Saturday Q&A

The number of Trump-related questions is shrinking, for obvious reasons, but the good news is that American history, civics, etc. will always be available to be plumbed, and thus to fill out this space.

Q: Could you please address the magnitude of the FireEye/SolarWinds hack into government (and corporate) systems? I have seen news reports that this is the biggest and most dangerous intrusion ever, with the bad guys (presumably Russia) having pretty much unfettered access to federal government networks for the past six months and into the foreseeable future. Other news outlets just ignore it, or put it on the digital equivalent of page B9.

What is the extent of the intrusion, and what are the short- and long-term implications? And how much blame can be pinned on the current administration vs. the career security experts in the intelligence community vs. someone else? M.B., Cleveland, OH

A: At the moment, and perhaps for many years, your questions are largely unanswerable, except in a very broad sense. Part of the problem is that the key players involved have much motivation to keep things close to the vest. And part of the problem is that the key players don't really know the answers yet themselves.

With that said, it certainly appears that "the biggest and most dangerous intrusion ever" is on the mark. The software that was compromised (Orion) was an administrative toolkit. That means it had access to all other portions of the affected systems, and also that it was (generally) exempt from malware scans and other precautions. It is easy enough to remove Orion, now that the problem is known, but figuring out what additional damage was done, and what other backdoors were opened? It will take years.

It is tempting to point the finger at the Trump administration here, given their shoddy hiring practices and their lack of patience when it comes to dotting the i's and crossing the t's. However, the affected systems were primarily the responsibility of career federal employees, and not political appointees. Further, the fact that the hack snared an entity like Microsoft—which is obsessed with security, and knows what it's doing—suggests to us that any presidential administration would have been hit hard.

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Q: With Donald Trump threatening a veto that will probably be overridden, when was the last time a president had this happen? How often has this happened in the last 20 years? Which presidents had this happen to them the most? P.D.B., Chicago, IL

A: As Congress has shifted from "independent check on the executive" to something much closer to "rubber stamp," vetoes and veto overrides have become much rarer, it is true. The most recent override, and the only one of Barack Obama's term, came on September 28, 2016, when both houses voted to override the President's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. That law makes it easier to sue foreign nations for terrorist-related acts.

Among the five presidents immediately preceding Obama, George W. Bush was overridden four times, Bill Clinton twice, George H.W. Bush once, Ronald Reagan 9 times, and Jimmy Carter also twice. The most overridden president in U.S. history was Andrew Johnson, who was poked in the eye by Congress 15 times. The runners-up are Harry S. Truman and Gerald Ford, with 12 veto overrides each. The last president to go his whole term without an override was Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Q: I have the misfortune to live in Rep. Mo Brooks's (R-AL) district, and soon will have the misfortune to have to live with Coach Tommy Tuberville (R) as a Senator. So, I feel like I'm getting it with both barrels with this weird-ass conspiracy between them to somehow, some way keep Congress from validating the Electoral College vote. Can you please translate their school of thought into a sane person's language and explain/debunk just what the heck any of this has to do with Mike Pence invoking the 14th Amendment? A.K.P., Huntsville, AL

A: This is entirely performative, so that Brooks—who has, on multiple occasions, been ranked as the most partisan member of Congress—and Tuberville can show the folks back at home how Trumpy they are. Tuberville is showing us how green and unsophisticated he is as a politician; someone who is not even up again for 6 years really doesn't need to stick his neck out like this, particularly when it alienates the leaders of his caucus.

With that said, the theory is that if the duo can throw a wrench into the works, they can somehow get some EVs disqualified, and then can trigger a contingent election for president. In that case, each House delegation would cast 1 vote for president. The Republicans will control 26 delegations, the Democrats 21, and 3 are split or pending. So, in that case, the Republicans would be able to re-elect Donald Trump.

Read on to see more thoughts about the viability of this scheme. As to Pence and the 14th Amendment, we're not sure what you're referring to, and we can't find anything about the possibility. Perhaps you've gotten your wires crossed a bit, and you're thinking of the threat made by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ). Pascrell has pointed out that the third section of the 14th Amendment reads thusly:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

His argument is that the 126 members of the House who supported the Texas Supreme Court case have, in effect, engaged in insurrection against the United States, and so have forfeited their seats. This argument is not entirely unreasonable, but there is zero chance that the Democratic caucus flexes their muscles like this. And so, Pascrell is just performing for the folks at home, like Brooks and Tuberville are.

