undeveloped areas and, as you point out, help the environment by making people rely less on cars. Densification would be ultimately be better for everyone. However, many wealthy California liberals are, on this particular issue, quite conservative.

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D.H. in Boston, MA, writes: While I agree with much of your post on "The Politics of the Calendar" and the Ezra Klein column it's based on, there are some positive developments on the housing front in Massachusetts. Klein mentioned Boston's Big Dig as something of a boondoggle in his article, which is fair, but it finished construction 17 years ago. In a more recent and pragmatic direction, in 2021 the state legislature passed a new zoning law under the outgoing (Republican) Charlie Baker administration, which is being enacted under the current (Democratic) Maura Healey administration. In a nutshell, if a community has an MBTA (public transit) station, it must have a zoning ordinance that allows multifamily housing within a half mile of that station. The MBTA runs the subway, buses, ferries and commuter rail. As a result, most towns in eastern Massachusetts need to comply. As you might imagine, some NIMBYs have protested (most notably in Milton and Needham), but most communities have complied so far.

The law does not specify that new housing must be built, only what the zoning laws should say, but I think it's a step in the right direction. It encourages denser housing near public transportation centers. I'm happy to live in a state that recognizes a problem and approaches it reasonably.

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T.H.M. in Marlboro, VT, writes: One thing missing from this analysis is relative incomes. Much of the cost-of-living problem and much of the homeless problem arise from the lack of what is termed "affordable housing." I would suggest that this problem should often be redefined as "inadequate income." If income were more equally distributed, then we might have fewer McMansions and the efforts of builders might be better distributed toward housing that people with moderate incomes could afford. A study of homelessness in Britain found that the country had more housing per capita than it had 20 years ago when the homeless population was much lower, but that the flow of wealth toward the top left more and more people out of the market. I haven't seen such a study here, but I'd be surprised if it didn't reveal a similar phenomenon.

Politics: Clockblocked

D.H. in Mashpee, MA, writes: In over a half century of following this topic, I found (V)'s Monday discussion of issues relating to Daylight Saving Time to be the most accurate, honest, and comprehensive analysis of this subject I have ever encountered.

I retired a few years ago from more than four decades as a planetarium director and teacher of astronomy. My classes always incorporated a discussion of time-keeping and how the systems we used today were originally developed. As an example, those who followed the changing heavens centuries ago were well aware of the fact that the "tropical year," the period of time between successive spring equinoxes, was not 365 days exactly but 365.2422 days. Rulers of the time simply added occasional days to the calendar to make up the difference, usually when the timing best suited them politically.

Julius Caesar decided to take politics out of the calendar, directing his astronomers to produce a more accurate calendar, which they did by introducing a "leap year day" to be added to the calendar at the end of February, thereby producing a year which averaged out over time to 365.25 days.

Pretty good but not good enough. By the late sixteenth century, the small error had accumulated to more than 10 days, and Pope Gregory ordered his astronomers to clean up the remaining error. After a fair amount of work, they decided to revise the leap-year-day rule very slightly. Henceforth, every century year not evenly divisible by 400 would no longer be a leap year—1600 and 2000 would remain leap years, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 would not. By losing these three leap year days every 400 years, the average length of the year, after Gregory's calendar revisions, was reduced to 365.2425 days, yielding a Gregorian Calendar accurate to one day in 3,300 years. What a remarkable accomplishment!

Unlike those calendar makers, the folks who thought that the creation of Daylight Saving Time was a great idea that would benefit most people, also recognized that many of the benefits of Daylight Saving Time experienced during the summer months would entirely disappear during the winter, as (V) so accurately described. From a purely astronomical point of view, to do the "spring ahead, fall back" thing, while annoying to some, was the only satisfactory option. While folks might have personal preferences for one option or another based on their own particular interests, the current arrangement is the best possible solution for everyone.

The problem has been that, every spring and fall when the time is about to change, articles frequently appear pushing one type of permanent time or the other. Virtually every one of these articles is biased according to the writer's individual preference—biased inadvertently, in most instances but, shamefully, intentionally in others. And many articles are written by low-level staffers assigned to them don't have the background to evaluate what is written elsewhere or told to them by others.

