Saturday Q&A

A very mixed bag today. Oh, and if you're still working on the week's headline theme, note that the movie that is favored to win Best Picture this year COULD have been included, although it would have required a very unusual item for it to actually work.

Current Events

R.D. in Philadelphia, PA, asks: CNN is reporting "Iowa caucuses set to be the coldest on record, by a lot." Do you think this favors any one candidate?

(V) & (Z) answer: If any of the candidates were the "young people's candidate" (say, the way Bernie Sanders was for Democrats in 2016), it would likely favor that person, since young people are likely to be more willing to brave the elements. But we don't really think any Republican running for president right now is the "young people's candidate."

That being the case, then the poor weather would favor the candidate whose supporters are most devoted. And that's surely gotta be Donald Trump, right? Plus, his supporters tend to drive trucks, which are better in snow than cars.

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B.F. in Nashua, NH, asks: Since I live in New Hampshire, my primary is next week. I am "undeclared" (New Hampshire-speak for independent) and can request, in person, a ballot in either primary. I get a dozen fliers a day (!) about the primary. Recently, 3-4 daily fliers are urging me to write-in "Joe Biden," from organizations I have never heard of. My question is this: can I write in "Joe Biden" or do I need to write in "Joseph R. Biden Jr."? If the latter, is this actually Republicans ratwhatevering?

(V) & (Z) answer: Secretary of State Dave Scanlan (R) has made clear that as long as the voter's intent is clear, the vote will be counted properly. So, you can write Joe Biden, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Biden, the President, Bidon, Bidden, Dark Brandon, My Man Joe B., Prez JRB, or Jill's Husband, and you'll be OK.

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B.L. in Hudson, NY, asks: Suppose that Clarence Thomas recuses himself from the Colorado case and as a result, it ends up tied, with 4 votes to uphold the Colo. decision to strike Trump's name and 4 to overturn it. What would happen then?

(V) & (Z) answer: The Colorado decision would stand, but only for Colorado. No new precedent would be set.

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D.S. in Boston, MA, asks: Given the presidential and primary debates in my living memory have been total sh** shows, providing little to nothing in policy, I ask: When was the last good/civil debate? And can you provide a youtube link so I can reminisce?

(V) & (Z) answer: The Barack Obama-Mitt Romney debates were all grown-up affairs. Check out Debate #1, Debate #2 or Debate #3. The two men each listened when the other was speaking, they behaved civilly, and they said substantive things. The debates didn't go off a cliff until 2016. Probably just a coincidence that was Donald Trump's first presidential cycle.

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G.M. in Ponte Vedra, FL, asks: During the last Republican debate, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) proudly boasted that Florida's education system is rated number one in the nation. As a Florida resident, I find that incredible. Florida teachers, I'm sure, don't agree—they are strictly limited as to what they can teach or discuss in class (no sex; no race; etc.), and what books they can expose their students to. On the college level, the governor has pretty much taken over control of state schools (through proxies, of course), where certain departments and offices (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, for example) have been eliminated or eviscerated. Many college professors are fleeing Florida. What agencies or organizations rank Florida #1? Far-right ones, no doubt.

(V) & (Z) answer: That ranking comes from U.S. News and World Report. However, it also comes with some very big caveats. First, USNWR's methodology has been widely criticized; the publication considers things like how many college graduates a state has (which doesn't really make for a better education for those still in the classroom). Second, Florida is ranked #1 for higher education, and #1 for education overall, but #10 in K-12 education. In other words, the colleges are primarily responsible for the lofty ranking. Third, the rankings do not reflect the changes DeSantis has wrought in the past year or so. The higher education rating is going to drop, and with it the overall education rating will drop, too.

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D.R. in Harrisburg, PA, asks: Let's assume the House approves the measure to find Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. It is then up to the DOJ to prosecute as they see fit. Something tells me the President may want to avoid prosecuting his son. Could/would/should Joe Biden announce that he agrees people held in contempt of Congress should be prosecuted and that since a few people in the last few years defied subpoenas, he'll start with anyone who defied a subpoena in order of their defiance, starting in 2016?

(V) & (Z) answer: Possible? Sure. But not really Biden's style. Further, Republicans and their right-wing media allies are WAY better at making a stink about these things than Democrats and their left-wing media allies are. And if Biden tried this, you would hear constant carping about how dad's weaponizing the DoJ to keep his son from paying the price for his misdeeds.

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J.H. in Boston, MA, asks: Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to fund the government includes, as its major concession to House Republicans, a $20 billion cut to the IRS budget. I assume this is coming out of the $80 billion increase passed as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included instructions to hire 87,000 employees. I'm wondering where this leaves us. Weren't there previous cutbacks to this top line number in previous deals with Kevin McCarthy? Have the 87,000 already been hired, and will this new cut mean that a quarter of them will have to be let go?

