11/16/22, 7:00 PM Opinion | Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene?

- The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-
kanye-west.html

THE CONVERSATION

Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene?

Oct. 31, 2022

By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter  Get expert analysis of the

news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday
morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

Bret Stephens: Years ago, when I was in high school, my father suffered a cerebral
hemorrhage, and his recovery took time. So I felt a lot of compassion for John
Fetterman when he took the stage in that painful-to-watch debate with Mehmet Oz last
week. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have recommended my dad for a Senate seat
during his ordeal, and I’m getting the sense that Pennsylvania voters are reaching the
same reluctant conclusion about the Democratic candidate.

Gail, you wrote a powerful column on the subject. How do you see the race playing out
now?

Gail Collins: Still say vote for Fetterman. I know he lost the debate, but when it comes
to the Senate, there’s no point in picking the better debater — the way you might have
wanted to back in the day when our senators listened to one another’s arguments and
once in a while changed their minds. Now you just need someone who will vote to give
the majority to the right party. Nothing he does in office is going to make a fraction of
the impact of the basic question: Will we have Republicans or Democrats in charge?

Bret: Isn’t that the same excuse a lot of Georgia Republicans are making for
themselves as they hold their noses and vote for Herschel Walker?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-kanye-west.html 1/5
11/16/22, 7:00 PM Opinion | Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene? - The New York Times

Gail: Well, if you’ve got a candidate of strong character versus a totally duplicitous jerk
who exemplifies all the worst ways a man can treat a woman then, OK, yes, I guess
political loyalties might take a back seat.

Bret: I think voters still need to ask themselves: Is this a person they can be confident
is fully fit to serve in the United States Senate? Walker clearly isn’t, which is why I
would never vote for him in a thousand years, even though he’d probably support most
of the policies I favor. I also think Fetterman hurt himself by not releasing his full
medical records, when his health is a legitimate concern. It’s a mistake that may help
cost him the election.

Gail: When the Fetterman folks planned out the last part of this campaign, they were
probably imagining him being much better by now and proving it at the debate.

Didn’t work out. I suspect the medical records would just have reinforced the bad news,
or they would have released them. But I’m still going by my basic rule: Vote with a full
heart against anyone who would help make Mitch McConnell Senate majority leader
again.

Bret: And I say vote for the better candidate, regardless of party. That’s how we get
moderate and thoughtful political leaders like Charlie Baker, a Republican, in
Massachusetts, or Michael Bennet, a Democrat, in Colorado.

Gail: You will not get me to denounce moderate and thoughtful political leaders. But
these days most of those cases are pretty rare. Unfortunately voters’ usual I-have-to-
support-somebody dilemma is more like the one we saw last week, and you know my
rule.

Now Bret, before we talk about anything else, I want to thank you for that wonderful
piece on your visit to Greenland.

Bret: Thanks! It was … long.

Gail: Your change of mind on the global warming issue is so important, and while we
don’t quite agree on some details — like, um, how to solve the problem — the fact that
you made the effort to go there and then came around in your thinking should really
move the debate forward.

Bret: The real hero of the piece is an American oceanographer named John Englander,
who brought me to Greenland through his organization, the Rising Seas Institute. He
approached me a few years ago with the intention of persuading me rather than just
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-kanye-west.html 2/5
11/16/22, 7:00 PM Opinion | Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene? - The New York Times

screaming at me. The entire debate on climate would be a lot more constructive right
now if there were more Englanders on this planet.

I’m sorry I didn’t persuade you on the solutions side of the argument. So, you don’t
think the free market solves any and all problems?

Gail: Surprise! This is a perfect case of the need for government intervention. You’ve
shown how private enterprise can do a lot for Greenland, but the idea of nuclear power
and fracking without a lot of oversight is just plain scary to me.

Bret: I’m all for sensible regulations that curb pollution and ensure no corners get cut
when it comes to health and safety. But we’ve so overregulated some of the industries
we need for a cleaner future that we’ve driven some of them out of business and sent
others abroad. For instance, it’s crazy that federal and state regulations make it all but
impossible to mine for rare earth minerals — which are essential for wind turbines —
only to put us at the mercy of countries like China, where health, safety and
environmental considerations are minimal.

