Dem
51
GOP
49
This is the second week in the last month or so that the history section is the one with the most questions. That is not a common occurrence, particularly twice in such a short timeframe.
This week's headline theme was clearly more doable than last week's. But if you would like an additional hint, we'll tell you that we really wanted to use the word 'aerious' in a headline, but we decided it's too obscure.
And we regret the lateness of today's post. We pick out the questions, and have a reasonable estimate of how long it will take to answer them (so, we only choose as many as we can get to). But sometimes that estimate is off. And once in a while, it's WAY off. We can, and do, hold some questions in that circumstance. But sometimes, we've already worked out the answer, and if we wait a week, then that mental work has to be re-done again. So, we often choose to just finish up, even if it pushes us to a much later publication time.
S.P. in Redondo Beach, CA, asks: Since the Honorable Justice Thomas Clarence has received nearly $6 million in gifts from his benefactors, as currently disclosed by various sources, I would like to know if the gifts are taxable income and if the Justice declared the gifts in the annual tax filings and paid the appropriate taxes on the gifts.
(V) & (Z) answer: In general, the recipients of gifts are not responsible for paying taxes on them. If taxes are to be paid, they must be paid by the giver, and even then it's only if the value of the gifts exceeds $17,000 in a calendar year.
So, has Harlan Crow paid the proper taxes? In virtually all cases, the answer is "no." The various entities who have investigated Thomas, like ProPublica, are basing their numbers on the market rates for the various fringe benefits the Justice has received. For example, if you engage a private jet to pick you up in Washington, DC, and take you to Indonesia, then that will set you back around $250,000 (we get that figure from the private-jet-booking site Jettly). However, Crow takes the position that he owned his plane before the trip, and he owned his plane during the trip, and he owned the plan after the trip, so it didn't really cost him anything beyond the cost of some jet fuel. On average, a trip from DC to Indonesia will use up about $1,000 in fuel, so Crow undoubtedly values the plane trip at $1,000 and not $250,000.
The IRS has, on numerous occasions, made clear that ProPublica's way of accounting for things is much more correct than Crow's. But the IRS also devotes no resources to investigating gift-giving taxes, in part because the paper trail is usually very thin.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: Because book advances are perfectly legal, what stops a billionaire, no names but maybe it rhymes with Marlon Snow, from paying a "book advance" to a Supreme Court Justice, no names but maybe it rhymes with Terrence Promise, of a few hundred thousand dollars?
(V) & (Z) answer: This would be a pretty effective way of laundering a gift, we'd say.
Of course, there would have to be a book contract, and there would eventually have to be a book, but that's actually pretty easy to do. Thomas could hire someone to ghostwrite a book on his life, or on whatever other subject he might choose.
Alternatively, he could produce one of those gag books that has a title like French Military Victories, and is just 200 blank pages. His could be entitled, say, Sound Legal Opinions Written by Liberal Jurists. We don't want to give any additional publicity by being too specific, there was an extremely similar book published a couple of years ago by one of the bigots who does a podcast for the Daily Wire (his name rhymes with "Cycle Rolls"). It was an Amazon and New York Times bestseller, as tens of thousands of conservatives bought copies to use as gifts.
A book advance in the millions is not unusual these days; for example, Amy Coney Barrett got $2 million for her book. So, it would be VERY hard to prove that, say, $800,000 for a ghostwritten memoir or gag book from Thomas was fraudulent, and was not given with expectation that it would be earned back with book sales.
C.F. in Waltham, MA, asks: If the Democrats win a trifecta, don't you think it might be possible to get an amendment to the Constitution to limit the term of a Supreme Court Justices to 10 years (excepting those currently on the court)? My thinking is this: Democrats would vote for it for the good of the country, Republicans to prevent Joe Biden's nominees from having any staying power. They were very lucky this time that Donald Trump got elected and was able to stack the court. If Biden could change that, they may not want his appointees there for very long.
(V) & (Z) answer: A constitutional amendment is a near-impossible hurdle to overcome. But it probably wouldn't take a constitutional amendment. The wording of the Constitution implies life tenure, but it doesn't specify that tenure has to be served in the same job. That is to say, Congress would almost certainly be within its rights to say that, after serving 20 years on the Supreme Court, a justice has to step down to the D.C. Court of Appeals, or else acquires "senior status" in which they still get their full paycheck, and where they may hear some cases, but they no longer sit on the Supreme Court. Both of these setups would still convey life tenure, just not life tenure on the Supreme Court.
Such a law would, of course, need a majority in the House plus 60 votes (or 50 votes, the VP's tiebreaker and a dead filibuster) in the Senate. We do not think 60 votes in the Senate is a realistic possibility. Control of the Supreme Court is absolutely essential to the modern-day Republican political program, as it's the best (and, really, only) way for the minority to impose its wishes on the majority. So, they have to be all-in on that, and they have to hold their breath when and if a conservative SCOTUS majority is at risk.