(V) & (Z) answer: The $80 billion in new funding was spread out over 10 years. So, the $20 billion cut can, and will, be pushed off to the tail end of that (i.e., 2030 or so). Democrats are expecting that, in that time, they will be able to put the $20 billion back.

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C.D. in Chattanooga, TN, asks: We keep hearing reports the economy is good, but then we also keep hearing reports that the government could shut down at any time. I don't understand how both can be true, so please help me.

Can the economy ever really be good if we're always a hair's breadth the way from a government shutdown? Am I misunderstanding how close we are to shutdowns, or would it just not have that much effect on the economy?

Also, what happens to bondholders in situations like a shutdown? Do they completely lose their money, or just not get paid back until a budget is approved?

(V) & (Z) answer: First, the relationship between the economy and government shutdowns is relatively minimal. A shutdown is when Congress doesn't pass legislation to fund the government in time. This happens sometimes when the economy is good, and sometimes when the economy is not so good. It's really not a function of economic trends, it's more a function of whether the two chambers of Congress are controlled by different parties.

Second, you appear to be conflating a government shutdown with hitting the debt limit. These are two different things. A shutdown happens when there is no budget in place, and the only result is that there can be no new spending (but previously approved outlays, like bond issues, are still valid, and bonds can still be redeemed).

The debt limit is reached when Congress fails to approve new borrowing in order to keep the country from running out of money. THAT is when bondholders could theoretically be forced to wait to redeem their bonds for days or weeks. However, while a government shutdown doesn't affect the economy too much, a default on the debt would be devastating. So, Congress has never actually let that happen.

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K.F. in Framingham, MA, asks: While we will embark in the good fight in 2024, in the event that #45 becomes #47, will (V) and (Z) stay with us as we suffer through another four years of the Orange Menace? Are there any coping mechanisms you might suggest? What tools will the Blue Team and the rest of us have at our disposal to continue the good fight? Will there be a secessionist push in northern states? If things really go south, will this be the moment when our friends to the north finally invade and push for regime change? Hey, it's not an insurrection if another country does it. In all seriousness, if Donald Trump manages to pull off a full Hitler or Franco and our democracy as we know it is lost, if we look to history, what might happen that could lead to us taking it back?

(V) & (Z) answer: We will be around.

And there is very little chance that Trump will be able to do what Hitler, Franco and their ilk managed to do. They literally overthrew the governments of their nations, and placed themselves in charge of the new government as dictator. These men were ruthless in their quest for power. There is no indication that Trump has the stones for that kind of bloodthirsty maneuvering. Further, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Tojo, et al., existed in a historical context wherein the citizenry was willing to accept a radical change in government, or at least wasn't willing to fight back against it. That historical context does not exist in the modern day United States. Yes, polls show that many Americans are down on democracy right now, but there aren't enough such people, and there isn't enough depth of feeling, that 330 million Americans (or 270 million, if you exclude the MAGA crowd) are willing to look the other way as their government is shredded.

If Trump is reelected, he will do plenty of damage in 4 years, to be sure. But his time in power will come to an end, just as it did the last time. That thought is, we would say, coping mechanism 1A.

Politics

R.L. in Alameda, CA, asks: I keep seeing statements similar to this one regarding the 2024 presidential election. "Many Republican voters have stated that a conviction of Donald Trump would push them to not vote for him." To which I say: Really? With 91 indictments, he's still your guy. But a conviction is a bridge too far? Does it not matter a whit that, given all of the publicly available evidence, he is guilty as sin and, if a conviction is the standard, that bar has kinda been met?
Do you really believe that a conviction would move these voters away from Trump when 91 indictments have not done so? Is there any polling on if these people actually exist and where they would go if they don't vote for Trump? Do they stay home, vote for RFK Jr, Joe Manchin on a No Labels ticket, or for Biden?

(V) & (Z) answer: It's a real phenomenon, and it's backed by polling. To start, there are people who are wavering between Trump and Joe Biden, and a conviction would bring it home for them that Trump really did wrong, and it's not just propaganda or a witch hunt. So, a conviction would certainly move some voters from the fence or from "unenthusiastic Trump vote" to the Biden column.

There are also voters who are happy to vote for Trump, but recognize that it's impractical to be president from prison. Those voters would migrate to Trump alternatives—either other Republicans, or RFK Jr., or a third-party candidate.

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A.S. in Brooklyn, NY, asks: If, G-d forbid, Joe Biden passed away tomorrow, do you think Mike Bloomberg would immediately jump into the race as a Democrat and would win the general election?

(V) & (Z) answer: We doubt that Bloomberg, who is 81 and who made no headway in 2020, would jump into the race. If he did, there is no chance he would be the nominee or the next president, since Democrats aren't buying what he's selling.

