The United States Could Use a Better Presidential Nomination System
PLUS: We need to talk about vinyl
The presidential primary season is upon us once again, and it could be gone before we know it. I suppose it’s possible a Democratic protest vote could materialize out of nowhere and upend Biden’s re-nomination efforts, but given that his most formidable challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, recently held a campaign event in New Hampshire that drew zero (0) attendees, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. Heck, Biden isn’t even listed on the New Hampshire ballot and he’s still expected to win.
The Republican race could still surprise. Nikki Haley, who you think would know better since she’s the former governor of the state where the first shots of the Civil War were fired (but then again, that state is South Carolina) is within shouting distance of Donald Trump in New Hampshire. Haley could turn better-than-expected results in Iowa and New Hampshire into a win in her home state, damage Trump’s aura of invincibility, and then launch a spirited national campaign. That would still be an uphill fight, though, one Haley may not really want to engage in; furthermore, even if Haley prevailed, Trump and his supporters would never accept her victory as legitimate and proceed to burn the GOP to the ground. The more likely outcome? Trump wins in Iowa and New Hampshire followed by a trouncing of Haley in South Carolina that effectively ends the race by the end of February (although with Chris Christie dropping out, that contest in New Hampshire just got a whole lot more interesting.)
This has certainly been the most dispiriting and unengaging presidential primary cycle since the advent of the post-1968 nomination system. Even though both frontrunners are basically viewed as incumbents by partisan voters, their lack of popularity among the general public along with the absence of viable alternatives has filled many with dread. Pundits have been speculating for a year now that at least one of the two major parties will come to their senses and nominate someone new for president, but barring the truly unexpected, that just isn’t in the cards.
Why that hasn’t happened is partly the fault of our nation’s presidential nomination system, which has diminished the control the central parties exert over the way presidential candidates are selected. It may seem counterintuitive to argue the way to fix a problem in American politics is by strengthening political parties, but not only could a stronger party system potentially nudge an 81-year-old president with a 39% approval rating into retirement, it also should have been able to keep an amoral, narcissistic, and impulsive reality TV show host with an awful business record, racist and misogynistic tendencies, and autocratic inclinations off the ballot.
I’ll admit up front there is no perfect way to nominate a president. Our current system, for example, which took shape following the Democrats’ disastrous 1968 national convention, replaced a nomination system many at that time considered flawed, an assessment most today would likely still share. But that doesn’t mean we should assume we’re stuck with the current system. There’s definitely room for improvement.
The key it seems is to find a balance between the pre- and post-1968 systems. In the pre-1968 system, presidential nominees were selected by party power brokers in so-called “smoke-filled rooms” during the national conventions. The average party-member in the electorate had little say in the matter beyond the recognition by party elders that whoever they picked needed to click with both the party faithful and the masses. The few state primaries that occurred were nothing more than beauty contests a candidate might use to boost their profile; the business that mattered took place behind the scenes at the quadrennial conventions.
The benefit of such a system is that it compelled the various factions within the parties to work with one another to agree on a candidate and create a platform the party could rally around. Party insiders commanding blocs of delegates could use their leverage to win concessions from candidates or steer the party away from potential nominees whom they believed would struggle with the local or factional constituencies they represented. Additionally, this system placed the party at the center of American politics. Nominees and officeholders would owe their careers to the party, meaning they were expected to toe the party line and support the party platform lest they run afoul of the party and get replaced on the ticket. The system actually lent itself to more productive government, as party leaders and officeholders were highly incentivized to enact an agenda that embodied the deals and promises made to form a winning electoral coalition.
The obvious problem with such a system is that all the power rests with party insiders whose interests may not align with those of the party-in-the-electorate. It becomes too easy for the embedded and often unaccountable powers-that-be to ram their preferences down the throats of activists upset with their party’s status quo. That’s what happened during the tumultuous 1968 Democratic Convention, which turned into a clash between the Democratic establishment and the young, liberal, Black, female, and antiwar activists who felt ignored by the party.
