Dem
47
GOP
53
If you're still pondering the headline theme of the week, the key is, well, the Keystone..
J.K. in Silverdale, WA, asks: Can you explain where the funds to El Salvador for imprisoning deportees are coming from? Did Congress approve them?
(V) & (Z) answer: That is currently not publicly known, though it's something the Democrats are certainly asking about. Congress, of course, approves lots of money for various purposes that are pretty broad, and then lets the agencies figure it out from there. The best guess, from people who have expertise in this area, is that the funding is coming from the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
R.R. in Sacramento, CA, asks: Can a federal court freeze the federal funding of the prison in El Salvador, since those funds are being used specifically to deny due process and to engage in criminal contempt for the court?
(V) & (Z) answer: Very possibly. Courts do not generally have this authority, but in this particular case there is a law called the Leahy Law that prohibits the use of funds from the Department of State or Department of Defense from being sent to foreign security forces that habitually violate human rights. Clearly, El Salvador does so, which is why the question of where the money is coming from (see above) is important, since that would determine whether the Leahy Law applies here. If it does, then Democrats in the House could sue, and might well get the funding frozen.
C.F. in Waltham, MA, asks: Can Kilmar Abrego Garcia sue Stephen Miller and Karoline Leavitt for defamation if he comes back from El Salvador? Would his wife have standing to sue right now?
(V) & (Z) answer: It is not impossible, but both sides of that would be a tough hill to climb. Starting with the question of Garcia's wife suing, that's generally not permissible, as the person suing is supposed to be the one who has been damaged. The exception to that, however, is if the person who might sue is unable to do so. In that case, a spouse or other relative can sue on their behalf. Garcia's wife has actually already done so, seeking her husband's freedom. But whether that basic precept can be extended to a defamation suit would be taking us into areas of the law that have been little explored.
As to the former question, government employees have pretty broad protections for actions taken in their official capacity. And the bar for a defamation claim, in particular, is pretty high—it has to be proven that the person(s) knowingly issued forth with false information, that they went forward anyhow, and that the victim was financially damaged as a result. Since defamation is a civil tort, the part about them being government employees might be overcome. And one might even persuade a jury that Miller and Leavitt knew they were lying, and moved forward anyhow. But those are already two pretty big maybes. And then add the need to prove financial damages, which is probably the biggest maybe of all.
If we were lawyers, and Mrs. Garcia or Mr. Garcia were to approach us, we would try to find a cause of action that was an easier sell, and we would probably prefer to sue the government itself, rather than individual staffers.
C.H. in Sacramento, CA, asks: In "America Has a Massive Trade Surplus--in Education," you wrote about how much money education brings into the U.S. economy. But the tuition a foreign student pays is the university's income, right? And aren't most universities tax-exempt. So how does this money get to the Treasury?
What am I incorrect about?(V) & (Z) answer: You're not incorrect about anything, other than your inference, perhaps.
Donald Trump has consistently claimed, as part of his trade war, that he cares about the nation's balance sheet as a whole, not just the government's balance sheet. If so, then he should be a supporter of foreign students, since the U.S. takes in far more money from students coming from other nations than it sends out in Americans going to school abroad. This money is an important part of university budgets, and allows them to subsidize American-born students. Because of universities' tax-exempt status, the money does not go to the federal government, at least not directly. (That said, any money coming into the U.S. economy does circulate, and does eventually produce revenue for Uncle Sam.) For example, due to the many foreign students, universities are able to hire more professors, more staff members, and generally run a bigger operation. This creates jobs and helps the economy. Also, the extra people hired pay federal and state taxes, which helps the respective governments directly.
The fact that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are targeting foreign-born students tells us at least one of three things: (1) They are ignorant about the underlying economics here, or (2) they are lying when they say they care about balance of trade, or (3) they care about hurting universities and/or foreigners even more than they care about balance of trade.
G.S. in New Plymouth, TKI, New Zealand, asks: I know we are continuously reminded not to think Donald Trump is somehow playing inter-dimensional chess, but... given the tariffs will bring in additional revenue for the government, could this be an opportunity to then justify lowering income tax, claiming there is no net impact (and so getting through budget reconciliation processes AND Freedom Caucus deficit hawks) and then ditching them later on? It does seem that Congress has created a rather large loophole for the reckless here! Or am I trying to rationalise the irrational again?
(V) & (Z) answer: It is well within the realm of possibility that this is the case. Tariffs are very regressive, inasmuch as the weigh much more heavily on poor people than on rich people. So, it's entirely possible that, paired with an extension/expansion of the 2017 tax cuts, this is a back-door plan to shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor.
Trump has been a tariff hawk for decades. If the real plan is to make poor people pay more taxes, and rich people pay less, it's possible that he's always been an advocate for that reason. It's also possible that someone clued him in sometime between the 1980s and now. Or, it's possible that he doesn't actually understand the whole dynamic, but that people who do are using that to sell the plan to the members of Congress.
M.M. in San Jose, CA, asks: I have read with interest your many posts about Donald Trump's threats to high profile law firms. I understand how a president gets to be in charge of who gets a security clearance and who does not. I also understand how having a security clearance is a prerequisite for entering certain federal buildings (e.g. the Pentagon) and for viewing certain evidence in key cases (e.g. prosecuting/defending terrorists... or President Trump in the documents case). Thus, arbitrarily revoking security clearance for an entire firm could cost them a lot of business.
