Republicans wail that the Reds are scaring us into turning up our thermostats

Since nothing else seems to be working, Trump is turning to McCarthyism

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Blizzard of snowflakes in sweltering NYC buried Mayor Mamdani for suggesting the AC be turned up.

Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of then-sweltering New York City posted this to social media:

New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool, Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can. … A stable grid means the AC stays on, and lives are saved. Let’s ease demand — and get through the heat — together.

It was a request. A suggestion couched as a warning that power failures as the temperature soared into the high 90s could severely impact the health of the most vulnerable.

And, my God, you’d have thought the mayor had ordered jackbooted thugs to break down apartment doors to turn up everyone’s thermostats.

“Welcome to Communism, people!” tweeted Dave Portnoy to his 3.8 million followers. Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports and notorious asshole whose only virtue near as I can tell is that he is a graduate of the University of Michigan, has indicated he may challenge Mamdani in NYC’s next mayoral election.

Mediaite:

On Fox News, the curvy couch at Fox & Friends echoed those remarks, with Brian Kilmeade saying, “When it’s 78 degrees, that’s when you usually put the AC on, but not in Communist New York City!”

Kilmeade’s co-host Lawrence Jones added: “I don’t think he was joking, though. I think we should take him seriously. This is Step 1 of ‘Little Commie Mamdani.’”

In an X transmission from the “Deep South,” former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who scolded Democrats as a whole: “Set your air to 78 degrees? Bless your hearts New York City!! American energy should be so strong and plentiful that you never have to set it above 70 if you don’t feel like it.”

• Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy — “This is what socialism looks like, folks. The right answer isn’t restrictions or mandates. It’s drilling, fracking, coal, & nuclear. That’s how we’ll roll in Ohio.”

• U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina— “First AOC tried to come for your steak and ribs, and now the Socialist Democrats are coming for your AC. This is the future that WOKE Democrats want not just for NYC but for South Carolina too!”

• Nikki Haley — “Welcome to socialism.”

• U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky — Proof that communism is (unfortunately) alive and well.

• U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida — This is Communism at work”

First, 78 degrees is hardly stifling. I set my home-office temperature to 78 on hot days and it’s fine

Second, Mamdani’s polite request echoes the suggestion of “Energy Star, a federal program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy” that said “thermostats should be set at 78 degrees for optimum comfort and savings,” according to an August, 2019 story in USA Today.

Newsweek reports that, apparently coincident to this controversy, “DoE Deletes Webpage Instructing People To Lower Thermostat to 78.”

And finally, many red-state officials have recommended similar tweaks to the thermostat during weather emergencies

The Hill:

Florida Public Service Commission — whose members were hand-selected by DeSantis — has issued the identical recommendation for residents to set their AC units to 78 degrees in the summer, as recently as June of this year.

After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) responded to Mamdani by saying, “In a first-world country, you could turn on the A/C,” a community note was added to his post that read, “Ted Cruz’s own state has made the same request on numerous occasions.”

Savannah (Georgia) Morning News:

Georgia Power recommends setting your thermostat to 78 degrees during the summer while you’re at home.

The utility says that temperature strikes a balance between comfort and energy efficiency. Raising the thermostat just one degree above 78 degrees can reduce cooling costs by an estimated 3% to 5%.

McCarthyism in our time

There’s the ugly, inexcusable and brazen hypocrisy of this wild-eyed phony rage, yes. But it’s just part of the bizarre Red Scare quality to Republican rhetoric these days.

In his speech Friday at Mount Rushmore, Donald Trump said:

There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty … (Adding) It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.

In his speech late Saturday on the National Mall, Trump said:

The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked. Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen. We like to stop a threat like that immediately and before it begins. It's like a cancer. You got to cut it out. You got to cut it out fast. …The stars and stripes cast the hammer and sickle into oblivion before, and we will do it again if necessary. …We don’t want communists in our country …Never worked and it never will work.

And in a June 26 speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Policy Conference Trump blasted the democratic socialists who’ve won several Democratic Party Primaries:

As you saw with the communists elected in New York City recently -- they’re communists, they’re not social Democrats -- they want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life. … They're animals, they're animals. … they're people that want to destroy our country. They hate our country, they hate our people … these are hardcore, Godless communists. They're Godless communists. All communists are Godless. They don't believe in God. This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago. This is a major threat to our country. …These ruthless communists will attack all religions, but in particular, Christianity. They will close your churches in this country if they go communist, and they're trying to. They will kill your people and that's what they're about. …The biggest thing we have to do is we have to stop this horrible threat of cancer that's permeating our country called communism.