The only way that a bill changing the rules for the Supreme Court (much less a constitutional amendment) could get enough Republican support would be some fantastical, extreme scenario—something like three or four of the six conservatives being diagnosed with terminal cancer in a short timeframe. Even then, it's more likely than not that the Republicans would not be open to a change. Probably not the Democrats either, in that scenario.
In short, it all leads back to the same conclusion: The only plausible scenario for Supreme Court reform is if the Democrats have the trifecta and 50 senators willing to kill the filibuster (or create another carve-out, at least).
B.C. in Walpole, ME, from aboard our boat, the Last Chance Power Drive, asks: Electoral-Vote.com completely whiffed the single biggest news story of the past week, judging by how everybody else talked about it endlessly: Somebody who famously eats hot dogs was apparently not invited to a hot-dog-eating contest. I bring this up not by way of criticism (I seldom complain or criticize, and then only just enough to keep my certifications current) but I hoped someone who is media savvy and lives on the West coast or in Europe might be able to explain why, in a world with two important wars going on, a nation with an election in progress, and a pending summer Olympics, a local hot dog contest was such a very big deal.
(V) & (Z) answer: For those who are not familiar with the details here, Nathan's Hot Dogs holds a hot-dog-eating contest on the Fourth of July each year, and has done so since 1972. For many years, it was just normal people eating as many hot dogs as they could in the normal way. During that time, eating 20 hot dogs in 10 minutes was usually enough to win.
Then, about 20 years ago, a Japanese fellow named Takeru Kobayashi "revolutionized" the contest by eating hot dogs in a manner that was purely about jamming as many in his stomach as was possible. He would dip the buns in water and swallow them, then break the hot dogs into pieces and swallow those, unchewed, like they were pills. Using that technique, he could down 50 hot dogs in 10 minutes. He reigned for several years, and then was dethroned by an American named Joey Chestnut, who was able to consume 60-70 hot dogs in 10 minutes using the same technique.
Kobayashi largely stopped competing in the Nathan's contest, claiming that he wasn't being paid enough given the publicity he was generating. That's probably true, but it's also true that it wasn't great for his "career" as a competitive eater to lose every year, which he would have done had he tried to face off against Chestnut. Chestnut won the contest every year but one between 2007 and 2023, but this year he is disqualified because he signed a contract with a rival hot dog brand (made by a vegetarian-meat-substitute company). However, Chestnut WILL engage in a meat-hot-dog-eating contest on Netflix against Kobayashi; that's scheduled for Labor Day.
Media outlets are always looking for good "light news" stories, and this one checks a LOT of boxes. It's sort of a sports story, and one with a U.S. vs. the world angle. It's also got a rivalry, and one with vague David vs. Goliath undertones (Kobayashi is way smaller than Chestnut). Oh, and now it has something of a culture wars dimension, because of the vegetarian hot dogs.
For our part, we were willing to answer your question, but we would resist writing about this subject otherwise, even if it took on an obvious political angle. In a world and a country where many people don't have enough to eat, we find it distasteful that there are people making a living by showing off how many hot dogs or chicken wings or oysters or pancakes they can shove down their gullets in a short period of time.
Put another way, the only Kobayashi we care about is the Kobayashi Maru.
S.P. in Harrisburg, PA, asks: Do you see any risk to the Democrats in losing the New Jersey Senate seat? If Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) runs as an independent, the Democratic vote could be split, resulting in the Republican winning. Similarly, in Maine, could you see Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and David Costallo (D) splitting the Democratic vote, resulting in the win for Republican Demi Kouzounas?
(V) & (Z) answer: We are going to begin with the second question first. When King first ran for the Senate, in 2012, he got 53% of the vote, the Republican got 31% and the Democrat got 13%. When King ran for reelection, in 2018, he got 54% of the vote, the Republican got 35% and the Democrat got 10%. In other words, the Senator has a track record of getting most of the independent vote, a fair chunk of the Democratic vote, and a chunk of the Republican vote. And the reason he gets more Democratic votes than the actual Democrats is that most of the state's Democrats prefer to win, and they recognize that he largely votes the Democratic Party line. There is no reason to think he will be in danger this time, having won by roughly 20 points in his two previous elections.
Even if Menendez runs, which is still a big if, we think it won't hurt Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) very much. Maybe if Menendez was particularly beloved, or Kim was particularly disliked, then there would be an issue, but neither of those things in the case. And so, as in Maine, we think Democratic voters will line up behind the guy who can win—in this case, the candidate who actually has a (D) after his name. The polling of the Democratic primary, before Menendez dropped out, backs this up. Across six polls, the Senator's highest number was 10%, and he mostly checked in at 5%-6%. Meanwhile, Kim's highest number was 63%, and he mostly checked in at 45%-50%. It's pretty clear that New Jersey Democrats are done with Bob Menendez.
W.S. in Austin, TX, asks: I agree completely that Richard Nixon had a positive impact on environmental issues. Also, it seems like much of the country has shifted very far to the right since he was in office. Based on Nixon's accomplishments in office, would he be more aligned with the current Democratic Party than the current GOP?
