A Bipartisan Plan to Limit Big Tech

To the Editor:

Re “We Have a Way for Congress to Rein In Big Tech,” by Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren (Opinion guest essay, July 27):

The most heartening thing about the proposal for a Digital Consumer Protection Commission is its authorship.

After years of zero-sum legislative gridlock, to see Senators Warren and Graham collaborating is a ray of hope that governing may someday return to the time when opposing parties were not enemies, when each party brought valid perspectives to the table and House-Senate conference committees forged legislation encompassing the best of both perspectives.

David Sadkin
Bradenton, Fla.

To the Editor:

Senators Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren propose a new federal mega-regulator for the digital economy that threatens to undermine America’s global technology standing.

A new “licensing and policing” authority would stall the continued growth of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence in America, leaving China and others to claw back crucial geopolitical strategic ground.

America’s digital technology sector enjoyed remarkable success over the past quarter-century — and provided vast investment and job growth — because the U.S. rejected the heavy-handed regulatory model of the analog era, which stifled innovation and competition.

The tech companies that Senators Graham and Warren cite (along with countless others) came about over the past quarter-century because we opened markets and rejected the monopoly-preserving regulatory regimes that had been captured by old players.

The U.S. has plenty of federal bureaucracies, and many already oversee the issues that the senators want addressed. Their new technocratic digital regulator would do nothing but hobble America as we prepare for the next great global technological revolution.

Adam Thierer
Washington
The writer is a senior fellow in technology policy at the free-market R Street Institute.

To the Editor:

The regulation of social media, rapidly emerging A.I. and the internet in general is long overdue. Like the telephone more than a century earlier, as any new technology evolves from novelty to convenience to ubiquitous necessity used by billions of people, so must its regulation for the common good.

Jay P. Maille
Pleasanton, Calif.

DeSantis Admits the Inconvenient Truth: Trump Lost

To the Editor:

Re “DeSantis Acknowledges Trump’s Defeat: ‘Of Course He Lost’” (news article, Aug. 8):

It is sad to see a politician turn toward the hard truth only in desperation, but that is what the failing and flailing Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has done.

Mr. DeSantis is not stupid. He has known all along that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election, but until now, he hedged when asked about it, hoping not to alienate supporters of Donald Trump.

Now Mr. DeSantis says: “Of course he lost. Joe Biden is the president.”

In today’s Republican Party, telling the inconvenient truth will diminish a candidate’s support from the die-hard individuals who make up the party’s base.

We have reached a sad point in the history of our country when we have come to feel that a politician who tells the truth is doing something extraordinary and laudable.

Oren Spiegler
Peters Township, Pa.

Scenarios for a Trump Trial and the Election

To the Editor:

Re “Layered Case in Indictment Reduces Risk” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 6):

It may well be that the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, has fashioned an indictment ideally suited for achieving a conviction of Donald Trump. However, even in the event that the trial comes before the election, there is little reason to believe that it will relieve us of the scourge of Mr. Trump’s influence on American life.

First, there is the possibility of a hung jury, even in Washington, D.C. Such an outcome would be treated by Trump supporters as an outright exoneration.

A conviction would not undermine his support any more than his myriad previous shocking transgressions. While the inevitable appeals would last well past the election, his martyrdom might improve his electoral chances.

And were he to lose the election, he would surely claim that he lost only because of these indictments. Here he would have a powerful argument because so many of us hope that the indictments will have precisely that effect.

The alternative, that he wins the election, either before or after the trial, is too dreadful to contemplate.

If there is anything that can terminate the plague of Trumpism, it is for a few prominent Republicans whose seniority makes their voices important — Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush — to speak out and unequivocally state that Donald Trump is unfit for office. That they all believe this is generally acknowledged.

If they fail to defend American democracy at this time, they will be complicit in what Trumpism does to the Republican Party and to the Republic.

Robert N. Cahn
Walnut Creek, Calif.

‘Thank You, Mr. Trump’

To the Editor:

Re “Playing Indicted Martyr, Trump Draws In His Base” (news article, Aug. 9):

Thank you, Mr. Trump, for sacrificing yourself for the greater good. And when you spend years and years and years in prison, we will never forget what you did to (oops, I mean for) us.

Winnie Boal
Cincinnati

Mushroom Clouds

To the Editor:

Re “A Symbol Evoking Both Pride and Fear,” by Nicolas Rapold (Critic’s Notebook, Arts, Aug. 1):

Richland High School in Washington State is in an area, highly restricted during World War II, where plutonium essential to building the first atomic bombs was produced. As in areas of New Mexico, there have been numerous “downwind” cancer cases, as well as leakage of contaminated water into the Columbia River basin.

Bizarrely, Richland High’s athletic teams are called the Bombers; a mushroom cloud is their symbol on uniforms and the gym floor. This must be the worst “mascot” on earth.

Nancy Anderson
Seattle

Macho C.E.O.s

To the Editor:

Re “We’re in the Era of the ‘Top Gun’ C.E.O.” (Sunday Business, July 30):

The propensity of the current class of business leaders to grab at team-building gimmicks knows no bounds. Simulating the role of fighter pilots at $100,000 a pop might give a C.E.O. a fleeting feeling of exhilaration, but it is a poor substitute for actual team-building.

That happens when organizations and compensation levels are flattened to more down-to-earth levels. With some C.E.O.s pulling in pay rewards that are hundreds, if not thousands, of times more than their median employee, team-affirming commitment in the boardroom is far from genuine.

Employees are not fooled by C.E.O.s trying to play Top Gun for a day, and making more in that short time than most employees will earn in a year.

J. Richard Finlay
Toronto
The writer is the founder of the Finlay Center for Corporate and Public Governance.