From a reader:

Jonah–
Like your former correspondent, I want to finish my Ph.D. but I won’t seek a
job in academia unless it’s at a small college tucked away in a red state
somewhere. This is a lonely life.
If it were just me, I might try to make it through. But I have a family to
support and I don’t feel like playing Russian Roulette with a tenure
committee.
I do take some comfort in the words of Harvey Mansfield, upon learning that
a couple of his grad students were passed over for academic jobs: “Oh
well, I guess they’ll just have to go to Washington and run the country!”
Please, obviously, don’t use my name.