Should Biden drop out for any reason, there will be many Democrats who make themselves available to be nominated: Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), etc. It will be one of them who would get the nod, not Bloomberg.

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S.M. in Pratt, KS, asks: I wasn't going to ask this, because I'm tired of all the Joe Biden has dementia memes from Republicans. So this question makes me feel somewhat hypocritical. But your question and answer with J.M. in Norco kind of opened the door.

Even back when Donald Trump was in office, there were signs of cognitive decline. I think we all remember the "Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV" interview. They don't give those tests to persons with no sign of decline. Now we've seen the comparisons of stance between Trump and someone suffering with PSP frontotemporal dementia, which are only reinforced when we see that his campaign has had to start putting toe pads under his feet during press events in order to attempt to hide the lean.

While I know that Biden isn't going to campaign on "the other guy has dementia," how hard will/should Biden's surrogates lean into this? How much will making this widely known hurt Trump? Will it damage his standing with his loyalists at all?

(V) & (Z) answer: There is nothing that will alienate Trump's loyal base, but some of the independent/undecided voters might be swayed if they believe Trump is the one whose cheese is really slipping off the cracker. If this line of attack is to commence, it would have to come from a source unconnected to the Democratic Party, like, say, the Lincoln Project. And it would probably work best if it was a sequence of clips where Trump has mental hiccups. Saying that The Donald is losing his marbles is nowhere near as effective as SHOWING that he's losing his marbles.

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R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: In discussing what Republicans and Democrats want from their candidates, you wrote: "...there is nothing Biden has done that angers progressives." Aren't many progressives angry about President Biden's strong support for Israel's war against Hamas? Or is this anger I've seen restricted mostly to young people and college campuses?

(V) & (Z) answer: You're right. When we wrote that, we were thinking about domestic policy, not foreign policy.

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S.V.E. in Renton, WA, asks: I agree with your view that by far the most likely presidential matchup this year will be Biden v. Trump. Should that happen, in the somewhat unlikely event that Trump agrees to debate, I have a "rock solid" tactic I would LOOOOOOVE for Biden to use: At a time that seems appropriate (such as after Trump boasts about his strength or health, or denigrates Biden's age), Biden should challenge Trump to a push up contest "here and now" then drop down and knock a couple off. Despite his age, I suspect Biden is in good enough shape that he could reasonably do a half dozen or more, and I would bet all the money in my kids' college funds that Trump can't do a single push-up.

So, imagine you're Biden's campaign manager and I'm an enthusiastic junior advisor making this pitch. Can you tell me all the ways that my idea is incredibly stupid and/or brilliant?

(V) & (Z) answer: The problem with stunts is that some of them hit the bullseye, and others go south, and it's hard to know which is which until it happens. Howard Dean thought the "Dean Scream" was a good idea. Wrong! Bill Clinton though that playing his saxophone on late-night TV was a good idea. Right! Michael Dukakis thought it was a good idea to pose for a picture while driving a tank and wearing a helmet. Wrong! Barack Obama thought it would be a good idea to release lists of his favorite books and movies. Right!

If Biden were to try this, it COULD be a home run. But our concern is that it would bring to mind when actor Jack Palance did the same thing at the Oscars, and so would look like Biden was stealing Palance's bit. Not good for a guy with a history of plagiarism.

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P.R. in Saco, ME, asks: You write, on occasion, something like "Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-MN) is not a serious opponent." What does DFL mean?

(V) & (Z) answer: The official name of the Minnesota Democratic organ is the "Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party." This was the result of a 1944 merger between the Democratic Party of Minnesota and the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota.

Civics

W.F. in Chouppes, France, asks: With all the talk of gerrymandering and district maps being challenged, I am wondering how they are calculated. What factors are taken into account? Is this information public? I would like to try my hand at drawing some neutral maps, just for fun. How would I do as a "special master"?

(V) & (Z) answer: There are a handful federal requirements for congressional districts that states are required to observe. Districts have to be roughly equal in size, and have to adhere to the constraints imposed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Beyond that, states have their own rules. The great majority of states (45) require that districts be contiguous—can't split a district into pieces. The majority of states (34) declare that district lines should follow other political boundaries (in other words, a city/county should not be split across two districts, unless unavoidable). The majority of states (32) decree that districts should be as compact as possible. A minority of states (15) want "communities of interest" (ethnic and cultural groups, people in the same industry, etc.) to be kept together in the same district, when possible. There are a handful of other guiding principles that pop up in a state or two or three, but these are the biggies.

