Zorn: Readers offer more post-election analysis

& the best funny visual posts on social media

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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.

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.

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

Post-election thoughts, continued

Christopher Robling — You wrote that Trump did not receive a mandate. But mandates are in the eye of the beholder. Folks over here on my side do see it as a mandate. In fact, they see it as a global repudiation of everything that’s been taking place over the last 3 1/2 years — and more.

So, even though you don’t see one, and even though you believe it does not exist, I think it’s fair to say GOPers will act as though there is one, it does exist, and they see it.

But I do wish somebody of your stature would take a much closer look at how the Democratic Party came to this result, honestly and with clear eyes.

It’s a hell of a lot more important for all of us that the Democrats undergo brutal self examination then it is to quibble about who does or does not see a mandate.

Zorn — Paraphrasing Bill Scher on social media: Democrat after losing the popular vote by 1.7 percentage points in 2024: “Our brand is in ashes, we need a complete overhaul.” Republicans after losing the popular vote by 4.5 percentage points in 2020: “Let’s run the same guy again.”

Republicans may try to govern as though they have a mandate for their ideas — many of which do not poll very well — and their only impediments will be elections when they have to face disenchanted voters. While we sensible Democrats pore over the internals from this election​, consult focus groups and ​otherwise try to figure out why the party lost ground among certain key constituencies, you indoor Republicans ought to be sternly reminding the wing nuts now in charge of your party that winning 50% of the national popular vote does not signal a grand repudiation of or endorsement for anything much. It’s an opportunity, not a mandate.

David Kee — After the election my party -- the Democratic Party -- must rethink many of its policies as it ponders its future.

To be entrusted with power again Democrats must start listening to the concerns of the working class for a change. As a lifelong moderate Democrat I share their disdain for many of the insane positions advocated by my party.

Democratic politicians defy biology by believing that men can actually become women and belong in women’s sports, rest rooms, locker rooms and prisons, and that children who are experiencing gender dysphoria should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible.

Democrats believe borders should be open to millions of illegals, which undermines workers’ wages and the affordability of housing when we can’t house our own citizens.

Democrats discriminate against whites, Asians and men in a vain effort to counter past discrimination against others and undermine our economy by abandoning merit selection of students and employees.

Democratic mayors allow homelessness to destroy our beautiful cities because they won't say no to destructive behavior. No you can’t camp in this city. No you can’t shit in our streets No you can’t shoot up and leave your used needles everywhere. Many of our prosecutors will not take action against shoplifting unless a $1,000 of goods are stolen leading to gangs destroying retail stores. They release criminals without bond to rob and murder again.

The average voter knows this is happening and outright rejects our party. Enough.

Zorn — I think it's fair to suggest that the Democrats refine and retool their message, but your characterizations of the party's positions isn't fair. 

"Open borders" is a total misnomer. The party advanced bi-partistan immigration reform earlier this year -- admittedly quite tardy -- and tried to balance our nation’s values as enshrined on the Statue of Liberty with the realities of numerous humanitarian crises in Central America.

Affirmative action is a difficult issue, but I don’t see Republicans doing much to try to counteract the poisonous legacy of slavery and legalized discrimination. And caring for the homeless population requires government funding.

And for the party's positioning on trans issues see pages 56-57 of the Democratic platform. It speaks of equal housing and employment rights, allows trans people to serve in the military and protecting “transgender Americans’ access to health care and coverage, including medically necessary gender-affirming care,” and adds “Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in making health care decisions.”

Nothing about sports or prisons.

Ray — Trump won a mandate. Not in historical terms like Nixon and Reagan. However, in this century and with this generation, I do think it was a mandate to shake things up. 

I voted for Harris and I think Trump is deplorable garbage, but after all the talk of red waves and blue waves, this was a decisive move in a certain direction, albeit one I do not want. If we continue the pearl clutching, Hitler comparing and hyperventilating of the past four years we will lose again and again and again.

Moderate Americans voted Trump because he pisses off the people who piss them off. I believe a lot of the pie-in-the-sky ideas he thinks he can get done will never materialize. The clown car of a cabinet will do what Republicans have done for four years and continue in-fighting. 

Zorn — I may not have made enough of Trump’s victory. Still mulling over the idea that the result is fairly telling given how comprehensively and obviously vile Trump is as a human being. A Nikki Haley probably would have beaten Harris by 8 to 10 points. But the fact that Trump still won the popular vote even though just about everyone knows he is sleazy and dishonest is a testament to how much voters rejected what the Democrats were selling.

