Good morning. It’s Saturday, Nov. 23. We’ll be taking the Saturday after Thanksgiving off, so the subsequent publication to reach in your inbox can be on Dec. 7. Right here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.
It’s exhausting to discover a political take on this information surroundings — or actually any growth having to do with the federal government — that’s “refreshing.” Even Matt Gaetz’s failed bid for lawyer common, although a win for certain, occurred in opposition to the backdrop of the looming forty seventh American presidency. A second of aid in a time of traumatic uncertainty, sure, however restorative? I wouldn’t go that far.
So why, then, would anybody discover L.A. author Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s unremorseful apologia for his third-party vote refreshing? Effectively, the election’s over, Hutchinson lives in solid-blue California, and any airing out of a voter’s honest considerations over our two-party system can solely assist make the case for constructive change and truly enhance these two events. However there’s one thing that makes Hutchinson’s piece actually refreshing: It casts voting not as a savvy act of gamesmanship (You’re throwing your vote away! Help the first candidate who can win, not the one you need!), however as an sincere expression of an individual’s priorities and values.
Studying Hutchinson’s op-ed article (during which he mentioned he voted for Peace and Freedom Get together nominee Claudia De La Cruz for president), I considered former L.A. Occasions columnist Erika D. Smith’s piece last March on the “gamification” of elections. In a nutshell, Smith hypothesized that voter participation was down within the 2024 California major as a result of folks have been performing extra like bettors and cable information commentators searching for an angle on a race earlier than casting their ballots than residents merely expressing their sincere opinions. We’ve turn into chilly quantity crunchers, involved extra about who may win than who we really wish to lead us.
In fact, in the case of the overall election, the final word gamification of the vote is the electoral faculty, which focuses the campaigns for a rustic of 340 million folks onto a handful of states. Nonetheless, for my part, Hutchinson’s piece reminds us of the nice equalizing energy of a vote: Regardless of your causes, your standing in society or how a lot consideration you pay to authorities and politics, your vote is yours alone. A minimum-wage employee will get simply as many as a billionaire — one.
In an period of hyper-analysis and endless horse-race punditry, I discover Hutchinson’s take of “my vote is mine, and I did what I wished with it” refreshing.
Meet California’s most neglected group of students with special needs: the gifted ones. These college students battle in conventional academic settings, although they may be deemed simply effective by conventional measures. “However they’re not simply effective,” says editorial author Karin Klein. Packages tailor-made for college students with “asynchronous growth” — youngsters who, in third grade, would possibly learn at an Eleventh-grade degree however have restricted social expertise — are chucking up the sponge.
Democrats are finger-pointing. Does the evidence support them? Kamala Harris misplaced due to her race and gender. Democrats are too “woke.” Their messaging is terrible. The marketing campaign was too brief. The get together wanted a aggressive major. Political scientist Seth Masket evaluates these post-election narratives and finds proof for a lot of of them missing.
What’s missing from the Latino vote debate? The voice of Latinas. On the Eleventh hour of her marketing campaign, Harris unveiled an “alternative” agenda for Latino males; there was no equal for Latinas. Civil rights lawyer Sonja Diaz says this and the election postmortems that concentrate on the shift of Latinos towards Trump (with out mentioning {that a} robust majority of Latinas supported Harris) have “bolstered the invisibility of Latina voters and their contributions to the American financial system.”
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George Gascón, ousted as L.A. County’s top prosecutor, was his own worst enemy. Columnist Robin Abcarian says she’s sorry that our progressive district lawyer misplaced to a former Republican who’s promised to undo felony justice reforms. Gascón fell sufferer to voters’ notion of crime relatively than actuality, and far of that’s his fault: He merely moved too quick after voters elected him in 2020, evidently misinterpreting his victory as a sweeping mandate to make dramatic modifications rapidly.
Who’s the vice president-elect? Elon Musk or JD Vance? Nobody elected Musk to something, but he’s in all of the images of MAGA VIPs with Trump; Vance, the man elected vice chairman, isn’t. Musk bought the type of job on making authorities extra environment friendly that sometimes goes to a vice chairman; Vance bought to squire the aborted lawyer common decide across the Senate. A minimum of the vice president-elect isn’t working the chance of committing the gravest MAGA sin of all of them, says Jackie Calmes — stealing the highlight from Trump.
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