Democrats responded (and Republicans would soon follow suit) by democratizing the presidential nomination process. Convention delegates would now be selected via state primaries. That led candidates to campaign from state to state to win the support of partisan voters and the pledged delegates that followed. These reforms shuttered the smoke-filled rooms and sucked nearly all the political drama out of the conventions, which, for the most part, have turned into heavily-scripted four-day pep rallies.
It’s hard to imagine the parties returning to a less transparent, less democratic presidential nomination system. Anyone who argues today that the people shouldn’t be allowed to select the candidates who will represent their parties on the ballot would find few takers. Yet there are some who insist the current system goes too far in empowering the people, whom, the argument goes, are too receptive to telegenic “outsider” candidates who are better at connecting with the masses (a.k.a. campaigning) than playing the insider Washington game that results in legislative accomplishments (a.k.a. governing.) Similarly, some argue the current system hobbles the party with candidates beholden to party activists, whereas the old system was more likely to favor candidates more reflective of the mainstream party and more acceptable to the wider universe of general election voters. Finally, others assert the current system has so weakened the parties that they have lost control over not only the nomination process but fundraising, messaging, agenda-setting, and even the party brand. Because party nominees are often political entrepreneurs who owe their rise not to the party apparatus but to their connections with the people, it is harder for parties to impose legislative discipline on their elected officials or hold them accountable if they become a political liability.
That’s a lot to lay on the current primary system. While one can argue the current system has contributed to political polarization, there are certainly other factors (i.e., closely divided government, increased diversity, political sorting by ideology and residency, etc.) that have moved party nominees away from the median voter over the past 50+ years. Additionally, critics of the current system seem able to find proof their arguments are right everywhere they look, but that doesn’t always lend itself to logical consistency. For example, ideological outsiders like George McGovern are said to get trounced because they only appeal to their party’s base and lack the political instincts to win over more mainstream constituencies, but primary voters have typically rejected the most ideologically extreme candidates in the primaries. Jimmy Carter’s failure to win re-election in 1980 is often attributed to his outsider status, which endeared him to voters in 1976 but kept him from building the relationships necessary for passing an electorally popular agenda, yet Bill Clinton’s outsider status didn’t keep him from winning re-election. Maybe it’s just very difficult to find someone who is both a great campaigner and a great governor. And maybe there are political factors behind all this that also help explain the successes and failures of individual candidates and presidents.
Still, after what happened in 2016, I think it’s hard to defend the current system. There’s no way someone like Donald Trump—a man without political experience, a record of public service, or a distinguished resume; a man with no moral sense or even shame who party leaders recognized posed a danger to their party and the country; a politically amorphous man who had recently been a registered Democrat and could not be pinned down on many issues of importance to conservative voters—should have become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Trump embodies everything wrong with the current system: An outsider candidate with limited popular appeal who is better at riling up the masses than governing and who the party cannot control. The consequences have been disastrous for the Republican Party, a governing coalition that Trump has turned into a cult of personality.
Some might be glad Trump wrecked the Republican Party. If you’re saying that as a MAGA devotee, screw you for trashing our country. If you’re saying that as someone delighting in the GOP’s self-immolation, yeah, they had it coming, but that fire can spread and it’s already done damage. I prefer a Republican Party with a sense of responsibility to what we’re dealing with now. If the Republican Party had that sense of responsibility—or, as far as this article goes, the institutional heft—it would have stood up to Trump and his supporters in 2016 by denying him access to funds, distancing itself from his campaign, or replacing him as the party’s nominee. That would have cost them the presidential election (and maybe a few more) but it would have avoided either the profound reckoning they’re staring down now or the catastrophe Trump has in store for the nation. Back in 2016, I likened the situation to what Disney should do if the Magic Kingdom somehow ended up in the hands of Playboy: Take down the signs, dismantle Cinderella’s castle, and grab Mickey and Minnie on your way out. Protect the brand and start rebuilding. The Republican Party was just too weak as an institution to do the same. They let Trump turn Cinderella’s castle into a debauched grotto.