If so, maybe that's an indication of how far we have shifted.(V) & (Z) answer: If you look at the 1972 Republican Platform, which is the platform that Nixon was in a position to dictate entirely based on his preferences, the first 4,000+ words are dedicated to foreign policy, and in particular Nixon's plans to form partnerships with the other nations of the world. That alone would make him persona non grata in the modern Republican Party.
On top of that, Nixon was not only pro-environment, he also wanted to make the welfare system more effective, to treat people addicted to drugs as victims and not miscreants, and to get health insurance for as many people as possible. There are certainly some things in the platform, and in his political program, that are more "Republican" (both then and now), but most of those things, like having a robust military, are not anathema to Democrats.
And so, you are correct in thinking that Nixon, transported to 2024, sounds more like a Democrat than a Republican. That's not THAT shocking, however—as a politician from a state that had a Democratic majority for his entire political career, he was always something of a closet liberal. The truly instructive thing is that if Ronald Reagan was alive today, he might well be a Democrat, too. Or, at very least, he would be an outside-the-tent apostate Republican, like Paul Ryan or Liz Cheney. THAT is the real sign of how far right the Republican Party has veered.
J.H. in Boston, MA, asks: Your correspondent in India described Narendra Modi as "Trump before Trump," apparently quoting Steve Bannon. There are a lot of world leaders over the last decade that have been defined in terms of their similarity to Donald Trump. Of the top of my head, I could list Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro of Brasil, Boris Johnson of the UK, Nigel Farage of the UK, Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, and Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
Then, you wrote that Donald Trump is not a garden-variety Republican. He's not Mitt Romney or Bob Dole. But is the Republican Party of 2024 the party of Mitt Romney and Bob Dole? No, it is not. The party has spent the last 8 years purging itself of anti-Trump members (Justin Amash, Liz Cheney, many more), and the only Republicans advancing their careers have embraced Trumpism (Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, etc.).
So Trumpism and Trump-like politicians are ascendant in the U.S., and worldwide. But what are we even talking about? Famously Trump has few discernible policy positions or firmly held beliefs, other than maybe self-aggrandizement. Is that true of the rest of the Trumpism politicians I have listed? Seems unlikely. Maybe there is a common anti-immigrant thread, but that alone can't be what makes Trumpism Trumpism, can it? What even is Trumpism? I feel like my understanding of the political divide has been lost. This question seems vague and unfocused, sorry. But maybe you have an explanation that would make sense.(V) & (Z) answer: The lack of a robust or cohesive political platform is a feature of Trumpism and, to a greater or lesser extent, the Trump-like movements and politicians in other countries.
Other things that these various people and movements tend to have in common: (1) resentment of the ways in which the world has changed in the past half-century coupled with a desire to turn back the clock; (2) opposition to internationalism, which is accompanied by xenophobia, distrust of international alliances and organizations, and dislike of immigrants; (3) a sense that institutions have become corrupt, which in turn justifies corrupt behavior (since everyone does it); (4) religious fundamentalism, paired with suspicion of those who are not religious or who adhere to religions that are not the "correct" one, and also paired with a distrust of both education and science; and (5) a cult of personality centered on the leader of the country or the political party.
You may not find every single one of these things if you look at any particular one of these far-right-populist leaders, but you will definitely find most of them.
B.G. in Saranac Lake, NY, asks: I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Nikki Haley as Donald Trump's VP pick. Since she's indicated she'll vote for him, it seems like a natural. She's a woman of color, popular and might bring all her voters home. Is it because he's going to carry her state regardless or do they really dislike each other that much? What are your thoughts?
(V) & (Z) answer: There are a lot of things that argue against Nikki Haley. Her party has a lot of racists and sexists. She can't help bring a swing state into the fold. Donald Trump doesn't forgive critics easily (or at all, in most cases).
But the single-most-important reason that Haley won't be Trump's running mate is that he wants someone who will be a 100% loyal, no-questions-asked lapdog. Specifically, he wants the insurance policy of someone who, if it becomes necessary, will show up at the Capitol on January 5, 2029, and refuse to accept the results of the presidential election. Haley is not that person.
D.E. in Ashburn, VA, asks: Yes, how far Alan Dershowitz has fallen. I know it's not exactly your wheelhouse, but if any of your (lawyer?) readers could explain what the heck happened with him, I'd love to hear it!
(V) & (Z) answer: First, we allow for the possibility that, at some point, Dershowitz had a "revelation" that completely changed his political outlook. There are many staunch right-wingers who used to be staunch left-wingers, among them David Horowitz, Michael Savage and Dennis Miller.
However, our theory is this. Roughly 5-6 years ago, Dershowitz decided that he agreed with the Trump wing of the Republican Party on certain things, like the first impeachment. From the vantage point of the right-wing media, especially Fox, Dershowitz—as a liberal, an academic and a Jew—was one of "them." And there may be nothing that Fox likes more than to put one of "them" on their air, so that "they" can talk about how right "we" are (see also Owens, Candace; Whitlock, Jason; Morris, Dick; Penn, Mark; etc.).