Of course “communism” is an utterly fictitious threat. There’s not a single self-identified communist in Congress or in any state legislature, and there’s no evidence of communists stealthily infiltrating our government or gaining a political foothold. The Communist Party USA didn’t even run a presidential candidate in 2024.

Paul Waldman:

The Soviet bloc began its collapse in 1989, bringing an end to the Cold War. In order to have vivid, emotionally weighted memories of what it was like to live in fear of communism, you’d have to be older than 50 at the very least. That’s a little over a third of the population; many people that old couldn’t care less, and for the rest it’s a weird idea out of ancient history. Just saying “That guy’s a communist” not only doesn’t immediately create fear and hatred toward the target, it barely makes any sense. … (The argument makes Republicans) look silly, like Ronald Reagan warning in 1961 that if the bill creating Medicare passed, “We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Economist Paul Krugman notes that, actually, hysteria aside, “There Are Very Few Socialists in America.”

What many, I’d say a majority, of Americans support is what Europeans call social democracy — an ideology that is OK with living in a mostly market-driven economic system in which some people make much more money than others, but one that advocates policies to tame markets and inequality with progressive taxation, safety net programs, and regulations.

America already has an extensive range of social-democratic policies, although they are weaker than those in most other rich countries. And sustaining social democracy — indeed, making U.S. social democracy stronger — has very broad support, even among Republicans. Actual socialism, by contrast, has little public appeal. … There is, however, a real groundswell of dismay over an economy that increasingly favors a tiny group of billionaires, and a political system that all too often works on these oligarchs’ behalf. When people say that they favor socialism, surely what they are often really saying is that they are angry about the rise of oligarchy. They are not demanding a dictatorship of the proletariat.

As I wrote last week, there are positions of the Democratic Socialists of America that the Democratic Party needs to take care to distance itself from — the abolition of prisons, for instance — but even their isolated victories in Democratic primaries hardly qualifies as a “cancer” on the body politic or a threat to our country.

The real threat to our country is Trump’s authoritarian impulse and the slavish acquiescence of his followers.

via BlueSky

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Democratic Socialists on Democratic tickets

Marc Martinez — Regarding your post on the threat that Democratic Socialists of America’s most extreme positions pose to mainstream Democrats: If an American Nazi Party candidate ran and won in a GOP primary, the media and the Democrats wouldn’t be all over that? And if the Republican National Committee and sitting congresspersons accepted and embraced the ANP candidate as part of the party, that wouldn’t be indicative of the party as a whole? The Democratic Party should have never allowed DSA candidates into their primaries. The Dems had a much better chance of defending their incumbents in the general election against the DSA as a third party.

Zorn — Parties have limited to no control over who can run in their primaries.

Lynn Allen Taylor — Socialism means the government owns the means of production. Social democracy means capitalism is part of the system but we care enough to put a safety net under those left behind. Scandinavian countries are Social democracies. The right calls Social democracy Socialism to fearmonger and the center just lets them do it.

Clearing things up

William A. Cirignani — You said: “Like many, I fully expect Alito, 76, to retire this year if the Democrats win the U.S. Senate.” But that would not lead to a Trump replacement, as the Senate must confirm, by simple majority, all nominees. I highly doubt that a democratic majority would approve any such nominee. If Alito wanted to be replaced by a like-minded justice, he’d retire now while Republicans have the Senate majority.

Zorn — You’re right. I didn’t explain my point clearly enough. I was intending to say that if the Democrats win the Senate in the November elections, I predict Alito will retire immediately so the Republicans still in office for a few months can confirm his replacement before the new Congress is sworn in. If the Republicans win the Senate this fall, Alito might just stick around.

What to teach our children

Todd J. Behme — I have said many times that I’m fine with keeping religion out of public schools -- as long we take out the sex ed, too.

Zorn — The National Library of Medicine reports that “Funding for more comprehensive sex education led to an overall reduction in the teen birth rate at the county level of more than 3%.” So should I mark you down as favoring teen pregnancy?

