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| Our Blind Spots Often Hide the Truth About America | Our Blind Spots Often Hide the Truth About America |
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| Editor’s note: An Op-Ed by Sarah Smarsh, “Liberal Blind Spots Are Hiding the Truth About ‘Trump Country,’” received more than 1,500 comments from readers. Here are a selection of the comments, which raised questions that we put to the author. | Editor’s note: An Op-Ed by Sarah Smarsh, “Liberal Blind Spots Are Hiding the Truth About ‘Trump Country,’” received more than 1,500 comments from readers. Here are a selection of the comments, which raised questions that we put to the author. |
| Mary V., Virginia: I had a conversation last week with a woman I had recently met. We were talking about the importance of supporting women in all types of roles — as professional chefs, doctors (she is an emergency-room physician) and throughout all levels of society, including politics. I casually mentioned how cool I thought it was that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had won her race in the Bronx. My companion’s demeanor immediately changed, and she flatly replied, “As a Christian and a capitalist, I have absolutely no interest in anything that socialist has to say.” | Mary V., Virginia: I had a conversation last week with a woman I had recently met. We were talking about the importance of supporting women in all types of roles — as professional chefs, doctors (she is an emergency-room physician) and throughout all levels of society, including politics. I casually mentioned how cool I thought it was that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had won her race in the Bronx. My companion’s demeanor immediately changed, and she flatly replied, “As a Christian and a capitalist, I have absolutely no interest in anything that socialist has to say.” |
| The speed with which this happened was both startling and disturbing. Our friendly conversation was wiped out in a matter of seconds by her swift application of labels — her own self-identification, and to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. | The speed with which this happened was both startling and disturbing. Our friendly conversation was wiped out in a matter of seconds by her swift application of labels — her own self-identification, and to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. |
| Q: To what extent do labels prevent productive dialogue? | Q: To what extent do labels prevent productive dialogue? |
| Sarah Smarsh: A couple of years ago, over beers at a bar in Texas, my dad — a white construction worker from rural Kansas, described in my piece — shocked me by saying, “If you get past everything you’ve been told and really read up on it, ‘socialism’ doesn’t sound all that bad.” Soon after that, a democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, won the Democratic caucus or primary for president in 22 states, including our home state of Kansas. | Sarah Smarsh: A couple of years ago, over beers at a bar in Texas, my dad — a white construction worker from rural Kansas, described in my piece — shocked me by saying, “If you get past everything you’ve been told and really read up on it, ‘socialism’ doesn’t sound all that bad.” Soon after that, a democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, won the Democratic caucus or primary for president in 22 states, including our home state of Kansas. |
| Not everyone is so open-minded. The weaponization of terms such as “feminist,” “liberal” and “socialist” — and thus the vilification of those who claim those labels — has long been a successful pillar of strategies to preserve power. Labels always oversimplify, but at their worst they dehumanize: “illegals” or any racial epithet. You are right to be disturbed by the negative charge with which your acquaintance said “that socialist.” | Not everyone is so open-minded. The weaponization of terms such as “feminist,” “liberal” and “socialist” — and thus the vilification of those who claim those labels — has long been a successful pillar of strategies to preserve power. Labels always oversimplify, but at their worst they dehumanize: “illegals” or any racial epithet. You are right to be disturbed by the negative charge with which your acquaintance said “that socialist.” |
| Diminishing a perceived opponent or an inconvenient fact through name-calling — say, “fake news” — is a hallmark of the current Republican administration, but dangerous labels work in all directions. Envisioning a “red state” as a field of “deplorables” leads some self-righteous liberals to say those states “get what they deserve” — as though everyone suffering for lack of Medicaid expansion voted for their conservative state officials, as though everyone even gets to vote. In most states, the losing political party receives 30 to 40 percent of the vote. Those millions of people, along with the disenfranchised, are no more represented by their state administrations than liberals nationally are represented by our current president. Calling their home “Trump country” is thus a childish misnomer. | Diminishing a perceived opponent or an inconvenient fact through name-calling — say, “fake news” — is a hallmark of the current Republican administration, but dangerous labels work in all directions. Envisioning a “red state” as a field of “deplorables” leads some self-righteous liberals to say those states “get what they deserve” — as though everyone suffering for lack of Medicaid expansion voted for their conservative state officials, as though everyone even gets to vote. In most states, the losing political party receives 30 to 40 percent of the vote. Those millions of people, along with the disenfranchised, are no more represented by their state administrations than liberals nationally are represented by our current president. Calling their home “Trump country” is thus a childish misnomer. |