What I don't understand is how a lawyer can be excluded from a federal courthouse. Surely any defendant (or plaintiff—in civil suits) has a right to competent counsel of their choice. Even the president should not be able to preclude practice of the law. How is this threat credible?(V) & (Z) answer: Clearly, Donald Trump cannot bar lawyers from federal courthouses. But what he can do is make the attempt, and then force the firms to wait for some lengthy period of time while the matter gets addressed in court. Couple that with the revoked security clearances and other measures, and you're looking at a year or two or three that they won't be able to represent some very important and well-heeled clients. And those important and well-heeled clients, even if they know their counselors will eventually have their rights restored, can't afford to wait a year or two or three. So, they will move on to different counsel.
P.F. in Fairbanks, AK, asks: Can the White House physician be subjected to sanctions by the AMA for lying on President Trump's medical report?
(V) & (Z) answer: Very doubtful, in this case. First, it's not clear the White House physician is responsible for the dubious parts of Trump's medical report; it could have been altered after Capt. Sean P. Barbabella wrote it. Second, the only clear falsehoods were Trump's height and weight, and that's hardly enough to justify sanctions. There may also be other falsehoods, but they would be very hard to prove. Meanwhile, the stuff about how many golf tournaments Trump has won was silly and irrelevant, but it was not an outright lie.
S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, asks: P.Y. in Boca Raton wrote that Boca Raton is not the Seinfeld stereotype of Del Boca Vista. My understanding, though, is that The Villages basically IS. So, I'm curious: was there a Hands Off event there? How big was it? Did any reader send anything in covering it?
(V) & (Z) answer: Every ruby-red state still has many Democrats living there. Every sapphire-blue state still has many Republicans living there. So it is with a community like The Villages. And indeed, about 2,000 of the Democrats and independents who live there turned out for a Hands Off protest.
Y.H. in Toronto, ON, Canada, asks: What is with the disdain for Europe? I don't believe that it's driven by Trump. He's just riding along on that one. He definitely has no love for Europe (or Canada, or Japan, or Australia), but I believe his stance is quite shallow.
It's J.D. Vance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck. These are the ones who seem to have a deep-seated disdain for Europe and other "western" countries.
But why? I just don't understand where it comes from. Can you explain?(V) & (Z) answer: First, it comes from cultural and political differences between Europe and the U.S. Broadly speaking, European nations are more socialist, more educated, more socially liberal, and less religious (or, at least, less fundamentalist) than the U.S. in general, and than Republicans in particular.
Second, it comes from the longstanding partnership between Europe and the United States, particularly since World War II. To some extent, the U.S. has sent financial and military aid to Europe for charitable and humanitarian purposes. And to some extent, the U.S. has send financial and military aid to Europe for self-interested purposes (for lack of a better term, call it "a first line of defense," not to mention "customers for U.S. contractors"). We would guess that the latter has been more important than the former, but either way, it's some of Column A and some of Column B. A person who does not understand that the U.S. is getting something significant out of that financial and military aid, or who thinks that what the U.S. is getting is not all that valuable, could reach the conclusion that the U.S. is "getting screwed."
Undoubtedly, each of the people you list places different weights on these things. We would guess that, say, Greene is more angry about the cultural and political differences, while Carlson is more angry about the U.S. "getting screwed." It's also possible that some of these people aren't angry at all, but they know their voters/viewers are, and so are pandering to that.
T.C. in Danby, NY, asks: As a long-time reader of Electoral-Vote.com, I have come to accept your canon that Donald John Trump is not a person who plans far ahead. At the same time, the majority of news items indicate that Trump does not believe in climate change and leans toward fossil fuels over renewables.
Why, then, is President Trump guiding America toward a long-term investment in beachfront property in Greenland?(V) & (Z) answer: What we often write is that Donald Trump does not play 3-D chess. That is an apt analogy, because when you make a move, it opens up a bunch of possibilities, and those possibilities open up even more possibilities, and so on and so forth. We have seen no evidence, and do not believe, that Trump is capable of that sort of thinking in any meaningful way. He simply cannot do the analysis that says, "If I do [THING A], it could have these three consequences, which in turn could generate these nine different consequences, which in turn could generate these 27 consequences."
In the case of Greenland, the timeframe is long, but the sequence is simple. First, the U.S. acquires Greenland. Second, if climate change is real (and we would guess Trump knows it is, despite public claims to the contrary), that land eventually becomes much more valuable. As a real estate developer, he's been making this exact kind of (fairly simple) gamble for decades.
Add, on top of that, Trump's interest in "legacy." He is almost certainly saying to himself that, if the U.S. acquires Greenland, that will be a permanent part of his story, no matter what eventually happens, resource-wise.
M.D. in Boulder, CO, asks: Donald Trump ran a successful base-only campaign. The lack of any sort of concession to the other side must have been cathartic to his base. As a member of the blue team, I'm a bit envious. Could the Democrats do the same?
(V) & (Z) answer: Very doubtful. First, the Democrats are the big-tent party. It would be hard to tailor a message to all the various constituencies. The Republicans are smaller, and more homogeneous.
Second, a lot of Republicans do not have post-secondary education. A lot of them have lived in small, often rural, often non-cosmopolitan towns and counties for their whole lives. A lot of them are religious fundamentalists. All of these things make it more likely that they will accept very simplistic, black-and-white, us-versus-them, good-and-bad messaging of the sort that Trump delivers.
Anyone with an advanced education, or who has had much experience with the diversity of human experience, or who is belongs to a religious faith based on rational inquiry (or who belongs to no religious faith at all) is considerably more likely to see the world in shades of gray, and is considerably less likely to have patience with broad generalizations that do not stand up to scrutiny.