Many articles suggest that the twice-a-year time change is unhealthful, citing as examples an increase in the number of car crashes, or industrial accidents, or the number of heart attacks or other major health crises occurring on the Mondays following the semi-annual time change. But all of these are examples of a correlation—Event B often seems to follow Event A, which makes us wonder if Event A might actually have caused Event B. But the only way to "prove" that A caused B is to systematically rule out by experiment all other possible options, leaving us merely "highly confident" that A probably caused B. But no such experiments on this issue have actually been conducted.

All of this jargonish stuff aside, readers should ask themselves a simple question: "Do I personally know, or have I ever even heard of, any specific individual who has been adversely affected by the twice yearly time change?" Anything and everything we do in our daily lives has a measurable negative risk associated with it, but we freely choose to do those things anyhow, for all the reasons they benefit us.

I cannot end this letter without calling attention to (V)'s use of the term "jetlag." The vast majority of us are fully familiar with this term because we have experienced its negative effects for ourselves. We know we will experience jet lag when we fly, yet we choose to fly anyhow. A quick search of the Internet reveals countless suggestions for minimizing the effect of jetlag, but not a single article urging us not to fly at all in order to avoid its potentially negative health consequences. If we embark routinely on long flights without even thinking about it, how can we possibly be concerned by two one-hour time changes, occurring in the middle of the night and months apart from one another?

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L.R.H. in Acton, MA, writes: Twice a year we move the clocks, and twice a year we go through this silliness of quoting a sleep specialist (the same one is quoted in all the articles I've seen, and I'd like a few words with her, but you're getting them instead) about how bad permanent daylight saving time would be for our circadian rhythms.

That might be true in Michigan, but it is not true on the eastern edge of a time zone, especially in New England. If we stayed on Eastern Standard Time year round, our kids would still get to go to school in daylight, but in June the sun would rise before 4:30 am and set before 7:30 pm. Most people would miss three or more hours of morning light, and that's not great for circadian rhythms either. As it is, the sun sets before 8:30 in most of New England, and how we envy those lucky Michiganders.

If we want earlier winter sunrises and later summer evenings, there's no way around DST. I don't love it, but I can live with it.

If we have to pick one clock and stick with it, why can't New England go on Atlantic time? Look at a map: All of New England, its western border from Greenwich, CT, all the way up to Canada, is east of the whole rest of the East Coast except Long Island. If it makes sense for Florida, it makes more sense for us.

P.S.: Get off my lawn.

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E.W. in Skaneateles, NY, writes: For me, the daylight saving time changeover seems particularly jarring for two reasons. First, I grew up in Virginia but moved to my current northerly latitude as an adult. That change in latitude makes a real difference, especially as a supposedly responsible adult who has adult responsibilities, like getting kids up, properly dressed, on the bus, with hopefully some semblance of a lunch. The second big one is that, starting in 2007, Dubya moved the dates around from the first Sunday of April to the second Sunday of March (spring forward) and from the last Sunday of October to the first Sunday of November (fall back). The combination of the change in latitude and the change in dates at roughly the same time in my life was surprisingly disorienting.

My time-change plan will never happen in a million, billion years. If I had my way, every clock would be Internet-connected and twice a year we'd transition one minute each day for 60 consecutive days. Best of both worlds!

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W.I. in Seattle, WA, writes: I think that the time-zone change is an example of confusing a preference for opposition.

I might have a mild preference one way or the other for an outcome, but I vastly prefer a decision and stopping changing the clocks. Dithering over which particular option is far, far worse than just picking something and moving on. This concept appears to be captured in the polling (vast preference for stopping the change over) but keeps getting reported as a "fight" because some might prefer one option over the other. Just pick something.

Here's a wild idea: Just vote on one or the other. We used to have a term for this kind of thing, but we seem to be forgetting how to do it...

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H.G. in Orlando, FL, writes: I find the daylight savings debate a nice microcosm of American compromise, where the least popular option stays (half DST) because the population is split between full Standard and full DST. I know I would support the current scheme, if the alternative was ending up with full DST.

You see, we tried permanent DST in 1973-74 (during the oil crisis). It went from popular to not after ONE winter and was scrapped. Parents got tired of their kids being hit in the dark on the way to school (not so sure we'd care nowadays).

The Russians (our newest friends) also tried full DST and ditched it for Standard Time after 3 years. And their latitude is a bit more extreme!

Maybe we can just split the difference and do half an hour (all of India is on a half-hour time zone). That, or do Standard Time but allow some westward creep in the time zone borders (maybe extend Eastern time to the Mississippi River, allow New England to go on Atlantic time, etc.).