| Labels even err when self-ascribed. Into my early 20s, I inaccurately called myself “conservative” with little understanding of what that meant. One of the most destructive assumptions we make in political discourse is that people’s parties and votes align with their beliefs. In fact, a better indicator of political behavior is one’s place, culture and social group — things we’re born into, by no virtue or fault of our own. | Labels even err when self-ascribed. Into my early 20s, I inaccurately called myself “conservative” with little understanding of what that meant. One of the most destructive assumptions we make in political discourse is that people’s parties and votes align with their beliefs. In fact, a better indicator of political behavior is one’s place, culture and social group — things we’re born into, by no virtue or fault of our own. |
| Productive dialogue requires that we set aside our assumptions about other people and places and refuse to reduce them to labels — even ones that they themselves embrace. We must remain vigilant against easy, reductive frameworks, perhaps especially those that appeal to our own biases. | Productive dialogue requires that we set aside our assumptions about other people and places and refuse to reduce them to labels — even ones that they themselves embrace. We must remain vigilant against easy, reductive frameworks, perhaps especially those that appeal to our own biases. |
| Leonard Ray, Baton Rouge, La.: I live in the area that you might think people describe as “Trump Country” (our state voted 58-38 for Donald Trump). To be honest, most of the white people I know don’t have many African-American neighbors … sometimes co-workers, yes, but many times not even that. “Trump Country” (as well as “non-Trump Country”) isn’t exactly racially integrated to a great degree … there are pockets where it is, but not many. So I’m not sure there’s much opportunity to be, in a personal sense, mad at co-workers or neighbors of color. | Leonard Ray, Baton Rouge, La.: I live in the area that you might think people describe as “Trump Country” (our state voted 58-38 for Donald Trump). To be honest, most of the white people I know don’t have many African-American neighbors … sometimes co-workers, yes, but many times not even that. “Trump Country” (as well as “non-Trump Country”) isn’t exactly racially integrated to a great degree … there are pockets where it is, but not many. So I’m not sure there’s much opportunity to be, in a personal sense, mad at co-workers or neighbors of color. |
| Q: You say your father works alongside minorities, but what about people who have few interactions with people outside their race? | Q: You say your father works alongside minorities, but what about people who have few interactions with people outside their race? |
| Smarsh: I grew up mostly in a small town that was overwhelmingly white. The handful of students of color were embraced — not because white students were liberally minded, I think, but because by virtue of our shared home a minority student was “one of us.” As the researcher Brené Brown has written: “People are hard to hate up close. Move in.” | Smarsh: I grew up mostly in a small town that was overwhelmingly white. The handful of students of color were embraced — not because white students were liberally minded, I think, but because by virtue of our shared home a minority student was “one of us.” As the researcher Brené Brown has written: “People are hard to hate up close. Move in.” |
| I am certain, however, that some of the white students in my hometown who loved their individual brown peers harbored racist views about those minorities as a group. Similarly, my father’s positive working relationship and friendships with laborers of color does not preclude him from racist thoughts or actions. | I am certain, however, that some of the white students in my hometown who loved their individual brown peers harbored racist views about those minorities as a group. Similarly, my father’s positive working relationship and friendships with laborers of color does not preclude him from racist thoughts or actions. |
| Where the limitations of individual experience revert to tribalism, I summon the power of information and education to help us transcend our own groups and narrow visions of the world. What if “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, were required reading in a public school’s social studies curriculum? What if public college were available to everyone, tuition free? One doesn’t need a degree to know the difference between love and hate, right and wrong. One does, in a world of racist messages, need unbiased facts to form a worldview that does not favor whiteness. | |