If you want to know the rules for a particular state, go to this site, click on a state on the map, and then click on "Criteria." For example, if you click on California, the site will tell you:

Like all states, California must comply with constitutional equal population requirements. California law requests that the redistricting commission adjust census data for both congressional and state legislative districts in order to count incarcerated individuals at their last known residence. [Cal. Const. art. XXI, § 2(d)(1), Cal. Elections Code § 21003]

California must also, like all states, abide by the Voting Rights Act and constitutional rules on race.

The California constitution further requires that districts be contiguous. To the extent possible, they must also preserve the geographic integrity of cities, counties, neighborhoods, and communities of interest. To the extent practicable, and where so doing does not violate higher-priority constraints, districts must also encourage compactness, defined by lines that do not bypass nearby population in favor of more distant population. Finally, where practicable, and where not in conflict with the criteria above, state Senate and Assembly districts must be nested within each other. [Cal. Const. art. XXI, § 2(d)]

In drawing maps, the commission may not consider candidate residences, and districts may not be drawn to favor or discriminate against a candidate or party. [Cal. Const. art. XXI, § 2(e)]

California is one of just four states that has that "nested" requirement (along with Hawaii, Rhode Island and Utah).

If you want to try your hand at district drawing, there are several free websites/apps that are very similar to the ones used by actual mapmakers. Take a look at DistrictBuilder (requires sign-up for a free account, also make sure to do the tutorial) or DistrictR.

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P.L. in Denver, CO, asks: I watched Face the Nation this week. Mike Johnson maintains that Article II, Section 1 means that the 2020 election was not fair. Can you explain what he is referring to and does his argument have any merit?

(V) & (Z) answer: He's talking specifically about Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, which is known as the Electors Appointment Clause, and reads thusly:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

From this, Johnson derives the extreme view that ANY decisions about elections must be made by state legislatures, and that ANY election where ANY decision was made by ANY entity other than the legislature is invalid. Such entities, according to Johnson's own press release, include "governors, secretaries of state, election officials, judges, and private parties."

For someone who is trained as a lawyer, and who claims to have spent much time thinking about this, Johnson's argument is, to use a technical term, stupid. First, there is zero question that legislative bodies, whether at the state or federal level, are entitled to delegate authority to other entities (say, election officials).

Second, the Speaker would propose that if a local official decides where to put drop boxes, that's illegal, because it's not the legislature deciding. If a secretary of state invalidates a candidacy because the gathered signatures were not valid, that's illegal, because it's not the legislature deciding. If a judge extends polling hours at a particular polling place because it ran out of ballots, that's illegal, because it's not the legislature deciding. This is plainly absurd, and is also a variant on the struck-down-by-the-Supreme-Court "independent legislature theory."

Third, if one believes that Joe Biden was chosen as president in an election where "illegal" decisions were made, well, so was Donald Trump. Is it really plausible that, in 2016, NO decisions were made by "governors, secretaries of state, election officials, judges, or private parties"? No, it isn't. So, until Johnson concedes that every presidential election in U.S. history (except maybe the first one) was not valid, then he's just blowing hot, partisan air.

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B.C. in Eugene, OR, asks: If the Republicans lose their majority in the House, for any length of time, do the Democrats take over the leadership?

(V) & (Z) answer: They can, and they certainly would, if the length of time is of any substance. If it was just for a weekend, they probably wouldn't bother.

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J.B. in Hutto, TX, asks: In your response to M.M. in Leonardtown, you stated your support for eliminating the "Two Senators Per State" provision in the Constitution. However, Article V of the Constitution (which lays out the methods of amending the Constitution) states clearly that this change is forbidden, even by a constitutional amendment. The text at the end of the article reads, "Provided that... no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate."

On the face of it, this is very clear cut. I suppose an amendment could simply be passed with two sections, the first changing this aspect of Article V and the second eliminating equal suffrage in the Senate. But that would mean that there was no point in writing the provision into the Constitution in the first place. Indeed, the Supreme Court might strike it down as, strangely, an unconstitutional amendment to the Constitution.

This being the case, and because I find it effectively impossible that the North Dakotas and Vermonts of the nation would willingly relinquish their disproportional influence in the Senate, how could eliminating equality of the states in the Senate be achieved?

(V) & (Z) answer: First of all, eliminating equality of the states in the Senate will never be achieved, for the very reason you state. So, we're necessarily speaking hypothetically here.

Second, a Constitutional amendment could certainly include a clause explicitly repealing that part of Article V. However, that's surely not necessary. If a newer part of the Constitution is in conflict with an older part, then the newer part prevails. For example, there's nowhere that the three-fifths compromise was explicitly repealed; it was just understood that it had been wiped out by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Third, most of the men who wrote the Constitution were lawyers. And so, they knew that you can't write a legal document in a manner that causes it be to be unalterable, eternally carved in stone. However, they were also politicians who knew that most of their fellow Americans were somewhat unsophisticated when it came to the finer points of law and civics. So, it's fair to assume that they put the "this will never, ever change" bit in there not because they expected it to be legally valid, but instead because they knew it would put small states at ease as they decided whether or not to ratify the Constitution.