And so, Dershowitz, whose career was otherwise winding down, was all of a sudden getting all kinds of attention, and no small amount of money from speaking gigs. Those things tend to be addictive, so he began to discover more and more ways in which he agreed with the Trumpers. And so it goes. We tend to believe the same thing happened with Jonathan Turley, excepting that Turley isn't Jewish. And, by the way, it's kind of happening right now with non-lawyers Bill Maher and Jerry Seinfeld, who are popping up an awful lot on right-leaning outlets these days to talk about how the world has gone mad with its political correctness and its changes in gender roles and blah blah blah.
If readers have different ideas, then we are happy to have them at comments@electoral-vote.com.
R.H.D. in Webster, NY, asks: Whenever Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appears on TV, she is referred to speaker emerita. Does it mean this title also applies to the likes of Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Kevin McCarthy when they appear on TV?
(V) & (Z) answer: There are two things going on here. First, people are generally accorded the titles they prefer, as long as they are not inaccurate. Pelosi prefers to be referred to as speaker emerita, and so she is generally granted that courtesy. On the other hand, she can't go on TV as Maj. Gen. Nancy Pelosi, USMC (ret.).
Second, the title of emerita or emeritus largely implies continued association with the institution from which the title is derived. So, for example, a professor emeritus/emerita is generally still "on staff" at the university they retired from, and is still drawing a paycheck, and could plausibly be recalled to teaching. Similarly, Pelosi is still a member of the House, and is still being paid a salary by that institution. Ryan, Boehner and McCarthy are not, so the title of speaker emeritus isn't really accurate. Although, if they asked to be referred to in that way, their wishes would probably be honored nonetheless.
R.T. in Arlington, TX, asks: It seems like the abortion issue for Donald Trump and the Gaza issue for Joe Biden present very similar problems. In each case, a smallish group of single-issue voters needs to be pandered to just enough to keep them on board without causing multi-issue voters to skip voting. Do you have a sense of which campaign comes out ahead in this calculus? How big are the respective groups and how likely are they to not cut off their noses in the end?
(V) & (Z) answer: It would be difficult to put a precise number on it, but there is no question that the anti-abortion crowd is far larger than the pro-Palestine crowd. The anti-abortion voters certainly number in the tens of millions, and they are of an age that most of them voted for Trump 4 and 8 years ago. He simply must keep them on board.
On the other hand, the pro-Palestine crowd is a relatively small percentage of the population, made up of some smallish percentage of college students and some percentage of Muslim-American/Arab-American voters. The latter group voted substantially for Biden in 2020, but the former group did not, primarily because most of them were not old enough. And even those who WERE old enough might not have been politically engaged, or might have been third-party voters who cast their ballots for someone like Howie Hawkins.
Put it this way: The Gaza issue is going to give Biden problems in a handful of swing states, most obviously Michigan. The abortion issue is going to give Trump problems in EVERY swing state.
D.H. in Portland, OR, asks: Humans' belief in themselves is what makes us so amazing, and has allowed us to travel the planet and beyond. That being said, there are many fields that feature an amazing number of people who live in a state of perpetual Dunning-Kruger effect. Do you believe that there is any field that has as many sufferers of this as politics does, and why does the Republican party seem more prone to it?
(V) & (Z) answer: If there is a field with more people who overstate their abilities than politics, we can't imagine what it might be. Maybe medicine, since doctors do not like to say "I don't know." In any case, American culture basically demands that politicians become Dunning-Krugerites, because American voters tend to demand that their politicians be a combination of Wonder Woman and Sir Galahad—a superhero who can do all, and yet is without stain of sin. Imagine if, in a presidential debate, the moderators asked a question, and the candidate replied: "Well, that's really not my area of expertise, which is why I rely on my [ADVISORY POST], who is named [NAME OF TOWERING FIGURE IN RELEVANT FIELD], and who knows what she is taking about." That's a great answer, and yet, the candidate would get crushed for admitting to not knowing everything. And so, they have to pretend to be experts in things they are not.
As to the Republicans, it is true that the current head of the party is the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, we suspect that beyond him, the dynamic is actually ground-up rather than top-down. That is to say, there are a lot of Republican voters out there who believe a lot of counterfactual things, in part because they want to, and in part because of a right-wing mediasphere that fills their heads with lies and propaganda. And so, there are a lot of Republican voters out there who have become self-appointed experts on history, the law (especially the First Amendment), climate science, immunology, etc. And any politician who wants these voters' votes has to parrot this phony "expertise" about the Civil War, free speech, global warming, vaccines, etc. So, the politicians aren't really displaying the Dunning-Kruger effect, they're just being opportunist chameleons.
A.G. in Scranton, PA, asks: What is with this whole kick that Republicans are now on where they want to quibble about the United States being a republic?