R.S. in Bedford, England, UK, asks: I agree with your assessment of the chances of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment being triggered (no chance) but what if Donald Trump dies of natural causes before his term finishes? (I say "natural causes," because assassination is not only wrong, it would also make him a martyr.) Would J.D. Vance receive the same level of obsequience, or might MAGA fall apart, and the Republicans move back towards being a sensible political force based on truth?
(V) & (Z) answer: If Trump dies, there will be an absolute feeding frenzy as a dozen prominent Republicans try to take over the MAGA throne. We don't believe any of them can actually become Dear Leader v2.0, particularly not Vance, but that does not mean they won't try.
Also, the Republican Party has been tainted/corrupted/poisoned/your-word-of-choice enough that it's not going to bounce back just because Trump dies or exits the stage. In this case, every action does not have an equal and opposite reaction. It's going to be a while before the GOP is anything other than a predominantly right-wing populist political movement, Trump or not.
R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is currently on a political speaking tour where he is going after the Trump administration and drawing enormous crowds, even in red states.
Despite this, Donald Trump almost never attacks him. I have never been a Sanders fan. I think he makes a lot of unreasonable and unrealistic promises, and uses those promises as a basis to attack others. If an opponent wants to spend a new $50 billion on healthcare, he will attack them for not spending $100 billion. If they propose $100 billion, he will attack them for not wanting $200 billion.
I think MAGA wants to make Sanders the face of the Democratic Party. They would love to run against a Jewish socialist who is traveling around giving unhinged rants, thinking he will scare moderate Americans. What do you think is going on?(V) & (Z) answer: Broadly speaking, the right-wingers have tried to use Sanders in this way, and it didn't work. Maybe because he's white. Maybe because a lot of what he's saying resonates with a lot of Republican voters (particularly young men).
Because Sanders-as-the-face-of-the-Democrats did not work, Fox and the other right-wing outlets don't try anymore. And since Trump gets all of his information from right-wing cable TV, he's largely unaware of what Sanders is saying or doing, and so doesn't respond to it.
J.E. in San Jose, CA, asks: Have the events of the past 3 months shifted the Overton Window to the right? Humans are really good at normalizing things, so I would not be surprised.
(V) & (Z) answer: We doubt it. Trump's actions have generally given an object lesson in the downsides of his philosophy, as opposed to showing how Trumpism should be accepted as normal and healthy. Also keep in mind that the U.S. and the world are clearly in a "throw the bums out" era, in which they give one set of ideas a chance, and then throw that set of ideas over for an entirely different set. Someone like Trump is no Franklin D. Roosevelt or Dwight D. Eisenhower; he's not creating a "new normal" the way they both did.
T.M. in Downers Grove, IL, asks: Considering that Democrats got hammered on the border last election, is pushing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return a losing issue for them? Regardless of whether he was in the country legally and not actually a gang member, does this provide too much ammo for Republicans to continue hitting the Democrats on immigration? Are there too many low-information voters to understand that this is also an issue of due process and the power of the courts?
(V) & (Z) answer: We do not think this is a loser for the Democrats, and for exactly the reason you imply in your final question. This isn't just about immigrants, it's about respect for the law and about unchecked government power. When Democrats push back against what has happened, they aren't fighting for immigrants so much as they are fighting against dictatorship.
Also, immigrants make a great bugaboo when they are a nameless, faceless boogeyman. Once they have a face and a name and a story, scapegoating works much less well. The same held true with LGBTQ people and, in particular, gay marriage. Denying "those queers" the right to marry is much easier than denying "my friend Bob, who turns out to be gay."
P.L. in Denver, CO, asks: In my opinion, both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-NY) have been ineffective in the battle against Trump v2.0. Do you see any way one or both of these guys will get pushed out of leadership?
(V) & (Z) answer: During the 119th Congress? No. The barriers to forcing them out, assuming that they remain in good health, are simply too high. However, we think Schumer is 50/50 at best to keep his job once the 120th Congress is seated.
Jeffries, on the other hand, is young and Black, and so represents the image the Democratic Party is trying to put out there these days. Further, he's been more effective than Schumer since the advent of Trump v2.0, and he has the backing of the still-mighty Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). For these reasons, we think he's not only safe for now, he'll be safe to keep his job in the 120th. That means he is probably the next Speaker of the House.
M.A. in West Springfield, MA, asks: Now that the dust has settled, do you think it was a wise or foolish decision for Joe Biden to drop out of the race when he did?
(V) & (Z) answer: Your question is ambiguous. If you mean "Was July 21, 2024" the best date for him to drop out, the answer is no. Some time in Jan. 2023 would have been infinitely better. Then the Democrats would have run a normal primary and the best candidate would have won. Maybe it would have been Harris, but then nobody could say: "The people didn't pick her." Maybe someone else would have won, but in either event, the winner would have had more time to campaign.
If you mean: "Given that he hung on until the debate, the answer is still no. He should have dropped out within a week of the debate, not wait until July. That debate performance was very, very bad, and would have provided the framing for the entire rest of the campaign. Even if Biden had been perfect from that point forward, it would have been constant talk of "Demented Joe." And he surely would not have been perfect, first because nobody can be under that kind of pressure, and second because the evidence that later came to light suggests that debate night was not an isolated incident.
We hope to write about this in more detail, but our guess is that Harris pulled off just about the best performance that was possible, and that any Democrat would have lost, most of them by a larger margin than she did.
S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, asks: You wrote: "[New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo] landed the endorsements of two of New York City's most prominent labor unions, 32BJ SEIU (service workers) and Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (hotel and casino workers)."