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F.F. in London, England, UK, asks: In your answer about the Second Amendment, you suggest one of the reasons for the Second Amendment is resistance against an overly assertive federal government. Wouldn't that be treason or insurrection? Surely a document which establishes the functioning of state, and provides the means for amendment, would not suggest that taking up arms against the state is protected? It just makes no sense to me.

(V) & (Z) answer: The fellows who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights recognized that even good governments can go off the rails, eventually. They felt that had happened with the British government, and they were also well-steeped in classical history, and so knew what happened with Rome, too. Don't forget that Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration and the third president of the U.S., said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

History

C.W. in Carlsbad, CA, asks: I loved your item about the Stable Genius's claim that he could've prevented the Civil War. It did clarify a few things for me about how that part of U.S. history relates to the situation now. I do have questions, though, about the map included. The line you drew westward from the southern (minus tail) border of Missouri was drawn around the time Missouri was admitted as a state? If so, why are Texas and Florida shown as states at all? I suppose if the map represented the U.S. states as of 1845 it would be more correct, but even then there are some issues.

I guess I have to ask, even though this isn't actually a peer-reviewed journal, where this map came from?

(V) & (Z) answer: That map came from Wikipedia. (Z) has a similar map that he likes slightly better, one that was prepared as an exhibit for Eric Foner's U.S. history textbook, but he couldn't find it that evening. The post-Missouri states were drawn in just to make it easier to conceptualize how the Missouri Compromise was not suited to dealing with the Mexican cession.

If you want a map of how things stood on the day the Missouri Compromise became law, here it is:

If you note that it's improbable that the available territory could have been carved into an equal number of free and slave states, you're right. Southerners expected to add territory south of the line, either by taking it from Mexico, or by conquering central American nations, or by annexing Cuba.

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J.T. in San Bernardino, CA, asks: Simply for the sake of argument, I suggest that your fascinating and informative rundown of the negotiating positions leading to the Civil War leaves out an important option that would have avoided the war: The Union could have "simply" allowed the southern states to secede. Some kind of negotiated settlement in which the southern states returned or paid compensation for Federal property.

While I don't personally think this would have been a good option, it could—potentially—be what Donald Trump had in mind. While it might have created a slippery slope that destroyed the country, it would have avoided a war (for the time being).

Was this option plausible? Was it ever a serious point of discussion?

(V) & (Z) answer: A serious point of discussion? Sure, in that it is exactly what the Confederacy wanted (though they did not intend to pay for anything, reasoning that they had already paid between 1787 and 1860).

However, this was a non-starter for the Lincoln administration and for much of the Northern public. If "we're leaving" is a valid response to losing an election, then the country would quickly fall apart. So no, it was not plausible. Further, even if this WAS the chosen solution, there was no need for negotiation. All the Lincoln administration had to do was announce that it would not contest secession.

In general, with Donald Trump's declarations on most topics, particularly historical topics, it is best to assume there is zero method behind the madness. We assure you that if he was pressed on exactly what his plan for avoiding the Civil War would have been, he would have had no answer.

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B.C. in Walpole, ME, asks: You suggest in your piece on compromise and the coming of the Civil War that the Crittenden Compromise failed because the Republicans rejected it. It is my understanding that the compromise got no buy-in from either side, that ultimately it was a plan without support from either the Southern states or the Republicans. (I do understand that you summarized a whole college course in one day's column.) Did any leaders or any group of any size come out in support of the Crittenden Compromise?

(V) & (Z) answer: John J. Crittenden was the 1860 equivalent of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). And so, his "compromise" was a pretty extreme pro-Southern position, giving the South nearly everything it wanted (guarantees that slavery would be protected; significant potential for future expansion). So, there was certainly buy-in from the most extreme elements of Southern leadership. There was also some buy-in from people desperate to avoid a shooting war, including a small handful of prominent Republicans, most notably William Seward.

That said, just because it was the compromise position that got the most attention does not mean that it was anywhere close to becoming reality. In particular, it was dead on arrival if Abraham Lincoln did not sign on, and there was no way he was going to do so.

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F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: You often mention that U.S. senators only gain power after decades in office. But how could Joseph McCarthy gain so much power in his first term? Did he really believe that there was a widespread communist conspiracy in the U.S.? If not, why did he do what he did? And why didn't Democrats fight against him? I guess most of his victims were liberal Democrats.

(V) & (Z) answer: There are, in effect, three paths to power in the U.S. Senate. The first is to put in the work, and advance up the ranks until you manage to become chair of an important committee, like Foreign Relations or Budget. This is the most reliable path to power, and the one we are referring to when we write that it takes 20 years.