What happened in 2016 with the Democratic Party doesn’t mesh as neatly with the usual critiques of the post-1968 nomination system. That year, the candidate favored by the party establishment—Hillary Clinton—went virtually unchallenged for the party nomination. A number of factors kept other contenders from entering the race: Clinton’s strong showing in 2008 positioned her as next in line for the nomination; her strength among Democratic elites, donors, elected officials, and interest groups warded off competitors; and the historic nature of her candidacy dissuaded others from challenging her. The only prominent Democrat to enter the race was former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, and he barely made an impression with voters. Even then-vice president Joe Biden was dissuaded from a campaign.
But Clinton was a compromised candidate with a lot of political baggage. With the memory of the Great Recession still fresh in the minds of many voters, she was also seen as too cozy with the moderate, business-friendly wing of the Democratic Party that had ascended to power in the 1990s. Progressives feared Clinton could coast to the nomination without addressing their concerns.
Those concerns led Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to enter the race. Sanders was the Senate’s most liberal member and a progressive champion, but there was a big problem with his candidacy: He wasn’t a Democrat, serving instead in the Senate as an independent. That led many to question his loyalty to the party. Would he abandon the party as president if he began to receive pushback from elected Democrats? Was he committed to preserving the Democratic Party, the main organization dedicated to electing and empowering a broad-based coalition of liberal voters in America?
Clinton’s hold on the party was weaker than many expected. Sanders drew the support of both liberals and those who sought to protest the Democratic establishment’s coronation of Clinton, winning 23 states and just over 43% of the votes cast during the primary. In this case, Democratic voters prevented the insurgent ideological candidate from winning (activist voters do act pretty strategically when casting their votes in primaries) but Sanders’ strength reflected their dissatisfaction with the lack of options provided by the party.
It seems to me the main problem with today’s presidential nomination system is that the parties are too weak to exercise quality control over the process. Not only should Republicans have prevented Donald Trump from accepting their party’s nomination, but they should have kept him from running as a candidate for president in their party’s primaries to begin with. And Democrats should have made sure voters didn’t have to choose between an uninspiring candidate with a lot of political liabilities whom many believed would struggle winning over voters in a general election and a candidate who was not a member of their party. But given the massive war chests contemporary candidates have at their disposal and their ability to speak directly to the people, parties today do not have the leverage they need to ensure the party’s electoral ambitions, governing agenda, and long-term prospects are not undermined by bad candidates who feel no obligation to the party. This election cycle, it appears the parties once again lack the ability to provide voters with good, strong candidates. (I’ve written about this before: I think Joe Biden has done a good job as president. His success can be attributed to his political acumen and his sense for how things get done in Washington. He’s the type of politician we should want in the White House. He deserves re-election. But he is past his prime as a public figure and struggles to resonate with today’s voters. I hope I’m wrong about this, and there’s no guarantee the Democrats would improve on Biden, but I think Democrats would be better off with someone other than Biden at the top of the ticket. Democrats shouldn’t automatically defer to an incumbent president with so much at stake.)
So what could we do differently? Again, there’s no foolproof way to do this. Any system we adopt would have its benefits and drawbacks. But I could imagine a system in which the parties are empowered to select a field of about eight candidates and then host a series of forums and campaign events that give primary voters the opportunity to evaluate the candidates. The parties could then hold a series of votes that would winnow the field down to two candidates followed by a national primary. The candidates wouldn’t need to raise money in this time as all the campaign events would be organized and sponsored by the parties. The parties could serve as gatekeepers for who could potentially run for president under their banner and would control the purse strings during this early phase of the election season, which would keep candidates with flush bank accounts from bucking the party.
Could this actually work? It would require a massive overhaul of the primary system and the primary calendar; for example, instead of a series of state primaries, we might instead have three national primaries to winnow down the field, or two primary dates in which certain sets of jurisdictions (i.e., Iowa/New Hampshire/Nevada/South Carolina, followed by Arizona/Wisconsin/Georgia) voted to narrow the field followed by a national primary. Since the number of candidates running would eventually need to be reduced to two, the parties would need to find a system of voting (i.e., ranked choice) that could do that effectively while instilling confidence in the process. The campaign finance system would need to be restructured to recreate the fundraising capacity of parties and to ensure incumbent politicians did not attain a greater monetary advantage than they already possess.