Point of curiosity: I would consider "hotel and casino workers" to be a subset of "service workers." What's the distinction, such that they need separate unions?(V) & (Z) answer: We will tell you three things. First is that there is strength in numbers, which creates motivation to welcome as many workers into the tent as possible. The second is that some groups of workers sometimes have pretty different goals than other groups, even if they appear to be coming from the same place. For example, the union that (Z) is a member of represents tenured faculty, adjunct faculty, librarians and coaches. There have been occasions when all four factions were on the same page. There have also been occasions when the four factions were on very different pages.
Meanwhile, the third thing we will tell you is that the current union environment was not centrally designed at some specific point and time. It has evolved over well more than a century, with various groups uniting, then dividing, as circumstances dictated.
The very large SEIU represents healthcare workers, public sector employees, janitors, security guards and foodservice workers. The smaller Hotel and Gaming Trades Council represents specifically hotel and casino workers. Clearly, at some point in the past, the hotel and casino workers decided that a smaller union 100% focused on their interests was better than a larger union that is less-than-100%-focused on their interests.
D.E. in Lancaster, PA, asks: Every time I see a really interesting poll from CNN's Harry Enten, it seems like the next one is a "fair and balanced" one, meant to paint Donald Trump's support in a better light. Take this example, about how only 2% of people who voted for Trump in 2024 regret their votes. It seems like junk analysis or cherry picking. Am I wrong?
They are a whole list of things about this poll that just smell wrong. For one thing, most human beings are loath to admit they made a mistake. In the 2024 election, Trump's margin of victory in several swing states was well within 2%, which if these poll results are correct, then might that have been enough to change the results? Enten talks about only 2% of Republican voters regretting their vote, but doesn't really say anything about independent voters, which is where I think the regret would first show. According to Enten, this 2% voter regret is irrelevant, but Trump's 2017 4% voter regret is the sign of the real thing... so, why is crossing the 3% Rubicon the border between "a fanciful universe" and the real world?(V) & (Z) answer: Speaking as educators, one of the things we hope this site accomplishes is to give folks ideas about polls, specifically how to examine them critically, and to think about what a poll does, or does not, actually tell us. So, we are pleased by your question.
And we share your general skepticism about Enten. Any time we see him, he seems to pick out a topline number that seems interesting, and then to turn around and to uncritically repeat it. We don't know if it's a "bothsidesism" thing, or a "we need clicks and eyeballs" thing, but we're not sure we've ever seen him add ANYTHING that required actual thinking and/or expertise.
When we read about the segment you saw, we were similarly unimpressed. And OUR first reaction was "It actually doesn't matter how loyal Trump's voters are, what really matters is whether his actions are going to motivate those 7 million Biden voters who stayed home in 2024 to get to the polls in 2026 and 2028. Maybe we should be talking about that?"
J.C. in Trenton, NJ, asks: I figure this might be outside your area of expertise, but you are the most likely to know of my sources available: How rigged are the Russian elections? Can Vladimir Putin make the results anything he wants, or is he limited to faking a few million votes?
(V) & (Z) answer: They are very rigged, using a wide variety of strategies. Among those: exclusion of would-be candidates from political races, voter intimidation, mandatory voting by government employees (with their supervisors watching), massive government-funded propaganda campaigns, and outright casting of fraudulent ballots. Some of these things are not especially quantifiable, but various estimates have put the number of fraudulent ballots somewhere between 16 million and 32 million.
B.B. in Saint Louis, MO, asks: We seem to take as dogma that communism, defined as government control of business (actually, communism is worker control of business, but we'll let that pass), does not work as well as free market capitalism. However, China's economy seems to disprove this notion. I am curious whether the degree of corruption in China is equivalent to that seen in the kleptocracy which Russia has become. Is the personal wealth of Xi Jinping anywhere near that of Vladimir Putin? Does he have some yachts stashed away that I don't know about?
(V) & (Z) answer: It was Cold War week, and so (Z) actually just lectured on this subject. And a key line from that lecture goes something like this: "Unfettered communism (e.g., Soviet Russia) has not worked out well. Unfettered capitalism (e.g., Mercantilist Britain) has not worked out well. And so, every country eventually ends up with some blend of socialist and capitalist elements; everyone has police forces and schools run by the government and everyone has restaurants and clothing stores run by private interests."
In other words, China is only sorta communist these days, sort of like Russia is only sorta capitalist. And they both have pretty high levels of corruption. It's hard to pin down how much wealth Xi actually has, in part because he's good at keeping things under wraps, and in part because the money in Chinese governance tends to flow to family members rather than to the person themselves, as a form of plausible deniability. That said, there's a pretty broad consensus that the Chinese president has a nine-figure nest egg stashed away, and possibly a ten-figure nest egg. Also, the government pays for all the needs entailed in his lavish lifestyle, from a private jet to a bulletproof Rolls-Royce limousine. He does not appear to own his own yacht, but he can use the yachts owned by the Chinese government. He can also call up friends and borrow theirs, including (on at least one occasion) a yacht owned by Putin.
E.W. in Skaneateles, NY, asks: Can you explain a bit more about how the Federal Reserve works? I know that the Fed operates via consensus, so why do we mostly hear about the Chair Jerome Powell? Do chairs have some special power, or are they more like spokespeople who let everyone know what the Fed is "thinking" about? What happens if the Fed cannot come to a consensus?
