Sunday Mailbag

We got a couple of e-mails this week complaining that we always talk about the same things (specifically, "elections" and "who is going to win"). The rest of the messages in the mailbag would beg to differ, however.

Politics: This Week in Trumpworld

J.A. normally of Austin, TX, but currently in St. Louis, MO, writes: My wife and I are on a road trip, and the appearance of a Trump sign reminded me of the election-year signage reporting, and I thought of providing our observations from driving through rural parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Yes, this isn't a presidential election year, and Donald Trump's not legally able to run again, at least as long as the Constitution has a say in the matter (a dubious proposition, given the Supreme Court's recent rulings, but I digress...), but those things have been of little consequence to people who fly Trump flags or erect Trump signage to show their love of Dear Leader.

We saw a considerable number of signs for various local primary contests, and ample other signage clearly indicating the conservative tilt of the territory we drove through. But it didn't hit me until we did see the one Trump sign... that we hadn't seen ANY other Trump signage.

I don't know how many locations along our route previously demonstrated their owners' cult membership, but demonstrating their membership is apparently no longer something they seem to want to do anymore.

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J.C. in Oakton, VA, writes: Two POTUS clips for Democratic ads. Both fueled by POTUS temper tantrums:

1. "I love the inflation."
2. "Housing affordability is of minor importance."

That's it. Every ad. All day and night. All media mediums.

The Democrat paying for the ad doesn't even need to say anything other than, "I approved this message."

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S.D. in York, England, UK, writes: Maybe it's just me, but from this below image, the Republican Elephant is ALL I could see in the reflecting pool. Four legs, a trunk and the central line all on an elephant's body! Squinting, there are even "stars" on the top of the body!

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J.L. in Los Angeles, CA, writes: As I recall, in Greek mythology, the arrogant Narcissus was brought down by a reflecting pool.

Not sure why that story came to mind just now...

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M.M. in San Diego, CA, writes: Learned a new word that perfectly describes all the DOGE embeds and the majority of this administration's appointees: ULTRACREPIDARIAN!

You're welcome.

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S.Z. in Parma, OH, writes: The individual using the alias "J.D. Vance" is an absolute fraud. At times, he admits it: "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do." That translated: "I will lie to get the media to talk about what i want them to talk about." The most Republican thing ever said.

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A.T. in Elkton, MD, writes: You wrote:

[Hempstead Town Receiver of Taxes, and House candidate, Jeanine C. Driscoll (R)] says her main priority is to "enhance the quality of life of Nassau County residents." As opposed to all the politicians whose goal is to make their constituents' lives worse. The main way in which Driscoll wishes to achieve this goal is by "securing our southern border." Inasmuch as the border, at its nearest point, is a mere 1,865 miles from NY-04, we can see how securing it would definitely represent a radical change in the lives of Nassau County residents.

To be fair, making their constituents' lives worse has been the practice for the Republicans in the Trump era.

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J.F. in Fayetteville, NC, writes: You noted that Jeanine Driscoll is running on protecting "our" Southern border, which you seem to assume is Mexico. But I pulled out my trusty world map, and drew a line due south of Driscoll's Nassau County, Long Island, district. And what piece of land is due south of Long Beach, Long Island? Why... Long Island, in the Bahamas. Which is, of course, governed by the city of... Nassau. Clearly, Driscoll has met the enemy, and the enemy is us. Clearly the Brits are preparing to re-take the colonies after 250 years!

Unless she's looking at Conception Island, and this is deep code for being anti-abortion. More research is needed.

Politics: Foreign Affairs

S.K. in Bethesda, MD, writes: I thought the last couple years made clear that the alternative to the flawed Pax Americana was a far scarier world, which is why I was surprised to read the gleeful comments from D.A. in Brooklyn and S.A.K. in Karnataka. It's hard for me to imagine the thought process that leads one to be pleased at a situation that will be so harmful to pretty much everyone around the world, in the form of more insecurity, higher prices for energy, and an easier environment for authoritarians and other bad state and non-state actors to operate in. It's like being happy the plane you are in is plummeting to earth out of control because you have a personal beef with the pilot. You and all the other passengers are headed for disaster—but at least the pilot is embarrassed. People all over the world will starve, suffer from tyranny and die violent deaths, but at least the American imperialists have been humbled, so it's all good.

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M.G. in Boulder, CO, writes: History may or may not teach lessons, but it sometimes leaves messages.

This is from Godfrey of Cambrai, Prior of Winchester, addressed to Matilda, Queen of England and wife of William the Conqueror: "The King dominated his enemies with arms, and you, Matilda, dominated them with peace. And your peace turned out to be far more efficient than war."

This was not flattery by which Godfrey hoped to gain, it was a tribute to the deceased queen, from whom he could expect nothing, but it was surely also meant as advice to those of us living in the future.

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E.R. in Padova, Italy, writes: I read "Meloni Rebukes Trump," and I would like to observe that there is a non-zero chance that here Italian PM Giorgia Meloni has learned a trick or two (from Bibi?), and is "playing Trump like a fiddle."