(V) & (Z) answer: If you read the Sherlock Holmes books, the titular character regularly observes that there's little new in the annals of crime, and that if you are familiar with the criminals of generations past, it helps a lot in unraveling the crimes of the present. History works much the same way; there's a lot of truth in the aphorism that "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
So it is with the argument that the U.S. is a republic and not a democracy. The basic notion here is that the fellows who wrote the Constitution intended the country to be run by a worthy minority, and not by the teeming masses. As you can imagine, this argument is invariably deployed by minority political factions when they are unhappy with what the majority is doing. Oh, and it's almost invariably minority political factions of a conservative stripe.
The first time this notion achieved broad currency was in the late 1930s, as an argument against entering World War II. Fascist-friendly Americans like Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford argued that it did not matter if the American people wanted to fight; economic and social elites should decide what is best for the country and stick with that. In the 1960s, "America is a republic" was a rallying cry of those Americans opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, and it was even chanted on a regular basis at the 1964 Republican National Convention. A couple of years ago, observing that Republicans almost never win the presidential popular vote, and that people who are not white, Christian males are gaining increasing amounts of power in the U.S., right-wing scholar Bernard Dobski wrote an essay, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote an essay bringing this old chestnut out of mothballs.
Note, incidentally, that the argument is not historically correct. It is true, the fellows who wrote the Constitution did not want "tyranny of the majority." But they also did not want "tyranny of the minority" either, and so took great pains to set up a mixed government in which the majority would have a decisive say over some parts, while the minority would have an important voice in others.
D.H. in Portland, OR, asks: Donald Trump said that the Second Amendment was the best amendment. If you were to rank the top ten Amendments in order of importance, what would your order be?
(V) & (Z) answer: Here you go:
1. The First Amendment: The rights of free speech, religion, the press, assembly, and petition of redress are fundamental to U.S. law, civic culture and politics.
2. The Thirteenth Amendment: Until this one was passed, the Constitution was a hypocritical and incomplete document.
3T. The Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments: Ibid.
4. The Fourteenth Amendment: Beyond conveying the rights of citizenship, due process and equal protection have been applied to a dizzying array of rights and privileges.
5. The Fifth Amendment: This is the most important of the four "people accused of crimes" amendments, and also establishes the right of due process.
6. The Sixteenth Amendment: Most of the things we expect the federal government to do, from building freeways to fighting modern wars to helping the most unfortunate citizens to keeping the economy stable would not be possible without the income tax.
7. The Second Amendment: Whether one approves of the Second Amendment or not, it has allowed Americans to protect and feed themselves for generations. Of course, it has also been responsible for some unknowable number of deaths, and it's now a big part of the culture wars.
8. The Ninth Amendment: The foundation of federalism. Also the amendment that has put abortion policy back in the hands of the states.
9T. The Sixth and Eighth Amendments: Two more of the four "people accused of crimes" amendments, these protect Americans from the sorts of abuses that were common in monarchies, including torture and other brutal punishments, and tossing someone in prison without charges and letting them sit there and rot.
10. The Seventeenth Amendment: U.S. Senators are much more responsive to the concerns of the people when they answer to the people, as opposed to the state legislature. Of course, sometimes the people pick a meathead football coach to be their senator.There you have it.
D.S. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: I work as a volunteer for Citizens' Climate Lobby whose job of working for climate legislation at the federal level is mainly possible if we have a reasonably healthy democracy.
Do you know of any organizations that are non-partisan that evaluate the health of our democracy and maybe even outline policy options to support a healthy democracy?(V) & (Z) answer: Take a look at The Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, and The Center for Popular Democracy.
M.B. in Melbourne, VIC, Australia, asks: You wrote that Germany declared war on the U.S. first in World War II. What happens if Congress declined to reciprocate?
Similarly, what happens if the U.S. is obligated under a Senate approved treaty to militarily support an ally—say, for example, an invocation of NATO Article 5, or (more relevant to my homeland) an invocation of ANZUS, but Congress fails to act?(V) & (Z) answer: There have been countries who declared war against the U.S., but had no ability to actually make good on that threat, or else no willingness to act on the declaration. For example, North Korea has declared war on the U.S. several times. Congress can, and does, ignore those.
However, Germany was not such a nation. It most certainly had the ability to back its declaration, and there was no question it would do so promptly, starting with unrestricted submarine warfare against American ships on the Atlantic Ocean. In that circumstance, Congress is left with no real option but to empower the military to defend the country. The only real question is whether they go with a formal declaration of war, or something that allows them to pass the buck a bit, like an authorization for the use of force.
As to the treaty question, what would happen in that case is that the sitting president would deploy troops as required by whatever treaty was activated. Presidents can deploy troops for 90 days anyhow, under the War Powers Act, and beyond that, the president would argue that Congress had already approved the military action by virtue of having approved the treaty. This is a pretty strong argument, and while some/many members of Congress MIGHT do some griping, there has yet to be a case where Congress stepped in and forced a president to immediately withdraw troops engaged in a war zone.
B.L. in Hudson, NY, asks: Yesterday was Donald Trump's birthday. This leads me to the following question. Have any two U.S. presidents, past or present, shared a birthday? If there are any such pairings (or more) maybe you could also say a few words of comparison or contrast between them.