(V) & (Z) answer: The 12 governors of the Federal Reserve are indeed equals, which means they could plausibly divide 6-6 when voting on some question, or that they could reach a decision by a bare margin of 7-5 (or 6-5 if a seat is vacant or a member is absent). That said, and as you allude to, it is virtually unheard of for a decision to be anything other than unanimous. Powell, for example, is in his 11th year and has only once been party to an 11-1 vote (and never to anything less decisive than that). The members recognize that the nation and the world are watching, and any sign of discord could be very bad. So, they try to avoid that at all costs.
Powell, like any Fed chair, has one vote. But he has certain privileges and responsibilities that give him a great deal of soft power. First, someone has to speak for the Fed when reporters have questions, and the chair is the obvious choice. So, he gets to be the face of the Federal Reserve. Further, he sets the agenda for Fed meetings, and he is responsible for making an in-person report to Congress twice a year, which means he has the ears of the 535 members. He also serves as chair of the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee, which decides how much money the government prints, and so has great influence over inflation.
D.E. in Lancaster, PA, asks: I know the president picks the artwork, paintings and sculpture that hang in the Oval Office, on loan from the Smithsonian. I remember reading an article about how George W. Bush liked to show off the rug he had made special for the purpose. Of course, the president would pick the photos on the desk behind him. But how much of the other furnishings does he have a hand in choosing?
The reason why I'm asking is that in the past, I've never really paid that much attention to the fireplace hearth behind the president (except at Christmas, when I usually note the garland and decorations), but since Dear Leader has returned, I find myself fixated on just how gaudy and tacky the fireplace looks. It's like Faux Versailles with all that gold filigree. It's like something you would find in a upper-class bordello or in a Las Vegas casino. Also of fascination/horror, I find myself focusing on those strange gold objects on the mantlepiece. Does anyone know what they are? Each one looks different and to me they look like trophies (please, Dear God, don't let them be golf trophies he's "won" and awards to himself!). The one on the left looks like a replica of the fountain at DuPont Circle, but I can't imagine Trump having that on his mantlepiece. I don't remember even Trump's first term the Oval Office being that dreadful and tacky. Is this yet another case of Melania's dubious attempt at design?(V) & (Z) answer: The sitting president is very involved in the design of the Oval Office, and has the final say on everything, from the curtains to the carpets to the furniture to the decor. And he is not limited to the collections of the Smithsonian; the White House has its own extensive collection of mementos, artifacts, and artworks, and it's also possible to borrow pieces from outsiders. For example, Barack Obama's staff arranged with the Norman Rockwell museum for a loan of "The Problem We All Live With" which is Rockwell's famous rendering of Ruby Bridges crossing the color line at her elementary school. The painting did not actually hang in the Oval Office, but it did hang in the hallway right outside.
There is no public information that Melania Trump had anything to do with the current design of the Oval Office, or that she has any involvement with her husband's second term at all. It reflects his aesthetic, which has always been "gaudy" and "golden," so it's pretty safe to assume he was in the driver's seat. Here are pictures that show the difference in the fireplace between Joe Biden and Trump v2.0:
In short, it's not your imagination.
The objects on the Trump mantlepiece are all from the White House collection. The central and biggest piece is a compotier (basket) made in France about 200 years ago. The matching pieces to the left and right of that are from a gilded set of tableware acquired during the Monroe administration. The other four pieces are all from a collection of gilded silver that was acquired during the Eisenhower administration, and is usually displayed in a different room the mansion (the Vermeil Room). And, by the way, EVERYONE who sees the new accouterments for the first time thinks they are golf trophies.
The ivy that was there for Biden is part of a multi-generation White House tradition. It was acquired sometime in the 1960s or early 1970s, and has remained on the mantel ever since, with the result that it became a symbol of the continuity of the office. Clippings from the ivy plant were frequent gifts to visitors, and many people have managed to grow their own ivy plants from the parent clipping. But Trump does not care about such things (or, he might be pissy about the famous painting of Barack Obama surrounded by ivy). Whatever it is, the plant is now a temporary resident of one of the White House greenhouses.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: I've been unable to track down the answer to this question: How did it come to be that the words "suffrage" and "franchise" mean "the vote" or the right to vote?
(V) & (Z) answer: It is usually the case with these things that the word is descended from a Latin or Old French word that meant something vaguely relevant, and then the word evolved to take on its current meaning. In the case of "suffrage," the word comes from the Latin suffragium, which originally meant "vote cast in an assembly." In the case of "franchise," the word comes from the Old French franchir, which meant "free" or "freedom."
M.C. in Drogheda, Ireland, asks: Have any historians reconsidered their views on the so-called "great man" theory of or approach to history; in the light of Donald Trump's rampage since retaking office?
(V) & (Z) answer: Stanley Elkins was a prominent U.S. historian who taught for many years at Smith College. His best known book was Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, in which he compared slavery to a concentration camp. Clearly, Elkins was influenced by the experience of World War II. And his book came out in... 1959.
Presumably, our point is clear: Producing historical scholarship takes a long, long time. And so, any broad impact that Donald Trump might have on historiography would not be evident for at least another decade. That said, the current thinking on great man history goes something like this: "Great men are important drivers of historical change, but they are not the whole story." We don't really see anything that Trump has done, or will do, that would substantively challenge that.
F.L. in Allen, TX, asks: I'm American and live in Texas (for all my sins), but I have friends in Blighty (a.k.a. The U.K.) and we recently had a squabble we hope you can settle. One of my Brit friends pointed out the American War of Independence was fomented by some hooligans throwing perfectly fine tea into Boston Harbor due to taxes. The question before the board is whether the taxes were a tariff or not, as that seems to be a rather hot issue, these days. We both recognize that a tariff is a special kind of tax. But was this tax a tariff or not?