The parties would also need to figure out how to pick their slate of primary candidates. In particular, they would need to make sure voters of all stripes felt like they had a real range of options to choose from. It’s likely candidates would find ways to campaign for those spots or work the selection process to their advantage, perhaps by trying to stack the deck in their favor by boosting weaker candidates. No one would want a system in which party insiders picked seven also-rans to challenge the party favorite. There’s also the problem that the sort of candidate who prevailed in this more deliberative process may not be suited for the rough and tumble of a national campaign. But that might lead us to think about how we might overhaul the national election process.
Overall, however, I suppose what I’m pushing for is a nomination process in which voters are guaranteed a slate of quality candidates representing a range of backgrounds and ideas and a system in which those candidates’ prospects are neither enhanced nor limited by the amount of money they have on hand. It also seems what I’m angling for is a more thoughtful process that doesn’t threaten to devolve into demagoguery. And once these reforms are in place, who knows what other changes might follow. Maybe Iowa and New Hampshire will finally lose the disproportionate influence they wield over the selection process. Or maybe the primary calendar can be condensed or pushed to later in the election process (whoever thought scheduling the Iowa caucuses for the middle of winter was a good idea anyway?)
But none of this can happen without stronger parties. Again, party wisdom is not infallible. A year ago, Republican insiders believed Ron DeSantis would be an incredibly strong candidate. They misjudged Hillary Clinton’s appeal. And stronger parties may still find themselves unable to dislodge a hobbled incumbent like Joe Biden. But if we’re seeking greater quality in the candidates we nominate for president within a system in which partisan voters ultimately decide who will represent their party on Election Day, we have to find a way to get the parties—organizations founded with the express intent of winning elections—more involved in the process as gatekeepers.
Signals and Noise
Don Trump thinks magnets lose their magnetic field when immersed in water. Don’t make it so easy, Don:
Trump is publicly hoping the economy will crash.
Diana Falzone of Mediaite reports longtime Republican political operator and Trump associate Roger Stone spoke with a New York City police officer about assassinating two Democratic congressmen. Mediaite has audio of the recording but has not yet released it. Stone claims the audio is AI generated, but the NYPD officer says the conversation happened. Stone first began working in politics with Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign and has worked on numerous campaigns since then. He started a lobbying firm in the 1980s with Paul Manafort. Stone was charged and convicted on seven felony counts in 2019 stemming from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe; Trump commuted his sentence and then pardoned him in 2020. Stone also played a role organizing the events that led to the 1/6 riot. MORE: Mediaite has released the tape.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I’ve been in law enforcement in Texas for 30 years, and I’ve never had people act this way. I’m ashamed!”—Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, from recently released video speaking to rioters on 1/6 through the broken glass of a door from the floor of the House of Representatives. Nehls’ has changed his tune about 1/6 since, going so far as to call rioter Ashli Babbitt’s death that day “murder.”
Florida Republicans ousted their state chair Christian Ziegler, who was accused of sexual assault by a woman who turned down a sexual encounter with Ziegler and his wife. Florida Republicans continue to stand by Don Trump, who last year was found guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial and engaged in a sexual relationship with an adult film actress while married to his current wife.
Robert Downen of the Texas Tribune reports Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi has been defending the state party’s largest donor despite the group’s ties to white supremacy while simultaneously working as an attorney for the group’s founder.
“I think it’s paradoxical to say that [the president’s] constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate the criminal law.”—Judge Karen L. Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, expressing skepticism that presidents have near blanket immunity from criminal prosecution during an appeals court hearing concerning Trump’s 1/6 case. The three judge panel appeared highly dubious of Trump’s claim, although they seemed open to requiring the trial judge to rule on whether Trump was acting in an official or private capacity following the 2020 election.