It is true that Meloni's government recently experienced some setbacks, and that its popularity might have decreased, but I'd say it's only marginal (in the 2022 elections, the Meloni-led coalition got roughly 44% of the votes; at present, polls give them roughly 42%). But Meloni knows very well that the vast majority of her voters (and of italians in general) loathe Trump. The bump in popularity she experienced in April (when Trump attacked her and the Pope) is proof of this.

While it's entirely possible that Trump's "gratuitous swipe at Meloni" was just Trump being his usual self, it is also entirely possible that Meloni actually instigated him to do so. For example, she might have promised something in exchange for a photo-op, and then reneged on the deal in the hope that Trump would take the bait and tell the press "She begged me to take a photo with her. She wanted a photo with me so badly." Everyone would believe her denial (such a photo would be poisonous for her), and she would probably enjoy another bump in the polls.

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J.N. in Columbus, OH, writes: You wrote: "We have seen this movie over and over again. It always ends the same way. People who support Trump are always taking a huge risk. In the end, he throws them all under the bus, as Meloni has now learned the hard way. Bibi, guess what? You're next."

Based on Meloni's current popularity at home, I think this one is a bit different. She's smart and saw how Trump got the Canadians to support PM Mark Carney. My personal opinion is that Meloni is capable of playing 3-D chess and made some sort of deal to get Trump to say that stuff about her so she could act all outraged about it. I think this is all theater to unify the Italians in her corner. If so, this play has worked very well.

What does Trump get from it? Ego-stroking from a younger, good-looking blonde woman. There could very well be some other quid pro quo, but there wouldn't have to be. It could even be as simple as she's in electoral danger, and Trump wants a friend in power as he has so few. She also apparently has a Russian connection, so Putin may have yanked Trump's chain here. That part's full-on speculation, though.

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V.W. in Wilts, England, UK, writes: Just to throw a curveball into the Labour v. Labor question, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is spelled without the "U," but Australia generally uses British spelling for words like "labour" and "colour." So while the British Labour Party was founded to advance the interests of labor, the Australian Labor Party was founded to advance the interests of labour.

P.S.: I had a rather vulgar uncle who used to say ALP stood for "ar**holes, lemmings and papists." The third of those obviously refers to the party's traditional base in the Irish and Italian Catholic working class. What the other two referred to, he did not say.

Politics: Running Elections

G.S. in Palm Spring, CA, writes: Your analysis of electoral infrastructure is excellent. What strikes me about Trump's endless harping about voter ID and that without it, elections are suspect to fraud, is that he wins either way with his MAGA base. If he wins the election, then all is legit. If he loses, it's because of voter fraud. And clearly his base believes him.

Additionally, when you read the comment section from various news sources, most comments seem to relate to how ridiculous it is the ID wouldn't be required. Much of the nuance that you talk about seems to be lost on readers and voters. That Trump throws the incredibly complex 50 statewide elections, and electoral infrastructure, into doubt for self-serving purposes seems downright treasonous to me, but I suppose it serves his purposes.

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M.T. in Paris, France (but originally from Los Angeles), writes: This whole problem with verifying citizenship in order to register Americans to vote is actually the result of not having a national ID card like most countries have. The United States has never had this; we rely on providing our Social Security numbers for official documents, but that is not a photo ID and, besides, non-citizens also have social security numbers. Maybe universal passports would be another way to go. Make passports free, or at least inexpensive, and give them to everybody. They could be used for basic identification purposes as well as voter registration and other situations where Americans need photo ID. Bonus: Maybe more Americans would travel outside the country and see how people live in the rest of the world.

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D.N. in Elgin, IL, writes: I'm a married woman who took my husband's name, so with a birth certificate and a marriage license, I should be able to register to vote under the SAVE Act, right? But the name on my birth certificate is not the name I have been known by since I started school at age 5. The name on my birth certificate is a common name but with a different spelling (think of "Izabella" or "Jayson" these days).

By the time I was entering school, my parents realized this would be a lifelong problem for me, and they just told the school my name with the usual spelling, and added a middle name, which I hadn't formerly had. Schools didn't check birth certificates in the 1950s, or for quite a while after that.

I'm sure there are men whose parents did the same thing, for various reasons. Maybe they changed a boy from a Junior, or to a Junior. My father's middle name was originally Karl, but his family changed it to Carl to make it appear less Germanic.

Interestingly, there is ONE place in the federal records that ties the two together. When I applied for a social security number at age 16, there was a line on the paper form asking for the name on my birth certificate. So on a moldering piece of paper in a file somewhere (maybe), that information exists. Good luck finding it.

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S.C. in Mountain View, CA, writes: You answered a question from B.H. in St. Paul about why it takes Washington, DC (and other jurisdictions) so long to report RCV results, presumably as compared to non-RCV results. (Z) wrote: "First, because you cannot produce results until you've got all ballots." While that's true for final official results, and so also applies to non-RCV elections, it's not true for preliminary results, which DC could have produced, but did not produce, on election night. Instead, it waited five days before producing the first preliminary RCV tally.