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Q: The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump is out of options for bending the election his way. However, there seems to be one authoritarian move that has not received any attention. With the new House of Representatives closely divided, it wouldn't take the absence of many Democrats to allow a unified GOP to reject the electoral votes of swing states and throw the election to the House, where the GOP would dominate in a one-vote-per-delegation contest.

The Constitution specifies that members of Congress shall not be subject to arrest when traveling to a session, but makes several exceptions, including for disturbing the peace. So it's possible Trump might dispatch a small body of federal officers to apprehend several dozen Democrats on Jan. 6 and detain them long enough for the temporary GOP House majority to act. The arrests might later be deemed unlawful, but would that be enough to overturn an action prescribed by the Constitution that has already been taken?

Given the widespread refusal of congressional Republicans to acknowledge Biden's election or to condemn assertions that the election was fixed, and their seeming nonchalance at the growing calls to overturn the election by military force, I don't think you can assume congressional Republicans would not be willing to go along with this. Is there anything that would prevent this, other than Republicans refusing to embrace the plan?

I don't mean to be paranoid and I think this is unlikely, but it seems like something we need to guard against in the current political climate. K.H., Ypsilanti, MI

A: We are going to give you three reasons this is not plausible, from least to most abstract.

First, in order to count the electoral votes, the Constitution requires that a quorum be present. In this case, a quorum is defined as a majority of all the members. If Donald Trump conspired to detain several Democratic House members, then the rest of the Democrats would absent themselves (excepting, very likely, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who would remain behind to demand a quorum call), and the House would not be able to proceed. The detained House members would demand a writ of habeas corpus, the administration would presumably be unable to provide one, and so the members would be freed. Then, the counting would commence. Or else, Pelosi would become acting president.

Second, politicians are generally very risk-averse. Note how long the filibuster has survived, despite enormous motivation to kill it. That is because BIG change makes politicians leery, in large part because they know the shoe will one day be on the other foot. If the GOP caucus in the Senate has not had the stomach to kill the filibuster, would they really have the fortitude to steal a presidential election? Keep in mind that the whole scheme would demand, in effect, total unanimity from Republicans in both chambers. Just one or two defectors in either chamber and it fails, while the participants are forever tarred as anti-democratic fascists who tried to pull off a putsch. In fact, at that point, Congressional Democrats might just decide that invoking the 14th Amendment is justified.

Third, the Republican Party is currently benefiting from a setup that gives them power disproportionate to their numbers. If they pulled off a coup—and that's what we're talking about here—the whole system would collapse, and they would be much worse off than when they started. The only reason that tens of millions of Democrats, and the blue states they dominate, have acceded to four years of Trumpian rule is the understanding they would have a chance to replace him in 2020. If that promise no longer exists, or is no longer reliable, then the union and the democracy are no longer viable.

In short, overcoming Republican resistance to such a plan is a much larger hurdle than you seem to suggest. And beyond that, the Democrats do have counter-moves to stop this from happening.

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Q: Your item on the agreements in place preventing Donald Trump from living at Mar-a-Lago had me wondering: if it cannot be a permanent residence, how was he able to legally change his address to the property and vote in Florida? Did Trump commit voter fraud? J.H., Canton, GA

A: Probably not. Although you cannot use a post office box or a business location, the rules are otherwise pretty liberal on what you call your "residence." For example, homeless people are allowed to use whatever address they think they've slept at the most. A hotel/motel address is also legal. So, Trump is probably in the clear. And even if he technically committed a violation, he could argue that he legitimately believed Mar-a-Lago was his residence until a court decreed otherwise.

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Q: Donald Trump Jr. in 2024? Seriously? Not only is this prospect hard to stomach, it's hard to believe. Talk about someone being unqualified! And talk about baggage! Seems like even some of the Trumpiest of the base would see him as a bridge too far. He may very well even have a fairly obvious cocaine habit, for crying out loud! How serious a chance would you give him of even surviving the primary? R.P., Northfield, IL

A: He's got a path, but it's a narrow one. First, his old man and his sister would both have to sit the election out. Second, he'd have to seize control of the "Trump" lane, which he might be able to do, though he could get serious competition from a Nikki Haley or a Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) or a Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), among others. Third, he would need the non-Trump lane to be fragmented, and to remain so through the first month or so of primary season, the way it was in 2016.

So, it's possible, but that is an awfully large number of "ifs."