All Politics Is Local

M.M. in San Diego, CA, writes: Democrats are rightfully criticized for their lack of messaging ability. Not so Katie Porter. She's got Bernie energy, and if she can figure out how to traverse the splintered information/media landscape, she may win considerable support because Democratic voters thirst for someone to loudly oppose Musky Trumpism.

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R.T. in Arlington, TX, writes: I need to disabuse you from the notion that migration from the west coast to Texas is making, or will ever make, Texas blue in time. I've met these transplants and they are red-to-magenta in their outlook, not lavender-to-blue. In their minds, they are political refugees, not colonizers. They are happy to breathe free, while I feel more oppressed.

Music Hath Charms...

D.S. in Layton, UT, writes: As I tried to put a list together I realized how challenging it is to pick one musician as the most influential in each decade. Your choices are solid, though there are some that are open for debate:

• In the 30's, my top pick would be Woody Guthrie, though he could fit in the 40's as well.
  
  
• In the 40's, I would replace Glenn Miller with Benny Goodman or Frank Sinatra. Hank Williams definitely belongs, though.
  
  
• In the 50's, I am really missing Miles Davis and would probably swap him in for Elvis. You do not need two rock and rollers, and Chuck Berry is a stronger pick than Elvis.
  
  
• In the 60's, it is really difficult. I seriously dislike Dylan as a human being, but his influence and importance is undeniable. I wish you could have had a 2A and 2B, because Berry Gordy Jr. belongs, but so do Jimi Hendrix and The Velvet Underground. Jimi reinvented guitar and The Velvets were one of the most influential acts ever.
  
  
• In the 70's, I would have Bruce Springsteen in first and would bump The Ramones.
  
  
• Michael Jackson is a no-brainer for the 80's, but I would take Prince, Madonna, Tina Turner or Bruce (again) over Run-D.M.C.

After that, music sucked.

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B.P in Arlington Heights, IL, writes: A list of that sort without Pete Seeger on it is beyond suspect. For my money, he was the most important American musician, musically, socially and politically. Runner-up, at least, would've made sense in the '50's or the '60's.

Oh, and the Ramones sucked, as does every single thing that's ever come in their wake. You want real rock and roll? Buy a copy of the best 100 hits of 1957 (and no, I wasn't alive yet to enjoy the greatness of 1957's pop music, which remains the best year for popular music ever).

And I certainly did not get a copy of Nevermind. But the MTV Unplugged album was pretty good, and I bought that.

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J.P. in Horsham, PA, writes: I'm not going to disagree with your assessment of Bob Dylan as the most influential American musician of the 1960s, but I will take issue with one statement you made in naming him as such. Calling him "THE music of protest for over a decade" ignores one of his contemporaries whose entire career in the 1960s was dedicated to protest music: Phil Ochs.

Yeah, Dylan had a couple of good topical/protest songs on his first couple of albums, but by the time Another Side of Bob Dylan came out, he had moved past that. And that's exactly when Phil Ochs penned masterpieces of protest like "I Ain't Marching Anymore," "Iron Lady," "The War Is Over," "There But For Fortune," and "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," along with literally hundreds of other songs.

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R.M. in Elgin, IL, writes: How could you leave out Frank Sinatra? I would have him at least as a runner-up in the 60's.

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E.S. in Providence, RI, writes: As someone who saw them in the 70's (and 80's and 90's), The Ramones were the most important influence of the 70's. (apologies to Bruce Springsteen). Without The Ramones, rock music would have been completely subsumed by the "middle of the road" pop (pap) that defined the first half of the decade (what is now termed "yacht rock").

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M.T. in Ann Arbor, MI, writes: I'm a punk rocker, so yay Ramones. But when I think "1970's" and "American," I think Stevie Wonder.

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W.S. in Greenville, NC, writes: Did you choose The Ramones because they broke out of the tired "classic rock" rut of the 60's and 70's? If so, I might have opted instead for Talking Heads, who came out of the same NYC/CBGBs scene, but whose influence and popularity are more widespread. (And who, despite David Byrne's Scottish birth, are called an American band on Wikipedia). Tough choice, though, as I personally love them both.

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L.G. in Waltham, MA, writes: Pretty much agree with your choices, but for the 1970s, my choice would be Bruce Springsteen. He kept rock and roll alive, spoke for the common man, and has lyrics that speak to the country's soul.