(V) & (Z) answer: There is only one shared presidential birthday: November 2. James K. Polk was born on that date in 1795 and Warren Harding was born on that date in 1865. It would be hard to come up with two presidents who were more different. Polk was a hardworking, activist Democrat; Harding was a lazy, passive Republican. Polk had been a representative (and, in fact, speaker of the house), Harding had been a senator. Polk adored his wife, Harding disliked his and cheated on her left, right and sideways. Polk was a racist, Harding was actually pretty progressive on civil rights by the standards of his time.
Note that while there have been 45 presidents, there are actually 49 presidential birthdates. That is because the four presidents born prior to 1752 originally had birthdays according to the Julian calendar, and then after 1752 had birthdays according to the Gregorian calendar. For example, Thomas Jefferson's birthday is both April 13 (Gregorian) and April 2 (Julian). The Gregorian dates are generally used for official purposes, but the Julian dates are generally what appear on the four men's tombstones.
And given that there are 49 presidential birthdays, the odds that there would be a shared birthday are actually... just shy of 97%. This may seem counterintuitive; it's because they don't have to share any specific day (in which case the odds would basically be 1-in-366), they just have to share any day. Further, birthdays are not distributed evenly across the calendar. Anyhow, this is known as the birthday paradox.
D.R. in Thousand Oaks, CA, asks: Since there is every possibility that Donald Trump will be elected to another term as president, and given that he is at this point in time considered to be one of the worst U.S. Presidents, who in your opinion are the worst presidents that were actually reelected?
(V) & (Z) answer: There actually aren't that many candidates for this "honor." We are presumably talking about presidents who served most or all of 4 years before running for reelection, and so had a meaningful record to run on. There are just 17 presidents reelected after serving a full 4-year term, and just one other (Harry S. Truman) who was reelected after serving more than 2 years.
So, we are really only talking about 18 people, and most of them were good presidents (or better), which is a big part of the reason they were reelected. Some of those 18, like Ulysses S. Grant and Harry S. Truman, were pretty good, and then saw their reputations wrecked after they left office. Some of those 18, like Grover Cleveland and Richard Nixon, were reelected on the strength of a successful first term, and then screwed things up in their second term. Some of those 18, like Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan, were highly regarded by voters in their time, even if hindsight might afford a different view.
This means that we can only really come up with two plausible answers to your question. The first is James Monroe, who was nothing great, but who served in a time when the nation was basically stable and prosperous, and where there really was no opposition party. And the second is George W. Bush, who was already deeply problematic when he ran for reelection, and who won primarily thanks to character assassination of, and a weak campaign by, John Kerry.
D.M. in Oakland, CA, asks: Your description of Woodrow Wilson as one of "the top five smartest men to serve as president" made me wonder... who are the other presidents you put on that list? Obviously, it calls for some subjective guesswork and interpretation, but I'm guessing the list would include John Quincy Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Who else?
And on the other end of the scale, the not-so-smartest men to serve as president?(V) & (Z) answer: Candidates for the smartest, in chronological order, are John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
It's not easy to compare across eras (and their different types of evidence), and it's also not easy to compare different kinds of intelligence (for example, Lincoln and Garfield were smart in very different ways). But if we absolutely had to narrow it down to a top five, in no particular order, we would go with Lincoln, Jefferson, Wilson, J.Q. Adams and Clinton.
Candidates for least smart, also in chronological order, are Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. That's only six, so to get down to a top five, we'd knock Buchanan off the list and call it a day. For each of the five non-Buchanan presidents, there are famous comments from people who knew them about how lacking in smarts they are/were. For example, most readers will know that former Penn professor William T. Kelly described Trump as the "dumbest goddamn student I ever had."
F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: You give credit to George Washington for creating the executive. But does this have to be regarded as an outstanding accomplishment? I mean, didn't France and the U.K. have a similar system at that time (with ministers for certain responsibilities)? If all that Washington did was "copy and paste," then it's certainly not an outstanding accomplishment. Am I getting something wrong?
(V) & (Z) answer: Both of those countries were real, live monarchies in 1789. France had an absolute king that did not need to concern himself with the legislature, and who changed ministers as often as some people change socks (these things would cost Louis XVI his head, incidentally, while Washington was still serving as president).
The U.K. was in the process of evolving from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, but the monarch still had enormous power, and the prime minister at that time was somewhat more akin to the American speaker of the house than the American president.
Washington, along with the other Founding Parents, had no qualms about looking to Europe for ideas and inspiration. But he had to build a functional government without benefit of absolute power, while working with a legislature that he was not a member of, and that he could not control by fiat. And he had to do all of this while keeping in mind that the previous government (the Articles of Confederation government) had been too weak, but that the American public was leery of governments that were too strong.
In short, building a functional executive branch, and a functional national government was a real achievement, and was nowhere near as simple as "copy and paste."
T.B. in Leon County, FL, asks: (Z) wrote about "correct" Civil War nomenclature, with the "Western theater" being, basically, the Deep South and not the American West.