| While we work toward systemic justice and integration, we can strive at the individual level to break free from our proverbial bubbles. My humble attempt at this involves attending public events, celebrations and church services in communities outside my own, and following and reading people of color, whose wisdom for answering your question likely exceeds mine. | While we work toward systemic justice and integration, we can strive at the individual level to break free from our proverbial bubbles. My humble attempt at this involves attending public events, celebrations and church services in communities outside my own, and following and reading people of color, whose wisdom for answering your question likely exceeds mine. |
| Sean C., Charlottetown: Ms. Smarsh’s article is one part anecdotal and one part wishful thinking (it would be nice if economic populism was the key to reaching Trump voters). There has been extensive polling and social science assessment of Trump voters, and white racial grievance is overwhelmingly the biggest predictor of support for him. Indeed, white racial grievance has been driving the white working class toward the Republicans since the 1960s. She is correct to note that Mr. Trump also won plenty of white college graduates, but that is a different issue, as the well-off have always supported Republicans. It’s easy to see what they get from Mr. Trump — a big tax cut. | Sean C., Charlottetown: Ms. Smarsh’s article is one part anecdotal and one part wishful thinking (it would be nice if economic populism was the key to reaching Trump voters). There has been extensive polling and social science assessment of Trump voters, and white racial grievance is overwhelmingly the biggest predictor of support for him. Indeed, white racial grievance has been driving the white working class toward the Republicans since the 1960s. She is correct to note that Mr. Trump also won plenty of white college graduates, but that is a different issue, as the well-off have always supported Republicans. It’s easy to see what they get from Mr. Trump — a big tax cut. |
| Q: Are white racial grievances deciding factors for higher-earning Trump supporters as well, just more easily hidden in their votes for a tax cut? | Q: Are white racial grievances deciding factors for higher-earning Trump supporters as well, just more easily hidden in their votes for a tax cut? |
| Smarsh: I agree that motivations among different income brackets of white Trump voters surely differ, but only in the version of power they seek to preserve: Ultimately, though it might be harder to see in one group or another, they all reap both racial and economic advantage. | Smarsh: I agree that motivations among different income brackets of white Trump voters surely differ, but only in the version of power they seek to preserve: Ultimately, though it might be harder to see in one group or another, they all reap both racial and economic advantage. |
| However, your response is misplaced here. You seem to be responding, as did a number of commenters, as though I wrote a piece about “Trump voters” — a group that has, by my estimation, enjoyed too much attention. I wrote instead about people like my white, working-class family who are presumed, based on their place and identity, to be Trump supporters but are, in fact, something else — apathetic or disenfranchised nonvoters, Democrats, newly minted democratic socialists, independents and even moderate Republicans. | However, your response is misplaced here. You seem to be responding, as did a number of commenters, as though I wrote a piece about “Trump voters” — a group that has, by my estimation, enjoyed too much attention. I wrote instead about people like my white, working-class family who are presumed, based on their place and identity, to be Trump supporters but are, in fact, something else — apathetic or disenfranchised nonvoters, Democrats, newly minted democratic socialists, independents and even moderate Republicans. |
| As I wrote, “I am far less interested in calls for empathy toward struggling white Americans who spout or abide hatred than I am in tapping into the political power of those who don’t.” | As I wrote, “I am far less interested in calls for empathy toward struggling white Americans who spout or abide hatred than I am in tapping into the political power of those who don’t.” |
| Yet from another comment recommended more than 1,300 times: “To the author: If your father and good people like him hate unfair power, corporations and bosses that exploit workers, then wouldn’t supporting Trump be against their own interests?” To which I answer, yes, it would. That’s why the people I wrote about don’t do that. | Yet from another comment recommended more than 1,300 times: “To the author: If your father and good people like him hate unfair power, corporations and bosses that exploit workers, then wouldn’t supporting Trump be against their own interests?” To which I answer, yes, it would. That’s why the people I wrote about don’t do that. |
| This dissonance between my story and a large portion of the reaction (Me: Not everyone in “Trump Country” is for Trump. Them: Then why are they all for Trump!) proves the point of my piece — that the dominant narrative about much of our country is not just inaccurate but willfully blind. | This dissonance between my story and a large portion of the reaction (Me: Not everyone in “Trump Country” is for Trump. Them: Then why are they all for Trump!) proves the point of my piece — that the dominant narrative about much of our country is not just inaccurate but willfully blind. |