(V) & (Z) answer: Yes, the taxes in question were tariffs, as they were duties on imports.
That said, the story of the Boston Tea Party is actually a little more complicated than that. Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which slapped pretty high tariffs on a whole range of goods. Then, a few years later, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which imposed an even higher tariff on tea but, critically, exempted the imports of the struggling British East India Company.
So, part of the Boston Tea Party was people angry about Parliament's presumption in taxing citizens without benefit of representation in the legislature. But part of it was people, particularly those people who were doing well importing and/or selling smuggled Dutch tea, who were angry that the East India Company was being given special compensation because it had friends in Parliament. In other words, some of the people tossing tea overboard were doing so not because of the tariffs on it, but because the tariffs on it were less than the tariffs on other legal tea imports. Those folks were the spiritual predecessors of Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
E.S. in Arlington, MA, asks: You have written that Andrew Jackson and other presidents have defied the Supreme Court. However The Atlantic writes that "In an 1832 standoff with the Supreme Court, President Andrew Jackson—a hero of Trump's—is apocryphally supposed to have said that Chief Justice John Marshall 'has made his decision; now let him enforce it!' The quote is famous but fictional; less well known is the fact that Jackson did, ultimately, comply with the Court. So have all of his successors." Who is right?
(V) & (Z) answer: It is true that the quote is fictional, even though it pretty well encapsulates Jackson's thinking. As to his defiance, the key case in question was Worcester v. Georgia (1832), where the Supremes said that the state of Georgia did not have the power to forcibly remove Native Americans from the state. The state government continued to do so, and Jackson chose not to intervene because he was perfectly happy to see Georgia continue its program of relocation. So, Jackson's defiance was not direct, it was in not lifting a finger to enforce the court's ruling. Despite what the historians at The Atlantic might say, we'd say the parallel to the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is pretty salient.
Further, the claim that no other presidents have declined to comply with the Court is laughable. Sure, it's often passive forms of resistance, like choosing not to enforce the Court's decisions, as Jackson did. But there are also examples of outright defiance. Most obviously, in Ex parte Merryman (1861), Roger Taney told the Lincoln Administration that it could not suspend the writ of habeas corpus in Baltimore, MD, and the Lincoln Administration ignored the ruling and the writ remained suspended. There is some question as to whether Taney was speaking in his capacity as Chief Justice, or in his capacity as chief judge of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland (Supreme Court justices filled dual roles back then), but if this fairly abstruse distinction is the basis for a claim that Lincoln did not defy the Supreme Court, then that is a very thin argument, indeed.
D.A. in Minneapolis, MN, asks: How is Ken Burns' The Civil War "showing its age"?
And a follow up for (Z): How is teaching Civil War history different today versus 30 years ago?(V) & (Z) answer: To start, the documentary was created with whatever film stock was in use in the late 1980s, and it looks it. You could not watch the film today and think it was a recent production.
More importantly, the film weaves together many different interpretative traditions. However, the Abolitionist interpretation ("Slavery was the key to the war") tends to get downplayed, and is largely represented by the talking head Barbara Fields (of Columbia University). Meanwhile, the pro-Southern Lost Cause interpretation ("The Southerners were good ol' boys fighting for home and hearth") gets played up a bit much, primarily because the Lost Cause talking head (Shelby Foote) was charming and told a lot of good anecdotes. And the dominant tradition showcased in the film is the Reconciliationist tradition ("There were lots of good people on both sides"). Indeed, the final shot of the film is of a bunch of old, grizzled, white soldiers from both sides shaking hands at Gettysburg in 1938, and putting their old disputes behind them. Ken Burns is a liberal, and is certainly not a racist, but he was making a film for a national audience, and PBS South Carolina needs donations, too. Anyhow, the mix that Burns used in the 1980s leans a bit more Southern-apologist than if he made the film today.
In some cases, the use of language is also a little bit outdated. (Z) still uses clips from The Civil War in class, in part because it's still the best option out there, and in part because it's a useful case study of the memory of the Civil War. And before the first clip shown in class, he has to offer up a content advisory that some of the talking heads in the film use "Black" and "Blacks" as nouns, which was acceptable in the 1980s, but is not OK today, at least not in academia.
And the biggest difference in teaching the Civil War today, as compared to the 1990s, is that much more time has to be spent on the interpretative traditions, since we now understand how much they shaped people's understanding of the War. A consequence of this is that it's now nearly impossible to cover Reconstruction, as there just isn't time. So, many Civil War historians don't even try it, and those who do (including Z) largely just give a single "Cliff's Notes" lecture.
The other difference is that students come in with fewer preconceptions than was the case decades ago. You can say "Robert E. Lee was actually kind of overrated, in some ways" today, and it doesn't produce a 30-minute argument the way it would have in the 1990s.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: I enjoyed your approach to answering the question "Who would you consider the most average/ground-zero president?" I understand why you looked only at 19th century presidents, because the expectations of presidents were different and the lack of foreign policy concerns. I'm wondering if you performed the same exercise with post-McKinley presidents, how that would look.