Paul Rosenzweig of The Bulwark points out that the arguments Trump’s lawyers used to assert their claims of presidential immunity logically lead to an absurd conclusion: That President Biden could order the assassination of Donald Trump and get away scot free. (Rosenzweig also can’t believe it’s come to the point where the country is entertaining such legal hypotheticals.)
By Michael Kruse of Politico: “‘This to Him Is the Grand Finale’: Donald Trump’s 50-Year Mission to Discredit the Justice System” (“Trump and his allies say he is the victim of the weaponization of the justice system, but the reality is exactly the opposite. For literally more than 50 years…Trump has taught himself how to use and abuse the legal system for his own advantage and aims. Many might view the legal system as a place to try to avoid, or as perhaps a necessary evil, or maybe even as a noble arbiter of equality and fairness. Not Trump. He spent most of his adult life molding it into an arena in which he could stake claims and hunt leverage.”)
Special prosecutor Jack Smith has uncovered new details concerning Trump’s inaction during the 1/6 insurrection. This is key, as people have started to zero in on Trump’s unwillingness to intervene as damning evidence that Trump wanted the rioters to successfully undermine the electoral process.
According to an ABC News poll, 49% of Americans favor keeping Trump off the ballot as an insurrectionist compared to 46% who don’t. Additionally, 56% of Americans support bringing criminal charges against Trump. My question: What sort of overlap is there between those who support bringing charges against Trump and those who intend on voting for him, and who constitutes that group?
Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, who is leading the election interference case against Trump in Georgia, is facing allegations she hired a special prosecutor she was in a romantic relationship with to conduct the investigation into Trump. Her office has steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to the prosecutor’s firm, leading Trump’s attorneys to argue Willis is personally profiting off the investigation.
Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic writes Nikki Haley likes to say she tells “hard truths” but her campaign rhetoric is typically mushy and often nonsensical.
“[Trump]’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the web sites, all the stuff — they just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers. And they don’t want to have their ratings go down.”—Ron DeSantis, complaining about the conservative media system he’s used to exploiting.
From Gallup:
By Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: “Why Iowa Turned So Red When Nearby States Went Blue” (One key point: “[S]tates with dynamic economic centers are luring college graduates from more rural states. Iowa loses 34.2 percent of its college graduates, worse than 40 of the 50 states, just below North Dakota, which loses 31.6 percent. Illinois, by contrast, gains 20 percent more college graduates than it produces. Minnesota has about 8 percent more than it produces.”) ALSO: “Two Iowa Counties an Hour Apart Show America’s Growing Political Divide” by Theodoric Meyer of the Washington Post
While covering the Iowa caucuses, Ruth Graham and Charles Homan of the New York Times identified a new type of voter Trump has connected with: Evangelical Christians who don’t attend church.
Congressional leaders have agreed to a top-line spending deal to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2024. The deal adheres to the one Kevin McCarthy cut with President Biden last spring. While the deal is separate from the package involving Israel-Ukraine aid and the border deal, hardline Republicans may still look to hold it up until they win concessions on border policy. (Punchbowl News has an overview of the politics of the bill, including how hardline conservatives will likely reject it, meaning Speaker Johnson will need to rely on Democrats in the House to get it into law. Punchbowl News is even reporting the knives are starting to come out for Johnson. And they have: On Wednesday, hardliners sank a procedural vote in the House, a sign the Speaker can’t count on their loyalty. Despite the pressure to renege on his deal with Democrats, Johnson said on Friday he would stand by the deal.)
Moderate Democrats are saying they’d save Mike Johnson if Republican hardliners attempt to vacate the Speaker. Mike Johnson’s reply:
The White House is considering a tough concession in its negotiations with Republicans over the border: Limiting the president’s immigration parole authority, which has historically been used to grant entry to migrants for humanitarian purposes, including those fleeing communist countries. The Biden administration has used it to relocate refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine.
House Republicans want to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for “gross incompetence,” which is not only not a standard for impeachment but a significantly lower standard than the one they applied to Don Trump when he was president.