| Lissa, Virginia: “The trouble begins with language: The elite pundits regularly …” This article gives all of us a lot to ponder. But I cannot get past the number of times I have written a comment asking for an explanation of the word “elite” in the context in which the word is used in a specific article. Extrapolating terms incorrectly and otherwise generalizing is at the core of what Ms. Smarsh is arguing. She begins by doing the very thing she goes on to lament. I don’t want to take away from her very real points, but the word “elite” is one of the words that has been misused as a tool for division and often as a tool for deriding high levels of education. | Lissa, Virginia: “The trouble begins with language: The elite pundits regularly …” This article gives all of us a lot to ponder. But I cannot get past the number of times I have written a comment asking for an explanation of the word “elite” in the context in which the word is used in a specific article. Extrapolating terms incorrectly and otherwise generalizing is at the core of what Ms. Smarsh is arguing. She begins by doing the very thing she goes on to lament. I don’t want to take away from her very real points, but the word “elite” is one of the words that has been misused as a tool for division and often as a tool for deriding high levels of education. |
| Q: Does the term “elite” get misused and applied too broadly, just as “working class” often is? | Q: Does the term “elite” get misused and applied too broadly, just as “working class” often is? |
| Smarsh: The term “elite” is successfully leveraged by conservative propagandists seeking to cast coastal liberals as condescending snobs. A native of rural Kansas, I’ve lived in “blue” urban places, where some of my dearest friends and most staunch professional advocates reside. Having straddled that cultural divide, as a writer and citizen, I resist the stereotyping of either side. | Smarsh: The term “elite” is successfully leveraged by conservative propagandists seeking to cast coastal liberals as condescending snobs. A native of rural Kansas, I’ve lived in “blue” urban places, where some of my dearest friends and most staunch professional advocates reside. Having straddled that cultural divide, as a writer and citizen, I resist the stereotyping of either side. |
| However, objections to valid class critiques — feeling outraged when working-class people express their grievances toward wealth without pausing to point out all the virtuous people who possess it — often strike me as the class equivalent of whites accusing people of color of reverse racism, or men accusing feminists of misandry. The prevailing narratives of our media and culture operate in service to those male, white or financially comfortable people who claim equal offense. So we must listen with particular concern to the protests of those for whom inaccurate portrayals represent not just distasteful generalizations but economic and even mortal danger. If articulating that injustice comes with an edge of anger, well, try being on the losing end of a narrative every day of your life and see how patient it makes your language. | However, objections to valid class critiques — feeling outraged when working-class people express their grievances toward wealth without pausing to point out all the virtuous people who possess it — often strike me as the class equivalent of whites accusing people of color of reverse racism, or men accusing feminists of misandry. The prevailing narratives of our media and culture operate in service to those male, white or financially comfortable people who claim equal offense. So we must listen with particular concern to the protests of those for whom inaccurate portrayals represent not just distasteful generalizations but economic and even mortal danger. If articulating that injustice comes with an edge of anger, well, try being on the losing end of a narrative every day of your life and see how patient it makes your language. |
| My piece uses the term in question once: “Elite pundits regularly misuse ‘working class’ as shorthand for right-wing white guys wearing tool belts.” Here I am describing political commentators who hold the immense privilege of being called upon for their opinions in national media. That is, by definition, an elite platform, and its rarefied stature is relevant to my discussion of classist narratives. I’m not generalizing but rather specifying a real power structure in our country. | My piece uses the term in question once: “Elite pundits regularly misuse ‘working class’ as shorthand for right-wing white guys wearing tool belts.” Here I am describing political commentators who hold the immense privilege of being called upon for their opinions in national media. That is, by definition, an elite platform, and its rarefied stature is relevant to my discussion of classist narratives. I’m not generalizing but rather specifying a real power structure in our country. |