The second is to get involved in leadership and to move up those ranks. Sometimes, it's possible to climb the leadership ladder very quickly. Bill Frist, for example, took just 8 years to become Senate Majority Leader. However, you have to be pretty skillful and you have to be pretty lucky. And such a rapid rise would not have been possible in the last decade or so, with both the Democratic and Republican leaders effectively making clear that you're only going to take their jobs from their cold, dead hands.

The third is to become the face of a "movement." This is what made Bernie Sanders (I-VT) one of the most prominent members of the Senate (although not on a short timeline). This is also what allowed McCarthy to achieve prominence—he saw which way the winds were blowing, and he went along for the ride as one of the primary faces of anti-communism. He probably did believe there was a conspiracy, but he had no idea who was a part of it, and no evidence for the accusations he made against hundreds of Americans.

The lack of resistance to McCarthy can be attributed, primarily, to three things. First, there were plenty of people who thought he had the right of it, and were happy to see him fighting the good fight. Second, there were plenty of Republicans who thought he was full of it, but who noticed that he was mostly attacking and ruining liberals, and who were willing to let that process continue. Dwight D. Eisenhower was, more or less, in this second group. Third, many Democrats were afraid to speak up, for fear that they would become the next target.

That said, there were SOME folks who stood up to McCarthy, even at the height of his power. Most famous is probably Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME), who blasted her Wisconsin colleague in the speech that became known as the "Declaration of Conscience," delivered from the floor of the Senate on June 1, 1950.

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S.D. in York, UK, asks: With "plagiarism" so much in the news, I wonder what you know about what was known, and reported, in the 1960s about Martin Luther King Jr.'s academic "discrepancies" (for a lack of a better term). And assuming it was not reported at all, what might have been the consequences to the Civil Rights Movement if the right-wingers of the time had known this? For example, would this have potentially derailed LBJ's leadership on racial equity?

(V) & (Z) answer: King's rather serious plagiarism habit was not unearthed until the 1980s, well after his death. So, it was not known in the 1950s and 1960.

Had it been known, it is doubtful it would have made much of a difference. King's enemies were willing to use just about any line of attack against him, and there were two in particular that they used heavily, and that had far more salience in that era: (1) that King was a communist, and (2) that King was... Black. There were very few people back then who would have ignored those "misdeeds," but who would have been outraged by claims of plagiarism.

We also suspect that if LBJ had known about the plagiarism, he would have approved, along the lines of "Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do."

Gallimaufry

F.F. in London, England, UK, asks: All of your historical explanations are great, and the Civil War piece was really fascinating. By now, you must have a pretty deep library of these things, but if word searches are the only way to explore this content, it's also a very inaccessible library. Have you considered any alternative forms of archiving posts that would allow a reader to explore your library by topic?

(V) & (Z) answer: We have, but it's hard to implement new things when also teaching and writing new blog postings 7 days a week. Perhaps this summer, there will be an opportunity to make some progress on this front.

Reader Question of the Week

Here is the question we put before readers last week:

G.R. in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, asks: One commenter on a recent New York Times article wrote: "No one in the 247-year history of our nation has done as much damage to our civil society as Trump has done in less than a decade." Maybe this commenter is right, but... who else might be in contention for that "honor" and why?

And here some of the answers we got in response:

G.W. in Oxnard, CA: When I saw this question, I immediately came up with the person I feel has done more damage to our civil society than anyone else in U.S. history or world history for that matter: Jesus Christ.

Not only have countless wars been waged in his name, but the fundamental civility of the civilization has been compromised by Christianity for millennia. Nothing can hold a candle (sacred or otherwise) to the passions of religion to cause division and thereby lack of civility. Growing up as a Roman Catholic, I was mystified as to why all other Christian religions all hated Catholics and the only religious group they hate more is atheists. I thought it was branding jealousy in the way that other on-line stores hate Amazon, but I came to understand a little of the terrible things the Roman Catholic church had done in trying to hold on to power.

It is true that Jesus received a lot of help in undermining civility. Ronald Reagan politicized it and Newt Gingrich weaponized it. As further evidence that Jesus undermines civility, apparently, he assists the winning team (or athlete, in a solo sport) in just about every contest in athletics, and sports fans are so rarely civil you can count the instances on one hand. You may say that Jesus isn't eligible for this category because he died long before the U.S. existed and nearly all scholars agree that everything written about him was written so long after his supposed lifetime that none of it was written by an eyewitness. I counter that it is alleged that he is alive even now and is listening to prayers and taking action in unseen ways now. Therefore, Jesus is personally responsible for all the uncivil behavior undertaken in the name of a religion allegedly about peace and love.

