Hello from the sky,

I’m tapping this newsletter from the crowded back end of a transatlantic flight, wondering when Qatar will get around to offering me a 747. (Note: like Kristi Noem, I’d even settle for a Gulfstream jet.) I’m looking forward to a week of re-immersing myself in conversations with knowledgeable Americans about the state of the world.

One matter is engrossing the chattering class. A new book by a pair of journalists sets out the “original sin” of Joe Biden: he enabled Donald Trump’s election last year. He was so diminished by age, physically and mentally, that it was obvious to all but Mr Biden himself, his family and his advisers that voters would reject him. Unforgivably, he refused to get out of the way until too late. That doomed the Democrats. Even guiltier were Mr Biden’s closest acolytes. Rather as Soviet Communists tried to tell the world in the early 1980s that their corpse-like leaders were actually sentient, Mr Biden’s team foolishly (perhaps wickedly) tried to hide just how frail he’d become.

Do you buy that this was, really, the original sin? I respectfully suggest that the authors have missed a bigger story. Whoever ran as the Democrat in 2024 was all but sure to lose. You could have chosen the freshest Democratic daisy and voters would have stomped on them. Remember, the electorate was furious, because of the effects of the pandemic lockdowns, and especially about inflation. Look around the world at elections in 2024 and the same theme dominated: grumpy voters turned with vigour, even fury, against their leaders. (Remember Rishi Sunak, anyone?)

If you accept that, then Mr Biden’s real—if unwitting—original electoral sin was something different and took place four years earlier. His “crime” was to beat Mr Trump in the election of 2020. Some battles, in retrospect, are better lost. American democracy would have been more resilient had Mr Trump (ideally with a narrow advantage) been returned to serve a normal lame-duck second term in the White House. Crucially, he wouldn’t have had four years on the sidelines to grow more effective and to plan destructive policies. In short, there would have been two rounds of Trump 1.0, and then grumpy voters would have turned against his party. If that alternate version of history sounds more appealing to you, then who is to blame that it didn’t come to pass? The sinner, of course, was that damned successful Joe Biden.

A shout out to my fellow members of Generation X (those of us born between 1965 and 1980—though who gets to make these rules?) Our recent article calling this the “real loser generation”, in economic and other terms, evidently touched a nerve with some readers. I’m reminded of responses to a similar piece, a few months ago, observing that people who are older than 55 appear to have naughtier habits involving booze, drugs and sex (and have more fun?) than younger generations. If true, could these facts somehow be connected?

Thank you for the many generous and thoughtful responses to my comments last week on why people start wars. Several of you wrote to make a version of the same point. Mattie (in New Zealand) drew attention to “male ego” as a factor. Sally Ann Moore (in France) says “war is a male construct, for men, by men” and there will only be fewer of them once there are “female decision-makers at the table”. Barb (in Hawaii) says testosterone is a neglected factor in explaining why wars happen. Tracie Herman and Barbara Else each argued that I should have observed, more simply, that it is men who start wars. 

Broadly, I agree that throughout history men have been likelier to be warmongers than women. They are also far likelier to be holding power, running states (or mercenary outfits). My extra nuance: plenty of tough female leaders have thrown their armies or navies into wars no less readily than men. Elizabeth I, in England, battled the Spanish and Irish. Indira Gandhi, in India, launched a big (and decisively successful) war against Pakistan in 1971. Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister, presided over war two years later. I remember, in 1982 in Britain, watching footage of the armada that Margaret Thatcher sent halfway around the world to eject Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands. In other words, if more women were decision-makers we’d also see more women involved in wars. If you’re a fan of our defence coverage, I encourage you to take a look at our new ranking of military spending around the world. It shows that America’s lead is not as large as the raw numbers suggest.

For next week I’d welcome your views on free speech. We’ve argued that leaders of democracies on both sides of the Atlantic have an increasingly illiberal attitude towards it. Do you agree, and what are the most troubling examples we should know about? Write to me at economisttoday@economist.com.