| Steve Paradis, Flint, Mich.: I wonder what the newspapers are like in Wichita, Kan. I grew up watching my parents reading the daily paper and picked up the habit from them. Front to back page, too, just as it was delivered, scanning every page, even the boring local stuff about zoning boards and school board meetings. That same paper now has about three pages of local news — mostly crime or mayhem — and the obits. The rest is homogenized stories from the various wire services; the paper itself is a midstate edition covering about a hundred- mile radius. That means the local political news coverage is gone, and there’s only a page or two of state news. So you don’t see your life in the paper anymore, no more than you see on television, broadcast or cable. You don’t see yourself or people like you in the media, and it’s easy to think that the media doesn’t think you matter. | Steve Paradis, Flint, Mich.: I wonder what the newspapers are like in Wichita, Kan. I grew up watching my parents reading the daily paper and picked up the habit from them. Front to back page, too, just as it was delivered, scanning every page, even the boring local stuff about zoning boards and school board meetings. That same paper now has about three pages of local news — mostly crime or mayhem — and the obits. The rest is homogenized stories from the various wire services; the paper itself is a midstate edition covering about a hundred- mile radius. That means the local political news coverage is gone, and there’s only a page or two of state news. So you don’t see your life in the paper anymore, no more than you see on television, broadcast or cable. You don’t see yourself or people like you in the media, and it’s easy to think that the media doesn’t think you matter. |
| Q: Does your father seek news outlets different from that of other working class members of his community? Does he feel he is incorrectly portrayed by more “liberal” news outlets? | Q: Does your father seek news outlets different from that of other working class members of his community? Does he feel he is incorrectly portrayed by more “liberal” news outlets? |
| Smarsh: Like most newspapers in midsize cities, The Wichita Eagle staff and print product has shrunk since my childhood in the 1980s and ’90s. I grew up at the tail end of the newspaper era and still “take the paper,” reading it front to back each morning. I was a member of the last class of my journalism school to receive an old-fashioned newspaper training before the digital era altered curriculums toward “media convergence.” The demise of local news was the backdrop of my early career, making me keenly aware of how a dearth of local reporting resources is inextricably woven into today’s divisive political climate. | Smarsh: Like most newspapers in midsize cities, The Wichita Eagle staff and print product has shrunk since my childhood in the 1980s and ’90s. I grew up at the tail end of the newspaper era and still “take the paper,” reading it front to back each morning. I was a member of the last class of my journalism school to receive an old-fashioned newspaper training before the digital era altered curriculums toward “media convergence.” The demise of local news was the backdrop of my early career, making me keenly aware of how a dearth of local reporting resources is inextricably woven into today’s divisive political climate. |
| My piece names disparate information sources among the electorate as one of the most overlooked influences on political ideologies, party identification and voting habits. I have spent much of my career developing strategies to counteract that civic media crisis. It’s one reason that I still live in my home state of Kansas rather than a major media center — a sense of responsibility to live in the place I write. | My piece names disparate information sources among the electorate as one of the most overlooked influences on political ideologies, party identification and voting habits. I have spent much of my career developing strategies to counteract that civic media crisis. It’s one reason that I still live in my home state of Kansas rather than a major media center — a sense of responsibility to live in the place I write. |
| Coastal media is often criticized for inadequate “parachute journalism” into Middle America, but it shouldn’t be New York’s job to understand Nebraska. Nebraska understands Nebraska. I am sure that state is teeming with qualified journalists who still have local contacts and understandings, who were laid off in the last 15 years, and who would gladly report for duty if someone paid them to do so. | Coastal media is often criticized for inadequate “parachute journalism” into Middle America, but it shouldn’t be New York’s job to understand Nebraska. Nebraska understands Nebraska. I am sure that state is teeming with qualified journalists who still have local contacts and understandings, who were laid off in the last 15 years, and who would gladly report for duty if someone paid them to do so. |
| Until then, as you say, people there and in so many places are left with wildly biased and polarized social media “silos,” national outlets that rarely mention their home, and — if they’re lucky — cash-strapped local outlets for their information. For those in rural America, I know firsthand, the resulting sense of not just isolation but misrepresentation and even invisibility is profound. That’s shifted some in the last few years, but now when they’re written about, it’s all Trump or opioids or economic despair. | Until then, as you say, people there and in so many places are left with wildly biased and polarized social media “silos,” national outlets that rarely mention their home, and — if they’re lucky — cash-strapped local outlets for their information. For those in rural America, I know firsthand, the resulting sense of not just isolation but misrepresentation and even invisibility is profound. That’s shifted some in the last few years, but now when they’re written about, it’s all Trump or opioids or economic despair. |