Abolish prisons?

Dienne Anum — If you would actually pay attention to what the prison abolition movement is saying, you’d realize it isn’t about just suddenly closing the prisons and throwing all the murderers out on the streets. It’s about changing the policies that create murderers and other criminals to begin with to the point that eventually prisons would become irrelevant. If desperate conditions were ameliorated or even eliminated, crimes of desperation would cease. However, I’m not a prison abolitionist and I agree with what I believe your rebuttal would be — there will always be people who commit crimes, so we will always need prisons.

Zorn — Yes, but there’s a cart/horse problem with the abolitionist position, which I have read up on. It’s a an admirable goal to attempt to reduce the social pathologies that are statistically associated with crime, but the Democratic Socialists of America platform calls for “freedom for all incarcerated people,” which is simply insane, as plenty of crime is caused not by poverty, poor education or untreated illness, but by selfish impulses, anger and substance issues or other antisocial urges.

In the DSA utopia, I guess no one steals or batters or rapes because they’re all serenely content with their lot in life.

Mark K. — I don’t think the “Abolish prisons” position will hurt Democrats nationally. Trumpism has demonstrated that outrageous pronouncements raise a politicians profile, increase exposure, drive voter engagement and that almost always works in the politician’s favor. These days, outrage and charisma win elections, not measured moderate pragmatic positions articulated in college-level vocabulary. There is no chance the idea of abolishing prisons will go anywhere, but it can be a counterbalance to the idea of mass detention and deportation centers or whatever other craziness oozes out of the MAGA world.

Good advice on legacy Facebook accounts

Michael M. — Here are the most current instructions for memorializing your Facebook account: Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Accounts Center > Manage Accounts > Manage > Memorialization Settings. Assign someone or set up the account to be automatically deleted. The contact you choose can manage the profile publicly, but cannot access private messages or impersonate you.

The last word on ‘The Monty Hall Problem.”

Here’s how Wikipedia explains this logic puzzle, named for Monty Hall, host of the old “Let’s Make a Deal” game show:

Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

I was able to persuade most of you that, yes, you should switch. But there are holdouts among you who think that the host’s knowledge of where the car is and where the goat is has relevance.

It does not, though obviously if he happens to open door number two and there’s a car behind it, the game is over.

Several readers have written me versions of an argument that goes:

Let’s say Steve and Bob spread out a full deck of 52 playing cards face down and Steve gives Bob one card and keeps the other 51 for himself. They agree that the person who has the ace of spades is the winner. Then Steve blindly turns over 50 cards and not one of them is the ace of spades. Now there are two cards left. So the odds that Steve has the ace of spades is 1 in 2 and the odds that Bob has the ace of spades is 1 in 2.

No.

At the beginning of the game, the odds that Steve had the winning ace of spades in his collection were 51 in 52 and the odds that Bob had it were 1 in 52. Those odds did not change as Steve turned over card after card that was not the ace of spades.

Here’s a simple illustration using just four cards, one of which is the ace of spades. We can all agree that the odds that Bob’s one card is the ace of spades is 1 in 4 and the odds that one of Steve’s three cards is the ace of spades is 3 in 4.

With me so far?

So now, without looking, Steve turns over one card at random and it is not the ace of spades.

Now there are three cards left. The fact that Steve had a 3 in 4 chance of having the ace of spades has not changed because, statistically, three out of every four times we run this experiment, one of his cards will be the ace of spades. The fact that he turned over a card that was not the ace of spades did not, cannot change those odds.

Half the time, the game will come to an early end when Steve randomly turns over the ace of spades in one of the first two reveals. But if he doesn’t and there are just two cards left, 75% of the time Steve will have the ace and 25% of the time Bob will have the ace.

Unpopular opinions?

Last week the U.S Supreme Court upheld the rights of states to ban transgender girls and women from competing in events and on teams designated for females. This is an issue that many liberals I know are conflicted about — they respect the rights and dignity of trans people and oppose discrimination against them, but they are also big believers in the value of separate sporting contests for girls and women and feel that the biological advantages of being born male will tend to give trans women and girls an unfair advantage in female sports.

The argument is that the advantage is present often enough that the rule should be that if you are identified as male at birth you should participate in boys’ and mens’ divisions in sports.