Would correct Civil War nomenclature include "slave" rather than "enslaved," and the use of other terms generally avoided in modern literature (e.g., contraband)? When do "correct" terms get replaced by "accurate" terms when historians discuss history? What changes after 100 years and what doesn't change until after 1,000 years?(V) & (Z) answer: You're conflating two things here. The note about "Western theater" was just to indicate that the meaning that modern readers might infer is not the correct meaning. It's just like explaining that "ball" and "bullet" were synonymous in the 1860s, and that there were projectiles described as balls that were not, in fact, round in shape. There is nothing political going on here.
By contrast, sometimes historians update their language to be more sensitive to modern readers/listeners. No professor would walk into a Civil War course today and talk about how Abraham Lincoln freed the negroes, because that term is passé and there's no particularly good reason for maintaining the anachronism. On the other hand, if you were quoting Lincoln directly, or if you were talking about something like the United Negro College Fund, you would maintain the anachronistic language in order to be accurate.
M.M.F. in Nagoya, Japan, asks: God and General Longstreet looks like a fascinating book on the Lost Cause narrative, but before tackling that, I was wondering if you had a recommendation on a readable-but-consistent-with-modern-scholarship general biography of the General himself? Particularly something that gives some insight into how his views and motivations evolved during and after the war.
(V) & (Z) answer: The book you want is Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South (2023), by Elizabeth Varon. Your question could practically be put on the dust jacked as a summary of the book.
M.B. in Nashville, TN, asks: Concerning the question from A.J. in Ames, I am curious why (V) and (Z) did not consider the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad to be at least a candidate for a crucial turning point of World War II, or at the very least on par with your suggested "two dates in the European theater of the war that are pretty close to equal in importance" (D-Day and Sept. 1, 1939, when entry of UK and France into the war became a certainty).
Granted, the question was which was "the most important day of World War II," and the Battle of Stalingrad lasted over six months. But if a single date is essential, one might easily pick Feb. 2, 1943—the day Germany's 6th Army finally capitulated to the Soviets—or possibly the date in November 1942 when the Red Army successfully surrounded German forces attacking the city.(V) & (Z) answer: You basically answered your own question. What happened in Eastern Europe was important, but it's very difficult to identify a particular day that was paramount. Not only are there several key days during Stalingrad, there are also a couple during the Battle of Kursk, which was also critical to what happened in the east.
M.B. in San Antonio, TX, asks: Fabulous analysis of the current situation in the Middle East, and wonderful use of history as a guide. Here's my question: After World War II, how were Truman, et al. able to avoid Wilson's mistakes/ineffectiveness?
(V) & (Z) answer: Not to be glib, but the key was that the victorious leaders and their voters, along with the defeated peoples, all accepted, to a pretty broad extent, the importance of nation building and the inefficacy of punishment. They all had the still-pretty-recent experience of World War I to inform their perspectives. That said, Truman and Churchill, in particular, did what they could to prime the pump and to prepare their voters for what the postwar world would look like.
Also, there was SOME punishment after World War II, but it was visited upon a relatively small number of leaders and gross offenders, rather than upon entire peoples. Maybe that satisfied the need for vengeance?
J.C. in Trenton, NJ, asks: A historical question that may have some current relevance: After World War II, how long did it take for Germany (or at least a significant majority of it), to realize they had been wrong about Hitler/Nazism?
(V) & (Z) answer: Well, pretty much every German denounced Nazism once the war was over.
Of course, not all denunciations were genuine; some Germans were just saying what they needed to say given how the winds were blowing. So, the Allies conducted a process called de-Nazification. The worst Nazis were put on trial, of course, but the rest were subjected to interviews about what they had done during the war. The interviewers (mostly Allied officers) actually knew the answers to the questions they were asking, thanks to the Nazis' copious bookkeeping. And so, the key was how honest the interviewees were. If they told the truth about their actions during the way, and said they were contrite, their legal rights as citizens were restored. If they lied, then not so much.
That said, what you really want to know is if the spell of Trumpism will break once Trump is gone. And the answer is that scholars interviewed former Nazis after the war, and were consistently and plausibly told that many/most Nazis soured on Hitler long before World War II ended, but it was too hard, for various reasons, to turn against him. Once he was dead, on the other hand, there was no problem, and it was easy to break away from his movement/cult.
D.H. in Peoria, IL, asks: Your answer to D.B. in San Diego about the draft suggests a follow-up that I would like your opinion on. I'm part of a bunch of Boomers who gather often to discuss and solve the problems of today. Invariably, one or more will comment "if only we had the draft today things would be so much better. The youngins today are lazy, out-of-shape, selfish, and lack any kind of sense of duty." According to these guys, back when we had the draft, we didn't need no welfare state and everybody pulled their weight.
My question to you is two-fold. First, can you confirm or refute the argument that the draft had a positive impact on society by inculcating the values suggested by my Boomer friends? Second, as academics who interact with the youngins, can you confirm or refute the argument that kids today need to be whipped into shape and a draft would be the way to do it?(V) & (Z) answer: Tell Archie Bunker we said "hello."
