Newsletter: An olive branch to third-party voters

Good morning. It is Saturday, Nov. 23. We’ll be taking the Saturday after Thanksgiving off, so the next newsletter to arrive in your inbox will be on Dec. 7. Here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.

It’s hard to find a political take in this news environment — or really any development having to do with the government — that is “refreshing.” Even Matt Gaetz’s failed bid for attorney general, though a win for sure, happened against the backdrop of the looming 47th American presidency. A moment of relief in a time of stressful uncertainty, yes, but restorative? I wouldn’t go that far.

So why, then, would anyone find L.A. writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s unremorseful apologia for his third-party vote refreshing? Well, the election’s over, Hutchinson lives in solid-blue California, and any airing out of a voter’s sincere concerns over our two-party system can only help make the case for constructive change and actually improve those two parties. But there’s something that makes Hutchinson’s piece truly refreshing: It casts voting not as a savvy act of gamesmanship (You’re throwing your vote away! Support the primary candidate who can win, not the one you want!), but as an honest expression of a person’s priorities and values.

Reading Hutchinson’s op-ed article (in which he said he voted for Peace and Freedom Party nominee Claudia De La Cruz for president), I thought of former L.A. Times columnist Erika D. Smith’s piece last March on the “gamification” of elections. In a nutshell, Smith hypothesized that voter participation was down in the 2024 California primary because people were acting more like bettors and cable news commentators looking for an angle on a race before casting their ballots than citizens simply expressing their honest opinions. We’ve become cold number crunchers, concerned more about who could win than who we actually want to lead us.

Of course, when it comes to the general election, the ultimate gamification of the vote is the electoral college, which focuses the campaigns for a country of 340 million people onto a handful of states. Still, in my view, Hutchinson’s piece reminds us of the great equalizing power of a vote: No matter your reasons, your status in society or how much attention you pay to government and politics, your vote is yours alone. A minimum-wage worker gets just as many as a billionaire — one.

In an era of hyper-analysis and unending horse-race punditry, I find Hutchinson’s take of “my vote is mine, and I did what I wanted with it” refreshing.

Meet California’s most neglected group of students with special needs: the gifted ones. These students struggle in traditional educational settings, even though they might be deemed just fine by traditional measures. “But they’re not just fine,” says editorial writer Karin Klein. Programs tailored for students with “asynchronous development” — kids who, in third grade, might read at an 11th-grade level but have limited social skills — are falling by the wayside.

Democrats are finger-pointing. Does the evidence support them? Kamala Harris lost because of her race and gender. Democrats are too “woke.” Their messaging is awful. The campaign was too short. The party needed a competitive primary. Political scientist Seth Masket evaluates these post-election narratives and finds evidence for many of them lacking.

What’s missing from the Latino vote debate? The voice of Latinas. At the 11th hour of her campaign, Harris unveiled an “opportunity” agenda for Latino men; there was no equivalent for Latinas. Civil rights attorney Sonja Diaz says this and the election postmortems that focus on the shift of Latinos toward Trump (without mentioning that a strong majority of Latinas supported Harris) have “reinforced the invisibility of Latina voters and their contributions to the American economy.”

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 attorney lost to a former Republican who’s promised to undo criminal justice reforms. Gascón fell victim to voters’ perception of crime rather than reality, and much of that is his fault: He simply moved too fast after voters elected him in 2020, evidently misinterpreting his victory as a sweeping mandate to make dramatic changes quickly.

Who’s the vice president-elect? Elon Musk or JD Vance? No one elected Musk to anything, yet he is in all the photos of MAGA VIPs with Trump; Vance, the guy elected vice president, isn’t. Musk got the kind of job on making government more efficient that typically goes to a vice president; Vance got to squire the aborted attorney general pick around the Senate. At least the vice president-elect isn’t running the risk of committing the gravest MAGA sin of them all, says Jackie Calmes — stealing the spotlight from Trump.

More from opinion

From our columnists

• LZ Granderson: Trump’s billionaire budget-cutters are dangerously out of touch
• Jackie Calmes: Trump’s out-of-the-gate choices could make for a Cabinet of avengers
• Robin Abcarian: Nancy Mace’s shameless exploitation of America’s first transgender congresswoman

From guest contributors

• I spoke to college students after the election. Here’s how to make them care more about politics
• Sexual violence on college campuses is still a big problem. Here’s a way to fight it
• Biden has a small window to make big fixes to U.S. trade policy

From the Editorial Board

• How L.A. squanders millions that could be spent fixing its streets and sidewalks
• How California leaders can protect the environment from another Trump administration
• California voters rejected an anti-slavery measure to end forced prison labor. Now what?

Letters to the Editor

• If Trump is more “likable” than Harris, this nation has problems
• Public education is collapsing. Look in a mirror for people to blame
• Why did George GascĂłn lose? With cameras everywhere, voters saw the reality of crime