Opinion

There’s no sitting out the 2024 election, even if you hate both candidates

Frankly, I find nearly all politicians somewhat compromised, so I go to the polls with the intention of voting against the worst offenders. No candidate is going to be perfect, and no candidate is going have a platform with which I am in full agreement. But in nearly every contest, there is one candidate who is especially venal and whom I would particularly like to keep out of the halls of government.

This year, the contest is remarkably clear. There are only two candidates who have a realistic chance of being elected. Which do we prefer to see lose? A flawed but well-meaning gentleman or a narcissistic sociopath? I know which one I am very much looking forward to voting against, and I urge all who agree not to feel they are soiling themselves when participating in the fray.

Dick Boulton, Ellicott City

Ramesh Ponnuru asserted an equivalence between the failings of Donald Trump and those of President Biden. His reasoning was unconvincing.

Declaring that both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have taken actions that are grounds for rejecting their candidacies is like saying a petty shoplifter and a violent, armed bank robber both took things they should not have taken. Or perhaps it’s like saying that touching a woman on the shoulder is just as heinous as grabbing a women’s genitals.

Mr. Biden’s shortcomings are worth noting. But they are nowhere near the world-class failings of Mr. Trump, and trying to make them appear morally and politically equivalent is foolishness.

Every voter should remember that we will always have choices between flawed human beings. And in this country, for better or worse, the only two viable presidential candidates are those of the two major parties. No other candidate has any realistic chance, so sometimes you vote for the candidate with fewer flaws and messes. Choosing not to vote for either Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden is choosing not to participate in our democracy.

Robert Tiller, Silver Spring

Ramesh Ponnuru lodged this complaint against President Biden: “He favors withholding the most basic protection of the law, that against deliberately ending a life, to unborn children: a denial of the human equality that grounds American democracy. He would break with long-standing policy to make Americans pay to abort the children of the poor” by repealing the Hyde Amendment, which currently prevents programs such as Medicaid from paying for abortions except under extremely limited circumstances.

There is nothing I can say that would convince Mr. Ponnuru that abortion is not murder. But I will say that it is clear from many, many polls that most Americans disagree. (Personally, I do not believe that abortion is murder. Infanticide is murder, but abortion is not infanticide. And no one has proposed legalizing infanticide.) As for ending the Hyde Amendment, I will say that my taxes pay for many things I abhor, including our bloated defense budget and subsidies for the petroleum industry. But every year, I suck it up and pay all my taxes anyway.

Mr. Ponnuru’s op-ed also included this risible statement: “Biden supporters are more frantic at the moment.” Mr. Biden’s supporters “more frantic” than Mr. Trump’s supporters? From what I can see, it’s Mr. Trump’s supporters who have embraced the most apocalyptic view of this election. Their beliefs aren’t tethered to reality. At least Mr. Biden is sane. I’m voting for the candidate who lives on planet Earth.

Margaret Cervarich, Frederick

The tech trap for kids

Regarding Judith Warner’s March 24 Book World review, “The root of our children’s anxieties”:

There were a lot of words in Ms. Warner’s review of Jonathan Haidt’s new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” But there’s one sentence that matters most: “There’s no doubt that young people today are in the throes of a mental health crisis that’s unprecedented in scope and severity.”

In the view of Mothers Against Media Addiction, quibbling about the cause of the crisis is a distraction from the moral duty of adults to take urgent and coordinated action now. There is zero evidence that screen-based relationships and education foster healthy child development, and abundant evidence to the contrary. That is reason enough for us to support Mr. Haidt’s goals of getting smartphones out of school and encouraging more play. If there is one cause for hope, it’s that parents nationwide are already fighting media addiction and creating a world where real-life experiences and interactions remain at the heart of healthy childhood. Technology is best utilized when it serves our individual and collective humanity — not the other way around.

Julie Scelfo, New York

The writer is founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction.

As a former instructional technologist and clinical psychologist, I read with great interest Judith Warner’s review of “The Anxious Generation.”

In 1975, when my colleagues and I were trying to predict the productive future use of computers in education, the most far-reaching hardware advances we were anticipating were mini-computers and the need for software that would be usable by a wide range of students. We were optimistic about the potential of distance learning to make education more cost-effective and accessible. At the time, we recognized the need for, and the advantages of, students progressing at their own pace through the use of computer-aided instruction, and indeed becoming programmers creating their own educational software. And we always assumed that socialization was extremely important to the whole process of learning and education.

We did not anticipate the extreme miniaturization of computer chips that would make possible modern-day cellphones, which have become powerful computers in their own right. The development of technology has gone far beyond the human capability to appreciate both the advantages and the limitations of these advances. I agree that we must take a step back to analyze what is happening in our children’s stunted social development.

There is a significant need to limit the access to and use of smartphones at an early age. If students do not learn early to care about others’ needs and are merely interacting with images or sounds on a screen, their development of a sense of social caring might be distorted. That is especially unfortunate, because those are the very skills we need to cope with the complexities of a society with much more information and many more people to deal with. We must be vigilant and guard the social and psychological “village” we have been able to depend on in the past for stability and security.

Robert J. Seidel, Fairfax

No easy solutions

I found Fareed Zakaria’s March 24 Opinions Essay, “How to beat the backlash that threatens the liberal revolution,” thoughtful and interesting, particularly in terms of defending liberal ideas and describing how these ideas evolved. But I don’t think he showed “how to beat the backlash” that threatens them. His apparent solution — “Instead of having one hegemon uphold the international order, it would be enforced by a coalition of powers united around shared interests and values” — is much easier said than done, particularly when the hegemon (presumably the United States) can’t seem to get its own act together.

Mr. Zakaria argued that “liberalism’s problem is that it has been too successful,” in that many traditions and practices have “cracked and crumbled.” The biggest problem liberalism faces might be an instance of that: the unintended consequences of information technology and social media. I’m thinking not only of disinformation and conspiracy theories but also that there appear to be few filters (editors, for example) for ideas anymore. With the universal capability to post online, we’re seeing a lot more opinions but fewer cogent arguments supported by facts.

David Berry, Annandale

Speaking of misinformation

The March 26 Style article “‘Parents fight war against InfoWars,” reviewing a recent HBO documentary about Alex Jones, got me thinking: Please give us more articles about the mainstreaming of grift, with Donald Trump’s combination of political campaign and eccentric business enterprises being an example. Why do these schemes appear so prevalent now? Why doesn’t the law catch up with them sooner? Is there state or federal legislation that could help?

Sarah McCoy, Seattle