The following letter makes a similar point:

David Applegate — You know I love the Picayune-Sentinel, but you’re beginning to sound like an “election denier.” Like so many on the left, you seem to want to perpetuate your point of view by redefining terms to your benefit whenever you don’t like a result.

After being vilified, slandered, sued, prosecuted, and even shot — and despite virtually unified opposition from both legacy and electronic media, the entertainment establishment, academia, and much of corporate America — Trump won against both an incumbent President and an incumbent Vice-President, and his party won back the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives while gaining support among Blacks, Hispanics, and even women.

All this despite the expenditure of over a billion dollars against him, the advantages of incumbency, and the engagement of former Presidents Clinton and Obama and celebrities from Taylor Swift to Oprah Winfrey.

For the first time since Grover Cleveland in 1892, American voters could base their votes not on just unenforceable campaign promises but on actual results, and left no doubt about which they prefer.

Like you I am not impressed by all of President Trump’s announced cabinet picks (particularly Matt Gaetz), but not all of them will be approved by the Senate and, to quote former President Barack Obama, “elections have consequences.”

For all the reasons above, this was a very consequential election. Democrats may not wish to call it a “mandate,” but until they wake up to the many reasons why they lost what by many objective measures should have been an easy win, they will find themselves quibbling over terminology instead of defining and implementing public policy.

Zorn — Yes, but why aren’t the Republicans asking why they didn’t win a bigger victory than they did, given all that you point out?

Marc Martinez — Trump has authoritarian tendencies and has said many authoritarian things. He has said things that many interpret as racist. He has been tolerant of right-wing extremists. But he is not a Nazi and the modern US is nothing like 1920/30s Germany. While Trump certainly has far right supporters, the vast majority of his supporters are not fascist, racist, misogynist haters. The persuadable voters that switched sides in the election, and the growth of POC voters, demonstrates that they did not believe they were getting in bed with Nazis or people that intended to exterminate them. No one believes there is a risk to the media or free speech. There is no chance of a state-media like Russia or China.

The persuadable people believe that the US has strong and stable institutions. They do not believe the institutions are easily disposed of or overthrown. They are not risking the end of the nation, they are risking a shift in politics. And they know there is another election in two years that will be just as free. open, and fair as the 2024 election.

Zorn — Your confidence in the durability of the institutions that Trump blatantly and brazenly wants to tear down so he can arrogate absolute power to himself is uplifting. I hope you won’t have to eat these words!

David Leitschuh — My perception is that a lot of the people who were branding Trump Hitler and a fascist did not truly believe that, but did so in the hopes of creating that image in voter's minds. Obviously, that did not work.

Zorn — The Nazis and white supremacists seem to differ with your views, as they seem quite thrilled with Trump’s election. I don’t see how you can deny that he has strong authoritarian impulses and would love to have a dictator’s powers.

Joanie Wimmer — The Democratic Party needs to shift. Not to the right, but to the left. Trying to be Republican-lite on immigration was a failure. Harris essentially lost when she adopted the Trump talking point that “the border” was a huge problem. The fact is that we need the number of immigrants who have come here to have a growing economy. Our population would be declining significantly without them. The average number of children born per family is less than two. Immigrants to this country are not psychos released from mental hospitals—they are decent hard-working people trying to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Future policy positions: Medicare for all. A minimum hourly wage of $24 (what it would be if it kept up with inflation). The Protecting the Right to Organize Act making it easier for workers to unionize. Pathways to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants. Federal protection of a woman’s right to choose. An Equality Act providing consistent and explicit non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people across key areas of life.

It is usually a mistake when you lose to become more like your opponent. The voters have to be given a meaningful choice. If you cede the framework to your opponent, you lose.

Steven K. — The last Democrat to present a truly progressive platform was George McGovern, and he was creamed.

Mark K. — Is winning elections worth compromising our views? Should we soften our stance on abortion and gun control? Harden up on immigrants? I think if we can learn anything from Republican strategies it's that compromising looks weak and going extreme and doubling down aggressively works better.

Jeff Biss — Progressivism is the answer. It created the extensive and inclusive middle class, cleaned the environment, protected wildlife and ecosystems, workers, patients, consumers and created a society in which we were making gains in the areas of equal opportunity, equality under the law and a voice and participation in governance.

Michael Gorman — Part of me wants to cheer on Trump and his motley crew of nutters, sex pests, the dregs of the Fox sets and greenroom, sycophants, etc. The crazier and more unpopular his Cabinet and actions are, the sooner MAGA goes down in flames. However, the better angel of my nature laments the human, moral, and financial cost the MAGA domestic and foreign policies will exact.

Zorn — Yes, I’ve certainly heard from members of “the worse the better” crowd, but I agree with you that the stakes seem too high for real people with real problems to be flip about this prospect.