The best practice, as recommended by FairVote, is for a jurisdiction to run and release a preliminary RCV tally with whatever ballots it has in hand at the same time, and as often as it releases preliminary results for non-RCV contests.

Election administrators are, rightfully, a cautious lot, but sometimes they can be too cautious. The first time they run an RCV election they may be concerned that, if they release a preliminary tally on election night, and then another preliminary tally some days later after more ballots have been processed, the preliminary results might change and that might confuse the voters. (I have heard this from election administrators who were approaching their first RCV election.)

But that can happen in non-RCV elections as well; just take a look at the recent primaries in the California gubernatorial contest or the Los Angeles mayoral election where the preliminary results changed over time as more ballots were processed. For reasons that I do not understand, those overly cautious election administrators don't think voters will be confused by changes in preliminary results in non-RCV contests, but they WILL be confused by changes in preliminary results in RCV contests.

(Z) goes on to write: "processing ranked-choice takes a lot of time, and has to be double- and sometimes triple-checked to make sure no errors were made. Much harder than processing single-candidate-style ballots."

I'd like to know the source for that, because election administrators do not examine every ballot looking for errors. Ballots are scanned, the scanner records the votes cast on each ballot, and if a marking is ambiguous the scanner sets the ballot aside for manual adjudication. This happens with both RCV and non-RCV ballots, and I have seen no data that says RCV ballots are more likely to require manual adjudication than non-RCV ballots.

As for the computer time to run the RCV algorithm on the ballot data, that depends on the computer's speed and the number of ballots. It can take several seconds. But that's not the cause of delayed results. The cause is election administrators who, for whatever reason, do not want to follow the recommended best practices.

Politics: SCOTUS

V.L.B. in Murphysboro, IL, writes: If we are emphasizing how partisan SCOTUS has become, why not refer to them as voting "along party lines," rather than "ideological." I don't think the Republican Party has an ideology anymore, anyway. Just whatever will tick off Democrats. Or "Dumocrats," as their leader likes to call us.

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T.M. in Aldergrove, BC, Canada, writes: I just ran across the questionnaire submitted by The Hon. Glenn D. Joyal in support of his request (successful) for consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada and thought that you might find the "minor" differences between that and the U.S. method amusing.

Strangely enough not a single one of Mr. Joyal's bios mention any political affiliation whatsoever.

Canucks are weird, eh?

Politics: Carbon Capture

V.W. in Wilts, England, UK, writes: R.T. in Arlington wrote: "For 20 years, I have believed the long-term strategic play is to develop the technology to capture carbon dioxide from air, combine it with water and electric power, and synthesize hydrocarbon fuels."

But this technology doesn't need to be developed—at least for making natural gas, it's a nineteenth-century chemical engineering (the Sabatier process). They use a version of it on the International Space Station, albeit for the purpose of recovering water rather than producing methane; they dump the methane into space. The process for making liquid hydrocarbons is also well understood; the Germans did it during both world wars when their oil supplies were disrupted.

The challenge is doing it at scale and at a sensible cost. In that regard, I suspect R.T is right—we'll figure out how to do that, particularly if we have scarce and expensive fossil fuels to incentivize us so to do.

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M.T. in Oceanside, CA, writes: R.T. in Arlington had a very interesting comment regarding carbon dioxide capture from the air to make fuel. Aircela Inc. manufactures a refrigerator-size unit that does just that. It's interesting technology, but right now it uses a tremendous amount of electricity, about 75 kilowatt hours for one gallon of gas. My Chevy Equinox EV uses about 6 kilowatt hours for the equivalent of one gallon of gas (25 miles). I'm with R.T. on earnestly pursuing and improving carbon dioxide capture technology, along with improving electric vehicles and other green technologies. I'm hoping the Iran debacle will get us there faster. Thank you, R.T. for your enlightening comment!

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D.H. in Boston, MA, writes: I would like to push back on the suggestion from R.T. in Arlington that carbon capture is a good energy strategy. The problem is that it would require two stages, where energy conversions would result in a lot of electricity being wasted. Take cars, for example. As I understand it, the first stage would be converting electricity to a synthetic version of gasoline or diesel. The best known processes for those conversions have an efficiency of only about 50%, so you're losing half the electricity you put in. Then, something that fossil fuel enthusiasts may not be aware of is that about 70% of the fuel burned by a car is wasted as a side product of heat in the conversion to mechanical energy. Only about 30% of the energy in gasoline gets converted to forward motion. When you combine both stages, only about 15% of the original electricity would actually be used to move the car forward with synthetic fuel.

With electric vehicles, about 80% of the electricity they are charged with goes to actually moving the vehicle, so they would use something like 4-5 times less of the original electricity to go the same distance as cars powered by synthetic fuel. At scale, EVs will require far less electricity than vehicles powered by synthetic fuel.

It is true that batteries have lower energy densities than a tank of gasoline, but the conversion rate of electricity to motion is so much better with EVs that it more than makes up for their lower energy density. Also, energy density is continuing to get better and better for batteries.

Carbon capture might once have made more sense, but things have changed a lot in the last few years, as batteries have become economically viable. I am convinced that pure electrification is the best main energy strategy for most, if not all, countries. I am hoping Donald Trump's stupid war on Iran will hasten the changes that will support that strategy.