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Q: A few weeks ago I read from your site and others that Joe Biden won about 500 counties and Donald Trump about 2,500. But the revenue from those 500 blue counties accounts for about 70-75% of total U.S. revenue dollars. I would like to know a little bit more about what that actually means. Do the blue counties provide that level of tax revenue to the U.S.? How much do the blue counties get back, that same percentage, more, less? In brief, do the blue counties put more into the system than they take out or get back? I'd like to have some solid numbers to help my dialogue with others. N.P., Ames, IA

A: We have not been able to find county-level data that compares tax dollars paid to tax dollars taken in. Even if we could find it, it might be misleading, since any county with a military base is going to get a disproportionate number of federal dollars.

What we can find, and what is probably more instructive, is state-level data. Currently, there are 11 states that pay more in taxes to the federal government than they get back: Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Illinois, New Hampshire, Washington, Nebraska, Colorado, and California. Since the list is dominated by big, blue states, it stands to reason that most blue counties pay more in federal taxes than they receive back.

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Q: Regarding Joe Biden's schedule for cabinet picks, what is your guess about timing for the Administrator of the Small Business Administration and the Secretary of Commerce? He won't know until after the Georgia elections whether he needs Pat Toomey (R-PA) on the cabinet to help secure a senate majority, and (presuming this is his route) could making such a play risk further motivating Republican Peach State voters? V.W., Wilmington, DE

A: The benefits in flipping a Senate seat in this way are substantial, regardless of what happens in Georgia. So, if Toomey is game, Biden will make the deal regardless of the two runoffs.

You do raise an interesting point about how this might affect voters in Georgia, perhaps motivating Republicans (or de-motivating Democrats who incorrectly think the Senate is now "safe"). Should he need to make a choice, Biden may just make the announcement and let the chips fall where they may. Or, he could name someone and, on Jan. 7, that person could "discover" they aren't going to be able to serve anyhow, thus clearing the way for Toomey to be nominated. Or, if it's SBA, Biden could sit on the nomination until it's prudent to unveil. The President-elect has promised to name his cabinet by Christmas, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll fill all the cabinet-level posts, too.

Anyhow, you asked us for our guess, and here it is: Biden will name his appointees for both posts sometime this week. We doubt Toomey is open to giving up his Senate seat and, even if he is, Biden appears to prefer to be above-board with such things, rather than appear sneaky.

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Q: Like everyone else, I've been watching the growing schism between left and right, and in an article I saw tonight it just seemed to hit me that we can all find a way to navigate debates about policy, but when it comes to culture, the lines are drawn much more severely and the weapons of war come out. The article I saw was about Trump's appointments to the 1776 Commission, the group that is supposed to offer a "patriotic" view of America to counter the 1619 Project that says America has a 400 year history of slavery, servitude and racial inequality.

Will this group have a future under the Biden administration? It isn't about policy at all, it is totally about culture. D.H., Boulder, CO

A: It is unlikely that Biden will dissolve the 1776 Commission, since that would provide fodder for the right-wingers to denounce him as a filthy, pinko, anti-patriotic, America-hating socialist pervert. But he won't encourage it, either, which means that the White House won't facilitate meetings, won't publicize any of the work being done, won't appoint replacements for commission members who drop out, etc. Under those circumstances, the commissioners probably won't meet again, even if the commission technically still exists.

In the end, as we pointed out earlier this week, the federal government has virtually no voice in curricula. And so, all the 1776 Commission or the 1619 project can do is put together a bunch of lesson plans and supporting materials, and make them available for adoption to those states, districts, and schools that are interested. As you can imagine, California is not about to start teaching the rah-rah "God ordained America's greatness" version of history, and Texas is not about to start teaching the "Howard Zinn had it right" version, and so to a very large extent, 1776/1619 are both preaching to the choir.

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Q: I was wondering about the rest of Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) term. There is a strong effort to recall him. Will this work? And if it works, do you think anyone will unseat him? J.S., Los Angeles, CA

A: It's relatively easy to recall a governor in California; all it takes is 50.01% of the voters in the recall election to give the thumbs-down to the sitting governor and he is out on his ear. Then, there is a second portion of the ballot that lists all of the people who filed to be the governor's replacement. This second portion only takes effect if the recall is successful. The folks listed are not up against the governor, per se, they are up against one another, jungle-style, and the winner is whoever collects the most votes (a majority not required). In the previous recall (in 2003), the ballot had over 150 candidates, including a porn star (Mary Carey), a pornographer (Larry Flynt), a former child star (Gary Coleman), and a racist comedian (Gallagher). Arnold Schwarzenegger won, of course; he took 48.6% of the vote.