It seems to me presidents in the 20th/21st centuries have been expected to do more than just maintain a steady course and foreign policy is a much larger consideration than the 1800s. Using your method, I was left with just three presidents: William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding (in office barely over half a term), and Calvin Coolidge. My knowledge of these three is too shallow to make a strong choice, but my best guess would be Coolidge as the average/ground-zero president post-19th century. Do you agree that only these three would be the only ones to survive your elimination criteria and who would be YOUR average/ground-zero president post-19th century?(V) & (Z) answer: Coolidge was actually a very good president for 2 years, then his son died suddenly, and he was gripped with what was almost certainly severe depression and he largely stopped doing the job. He probably doesn't fit the profile of "average/ground-zero."
Harding is a pretty good choice, though, and Taft was the answer to the question when we looked at the historians' ratings last week. The president we would add to your list is Gerald Ford. Yes, he pardoned Richard Nixon, to the permanent ruin of his reputation. And yes, he got stuck with a lousy economy. But he was a decent man who did some positive things, like push for the ERA, sign a campaign finance reform bill into law, sign the SALT I treaty and the Helsinki Accords, and pardon a bunch of Vietnam-era draft dodgers. If you accept that Ford primarily pardoned Nixon to protect the dignity of the office and allow the nation to heal (and we recognize that some people don't accept this), and if you conclude Ford could not have known he was helping to lay the groundwork for the abuses of Trumpism (and we recognize that some people don't concede this), then we think you can get to the place that Ford was pretty darn average.
R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: 1970's TV shows were really groundbreaking. What do you think were the three most influential shows of that decade?
In my view, the three are All in the Family, Hawaii Five-O, and Dallas. All in the Family tackled issues that no show dared to poke before (racism, abortion, antisemitism, etc) and was first sitcom to be recorded in front of a live studio audience. Hawaii Five-O was the longest running police drama (until Law and Order) and was probably first show to not be shot in Los Angeles or New York for its duration. The show also included one of the most memorable musical themes ever. And Dallas brought daytime soap drama to the evenings. And the biggest question on everyone's mind in the summer of 1980 wasn't "Who will get the GOP nomination?," but "Who shot J.R.?"(V) & (Z) answer: All in the Family is clearly one of the three most important TV shows of the 1970s, but there are a number of shows we'd consider for the other two slots in the top three before we considered Hawaii Five-O and Dallas:
- Saturday Night Live debuted in the 1970s. Not only does it have an excellent case for top three of the decade, it has an excellent case for top three all time.
- It's British, of course, but Monty Python's Flying Circus also changed the face of comedy.
- There were two great feminist/proto-feminist shows in that era, the All in the Family spin-off Maude, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which both presented ideas (political issues like abortion in the former case; successful career women in the latter) that did not have much presence on TV previously. There's also Wonder Woman, featuring the first lead-character female action hero.
- By using the Korean War as an allegory, M*A*S*H was an early entrant in the "Vietnam was bad, and war is hell" trend that has dominated popular culture for most of the past 50 years.
- If we cheat a little, Sesame Street debuted in November 1969. For millions of children, including (Z), Big Bird, The Count, Bert and Ernie, and The Cookie Monster were their first teachers.
- The Jeffersons was really the first successful sitcom to feature a successful Black family.
- Happy Days was escapist entertainment, and yet it left a huge cultural footprint, including "jump the shark."
- If miniseries count, then Roots opened many Americans' eyes to some very unpleasant truths about the past.
So, there are a lot of good choices available.
A.J. in Ames, Iowa, asks: I'm helping a friend move from the Bay Area to LA (Hollywood region) in about 10 days. What's at the top of the list for a recently retired high school chemistry teacher to see in the area? (Local breweries and a Dodgers game are already on my list)
(V) & (Z) answer: The best museum in Los Angeles is The Autry Museum of the American West. It's in Griffith Park, so one can also hit the L.A. Zoo, Travel Town, and/or the Griffith Observatory during a trip there. The Museum of Tolerance and the the Japanese-American National Museum are also very good. If you want art, the Getty Museum has the coolest facility, LACMA has the best art, and The Huntington has the best gardens (which make for a very nice walk, as long as it is not too hot). And since you are a chemistry teacher, you might find The Wende Museum, which is about the Cold War, to be of interest. You can also visit UCLA and, if you know where to look, you can see the birthplace of the Internet. Or, the Petersen Automotive Museum is excellent, and blends history and science and pop culture.
If you want the Hollywood-y type stuff, you can go to the Walk of Fame at Hollywood and Highland, but it's very crowded and very touristy. The Hollywood Museum has a good collection (and is close to Hollywood and Highland) while The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has the more impressive facility (and it's across the street from the Petersen, and next to the La Brea Tar Pits). There are also tours of celebrity houses conducted in double-decker buses; those have some kitsch value. If you have an interest in celebrity graves, then Hollywood Forever has some very prominent people, and is walkable (but if you go on a Saturday, they shut down the Jewish mausoleum, so no looking at the grave of Bugsy Siegel). Pierce Brothers in Westwood is even more walkable, and is jam-packed with famous people, including Marilyn Monroe. It's close to UCLA, and is across the street from the not-world-famous-but-not-bad Hammer Art Museum.
You should take a look at downtown L.A. (maybe before the Dodgers game); you can just start at Pershing Square and walk around (make sure to go to the Central Library, which is northwest of Pershing Square), or you can sign up for one of the L.A. Conservancy's walking tours, which we've recommended before. You could also consider one of the Six Taste walking tours, like the downtown one, which is very good. They not only show you the sights, you also get to sample a half-dozen local foods.