Politics: Medical Matters

Anonymous writes: The HPV vaccine is truly a miracle; however, it will not eliminate all forms of cervical cancer. I'm a 72-year-old woman. I had a hysterectomy 30 years ago and my docs said I'd no longer need Pap smears. Last summer, I had spotting, which is a bad sign. A biopsy showed I had Stage II cervical cancer—Müllerian clear cell adenocarcinoma. Tests showed my cancer is not related to HPV. According to my gyn-oncologist, the HPV vax wouldn't have helped me. Both my gyn and radiologist said this is a rare cancer.

So, the moral of my story: Ladies, get your Pap smear. If you've had a hysterectomy, find out if you still have a cervix. I had no idea I had one after my hysterectomy. And many websites have incorrect information about what age a woman no longer needs a pap. They say 65! I asked my gyn-oncologist about this and she said it's obsolete information as people are living longer. A Pap would have caught my cancer earlier when it's easier to treat.

And yeah, I get it. Paps are not comfortable. But take it from me—cancer treatment is a whole hell of a lot worse.

And get your kids vaccinated! Of course, I really don't need to say this as Electoral-Vote.com readers are smarter than the average bear.

In addition to the standard cancer treatment of chemo (Cisplatin), radiation, and brachytherapy, I'm getting immune therapy, Keytruda, which supposedly works well against my type of cancer. I'll be on that for 2 years. After my last PET scan, I asked my doctor if my tumor was dead. She said it was gone. While I am happy with that result, I'm still left with the thoughts that there are cancer cells floating around my body hoping to set up at some other site a few years down the road. We have no idea if the Keytruda is making my immune system kill these bastard cancer cells. I still have fatigue from the treatment. And like most cancer patients, have to deal with the roller coaster of emotions that come with cancer.

Don't feel bad for me. I know I've been lucky. My docs gave me the impression cervical cancer, if caught early, is curable. Nausea meds worked well for me. I tolerate Keytruda well. Treatment is debilitating and I'm grateful to have a partner who drove me to treatment—7 weeks, every day at the hospital for some sort of treatment or test. He got groceries, fixed meals, all those chores I wasn't able to do. My insurance has not been a problem. So many much younger than me have died of cancer, I feel lucky to have made it to 72 with no health problems until now.

I see encouraging news about cancer research and promising new treatments. It's a shame funding has been cut here in the U.S. But I'm hopeful other countries will be developing improved cancer treatments.

(V) & (Z) respond: Good luck! We are sending positive thoughts in your direction.

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M.C. in Drogheda, Ireland, writes: "Quackery" does not do full justice to Robert Kennedy Jr. and his ilk, on the matter of HPV vaccine.

How about "spiteful maliciousness"?

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M.S. in Raleigh, NC, writes: Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) is just another typical Republican politician.

Even after having gone through this terrible ordeal, which she and her party created, Cammack is unable to see the point. The Republican Party is so focused on FORCING others to bend to their will that they miss the fact that with some issues, like abortion, the government should not be telling anyone what to do. Every single woman who has ever been pregnant has faced a unique situation. Even a woman's second pregnancy is a unique situation. She is older, and even if the father is the same person, the relationship may have changed. Every pregnancy and every pregnant woman presents a unique situation; there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this issue and there never will be. And the only people who should be making decisions about any one of those unique situations are the people in those situations, along with their doctors.

The ONLY sensible way to lower abortions is to lower pregnancies, but the Republican Party is just too dense to ever realize that. They could focus on helping women who don't want to get pregnant avoid pregnancy. They could focus on expanding adoption and making it easier for everyone involved. They could focus on high school education and free birth control, but that's not how Republicans operate. They only focus on the problem, not how we got there.

Republicans' crusade for voter ID is another example of this. To them, the problem is "too many people vote against us." But how they got there was: "we're a**holes, we're stupid, we lie about everything, we're incompetent, our policies are unpopular, and the only reason any of us has a job is because the media is so blatantly biased in our favor." They aren't interested in not being a**holes, or electing smarter or more competent people. They aren't interested in policies that reflect the majority. They are only interested in getting what they want by force. This is the core of being a Republican: forcing your beliefs on others without the slightest bit of empathy for anyone affected.

The only time Republicans care about their policies is when their policies directly and adversely affect them. And that is why the Representative from Florida cared about it when it happened to her, but hasn't changed her mind one bit. She isn't outraged and screaming on Fox about the pro-life group that harassed hospital staff and lied about the Florida law. Because it's no longer her problem; the issue has been resolved for her. And she learned nothing from it. Which is exactly what I would expect from a closed-minded, ignorant conservative politician.

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M.J. in Buckinghamshire, England, UK, writes: This interview was a complete joke, I blame Tara Palmeri as much as I do Kat Cammack—we knew Cammack would do that but Palmeri just let her spew her piffle. If this were, for example, a BBC interview they would have pressed Cammack so hard. As you wrote, the Representative blamed everyone but herself and her Florida Republicans. The only true thing she really said is that American healthcare is a joke, although she's wrong it's not Florida's fault—that state actually has a lot to answer for.