A Gallup poll in the spring of 2025 found 45% of self-identified Democrats agreed with the statement that transgender athletes “should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity,” while 41% opposed the idea. The remaining 14% were undecided.

Just 24% of all those polled agreed with the statement.

I asked local attorney Joanie Wimmer to make the case for the idea. She is trans and a longtime active member of our commenting community:

Before addressing the matter of fairness in athletic competitions, I think it’s important to address what a transgender woman is. Is a transgender woman a woman born with a birth defect (male genitalia that doesn’t match her gender identity)? Or is a transgender woman a man who feels that he should be or needs to be a woman?

Because where people fall out on the question of transgender women in sports really depends on how they see us. Where does your sense of identity lie? Is it in your mind or your body?

I think most people would say that their sense of identity is in their mind, as opposed to their body. The brains of women are biologically different from those of men in a variety of ways. For example, in the way the brain works or communicates with the body. Men’s brains have more androgen receptors (androgens are male hormones); women have a higher concentration of estrogen receptors in the hippocampus. There are other differences. Would it be possible for a baby in utero to develop male genitalia and a female brain? Yes it would as a result of epigenetics.

Here is a link to a simple discussion about that by Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

So I believe that a transgender woman like me is a woman born with a birth defect (male genitalia) rather than a man who feels that he is a woman.

This distinction is huge. I had a reader/commenter of the Picayune Sentinel tell me that my surgically constructed vagina/labia/clitoris was not that at all; it was a mutilated penis. Can you imagine him telling a child who was born with a cleft lip and who had had a surgery to correct it, “You don’t really have a normal lip; you have a cleft lip that has been mutilated”? It was so important for him to tell me that I was really a man, and a mutilated one at that.

Another frequent commenter in the Picayune Sentinel insists on calling transgender women “biological men.” As if my gender identity as a woman has nothing to do with biology! Insisting that transgender women are men (or that transgender men are women) is a means to marginalize us, to not take us seriously, to demean us, to “other” us.

It’s why Clarence Thomas, in his recent concurring opinion, stated, “Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.”

So the rest of my discussion here will be premised on the view of mine and Ms. Sanbonmatsu that transgender women are women born with what could be characterized as a physical birth defect.

Testosterone is a steroid which helps in building muscle and improves athletic performance. That’s why baseball players like Barry Bonds took steroids. So if a transgender woman is past the age of adolescence, still has her testicles, and is not taking hormone therapy to suppress her testosterone, it would be unfair for her to compete with cisgender women in many sports. That’s the easy part.

But what about teenagers who have had puberty blockers or adult transgender women who, like me, have had their testicles removed and taken estrogen, or who take a testosterone suppressing drug along with estrogen?

According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, after one to three years of hormone therapy, the physical fitness of transgender women is comparable to the physical fitness of cisgender women, and the evidence does not back up prevailing theories about the inherent athletic advantage of transgender women.

The people who want to exclude us from athletics (and really from all public life) will argue that it’s still unfair for transgender women to compete in women’s sports if they have gone through puberty because they tend to be taller, have greater arm length, have greater lung capacity, etc.

But that is nonsense. I am 5’8”; Brittney Griner, who is a cisgender woman is 6’9” and has a much longer arm length. And if I were a betting woman, I would bet her lung capacity is much greater than mine. When I point out that nobody thinks it is unfair for Brittney Griner to play women’s basketball even though she is way taller and has all sorts of athletic advantages over the average woman, the people who want to exclude us say that it’s fair for her to play because she is a “real” women, but it would be unfair for me to play even though I don’t have all those advantages because I am not a “real” woman.

So we are back to what I said at the very beginning. Are we women born with a birth defect or are we men insisting and believing that we are women. If you are determined to “other” us, to say we have mutilated penises, to say we are “biological men,” I can’t win you over. I know that. I get that. But if you look at things my way in terms of who we are (and I think that is how we should look at it), it is completely fair for transgender women who have been on hormone therapy for one to three years to participate in sports.

So that the fairness of transgender women in sports is a controversy tells more about the beliefs of the proponents and opponents than it does about their views of fairness in competition.

The poll option below “in certain circumstances” refers to a variety of possible carve-outs and exemptions having to do with hormone levels, age at transition and other factors. I didn’t want to try to include them all.