This nomination may be controversial, and some readers may be fuming with rage and contemplating writing a scathing response to me for having the audacity to write mean things about Jesus. I submit that supports my point.

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E.D. in Dansville, NY: Andrew Jackson. Trail of tears.

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A.B. in Lichfield, England, UK: I'm conscious that I'm trespassing on (Z)'s territory here, but on the basis that the dissolution of the territorial integrity of the United States (even if ultimately only temporary) and a consequent 4-year civil war with hundreds of thousands of casualties is more serious than anything Trump has (so far) managed in his brief political career, we can surely look to identify individuals who played a central role in those events, even while acknowledging that it's hard to pin the blame on the secession of the Confederate states on a single individual. With than in mind, I'm willing to nominate three individuals who did more damage than Trump:

1. John C. Calhoun for codifying the political and philosophical justifications that would later underpin secession and the formation of the Confederacy.
   
   
2. James Buchanan for his disastrous stewardship of the U.S. in the years leading up to secession, particularly his "it's illegal but I have no power to do anything about it" approach.
   
   
3. Niche choice, but Christopher Memminger for chairing the committee that wrote the South Carolina Declaration of Secession, and acting as the declaration's lead author; someone has to take credit for going first.

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B.H. in Frankfort, IL: J. Edgar Hoover did inestimable damage to our society by blatantly ignoring organized crime for decades. He also wasted resources promoting the "red scare," which also damaged our society. His stance on The Mafia is widely attributed to basic corruption—he was an inveterate gambler, and therefore loser, and regularly owed large sums to mob bookies. They forgave the debt and he refused to pursue them. He also ran smear campaigns against political enemies, especially Richard Nixon's political enemies (e.g., the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr.). All in all, Hoover single handedly deepened corruption, lawlessness and distrust throughout American society.

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F.F. in Berkeley, CA: My answer is Joe McCarthy. I don't think he is competitive with Trump, but, as in the Republican primary this year, I'd give him a good run at second place. BTW, McCarthy would also have been my answer as to the most important Senator in U.S. history. I didn't submit his name because I was hoping I could think of a more important Senator in a good way. But on second thought, I don't believe there has ever been another Senator with an "ism" named after him, and the term "McCarthyism" has outlived Joe for more than 75 years now. It may be a permanent feature of our political history.

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J.A. in Austin, TX: Roy Cohn. Politics of personal destruction, the Dr. Frankenstein to the monster that is Trump.

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M.J. in Oakdale, MN: Gerald Ford. In granting a preemptive, unconditional pardon to former president Richard Nixon, less than a month after the latter's resignation, he let the theory of the "unitary executive" go unchallenged in a court of law.

To generous souls, this act was seen as necessary to heal the nation, but for the nefarious types, it merely validated the kind of malicious chicanery they had engaged in. Rather than having been tarnished for a generation, the Republican party was back in the White House four years later, with many of the same characters behind the scenes.

Ford may have sincerely intended to end "our long national nightmare," but by leaving extremely important constitutional questions both unasked and unanswered, he merely let it fester until our present Glorious Leader could manifest it in a fast more dangerous way.

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A.G. in Plano, TX: This is an easy one for me: Ronald Reagan caused more damage to the fabric of this nation than anyone in my lifetime. Between massive deficit spending, trickle-down economics (that have not worked in 40 years and never will), and inviting the evangelicals to have a seat at the table, the seeds were sown for the Republican Party to go completely off the rails into the no-policy, power-for-the-sake-of-power, fascist good ol' boys club it is today. But for Reagan, we never would have gotten Donald Trump.

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C.W. in Visalia, CA: The dubious honor for the person who caused the most damage to civil society should go to Rush Limbaugh. He single-handedly redefined the word "liberal" as a negative through daily repetition. Rush started off with sarcastic humor, earning him a loyal following among his "dittoheads." He made name-calling and stereotyping a normal, mainstream Republican cultural norm. Rush created the idea that conservatives were victims of the "liberal" media, which justified his lies and demagoguery as "balance." Rush may be dead, but his talk radio clones are still multiplying and Republican leaders throughout the nation are still trying to see how far to the right they can push their political narrative. We used to have a mainstream media that arbitrated what was real and what was a lie when Americans discussed politics. It is difficult for me to talk to friends and relatives about current issues because we can't agree on basic facts. I am even more cautious when I meet someone for the first time because we are becoming a nation of angry, paranoid people who are heavily armed.

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C.T.P. in Lancaster, PA: Former President Bill Clinton. He committed perjury, and he was still allowed to keep his job even though he was a Yale Law School educated lawyer. When he was impeached for perjury, and not found guilty, I said (half-jokingly) that the Republicans would elect a U.S. President who would be worse than President Clinton when it with respect to "impeachable behavior." I also said their POTUS would be impeached twice. I have learned not to make political jokes like that anymore!

