article and my own observation of
similar panics in France suggest that
toilet-paper shortages are a trend in
the West. Data on the usage of toilet
paper in Asian countries during the
pandemic would help determine
whether such hoarding is a phenom-
enon elsewhere in the world. In any
case, this crisis provides a unique op-
portunity to compare how objective
factors (like housing, environment,
and access to goods) and subjective
factors (like education levels, religious
beliefs, and cultural traditions) in-
fluence toilet-paper panics. It may
sound a bit silly, but this information
would be useful not only to scientists
and psychiatrists but also to toilet-
paper manufacturers, distributors, and
consumers across the globe.
Jean-Claude Roujeau
Châtenay-Malabry, FranceAlford’s piece reminded me of my
time teaching in post-Soviet Russia
during the economic depression there
in the nineteen-nineties, a collapse
that makes our recent stock-market
downturn look like a blip. In Russia,
there wasn’t enough toilet paper to
hoard. When I recall how much time
we spent every day trying to find just
one or two rolls, I wonder how we got
anything else done. The only kind that
was available was rough and gray, and
it was not perforated into individual
sheets. At the university where I
taught, there was no toilet paper at
all; instead, old textbooks on Marx-
ism-Leninism were “repurposed” in
the restrooms, one book per stall. You
simply tore off the number of pages
you needed, then consigned them to
the sewer pipe—rather than to the
dustbin—of history.
Sharon Hudgins
McKinney, TexasTHE LONG GAME
Susan B. Glasser, in her piece about the
Republican operative Sarah Longwell,
writes that Longwell, unlike many Re-
publicans, “did not make her accom-
modations, political and moral, with
the new President” (“Hope Dies Last,”
March 30th). Although Longwell is
certainly resisting Donald Trump now,
she is still a member of the party that
made his ascendancy possible.
The G.O.P. that Longwell joined
at the turn of the twenty-first century
was the same party that welcomed
white people who resented Lyndon B.
Johnson’s civil-rights legislation. It
also ignored the AIDS epidemic, which
killed hundreds of thousands of mostly
gay, black, brown, and poor Ameri-
cans. Ronald Reagan pushed to de-
regulate corporations and slash taxes
for the wealthy, intensifying inequal-
ity. He also courted the religious right,
which roundly rejects scientific truths,
and he used racist dog whistles, such
as the term “welfare queen.” In the
early two-thousands, George W. Bush’s
Administration chipped away at abor-
tion rights and established ineffectual,
abstinence-only sex education.
The truth is that the Republican
Party has been the sanctuary of a small,
vocal, and increasingly reactionary slice
of the American electorate for more
than fifty years. What did Longwell
think would happen when a white al-
leged billionaire promised to “make
America great again” by deporting
Mexicans, banning Muslims, and cur-
tailing women’s reproductive auton-
omy? Trump may have reaped the har-
vest, but the G.O.P. tilled the ground
and planted the seeds.
Ebony Edwards-Ellis
New York City
1
TOILET-PAPER MUSINGS
As a retired doctor who is occasion-
ally involved in clinical research, I was
interested in Henry Alford’s analysis
of toilet-paper panic hoarding (The
Talk of the Town, March 30th). His
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
[email protected]. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.