Bonus unpopular opinion:

Navy Pier is offering free rides on the Centennial Wheel Wednesdays starting at 6 p.m. through Labor Day as a goodwill gesture after fog ruined the July 4 fireworks display. That’s a $25 value I would take advantage of only if I happened to be on Navy Pier with tourist friends and there were no line for the wheel. I rode it once, years ago, and was not impressed.

But I am a jaded old crank. Those of you who have ridden the 200-foot wheel may have a different view.

Last week’s result

Which word or phrase best sums up your feelings about the U.S. on its 250th birthday?

627 votes

Mark K. — I find myself vacillating between “Tempered Optimism” and “Shame” these days, depending on news and mood, but currently I’m firmly in “Shame.” I agree that the word “patriotism” has been hijacked, like so many others, and put into the service of the demagogue in chief to rile up, outrage, and divide. Another newly-loaded word that I now avoid because it carries meaning that I don’t intend.

John Houck — I love my country, but because I do I am willing to cast a critical eye on where we fall short. To me that’s far more useful than simply wearing patriotic blinders all the time.

Matthew W. — I feel dismay because so many of the people I know, have known for a long time, supported and continue to support this administration.

Melinda Abney Kaiser — In the overall scheme of things, I am proud of the United States of America. The actions of the U.S. government of late do not make me proud. I’m proud of our legacy and our potential, but in the moment I am very disappointed.

Laurence E. Siegel — Am I proud? Yes, about a lot of things. I am proud mostly for the opportunity to dissent publicly, which is not true in too many places. But there are also things of which I am not proud. I have pointed out more than a few of them in this forum. So the answer to whether or not I am proud of this country is a loaded question. My answer is “not everything.”

David Leitschuh — I find it very sad that many people do not report feeling pride in our country. And I fear, from some of the explicit statements and behaviors, that some even hate our country. Those denigrating our country because of a dislike of our current leadership is simply intellectually wrong. I did not lose my pride or love this country one bit less when Obama or Biden was President. Our country is far from perfect with many flaws in both our history and our current society. But yet, I do continue to see it as Reagan’s “shining city on a hill”, the greatest nation in history that has done more good for the entire world than any other. When a married couple celebrates their wedding anniversary, they do not see it as an occasion to dwell on problems and issues they have had or even presently have in their marriage. Rather, it is an occasion to celebrate all that is good in the marriage. Similarly, a celebration of our nation’s anniversary should celebrate all that is good instead of feeling a need to denigrate because of past or present flaws.

JPC — I am proud to be an American. No matter who is the president, I can not imagine feeling shame. Do I hate many of Trump’s policies? Yes. Do I long for the days of civility and honor? Yes. But, shame? No! I was in Europe last week and proudly told the story of how great America and the American people are. It was a business trip and I was in business settings trying to convince people to do business with our USA factory. I proudly told them of our efficiency and knowledge of the market. I proudly told them of the opportunities for them to do business in the USA. I am proud to be an American and I will not let Donald Trump or any other President change it.

Michael M. — Embarrassed might be more appropriate. We whitewash history. We celebrate racist white supremacists. We suppress brown and black voters.

Wendy C. — I would suggest anger tempered with despair.

Jake H. — I agree that "pride" is too corny and inaccurate. But I'm not above a goose bump or two when I reflect on a few facts: America's constitution is the oldest national written constitution, America's political system is the oldest major democracy, and America's protection of individual rights was revolutionary and arguably remains more vital here than anywhere (especially regarding free speech). All of it was new then, it was a hit, it went viral, and such ideas comprise the ideal against we rightly judge all the nations of the world, including our own.

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. I invite subscribing readers to be the first to post the solution in the comment thread below. Include a link to an explanatory news story if you wish. . This week’s puzzle is particularly Chicago-centric.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

Gunther Eagleman AI image

I agree that the Lincoln joke is mostly a written joke, but it’s enhanced by the photograph so I will allow it. And here is a news story explaining the “Trump card” joke.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Help?

If you’re having troubles with Substack — delivery, billing and so forth — first try the Substack help page. And if that doesn’t work, shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to help.

For the answer to the NewsWheel puzzle, see the comment thread where I’m sure a clever reader has figured it out.