A record 20 million Americans signed up for Obamacare in the most recent enrollment period. (Don Trump has said he wants to eliminate the program.)
One month ago, about 160 people were dying per week of the flu. That same week, ten times as many people died of COVID.
The United States admitted more than 2.3 million immigrants into the United States at the southern border in 2023. Many of those who gained entry did so as families and when services were overwhelmed at border crossings.
“[The] only thing we're not doing is shooting people who come across the border because the Biden Administration would, of course, charge us with murder.”—Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
The Federal Elections Commission recently asked a liberal SuperPAC to reveal its donors, but the SuperPAC refused without consequence, making dark money even darker.
The IRS has already collected $520 million from delinquent wealthy tax payers.
At issue in the 2024 election: The Trump tax cuts, which are aimed at the wealthy and expire in 2026. Republicans want to extend them. Democrats what to let them expire for high earners and then raise rates on the wealthy. The gap between the proposals is $6 trillion.
A CBS News poll found Americans’ views of the economy are becoming more positive.
The World Bank is projecting a decade of miserable growth (although the United States’ resilient economy is expected to make a bad global economy not as bad.)
A new hotly debated study is arguing economic inequality in the United States is not as bad as many claim it is and even less severe than it was in the 1960s.
Paul Demko of Politico reports on how states across the country are facing budget woes as infusions of federal pandemic aid come to a halt.
At the same time, 15 Republican governors have rejected a federally-funded summer program to provide food assistance to children when they’re not receiving school-provided lunches. Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen declined by stating, “I don’t believe in welfare.” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds felt there was no need for the program given high levels of childhood obesity.
By Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: “There’s Nothing Pro-Child About the GOP’s Resistance to Food Aid” (Opening lines: “In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.”)
Jeff Stein of the Washington Post looks at how Trump’s economic proposals—specifically his plan to impose higher tariffs across the board and to drastically cut immigration, plus his advocacy for sharply lower interest rates—could jack up inflation.
Abdallah Fayyad of Vox looks at how the shoplifting scare of the past few years was way overhyped yet set back efforts to reform the criminal justice system.
The U.S. and U.K. launched strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been firing rockets and drones at ships in the Red Sea.
David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger of the New York Times warn of the potential for a wider conflict with Iran now that their proxies have stepped up operations in the wider Middle East and as they have revived and accelerated their nuclear weapons program. They have also found allies in Russia and China who are no longer interested in deterring Iran’s ambitions.
Taiwan’s incumbent pro-sovereignty party won a record third presidential election, a victory that will likely agitate China.
By Jacob Stern for The Atlantic: “Substack was a Ticking Time Bomb”
Top 5 Records Music Review: We Need to Talk About Vinyl
Sometime before the pandemic, I was at a downtown Silver Spring record store rifling through their used CDs when I overheard the conversation of three twentysomething-year-old customers in the vinyl records section. One was helping the other two get started on building their music collections. I kind of rolled my eyes; I assumed if you were getting into vinyl in the late 2010s that you were enough of a music connoisseur not to need the guidance of a peer, but hey, maybe they were just sharing their favorites.
Suddenly, the leader of the pack got very excited. “Have you listened to this?” she asked? Her friends indicated they hadn’t. “Well, then, you have to get it.” I wondered what gem she had landed upon. Maybe a Big Star or Tom Waits or Modern Lovers record. Or perhaps a classic alt-rock, underground rap, or underappreciated pop album. It could be she landed on a relatively obscure deep cut from the album catalog of a legendary artist. I flashed back to that scene in High Fidelity where Jack Black’s record store employee discovers a customer doesn’t own Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde (“It’s gonna be OK.”) I was curious to find out what album they were talking about. I turned around to find it was this one:
You’re forgiven if you don’t know what album that is. If you’re unfamiliar with album art, that cover won’t help you much, since the band’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on it. In fact, the album doesn’t even have a title. It’s generally identified by a symbol printed on the record that appears to spell the word “Zoso.” That’s Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album.
The customer began explaining to her friends who Led Zeppelin was and why this album was great. I spun back around to the CD racks. This was way worse than that scene from High Fidelity.
