Give thanks for the Pilgrims and private property

Most Americans know the rudiments of the Thanksgiving story: How the Pilgrims suffered through that first year in the place they called Plymouth. How food and shelter were so inadequate during the bitter winter of 1620-21 that most of the small company grew sick and half its members died. How the survivors struggled to get the seeds they had brought from Europe to grow in the stony Massachusetts soil and how they might have starved if kindly Indians hadn't taught them to plant corn. How they were grateful for the first small harvest they managed in the summer of 1621, and for the abundance of fish and game with which they were able to supplement it.

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AMERICANS ALWAYS HAD their doubts about the Iran nuclear deal.

In July 2015, the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russian, and the European Union agreed to lift economic sanctions in exchange for a rollback of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. The deal would be a boon "for the United States, for our allies in the region, and for world peace," Obama argued. It would prevent Iran from getting the bomb and ensure that its nuclear activities were "exclusively peaceful."

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DURING THE presidential primary campaign last winter, as Democratic candidates were promoting various plans to cancel federal student loan debt, one Iowa father's encounter with Elizabeth Warren captured the raw unfairness of the idea.

"My daughter's getting out of school. I saved all my money [so] she doesn't have any student loans," the man said. "Am I going to get my money back?"

"Of course not," Warren answered.

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MASSACHUSETTS POLITICOS spend an inordinate amount of time speculating about what will happen if Elizabeth Warren leaves the Senate to take another position. The subject came up in 2019 during Warren's run for the Democratic presidential nomination; it resurfaced earlier this year when she was angling to be Joe Biden's running mate. Now, with the Bay State's senior senator being bruited for Treasury secretary in the next administration, the topic is alive again.

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"AN ELECTION does not end when the winner declares victory," wrote Scott Farris in "Almost President," his 2011 study of unsuccessful presidential candidates. "It ends only when the loser concedes defeat. This may seem a minor distinction, but it is what makes American democracy work."

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