Mayor Johnson and his property tax ‘ploy’

Angela Bowman — Re. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s pullback on his proposed $300 million property tax hike: To propose something outrageous as a way of shocking people into a renegotiation is a pretty classic tactic. Clumsily handled (as always) but it does strike me as a plausible explanation for the proposal.

Zorn — You are of course right that it's a classic negotiating tactic to adopt a maximal position and then tack/compromise back to the middle. This is typically done in politics and government behind closed doors, however. The mayor and/or his team go to select alders or groups of alders and lay out the options: If we don't do X, we'll need to do Y. So which option or options can you live with? When you've marshaled enough support, then, you come out with "your" plan that already has enough buy-in to avoid an embarrassing defeat. I consider Johnson's handling of this to be an example of his inexperience and clumsiness. 

DancesWithDogs —In pulling back much of his proposed property tax hikes and instead backing a plan of "taxing garbage collection and vehicle sticker fees and hiking taxes on shopping bags, liquor and streaming services" seems to push the burden on paycheck-to-paycheck, low-income people.

Zorn — I mostly agree. Some of those taxes are avoidable — bring your own shopping bags; ditch the streaming services — but others are harder for most people to avoid and are therefore regressive. Property taxes are arguably somewhat progressive in that the rich tend to pay more.

Is it foul to be a fair-weather fan?

Jay G.— Indiana University’s undefeated football team is a great story, I'll agree; and I am rooting for them to do well. But, rooting for them and "adopting" them as "your" team are two different things, and, as a fellow University of Michigan alum, I admonish you for your fair weather fandom in switching allegiances and rooting for the Hoosiers and, in the NFL, the Lions,

I did see that there is great speculation that support for IU going to the playoffs is paper-thin, and that IU needs to go undefeated — i.e., beat Ohio State this Saturday — to make the 12-team final bracket Whereas, there are other potential two-loss teams who would be placed in the playoff before a one-loss IU (even if that sole loss is to OSU). I've even seen a argument that a three-loss SEC team might be strongly considered for the playoffs

Zorn — My people disagree with you on fandom:

I can’t imagine the bowl-selection committee picking a three-loss team over a one-loss team from a power-five conference.

Jane — I voted to stand up for your team in thick or thin, but having said that I welcome you to the Hoosier Nation! As a long, long, long suffering IU football fan, I am thrilled by what they are doing this year! Ohio State, watch out!

Note from a right-of-center reader

Steve Barrett— I lean right of center, so I always found you to be too liberal for my tastes when your columns appeared in the Trib, but I enjoy the quality and style of your writing. Same with Neil Steinberg. I had a hard time with him in the Sun Times, but I look forward to his daily musings at his blog, “Every Goddamn Day.” You are both craftsmen of prose, regardless of your leanings. By the way, I really wish John Kass would take you up on your offer to debate/discuss the circumstances of his departure from the Trib. .

Zorn – I with he would invite me on his podcast to discuss “The truth about John Kass’ dispute with the Tribune and the Tribune Guild,” which gets hundreds of new views every time I post the link, which happens every time he disgorges another public lie about his former colleagues at the Tribune One of my conservative readers finally took a crack at disputing my take:

David Leitschuh — You take issue with Kass' objection to being forced to join a union whose political activities do not match his own beliefs, and his classification as an editorial board employee as a means of avoiding this. You believe in compulsory union membership, but I do not and so I would salute him for his efforts in this regard.

But the larger issue is that you believe that Kass is obligated to apologize for deploying allegedly anti-Semitic tropes against George Soros. I am in total disagreement on this point. If offense is validated by any person who chooses to see offense, then essentially everything is potentially offensive. People claiming offense at another's remarks simply because they disagree with them, or labeling them hate speech are attempting to silence differing voices which I see as wrong and un-American. Pointing out this foreign national billionaires immense ideological based expenditure on what previously were local elections is not anti-Semitic simply because Soros happens to be Jewish

Zorn — I don’t think you read “The truth about John Kass’ dispute with the Tribune and the Tribune Guild” very closely, David. I wrote “I don’t know why Kass ‘politely and repeatedly,’ refused to stand in solidarity with the vast majority of his colleagues, though that was certainly his right.” Our union effort didn’t need him and didn’t give a runny shit in the leaky bucket what he did or didn’t sign. What I continue to object to is him bellyaching that he somehow got pushed out of the Tribune over his Soros column or his sneaky hostility toward the union.