Here’s the issue: “Zoso” is just about the most classic rock of classic rock albums. It’s sold 37 million copies, good enough to make it the 11th highest-selling album of all-time. It contains “Stairway to Heaven”, the most classic rock of classic rock songs.
If someone unfamiliar with Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album enters a record store to begin building a record collection, they need to stop and do some homework fast. Being told they ought to buy a copy of “Zoso” is like taking a friend who wants to start reading mystery novels to a bookstore and introducing them to an anthology of stories featuring this cool character they’ve never heard of named Sherlock Holmes (“Wait until you read ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’! It will blow your mind!”) Even worse, encouraging them to buy the album on vinyl is like telling your friend they need to buy the expensive leather-bound edition of Holmes stories when they can just pick up the $12 Bantam paperback.
I wanted to pull these two lost souls aside and tell them, “Listen, don’t spend $18 on this vinyl version of ‘Zoso’ when there’s a used CD of the same album right here selling for $4. In fact, if you go to one of the county library’s used bookstores, I’m sure you could find a copy for $2. Or better yet, just listen to the album first on Spotify to see if you like it. But if you do decide to go ahead with your purchase today, whatever you do, do not go to a listening party hosted by a group of hipsters, whip out ‘Zoso’, and ask the group if any of them have heard it before. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant will register your humiliation an ocean away.”
The current buzz around vinyl records boggles my mind. When the fad took off pre-pandemic, it seemed driven by hipsters drawn to a classic yet ironic way of listening to music. It meant digging their parents’ record collections out of the attic or scrounging through racks of used albums at rummage sales. More recently, though, vinyl has been embraced by a wider listening audience, driven I’d hypothesize by a desire to actually have in one’s possession a vintage-esque physical representation of music everyone can access for free on their phone’s YouTube app.
I understand that impulse. If everyone has an album, does anyone really have it? How does one make that album’s one own? How does a song become something more than an entry on a playlist? And if you’re a fan of a particular artist, how much of a fan are you if you only stream their albums? That’s why if you’re a Taylor Swift fan, you feel like you have to buy her music, and if you’re a serious fan, you buy her albums on vinyl, a serious format for listening to music, and buy all the different editions of the same album, and display their covers in all their glory.
So yes, if you’re a fan of an artist or really like an album, I can understand why you might buy a vinyl record. But can we just reflect on this practice for a moment. First of all, if all you want to do is display the cover, why couldn’t consumers just, you know, demand the cover sans record? (Someone take that idea to Shark Tank.)
More seriously, though, if you’re into the music, why prefer the vinyl format to the compact disc format? I thought consumers settled that debate back in 1986, when CD sales first surpassed LP sales. CDs are easier to store, particularly if you take them out of their cases. They are more portable, and can be listened to while walking around. They are compatible with computers and can be played in many vehicles. Their files can be ripped to hard drives, and it is easy to take those files and turn them into Very Meaningful and/or Awesome mixtapes to share with others. It’s much easier to play a particular track on a CD than on a record. CDs can contain up to 80 minutes of music and never have to be turned over to finish listening to them. Some people insist vinyl records sound better than CDs (and in some cases even prefer vinyl due to its imperfections) but I don’t hear much of a difference, and people have to admit that whatever difference does exist is pretty negligible and not disqualifying.
And then there’s the matter of price. I looked up how much it would cost to buy a physical copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run on Amazon the other day. Here’s what I found:
A vinyl copy of Born to Run costs 2.5X more than the CD! You could buy Born in the U.S.A. and about half of The River on CD for the cost of a single Springsteen vinyl record. But look closely at that listing: The $10 CD version of Born to Run—the one you don’t have to flip to hear both “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland”—sold only 50+ copies on Amazon over the past month, but the $25.00 version on an outmoded and inconvenient format featuring the exact same music sold more the 400+ copies!
Peoples!