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J.R. in Harrogate, England, UK: Ralph Nader.

Running in 2000, he enabled the election of Bush the Younger and by proxy the deaths of approximately 800,000 people between 2001 and 2019. No, he did not cause the 9/11 attacks (nor did Bush), but it is a near certainty that a hypothetical Al Gore administration would have responded far differently than the cowboy president did. There would still have been significant loss of life, so it is perhaps unfair to lay all those deaths at poor Ralphie's feet, but his ego wrote some checks that many innocent people then had to cash.

If that isn't enough, the reputation of the U.S. around the world was tarnished by the abject failures (as well as intentional malfeasance) of the Bush administration. This then led to the election of Barack Obama and the backlash of the Deplorables; culminating in the election of Donald Trump... whose damage has yet to be fully accounted for.

WTG, Ralph!

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M.M. in San Diego, CA: Who has most damaged our civil society? Many come to mind, but the triumvirate of Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and Newt Gingrich, toiling about their cauldron of political disinformation and deception, bear considerable responsibility for our uncivil society. Murdoch gave Ailes the means to discredit legitimate, honest journalism, poisoning the well of accurate information for a sizable portion of the population. Gingrich devised the means to derail the Federal government by shutting it down over what should be routine budget negotiations, and subsequently, after numerous iterations and variations, younger Americans begin to think that democracy doesn't work because of what obstructionists in Congress have wrought. Who needs enemies with "patriots" like these?

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J.P. in Glenside, PA: In a 10-year period I would vote for Tucker Carlson. He was reasonable to listen to as a highly intelligent and eloquent conservative pundit during his years at CNN (from 2000-2005) and then at MSNBC (2005-2008). Good counterpoint to the progressive worldview. However, after joining Fox in 2009, and progressing to his own prime-time show until his departure after the Dominion fiasco, he has become a major source of partisan diatribe, conspiracy theories and outright racism and anti-immigrant xenophobia. I can't think of anyone other than Sean Hannity with a bigger bullhorn for spewing lies and amplifying extreme-right-wing propaganda than Tucker. He has become an Orbán and Putin apologist, a COVID vaccine hysteric and a great replacement theory protagonist. And last, but not least, is his shameless attempt to rewrite the history of 1/6 after getting exclusive access to those tapes from Kevn McCarthy.

Tucker is to the GOP what Goebbels was to the Nazis. A master in propaganda.

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J.E.S. in Sedona, AZ: If a random sample of people were asked on the spot to consider the best and worst people in American Federal political history, I suspect that the lion's share of them would focus from memory on various presidents, supplemented perhaps by a smattering of selections from the Founders. I believe there are very few members of Congress, members of the Cabinet, or members of the judiciary who would appear often in such a casual poll, and if and when they did, it would likely be because they were dreadful enough to have created a lasting stain on our cultural memory, e.g. Joe McCarthy, Roger Taney, Spiro Agnew, etc.

It is my hope that future Americans will reflexively add Mitch McConnell to that list, as one of the truly villainous non-Presidential figures whose actions have done extraordinary damage to the Nation. Trump and Trumpism would not have risen, thrived, and succeeded as the modern cancer eating away at the guts of the GOP without McConnell having laid the groundwork in Washington by actively seeking to foil and spoil President Obama's administration, for few discernible reasons beyond thinly-veiled racism. While Trump crows for credit about creating our current unrepresentative and unqualified Supreme Court, it was McConnell's fiddling with the rules to deprive Merrick Garland of a seat, and then to jam Amy Coney Barrett through, that really sealed the deal. McConnell had more power to stop Trump, once he was in the White House, than any other person in the nation, had he simply whipped his conference to find Trump guilty of his first impeachment charges. He refused to do so. And then he refused to do so again.

Trump is unquestionably the most damaging major political figure in American history in terms of eroding the basic public functions of governance and service to the electorate. But his id-driven amateur skills wouldn't have gotten the wrecking job done without sustained support from the honed political skills of Mitch McConnell, who worked the system with vigor to empower the monster that is going to destroy it.

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D.M. in Medical Lake, WA: There is no answer to the question, because The Big Dump (otherwise known as TFG) is so far above all others that one could only suggest someone else out of dishonesty.

Here is the question for next week:

G.S. in Basingstoke, England, UK, asks: Americans of all political stripes will have strong and justified opinions about your greatest ever president—Lincoln, Washington and FDR often occupying the top spots. However, 45 is a relatively small sample size, so I thought I'd ask a far broader question instead: Who is the greatest president you never had? Constitutional eligibility requirements do apply!

Submit your answers to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line "Shoulda Been President"!

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---The Votemaster and Zenger