The column was posted on July 22, 2020, eleven months nearly to the day before Kass voluntarily took a generous buyout offer from Alden Global Capital (with me and many of our colleagues). About that column, let me quote myself:

I don’t believe for a second that Kass was deliberately trying to wink at religious or cultural bigots or that he is one himself. … Unwittingly, I contend, but undeniably, Kass had blown an anti-Semitic dog whistle. Rather than saying he didn’t mean any offense, he referred to the charge in a follow-up column as “something I didn’t do.” …

A simple “I’m sorry, I didn’t know” would have gone a long way to smoothing all the ruffled plumage.

I did not say he was obligated to apologize. I offered retrospective advice for dealing with a controversy — a graceful clarification of actual intent from him would likely have satisfied the critical voices —many of which were coming from outside the newsroom.

Was Kamala Harris for they/them?

Gay writer Andrew Sullivan :

Transqueer groups have very different — and far more radical — priorities than most normie gay men and lesbians, who just want to live their lives in peace. And yet all these groups have long nailed Democratic elites to the cross of left-extremism, never more fatally than this year.

And obviously this is partly why Trump won: Harris had no way to distance herself from the crazies. I’m not apologizing for airing the trans issue as Exhibit A in this respect — because I was proven right in this election to an extent even I didn’t fully grok. Not only did Trump’s ads on the trans issue shift viewers 2.7 percent toward Trump in the states they ran in (more than his margin of victory), the issue was particularly potent for swing voters.

When swing voters were given 25 possible reasons for why they didn’t vote for Harris, the statement that she “focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues than helping the middle class” was the most-cited reason by those who chose Trump. Number One. I repeat: more swing voters voted for Trump on that issue than on inflation or immigration.

It’s simply not true that Harris ran on trans issues or even on “cultural” issues outside of reproductive rights. But the hundreds of millions of dollars Trump backers spent making voters think she was running on trans issues put that rather minor issue front and center.

More Sullivan:

One blue-state congressman, Seth Moulton, tried to learn a lesson after Election Day. While he reiterated his support for trans civil rights in general, he drew a line at biological boys competing with girls in high school sports. … Moulton’s view is shared by 69 percent of the public, and a slight 48-47 majority of Democrats. There are very few issues with public support as broad and bipartisan as this. But as soon as he opened his mouth, the backlash was instant and extreme.

I heard privately from a trans reader worried that the Democratic Party will pull back on support for trans rights in the wake of the election results:

This is going to be a bad two years for transgender people. Trump will probably do an executive order that all hospitals that accept federal money will be prohibited from providing transitioning care for transgender people. If the Supreme Court doesn't rule in our favor in L.W. v. Skrmetti and hold that bans on transgender health care are unconstitutional, real transgender people will die unnecessarily. 

It’s politically tricky. The issue of natal males in spaces typically reserved for natal females activates a negative response even among many on the left of the political spectrum, as does the question of whether and when natal males should be allowed to participate in sports designed for natal females. Saying trans women and girls are women and girls full stop is not yet a winning message, and it may not have the path toward legislative success and social acceptance as other civil rights issues have had because of how they create a clash of rights/opportunities that does not seem easy to resolve.

Opponents of gay marriage for years attempted to portray their position as one necessary to protect conventional marriage from erosio. But as social acceptance of gay people and gay couples grew and civil unions proved a success, the intolerant vapidity of that argument fell away. I argued in print for about 20 years that giving same sex couples the right to marry was not only no skin off anyone else's nose but something to celebrate. Then came Obergefell. I don't know what a similar moment will look like for trans rights -- what's realistic to expect even in the very long term. This image is from a 2022 Pew Research Center poll, and you will see some glass-half-full data in the results.

Yet a 2023 Gallup Poll shows that support for trans women in sports seems to be waning:

​ That same poll also showed a narrow but growing majority of people think that it is “morally wrong to change one’s gender.”

And these numbers are significantly higher than what a YouGov poll found nine years ago. I fail to see the moral issue involved in transitioning, but I’m among those who think gender dysphoria is a real condition and experiencing it and treating it no more or less moral than, say, being nearsighted and treating it with Lasik surgery.

Categorically, it seems to me that an immoral act would have to be both volitional (optional) and directly harmful to others. But I may be missing a strong argument that seems to be persuasive to more than half the population.

Some other polling results are here. 

The week’s best visual jokes

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

I admit I don’t understand all of the logo jokes, but the ones I do get are awfully clever.

Those sharing the Oklahoma image often wryly append that U.S. News ranks Oklahoma 49th in public schooling. Lack of mandatory exposure to the Bible is likely not the problem.

And though I enjoy the kid’s science fair project, I’d dock him for misspelling “Rice Krispie Treat.”

Which of the above visual jokes is the best?

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

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