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T.C. in Saint Paul, MN, writes: You wrote about how STAT reported that POTUS might have received retatrutide under an FDA compassionate-use exemption. If true, I can't imagine that Eli Lilly is happy about the news getting out. Clearly, the drug didn't work.

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R.Y. in Knoxville, TN, writes: This is completely non-political, but your comment about chocolate being possibly needed by a diabetic as a quick way to increase blood glucose levels is commonly held to be true but is medically unsound.

There are lots of calories in chocolate driven by fat, which slows down glucose absorption. The correct solution is glucose tablets, which are absorbed in the mucous membranes in the mouth on contact. If these are not available, non-fatty carbs give relief, although slower than glucose tablets.

I am not trying to nitpick, but I try to correct this for safety reasons when I see it.

Politics: The Two Tammys

A.B. in Wendell, NC, writes: OK, guys, I DO know you were messing with me with that response, and it sure did give me a chuckle. But I wanted to really drive home to you why I said wat I did... with a story you probably know nothing about.

Travel back in time with me, to the early 2000's. School is now in session, and your professor (yours truly) will give you a trans history lesson. In the early 2000's, HRC (The Human Rights Campaign, not Hillary) was pushing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. At the time, they were also very anti-trans. In fact, trans people like me who lived through that era do not like or trust HRC to this very day. I routinely refer to them as the Homosexual Rights Campaign. I still remember then-HRC President Elizabeth Birch was quoted in 2000 in Bay Windows magazine, as saying "trans will be included in ENDA over my dead body."

(HRC has since made a habit of taking credit for other people's work in regards to trans rights, I might add... but I digress.)

Now, fast-forward with me to 2007. ENDA was again the hot issue. Then-HRC President Joe Solmonese (who in 2020 was also CEO of the DNC) came to Southern Comfort—which, at the time, was the largest trans convention in the nation. He stood before all of us, and apologized to us for HRC's lack of support for the trans community to that point.

He PROMISED us he would not support any ENDA legislation that was not trans-inclusive. He left Southern Comfort with $20K of trans money... AND THEN ALL BUT BROKE HIS NECK TO SUPPORT BARNEY FRANK'S NON-TRANS-INCLUSIVE ENDA BILL!

Enter then-Rep. (now Sen.) Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Tammy introduced a competing trans-inclusive ENDA. Everyone knew that even if either bill passed, they were DOA on Dubya's desk. SO THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THE TREACHERY OF JOE SOLMONESE! I will never forgive nor forget this betrayal.

The point is, Tammy stood up for us when nobody else would. I have never forgotten. And Tammy is the ONLY out-of-state candidate I have ever sent money to. And the above is also the reason I shed not one tear at the passing of Barney Frank. As far as I am concerned he was a backstabbing jerk.

But now you know why I believe Tammy Baldwin is one of the two best people currently in the Senate. The other, as you know, is Tammy Duckworth. But I got to admit, I got more than a few chuckles over the Tuberville reference!

(V) & (Z) respond: We got several e-mails who thought we were legitimately confused, and did not realize there are two Tammys in the Senate. We might not know every member of the House, but readers can be assured that we know all 100 members of the Senate.

History Matters

R.M. in Ypsilanti, MI, writes: I've been a reader off and on for some time, but this is my first time writing in. I had to respond to the recent discussion of U.S. foreign policy blunders and successes, where you stated that you don't consider U.S. policy toward Native American nations as foreign policy. In response to a reader questioning this perspective, you wrote "And the fact is that Native Americans are now citizens of the U.S. Further, while the tribes benefit now from the legal notion that they are quasi-sovereign nations, that notion was originally created to justify military and legal action against them. And so, it's in the same ballpark as the three-fifths compromise. Most historians consider Indian policy to be domestic policy, for these reasons."

I will state up front that I am not Indigenous, nor am I an academic historian of Indigenous peoples. I am a public historian in the field of historic preservation, and my work regularly includes places important to the history, culture and spiritual heritage of Indigenous people. I do not presume to speak for Indigenous people, but I have learned a great deal by engaging in respectful listening and discussion with Indigenous scholars, tribal historians, elders, and knowledge-holders as well as reading recent scholarship that challenges and reframes historical narratives shaped by colonial dominance (highly recommended: Pekka Hämäläinen's Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America).

Indigenous people in the United States were not accorded full birthright citizenship until 1924. This was not ostensibly* a racial policy—after all, the Fourteenth Amendment stated that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The Senate Judiciary Committee clarified in 1870 that "the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has no effect whatever upon the status of the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States," precisely because tribes were sovereign and therefore not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, the colonial and then the U.S. federal government engaged with tribes as sovereign nations capable of making treaties, negotiated under the authority of the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. In some limited circumstances, individual members of tribes could be granted U.S. citizenship—for example under the Dawes Act of 1887, Native Americans could become citizens if they accepted individual land grants. This policy was, of course, meant to undermine communal ownership of tribal lands, but it reinforces that Indigenous people who remained within a tribal community were considered citizens of a separate nation.