Gail: Speaking of crazy, let’s talk about what happened last week at Nancy Pelosi’s
house in San Francisco. Her husband, Paul, was seriously injured by a man who broke
in looking to get at the speaker.

Bret: Thank God it wasn’t worse.

Gail: I’m sure everyone in the House and Senate is thinking a lot about this right now,
worrying about family members and wondering if political life is worth it. Any
thoughts?

Bret: One of my early political memories was the assassination attempt on Ronald
Reagan. John Hinckley Jr., the shooter, was obsessed with Jodie Foster and bizarrely
thought shooting Reagan would impress her — in a good way. Now we’ve got people
pumped up on conspiracy theories, many of them peddled by Donald Trump, Marjorie
Taylor Greene, Alex Jones and other despicable folk. I should add there are plenty of
fanatics on the left, as Brett Kavanaugh or Steve Scalise can attest.

Speaking of fanatics, any thoughts on Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West?

Gail: You know, back when I was in grade school, I was so terrible at singing, I was
confined to a one-person group known as the listeners and barred from being in the
choir at Sunday Mass. Never really got any better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-kanye-west.html 3/5
11/16/22, 7:00 PM Opinion | Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene? - The New York Times

Bret: We have that much in common. I’m so bad at carrying a tune that my kids used to
shush me whenever I attempted a good night lullaby.

Gail: Even as a listener, I’m not somebody you’d want to consult on music. But Ye’s
antisemitism surge is on a different level and very disturbing to me. The recent column
you wrote on it was a terrific reminder of how threatening it is. Have you gotten a lot of
reaction?

Bret: A ton. Most of it was positive, and it’s good to see a wave of national revulsion
wash over Ye. But too many of the responses were simply frightening. For instance, one
reader wrote: “Jews are not any more criminal or dishonest than any other people;
they are simply better at it.”

Gail: Good Lord.

Bret: We have to reckon with the fact that there is far more antisemitism out there than
many people realized and that it is coming from multiple directions, not just the usual
suspects on the far right.

Can I mention two other points?

Gail: Please. This is definitely a key issue of the moment.

Bret: The first is that West’s behavior should not somehow be chalked up to mental
illness. It’s unfair to the mentally ill, and I don’t see many people offering that excuse
for other kinds of bigots.

Gail: Not unless he checks in for a long stay at a psychiatric convalescent center …

Bret: The second is that West and some of his defenders argue that he’s the victim of
cancel culture. Baloney. West has tripled down on his antisemitism. I also presume he
signed some kind of standard morals clause with his business partners that is written
for precisely this kind of outrageous behavior. That’s very different from the sorts of
cancellations sweeping through parts of American culture, in which relatively
anonymous people have their professional lives destroyed in cases that are frequently
ambiguous or entail mitigating circumstances and for which they are often prepared to
apologize.

Gail: We’ve talked a lot about how all the new communications technologies have
changed the culture. The sane world is going to have to work out a whole new set of
rules. Don’t want to banish everyone who posts one stupid thought. But this stuff still
counts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-kanye-west.html 4/5
11/16/22, 7:00 PM Opinion | Will the Whole Political World Become a Crime Scene? - The New York Times

Bret: Agree. And here’s a suggestion for Elon Musk now that he became the proverbial
dog that caught the car by acquiring Twitter: Institute a 10-minute delay for all tweets
so that people can retract their dumbest utterances before they become public. Any
other examples in mind?

Gail: Well, Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, got into trouble
— for good reason — when he said gun violence happened mostly because of “Black
people, frankly.” But should he be defeated and exiled forever? Well, maybe not if he’d
apologized, offered some rational thoughts on the subject of crime and gone on to talk
sensibly about other matters. But since none of that happened, I’m definitely up for
canceling him.

Bret: There’s a more fitting punishment that I think we can agree on: Make sure he
loses the election next week.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about
this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/opinion/fetterman-oz-pelosi-kanye-west.html 5/5