So, the key to answering your question is not identifying a candidate who might "beat" Newsom, since that's not how the recalls work. The key is figuring out whether 50.01% of voters will be persuaded to vote him out of office. It is certainly plausible that a coalition of Republicans (who have no other viable route for claiming the governor's mansion) and disaffected Democrats could be large enough to unseat Newsom. That said, we would bet against it, since we don't think there are quite enough Democrats who would be willing to play with fire like that. Whatever resentment of Newsom currently exists does not compare to the anger directed at Gray Davis in 2003, and even then recall only cleared the line by 5 points (55.4% for recall).

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Q: We all know how Wyoming's handful of residents get just as many senators as California's residents do, and how this perk of statehood affects both Americans' representation in the Senate and the presidential election, making both significantly less democratic. There's plenty of discussion about Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia gaining statehood during a Democratic administration.

Is going the opposite route a possibility? Wyoming is the least populous state; what about demoting it to be a territory? Or perhaps demote to a territory every state below some arbitrary population threshold? Choosing 1,000,000 residents as that arbitrary threshold would demote Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware (Puerto Rico, with a population over 3,000,000, could still be considered for a promotion to statehood). R.S., Zephyr Cove, NV

A: No chance. The Constitution states, very clearly, that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Sufferage in the Senate." So, such a demotion would require the agreement of the affected state, which would not be forthcoming.

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Q: What do you think were the key factors that prompted the Union to contest the secession of the states of the Confederacy? Not simply as a matter of law, but of economics, politics, etc. P.G., Boston, MA

A: The key factor—which Abraham Lincoln laid out in the Gettysburg address—was that if the U.S. established a precedent that states unhappy with an election result were free to leave, that would set democracy on a quick path to extinction. He recognized it was only a matter of time until a president was elected who made New England really unhappy, or the Midwest really unhappy, or the Far West really unhappy. And, at that point, what would stop them from seceding?

There's also the fact that some sizable portion of the Southern populace did not wish to secede, and regarded themselves as ongoing, loyal citizens of the United States. The Lincoln administration felt, quite rightly, that it had a duty to those folks.

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Q: I've seen references to the Spanish Flu pandemic being a significant contributor to the Roaring 20s that followed immediately thereafter. Is there any truth to this? If so, might this be a leading indicator of what we can expect once the COVID-19 pandemic draws to a close? P.W., Valley Village, CA

A: The Spanish Flu bottled up much economic activity, including slowing the introduction of new and/or improved technological innovations, like the Model A Ford. It also created a certain fatalism among many Americans, particularly younger Americans, to the effect of "The future is uncertain, so let's live for today." For all of these reasons, a tidal wave of spending was unleashed in 1920-21 that continued for much of the decade.

It is certainly possible that COVID-19 could trigger a similar sort of response. That said, the Spanish Flu lasted a bit longer (15 months or so), and came right on the heels of World War I, which also bottled up economic activity, and which also triggered a fatalistic response. So, if you had to place a bet, you should bet there will be an effect in 2021-22, but it will be less pronounced than the one at the start of the Roaring 20s.

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Q: You stated that there was cheating in the 1960 presidential election, and then wrote that you don't think Nixon was cheated out of a victory. Would you like to clarify your position? J.K., Seoul, South Korea

A: There is no inconsistency here. It is possible for there to be cheating without the cheating being enough to swing the election. Scholars who have looked carefully at the returns, most notably Edmund F. Kallina Jr. in Kennedy v. Nixon: The Presidential Election of 1960, have concluded that the cheating in Illinois, in particular, was not enough to flip the state. And that is before we consider the fact that the Kennedy campaign, had it lost, also had possible legal routes to explore, most obviously the wonky way that Mississippi and Alabama handled their electors.

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Q: You mentioned that James Buchanan was possibly a gay man. Other than the fact that he was a lifelong bachelor, what evidence was there for that assertion? As I recall, it's common to speculate about the homosexuality of many famous figures, sometimes on less-than-solid grounds. How credible is the evidence in Buchanan's case, and are historians mostly in agreement? Are there other clear-cut cases of gay-but-not-out historical figures? E.W., Skaneateles, NY

A: The primary basis for the claim that James Buchanan was gay—which has substantial, but not universal, support among historians—is not his lifelong bachelorhood, but his lengthy and very close relationship with friend and roommate William Rufus DeVane King (who is best known as America's shortest-serving VP, having lasted six weeks in the job before dying). Even in Buchanan's time, there were whispers about exactly how intimate he and King were, with some calling them "Mr. and Mrs. King" behind their backs (though Andrew Jackson, no fan of either man, preferred "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy"). It is also plausible that Buchanan was gay but didn't act on that inclination, or that he was asexual.