Even though the United States government chose, repeatedly, to ignore the terms of the treaties they signed, or to use them as a pretext for "military and legal action against" native tribes, it remains true that the U.S. largely dealt with Native American tribes through the instruments of foreign policy (e.g., treaties), including the two events cited by the CFR: the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the forced removal of Cherokee people in 1838.

I also want to push back on the idea that Indigenous sovereignty is a "legal notion" created by the U.S. government. Today, federally recognized tribes are sovereign entities in law. Their right to govern themselves is an inherent one, claimed and defended by tribal nations for hundreds of years, recognized but not granted by the U.S. government. There are specifically defined areas in which the U.S. government exerts its jurisdiction, but much like the Tenth Amendment, powers not specifically assigned to the U.S. government are reserved to the tribal nations. In turn, the U.S. government holds a "trust responsibility" to tribal nations that obliges it to act in their best interests and to enforce treaty rights. Tribal nations within the boundaries of the U.S. take their sovereignty VERY seriously. From their perspective, tribal sovereignty pre-dates the establishment of the U.S. and was affirmed through nation-to-nation treaties negotiated in good faith on the part of the tribes. In the face of repeated (and ongoing) attempts at physical and cultural erasure, defending sovereignty is a primary tool in protecting their citizens, land and culture. In my own practice, federal agencies such as the National Park Service and General Services Administration operate within a government-to-government relationship with federally recognized tribes.

Finally, to address the claim that "most historians consider Indian policy to be domestic policy," this framing may accurately describe what a particular subset of the discipline argues. It almost certainly reflects that most non-Indigenous academics, especially those who have been around for a while, were trained in traditions that treat U.S. institutional history as the default framework and Indigenous peoples as the objects of federal administration. It also overlooks the work of tribal historians, Indigenous scholars and knowledge-keepers who have a very different consensus and have driven much of the recent scholarship that is dismantling colonialist assumptions within U.S. historiography.

In addition to Indigenous Continent, a few other good sources on this topic include Ned Blackhawk's The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (2023) and Native Historians Write Back: Decolonizing American Indian History, (2011) edited by Susan Miller and James Riding In.

* - This is not to ignore that policies and practices of Euroamericans toward Indigenous people were almost exclusively driven by racial prejudice and the desire to erase Indigenous people and culture from the US. But the way those were carried out were different from those aimed toward other racial groups such as African Americans, Asian Americans, etc.

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L.C. in Brookline, MA, writes: You wrote, in your comments about U.S. foreign policy successes, that "The first event that is more about the U.S. protecting its borders, rather than reaching across them, that would make my list would be the War of 1812, which would check in at #7."

I would call the War of 1812 a great blunder, not a success. The U.S. went to war (short-circuiting diplomatic efforts that were under way to resolve legitimate grievances) thinking it would be greeted as liberators by the Canadians, even burning York (the predecessor of modern Toronto) to encourage the Canadians to greet them with open arms. This ensured that Canada would never willingly join the United States (with the possible exception of the modern right-wingers in Alberta).

(V) & (Z) respond: The War of 1812 WAS a blunder. Even blunders can produce fortuitous consequences, as this one did.

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E.V. in Derry, NH, writes: By coincidence, I just finished reading Battle Cry of Freedom and I was going to ask a few questions of (Z), but reader R.K. in Cambridge beat me to it. I also had a related Civil War generals question, but M.G. in Piscataway beat me to that. So instead I will just give my own reaction to James McPherson's tome.

This is the first general history of the Civil War that I have read in a long time. Recently, my wife has been urging me to read less news and do something els so I wouldn't be so gloomy. Reading about a national crisis 165 years ago seemed like a good coping strategy. As the only Civil War book on my shelf I hadn't read, Battle Cry of Freedom was my choice.

As (Z) has mentioned in some recent posts, the 1850's were insanely polemical and violent. The (mostly Southern) rhetoric that McPherson quotes reminded me of today—extreme claims, no compromise, "the worst in history," "your daughters will be at the mercy of the freed slaves" and the like.

McPherson presents a deeper look into the various political groups that made forming broad consensus difficult. Aside from the North-South divide, there were the anti-immigration politicians, the old Whigs and, at the end, the sweep-it-all-under-the-rug Constitutional Unionists. But, as he points out again and again, the regional divide was what ultimately mattered.

McPherson does not directly comment on the Lost Cause very much. But he does hammer home again and again that slavery was the issue on which the South would not compromise and why they feared the Republicans in particular. The South's view of slavery could be expressed by the institution itself, or in ideas about race, or about economic life, or societal fears, or as a political tool to get more like minded states, or as racism in general. McPherson makes it clear that regardless of how slavery was used in the politics of the day, it was the Southern sine qua non of remaining in the Union. The one phrase that sticks out for me was that the South believed when it came to their liberty, its "foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition." Cognitive dissonance, 1850's style.

McPherson also weaves politics and the homefronts into the narrative of the war itself. He flows from one theme to the other without a break in narrative style and depth.

As one can see, I recommend the book. Be forewarned, it is 800-plus pages!