The notion that a draft somehow makes people better citizens is extremely dubious. There was only one military draft in the first 130 years of U.S. history, and that one (during the Civil War) was responsible for adding only 20,000-30,000 soldiers to the 2 million men under arms. Would your friends suggest that all young people before 1917 were ne'er-do-wells?
Similarly, it is laughable that the Vietnam War draft somehow whipped hundreds of thousands of young men into shape and made them good citizens. Oh, sure, it worked that way for some of them. But for others, they were already good citizens. Still others, it did not matter, because they never came home. And still others, the price of whatever "benefits" they enjoyed was life-long physical or mental impairments. Not a great trade.
As to today's college students, it is as hard as it's ever been to get into a great, or even a good, school. The pressure on them is intense. The costs of tuition, etc., are such that most of them have to work part- or full-time jobs in addition to their full-time load. So, talk of how this generation is somehow worse than previous generations is nothing more than old men saying what old men have ALWAYS said, literally all the way back to ancient Greece. We're not kidding; Hesiod, for example, wrote:
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint...And he died almost 3,000 years ago!
D.R. in Phoenix, AZ, asks: In a story about Trump's (over)use of the American flag, the reporter writes, "President Ronald Reagan, who was also known for his red ties (though they were generally seen as representing the Republican Party) [is] a case in point."
It was always my understanding that the whole red-blue construct emerged in the 2000 election, well after Reagan's time. For how long has red been associated with the Republican party, and blue with the Democratic Party?(V) & (Z) answer: The use of colors to represent the political parties on electoral maps began with the advent of color television, back in the 1950s. However, each network had their own system; some used red for Democrats and blue for Republicans, some used yellow and red, some used blue for whatever party was incumbent in the White House, etc. The red/Republican and blue/Democrat was indeed solidified during the 2000 election thanks to to the ongoing dispute over Florida. It was easier and clearer for all outlets to use the same system.
As to Reagan, we're not sure we buy the premise that he favored red ties. In his official portraits, at least, he wore ties that had red, white, and blue; that is also true of the tie that the Ronald Reagan foundation sells as the "RONALD REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL SIGNATURE NECK TIE":
In any case, if Reagan did favor ties that were all-red or mostly red, it wasn't because that meant "Republican," because it did not, in his time. It was because red is the "power" color. For that reason, over 80% of presidential debate ties are red.
E.J. in New York City, NY, asks: You wrote:
For what it's worth, the four "northern" states that Joe Biden needs—Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—generally tend to be within a couple of points of each other once all the votes are counted. So, a 4-point win in Minnesota somewhat implies a close win in the Electoral College for the President.Being a fellow data-driven math person, I find it odd that you'd cite the outlier of the four, rather than the relatively consistent numbers of the other three. What is the methodology/thought process for this? Frankly, I'm not as optimistic as you seem to be.
You also wrote:That said, to actually predict a presidential election based on one state-level poll in June is insanity, so we wouldn't recommend it.Well, yeah, but you just kind of did, and I'm trying to understand the rationale of shoehorning three states into one. Is it that you trust that particular poll more than the ones coming from the other three?
N.T. in Dallas, TX, asks: You wrote:
For that matter, look at all the undecideds in Utah. What are they waiting for?"Did it cross your mind that they are maybe not "undecided," but have decided not to choose between the plague and cholera?
(V) & (Z) answer: Note that we are mindful of the tone of these questions, especially the second one, but despite that we're going to answer them.
Everything we write exists in the context of what we've written previously. And there are two things we have written over and over in the past several months. First, polls don't mean all that much right now (and they will arguably continue to not mean much if the race remains this close). Second, it is virtually unheard of, absent a Ross Perot, for 20% of people to choose a non-major-party candidate. So yes, N.T., it did cross our mind that some people don't want to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. We have written many times about the Trump-Biden double-haters. But we also know that some meaningful number of those folks will eventually hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.
The comments on the polls are literally the last thing we write each day. And what we are basically trying to do is find something to say that is brief, interesting, and not a repeat of what we've already said 10 times before. You should really think of those remarks, particularly at this point in the cycle, as something akin to ad-libbing.
We don't expect that readers would infer our production schedule. But surely you can infer that something that gets a sentence or two got much less time and thought than something that got 200 or 400 or 1,000 words, right? We are also perplexed, E.J., that you would take our off-the-cuff comment incredibly seriously, but would dismiss our warning not to take seriously our off-the-cuff comment.
S.B. in North Liberty, IA, asks: I think you have answered this question in some capacity before, but have (V) and (Z) ever met in person? I'm sure most of us would love to be flies on the wall for that interaction!
(V) & (Z) answer: (Z) has not traveled to Europe since the partnership with (V) began, but (V) travels to Southern California on a somewhat regular basis. So, we have met in person numerous times. (V) has not met the staff dachshunds, though. Truth be told, like many dogs, they are leery of anyone who wears glasses.