I wanted to get my daughter a copy of Guts by Olivia Rodrigo on CD for Christmas this year. It was sold out online and wouldn’t be back in stock until after the new year. The only CDs stores were selling were a few Christmas albums and four different versions of Taylor Swift’s re-recorded 1989. I lucked into finding a lone copy of Guts for $11.99 at a Target a few weeks after Black Friday. Stores were selling vinyl copies, though, and not just of Guts, but of lots of titles.
But you know what my daughter was able to do with that CD of Guts that everyone else who got the vinyl version for Christmas couldn’t do? Listen to it over and over again on my old Panasonic discman as we travelled for hours by plane and car over winter break. Turns out my outmoded technology is still pretty useful.
Global vinyl record sales nearly topped $2 billion in 2022 and accounted for 78% of all copies of physical music sold in the US. (Makes sense since the average price of a vinyl record that year was $29.65.) Vinyl record sales had dropped to 1 million in 2006 but now exceed 41 million. Sales of vinyl records are back to levels last seen in 1988, when most Americans had to be wondering who in the world was still buying vinyl records. The highest selling album of 2022, Midnights by Taylor Swift, sold better on vinyl than on CD, the first contemporary album by a contemporary artist to pull off that feat in decades. It’s hard to wrap my mind around those numbers. Yes, the demand for copies of physical musical recordings has shrunk, but those still in the market for that product have made an inferior product their go-to version of the good they are seeking. It’s a customer-induced market failure. Adam Smith could probably explain it, but it would really stretch his theory.
It is completely understandable why people would want to own physical copies of the music they want to listen to. Someday we may wake up to find Taylor Swift has removed her music from streaming services and thrown it and the entirety of the Taylorverse behind a paywall and the rest of the recording industry will follow. Those of us who have spent the past decade hording physical albums rather than dumping them off at used record stores will find vindication as we mock everyone else’s lack of foresight.
But until a better format comes along, the physical medium everyone should currently be buying is the compact disc. Stop buying vinyl records! Or, better yet, follow this handy guide to determine if you should buy vinyl records or CDs:
Are you a hip-hop artist, record producer, or DJ whose work depends on sampling or manipulating vinyl records?
Yes —> You can buy vinyl records.
No —> Go to question #2.
Do you have a record collection mostly consisting of albums released prior to 1985 that you enjoy listening to?
Yes —> Go for it, buy vinyl records, just know they’ve gotten really expensive.
No —> Got to question #3.
Can you honestly tell the difference between the “warm sound of vinyl” and the sound of CDs, and do you believe that difference enhances the listening experience?
Yes —> You can buy vinyl. I’m happy the format you prefer is back in vogue.
No —> 🛑 You have no reason to buy vinyl records.
And no, I’m not a cranky old man wearing a red MCDGA cap lamenting the way the world has left him behind. I know this because I’m not the one insisting on revitalizing a format that reached its heyday during the Carter administration. Boomers are entitled to buy as many vinyl records as they want. Zoomers not so much.
Kids, hear me out: When you get invited to a party and are told to bring along your crate of vinyl records for a listening sesh, do this instead. Ask your parents for $50, but rather than hop on Amazon and blow every penny of that on vinyl copies of “Zoso” and Houses of the Holy, peruse this list or this list or this list and then find a used CD store. Use that $50 to buy a bunch of classic albums. You can create a really good collection really fast this way. Then ask your parents for their old 48-disc CD carrying case, load it up, then go to your party.
When your friends give you the side-eye for bringing CDs to a vinyl party, scan their measly collections and then take them on a tour of your extensive musical collection. Introduce them to the wonders of the Smiths, Curtis Mayfield, PJ Harvey, the Replacements, Talking Heads, the late 70s albums by David Bowie they really should have listened to by now, and yes, Led Zeppelin (I, II, III, “Zoso”, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti, all purchased used for the price of one shiny new Zeppelin album on vinyl.) They may have a vinyl copy of the Beatles’ White Album (is the cover really worth $55?) but you have a universe of music, and that’s what really matters.
Kids, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on. And if you don’t understand what I mean by that, get yourself a copy of “Zoso”. On CD, of course.