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B.C. in Walpole, ME, writes: I attended the annual meeting of American Historical Association, must have been 2013 or thereabouts, in New York City when James' McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom was turning 25. A well-attended session devoted to McPherson and the book featured three young historians critiquing it, which didn't really work because they weren't comfortable being critical of the book or its author. The most trenchant criticism came from McPherson himself, and it mostly concerned, as you indicated, that new approaches and perspectives developed since the book's initial publication meant that the volume omits some topics now considered important. But it has aged well overall, it seems.

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M.D.H. in Coralville, IA, writes: James Longstreet was, as you wrote, brilliant in multiple ways as a general, politician and diplomat. He was also anathema to many Southern whites because he challenged the Lost Cause narrative after the Civil War.

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J.L. in Chapel Hill, NC, writes: Regarding the answer about anti-war World War II movies, it is often said that there are no real anti-war World War II movies: There are movies that play on the "war is hell" angle, but they always make war look glamorous and kind of cool. This is not true.

There is at least one World War II movie that didn't follow that pattern: A Midnight Clear (1992). It had an all-star cast. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 88%. The American GI protagonists are not heroic; they're regular guys, cold and scared. The war is almost over and they just want to survive. The American officers are bumbling and vain. The Germans aren't evil. They don't want to die for their country. They just want to surrender and survive. There are no good guys or bad guys. There are no cool action scenes. Everyone's just scared and miserable for 2 hours. So, audiences hated it.

It is definitely possible to make a legitimately anti-war film. But movies are at least as much a business as they are art. You simply can't make movies that no one will buy a ticket to see.

Incidentally, there is a movie at the intersection of The Red Badge of Courage and World War II. It's called Tobruk (2008). It's a Czech film that adapted the novel to a World War II setting. I thought it was pretty good.

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J.B. in Aarhus, Denmark, writes: My favorite anti-war film is the often-overlooked Phillipe De Broca masterpiece King of Hearts (Le Roi de Cœur) from 1966, starring Geneviève Bujold and Alan Bates.

It is set in France during World War I. The film is in three languages (French, English, and German), so make sure you have a copy with subtitles (unless you understand all three languages).

Unfortunately, the film is really (REALLY) hard to find.

The film is not subtle. But it is, at the same time, poignant, empathetic, and madcap. Bujold and Bates are at the height of their acting abilities.

I would also like to give (honorable) mention to the Mike Nichols 1970 version of Catch-22. The biggest weakness of this rendition is that it is hard to understand if you haven't read the book (Nichols, along with author/screenwriter Joseph Heller, skip over explanations in order to cover more ground). This is easily overcome. Just read the book! It is truly one of the Great Books of American Literature.

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J.H. in Lodi, NY, writes: The account of German POWs in America made me think of the Great Papago Escape. It was the largest Axis prisoner-of-war escape to occur in the USA during World War II. Two nights before Christmas 1944, 25 German POWs tunneled out of Camp Papago Park, near Phoenix, AZ. They brought with them a collapsible raft they had built out of wood and rubber. The plotters had seen on a map that the Salt River was nearby. It flowed to the Gila River, which flowed to the Colorado, which meant they could get far away very quickly. Alas, the Germans assumed that rivers in Arizona were like European rivers. They aren't. The Salt River was dry. They abandoned the useless raft and split up. Within a few days most had been captured. Several voluntarily surrendered. The last was apprehended in downtown Phoenix on January 28.

The Sporting Life

B.H. in Frankfort, IL, writes: Loved your response to M.B. in Cleveland about great ballplayers who had shortened careers due to illness/injury/bad luck. It reminded me of Cecil Travis. From 1933-41, Travis collected 1,370 hits. In '41 he finished second in the race for the AL batting crown to Ted Williams, who hit .406 with 185 hits. Travis hit .359, but collected 218 hits. Travis then went into the Army, serving in the infantry. He fought in The Battle of the Bulge and came out of it with frostbitten feet. He made a comeback in 1945, but the damage from the frostbite prevented him from continuing his career past 1947. Still, he's a lifetime .314 hitter that few people ever heard of. He's one of the reasons his was the Greatest Generation.

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A.M. in Brookhaven, PA, writes: In response to your comments, I have been a soccer fan (and formerly a youth player) for over 50 years, so hopefully I can help answer some of your questions.

With regards to the in-game coaching, the coach doesn't do all that much besides set the lineup and make subs. He may be able to make some tactical adjustments, especially at halftime, similar to other sports. He'll also let the fourth official on the sidelines know his opinions when he thinks the referee needs to get his eyes checked and the like.

The out-of-bounds rule is actually pretty simple. The player being in or out of bounds is irrelevant, it is strictly based on the ball. In order for the ball to be out of bounds, the ENTIRE ball needs to be over the line, not just the part on the ground. Also, the line is considered in-bounds. Usually it's pretty easy for the linesman to tell if the ball is in or out on the sidelines because they are standing on the line and see it at the right angle. It's also easy to tell on the near side of the goal line. The harder job is to tell whether it is in the goal or over the endline on the other side of the goal, because the goal posts block the linesman's vision. And if you'll notice, the linesmen stay on the same end of the field the entire game, so they can't go down to the other end to help their counterpart on the other side see through the goalposts. This is because each linesman is responsible for calling offsides on one end of the field.