| There’s a lot more to those communities. There’s joy, heroic community problem-solving and even some Democrats. To remain unseen and unheard in national conversation is an invalidation. It’s no surprise that some might be suspicious of “the media” and vulnerable to messaging that journalists aren’t trustworthy. | There’s a lot more to those communities. There’s joy, heroic community problem-solving and even some Democrats. To remain unseen and unheard in national conversation is an invalidation. It’s no surprise that some might be suspicious of “the media” and vulnerable to messaging that journalists aren’t trustworthy. |
| As for my dad, he believes his best news source is folks on the ground — his fellow construction workers on job sites, locals in line at gas stations and, as he traverses the Midwest and South for the next job, cashiers he chats up at the grocery store. He makes a point of asking them what’s going on in their communities and what they think about current events, and he shares his information in kind. Even with a daughter for a journalist, he most prizes stories straight from the mouths of those who live them. So do I. As he put it when I asked him, “I get my news from the people I talk to, not Sean Hannity.” | As for my dad, he believes his best news source is folks on the ground — his fellow construction workers on job sites, locals in line at gas stations and, as he traverses the Midwest and South for the next job, cashiers he chats up at the grocery store. He makes a point of asking them what’s going on in their communities and what they think about current events, and he shares his information in kind. Even with a daughter for a journalist, he most prizes stories straight from the mouths of those who live them. So do I. As he put it when I asked him, “I get my news from the people I talk to, not Sean Hannity.” |
| Liz, New York City: As a native Arkansan, I so deeply appreciate what Ms. Smarsh is saying about seeing the complexity of people’s experience, and the urgent necessity for working people of all races, sexes and locations to band together. As an adopted New Yorker, I felt stabbed by the word “elite,” which has become a catchword by which conservatives dismiss and disparage everything that folks in this great city think and feel. | Liz, New York City: As a native Arkansan, I so deeply appreciate what Ms. Smarsh is saying about seeing the complexity of people’s experience, and the urgent necessity for working people of all races, sexes and locations to band together. As an adopted New Yorker, I felt stabbed by the word “elite,” which has become a catchword by which conservatives dismiss and disparage everything that folks in this great city think and feel. |
| I am a queer theologian, a single mother of two who works three jobs and, like most New Yorkers, struggles every month to pay the exorbitant rent. I am nearly desperate for a movement to take hold along the lines Ms. Smarsh describes: Those of us who struggle refusing to be duped by the powerful and wealthy forces that pit us against one another for their own gain, seeing one another as we really are, as we really struggle, as we really hope and dream for a better life, for all of us. For that reason, I’ll tamp down my visceral reaction to the unfortunate word “elite.” Ms. Smarsh, thank you for this eloquent piece. We have more in common than even you may know, and I hope we can keep building that mutual understanding. | I am a queer theologian, a single mother of two who works three jobs and, like most New Yorkers, struggles every month to pay the exorbitant rent. I am nearly desperate for a movement to take hold along the lines Ms. Smarsh describes: Those of us who struggle refusing to be duped by the powerful and wealthy forces that pit us against one another for their own gain, seeing one another as we really are, as we really struggle, as we really hope and dream for a better life, for all of us. For that reason, I’ll tamp down my visceral reaction to the unfortunate word “elite.” Ms. Smarsh, thank you for this eloquent piece. We have more in common than even you may know, and I hope we can keep building that mutual understanding. |
| Q: What would you say to those who feel hidden behind a label? | Q: What would you say to those who feel hidden behind a label? |
| Smarsh: I told my dad to never read the comments, but he did — and yours was the one he told me I should read. It moved him deeply, so I’ll let him respond: “This person is what the world needs. I am inspired by her grit, determination, hope, unity as an answer. Her life should not be like this in America.” | Smarsh: I told my dad to never read the comments, but he did — and yours was the one he told me I should read. It moved him deeply, so I’ll let him respond: “This person is what the world needs. I am inspired by her grit, determination, hope, unity as an answer. Her life should not be like this in America.” |
| Sarah Smarsh (@Sarah_Smarsh) is the author of the forthcoming “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.” | Sarah Smarsh (@Sarah_Smarsh) is the author of the forthcoming “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.” |
| Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. | Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. |