It is, of course, very difficult to retroactively figure out which historical figures were gay, or bisexual, or trans, as opposed to being asexual or merely unconventional. Not helping historians is that the historical figures themselves may not have come to grips with their sexuality, or else they may have gone to great lengths to obscure the truth. With that said, there is a pretty broad consensus that the following folks were some flavor of LGBTQ: Walt Whitman, Michelangelo, Pope Julius III, Alan Turing, Edward II, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, and Sappho. Some of these folks were much more open about their sexuality than others.

There is an even longer list of folks who may have been LGBTQ, but for whom the evidence is more ambiguous. Among them are William Shakespeare, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joan of Arc, Richard the Lionheart, Jane Addams, J. Edgar Hoover, Amelia Earhart, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Leonardo da Vinci, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Washington Carver, and Emily Dickinson.

Then there are folks who have been claimed as LGBTQ by at least one scholar, but for whom the evidence is very thin. That list includes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar.

It may interest you to learn that the other identity where this often comes up for historians is...whether or not the person was Jewish. There was so much anti-Semitism in Europe, in particular, including inquisitions and other punishments meted out to non-believers, that Jews had much motivation to hide their true religious beliefs. And so, in some cases, we are left to try to work out the puzzle. There are, for example, a number of scholars who think that Christopher Columbus was a Jew. If so, that would not have been a wise thing to share with his fanatical Catholic employers, Ferdinand and Isabella.

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Q: I notice the list (from S.S. in West Hollywood) of significant songs for the LGBTQ community has nothing from "Rocky Horror Picture Show" on it, and that got me to wondering how Rocky Horror is received in the community. Is it considered an innocent bit of fun or is it thought to be the LGBT+ equivalent of a minstrel show? B.B., St. Louis, MO

A: There are many essays written in the 1980s and 1990s that note how important that film was in giving LGBTQ folks a sense of community (since many of them regularly got together to watch the movie), and in communicating the message that sexuality is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing, and that's ok. This blog posting from September of this year, written by two gay men, says the film is still regarded in that manner by the LGBTQ community. That said, it's only one blog posting, and we're certainly not experts here, so we are open to being corrected in the mailbag tomorrow.

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Q: I have to ask: Why, oh why, are most of your readers male? Surely I am not the only one who saw that number in the survey results and went "huh?" A.L., Osaka, Japan

A: Truth be told, we have absolutely no idea. We do know that other politics-themed sites have a similar demographic breakdown. If anyone cares to comment, we would be very interested to hear your thoughts. We would especially be interested in hearing from our smallish number of female readers.

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Q: How do you select the comments you publish in the Sunday mailbag? Do you have certain criteria? Do you have a limit for how many comments you publish? F.S., Cologne, Germany

A: We've written about this once or twice before, but it is a somewhat organic process. Here are some of the things that make a letter more likely to be published:

• It's short, or reasonably so
• It's clear, and does not seem likely to confuse some readers
• It offers an interesting or provocative perspective
• It offers a perspective that tends to be underrepresented, either on our site or in general
• It improves upon, clarifies, or offers an alternate view on something we wrote
• It connects well with other letters we are running that day
• It's respectful of the other readers, even when disagreeing with some of them
• It includes the city and initials, so we don't have to spend five minutes trying to figure them out

Not all of these are within the author's control; you can't really know what other letters are going to run that day, for example. However, most of them are.

We don't have a limit as to how many comments we publish; some weeks we need to run more letters than others in order to reflect the variety of responses we got. We do try to observe a word limit (8,000-10,000 words), but we're not always successful.

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Q: Apologies if you have answered this before, but why haven't you updated the site to be mobile browser friendly? M.W., Northbrook, IL

A: We have a mobile version of the site, which is accessed by clicking on the cell phone icon that is a few inches to the right of Florida on the map above. And while we don't use the mobile site regularly, it seems to work fine when we do. Beyond that, we are dependent on folks who do use it regularly to advise us of issues, or possibilities for making it better.

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