And as to that subject, I won't get into the entire offsides rule. It is probably harder to understand than all of the other rules of the game combined. Just a few key highlights, though. First, it is based on the positioning when the ball was played by a teammate, not when the player who may be offsides touches it. Unlike in hockey, or a defensive lineman in American football who jumps offsides and then jumps back before the snap, there is no opportunity to touch up and get back onsides. If you are offsides, you remain offsides if you are involved in the play until someone else plays the ball.

The other tough part to understand is that if a player is offsides but not affecting the play, there is no issue. So a player in an offsides position running down the left side of the field won't draw a call if the ball is passed to a teammate who is onsides on the right side. On the other hand, if the offsides player screens an opponent so they can't see the ball, that would be considered an offsides infraction. The one other recent change is that if linesmen aren't 100% sure if a player is onsides, they'll tend to let the game go on, at least in the initial phase of the attack. The idea is that if the player was offsides but play is allowed to continue, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) will be able to overturn the result whereas if the play is incorrectly stopped, there is no recourse.

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P.B. in Oslo, Norway, writes: With regard to one of the less-well-understood rules in association football, I am not sure whether this scene from The Full Monty will help clarify the offside rule or simply raise more questions:

Gallimaufry

C.B. in Berlin, Germany, writes: Regarding your suggestion of visiting a local cemetery for July 4: There's an added benefit in doing so. You won't just be able to reflect on people's lives. Many cemeteries, especially the bigger ones, are full of wildlife you can observe, which I find very relaxing and contemplative—a rare oasis in big cities.

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S.L. in Glendora, CA, writes: I'm not a huge fan of either bobbleheads or California governor Gavin Newsom (although I voted for him), but I was amused that a there was a Newsom bobblehead, so I had to check it out. The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum has added more governors to their lineup. There are now 14 governors honored with their own personal bobblehead. Not only does the museum not seem to want a mulligan for Andrew Cuomo, they have added two more variants for him. The original price at the museum for the Governor Bobbleheads is $25.00, but Newsom, along with Govs. Andy Beshear (D-KY), Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Larry Hogan (R-MD), Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and Tim Walz (DFL-MN), is sold out. However, if someone really, really wanted a bobblehead of Newsom, yesterday I found one on eBay for $329.99, or best offer. The price has since dropped to $296.99, so it's a real bargain. J.D. Vance is also available on eBay for $31.50, but you can get him at the museum for just $28.50.

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R.B. in Cleveland, OH, writes: You received a suggestion to write a book called Profiles in Cowardice. Andy Borowitz has already written Profiles in Ignorance, and it's a great read.

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R.G. in Washington, DC, writes: Because we could all use a laugh right now, and in honor of Mel Brooks' 100th birthday today, I submit to you a Jimmy Kimmel parody of The Producers from 2016. Please enjoy:

This skit is both hilarious and sad at the same time. Two great Easter eggs in this are that the little old lady is played by Cloris Leachman, a regular in Mel Brooks films; and that her character name is Mrs. Kaminsky, which is Mel's birth surname. Happy 100th birthday, Mel Brooks, and may the Schwartz be with you!

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J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, writes: In "6-3," you had one unintended pun ("used that excuse more liberally") and one intended ("which was triggered"), but what about the third one, in your paragraph about the decision involving the Monsanto pesticide Roundup: "It is also really, really weedy, but we'll try our best."

(V) & (Z) respond: We missed that one completely.

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B.B. in Charleston, WV, writes: I just wanted to mention that I'm impressed with the restraint implicit in the fact that you can receive reader letters with accidental double entendres like "I am amazed you are able to keep it up after all these years" and not respond with "That's what she said."

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D.S.R. in Tempe, AZ, writes: A while back you had a series of letters on people we should thank. Me, being me, missed out on that series. Oh well.

In any case, I would very much like to thank your readership. The length, breadth, and depths of knowledge and interests shown continues to amaze me, and I am a better person for it. To tell the truth, the Q&A and mailbag are some of my favorite parts of the week.

If it's not the smartest audience on the Internet, it's certainly in the running.

Oh, and, too, also, any chance of getting real world meet-ups? There was another Tempean who wrote in yesterday and I've seen a number of your commenters from around here. It would be nice to say "Hi" to them.

(V) & (Z) respond: The reader meet-ups is something we've bandied about for a long time, and we really should move forward with them. The problem is the logistics of organizing them. If readers have thoughts on how to do that, please let us know at comments@electoral-vote.com.

Final Words

D.N. in Elgin, IL, writes: I have a book by David Berlinski, The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World, which has finally reached the top of my reading pile. It begins with the following story: "A friend visited Dr. [Samuel] Johnson as he lay dying and seeing that he lacked for support, placed a pillow beneath his head. 'That will do,' Dr. Johnson said, 'all that a pillow can do.'

If you have suggestions for this feature, please send them along.

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