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J.W. in West Chester, PA, writes: For the 1980s or 1990s, N.W.A. Has to be in there. Without them, Eminem is someone you never heard of. They pioneered reality rap coming Straight Outta Compton!

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M.H. in Washington, DC, writes: I have to disagree with you on the 1980s. If you're gonna mention MJ, who I agree with, you HAVE to mention my Queen Madonna, and Prince. This royal triad so defined pop music in the 1980s, and so significantly influenced generations of future artists, that you really just need to mention all three. Prince guested on Madonna's "Like a Prayer" and Madonna and MJ were spotted together several times in the early 1990s. Coincidentally, they were all born in the midwest in 1958 (Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota, respectively), and Prince shares my birthday.

The 1990s are tough. You said fragmentation happened post-2000, but I think it really got its start in the 1990s. You had the true emergence of hip-hop, grunge, alternative, southern rock redux, boy and girl band pop, my girl Madonna was still going strong, the Lillith Fair new-folk crew, and wherever you'd slot in Janet Jackson, who crosses genres. Then you had the Total Request Live era. So I dunno. But, as the Oldest Millennial, I love it all.

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J.H. in Portland, OR, writes: A.B. in Wendell, who I almost always agree with, made the outlandish claim that Geddy Lee is God. This could not be further from the truth. Geddy sits at the left hand of God, who, of course, is Neil Peart. With Alex Lifeson seated at the right hand of God, this makes the Holy Trinity.

Gallimaufry

M.A.B. in Windsor, CT, writes: Perhaps M.B. in Montreal experienced different limitations than we in the states did regarding dress codes for school.

I graduated from high school in 1961. We were forbidden to wear anything but skirts or dresses. Males were forbidden blue jeans and t-shirts. There was absolutely policing of skirt lengths, etc.

More offensive to me was the prohibition, in the mid-1960s, of trousers of any sort on women educators. I remember vividly one icy, snowy day when school was delayed, not canceled. I had to shovel out my VW bug, pick up a colleague whose car was literally frozen to the parking lot at his apartment complex, and drive carefully to school. I was wearing real U.S. Navy wool trousers, but I had a skirt and sweater with me to change into. I was accosted by an administrator as I entered the building who threw an enormous snit-fit that I was in trousers... even though I was carrying very female clothing to change into. (At this point in time, BTW, women were required to resign by the third month of pregnancy!) I think it may have been around 1973 or so that we finally were allowed to wear trousers in class. Blue jeans were verboten until the late 90's.

(I used to require my male student teachers to wear trousers, not jeans, and "dress shirts," though no tie or jacket unless they wanted to.. But that was because they were so close to the students in age that separating themselves into the professional realm was a key to their being accepted and respected by students during the student teaching period.)

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D.M. in Medical Lake, WA, writes: I graduated college in 1967. Young men ALWAYS wore a coat and tie for escorting young women, even if they seldom did on other occasions and the event might be casual, like a movie. Coat and tie were the norm to attend sporting events like football and basketball games, college or pro, even though we had moved on from such attire for daily class attendance.

Early in my professional career, I taught at a junior college in a small North Texas town. There was a dress code for faculty that, though it didn't use this exact terminology, essentially said "dress as you would for church," and no one would have gone to church in small town Texas then without a coat and tie. The dress code was lifted about the time I moved on to a university position after a few years, and I went into a biology department where no one wore a coat and tie. But in some departments on the same campus, with no dress code, no male faculty member would have shown up for classes dressed otherwise.

Whenever I attend a funeral, I wear a coat and tie, but I notice that the large majority of men do not.

I remember reading a treatise by John Muir on his travels in Alaska mapping glaciers. He once had a tourist who prevailed on him to allow his accompaniment on a glacier in what is now a national park. The guy injured his arm in a fall. Muir wrote that he bound the man's arm with his cravat.

Times change.

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R.C. in Newport News, VA, writes: On Friday, March 15, 1957, I was eating lunch in my high school cafeteria. In walked a bunch of sophomores wearing black arm bands on their jacket sleeves. I asked my fellow freshmen what was going on. They didn't know. One of us asked a sophomore and was told that it was the two thousandth anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination. We had to take four years of Latin and the sophomores were reading Caesar's Commentaries at the time.

Final Words

G.W. in Oxnard, CA, writes: I saw this meme and it fit the final words feature. I used to write professionally before I retired and I still do some writing in my part-time job. So, I appreciate the plight of the decedent, but I remain a proponent of the Oxford comma:

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

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