Speaking of food, the best restaurant in Los Angeles is Providence, but it's very fancy and very expensive. And it's really not all that different from fancy restaurants in other towns. If you want local flavor, there are two L.A. restaurants that claim to be the inventor of the French dip; Philippe's and Cole's. They are both worth a visit, and are both like entering a time warp (to the 1920s, and the 1930s, respectively). Philippe's is convenient to Dodger Stadium; Cole's is downtown and has a hidden speakeasy in the rear. If Asian food is more to your liking, then hit Yang Chow, which is in Chinatown, and therefore is also close to Dodger Stadium. They are famous for the slippery shrimp (which is about halfway between sweet-and-sour shrimp and orange shrimp). If you want sushi, then maybe try out Yamashiro, which is in the Hollywood Hills, right above Hollywood and Highland. It's not cheap, but the views, especially at night, are breathtaking. Of course, what you probably want is Mexican food. Pretty much everyone loves El Cholo, which has several locations, though the ones on Washington Blvd. and on Wilshire Blvd. seem to taste a little better than the others. There is also El Coyote, which is good, and pretty kitschy (again, if that's your thing). Or, if you want an only-in-LA experience, go to Guelaguetza, which is an extremely good Oaxacan Mexican restaurant (so, molés), and took over a space in Koreatown that used to be a Chinese restaurant. So, it's a Mexican restaurant... in a building shaped like a pagoda. Finally, if you want some soul food, there's Harold and Belle's, which is excellent, or there is any of the several locations of Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, which is very famous and very delicious.
If you want offbeat, we've recommended The Museum of Jurassic Technology before. We've also recommended the Museum of Death before (on the other hand, stay far away from the Museum of Psychology, which is just a front for the Church of Scientology). The Echo Park Time Travel Mart is pretty weird, while the Last Bookstore is the best used bookstore in town, and also has a bunch of funky art galleries on the top level. There are also a bunch of odd museums on Hollywood Blvd., including the Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not Museum, the Museum of Illusions, and the Wax Museum.
Finally, if you want "signature" elements of the Los Angeles tourist experience, besides the ones we've already mentioned and besides the (obvious) theme parks, there are the canals of Venice and the Venice Beach Boardwalk and Muscle Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, the Watts Towers, Olvera Street, the Self-Realization Fellowship (make sure to make a reservation), and The Comedy Store. If your lifelong dream has been to see Pauly Shore on stage, then this is your lucky day, because he now owns The Comedy Store, and so appears there all the time.
F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: Answering a question about classical music preferences, (Z) wrote: "anything from the medieval era to 1935 or so is generally agreeable (with a few exceptions, like Richard Wagner)." So, does (Z) really not like the "Ride of the Valkyries" and the "Bridal Chorus"? Or has it to do with Wagner's political opinions?
(V) & (Z) answer: It may not be possible to separate out the politics, but (Z) finds Wagner's music to be too heavy, like chocolate that is too dark. He seems to recall feeling this way even before he knew about Wagner's politics.
G.B. in Collin County, TX, asks: I have been looking for a job teaching secondary social studies after having been a part-time substitute for the last few years. One of the reasons that I didn't start looking sooner is that the new, more partisan discourse around K-12 education turned me off of doing so. While in the classroom, I take the role of a nonpartisan civil servant seriously. When students have asked me about politics or who I vote for, I've told them that "I keep my politics out of the classroom to avoid influencing yours." But as the second Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to the whole idea of nonpartisan civil servants, and its allies in the states attempt to reshape the teaching of history/civics in their image, the facade is increasingly difficult to keep up. Is there any advice you would give to someone wanting to become an educator in this political climate?
(V) & (Z) answer: Since (Z) teaches in the U.S., and in the social sciences, he's the one who has to deal with this specific issue. And the approach he adopted from several of his mentors, is: "I won't tell you who I voted for, or who I think you should vote for, but I am happy to answer any other questions you have as best I can." That seems to work well.
More broadly, the best teaching advice we have is: "Teach the class that you would want to take as a student." If you try to adapt yourself to someone else's idea of what a teacher should be, you'll be unhappy and your students will be able to tell it's phony. Plus, if we're talking politicians or administrators, what they want is a constantly moving target. You've got to go with what works for you, and what seems right for you, and let the chips fall where they may. Oh, and once you've built up a few years of demonstrated success in the classroom, it gets MUCH harder to fire you, because you have evidence that what you are doing is working.
J.E. in San Jose, CA, asks: Recently you compared Kilmar Abrego Garcia with Steve Bannon, writing: "Put another way, if, say, Steve Bannon had accidentally been deported, do you really think there is nothing the White House could, or would, do to get him back?"
These types of statements hold up well in a civilized conversation, and I have to wonder: Do you come up with these on your own or do you do as I shall: See it somewhere and then repurpose for my own devices? Or perhaps a combination of both?
It doesn't matter to me how original these lines are. They solve a problem in an elegant fashion, and that is all I am concerned with. I'm just curious.(V) & (Z) answer: Some readers will know that George Harrison made zero money from "My Sweet Lord." That is because he was found, after a long court battle, to have plagiarized the song "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons. Everyone involved agreed that he did not intentionally plagiarize, but unintentional plagiarism is still plagiarism in the eyes of the law.
We mention this because we read a lot of stuff about politics. And so, it is possible that, on occasion, an idea or a phrasing that we think is original is actually coming from something we read. But we think that's probably very rare. Otherwise, it's our wording/our idea. And if it isn't, and we know it, we attribute the wording/idea.
And to answer related questions we get all the time: We never use AI, and we do not have uncredited people (graduate students or otherwise) writing for us. Every word is written by (V), (Z) or (L), unless we specify otherwise.
T.H. in La Quinta, CA, asks: (Z), how and when did you first become aware of Electoral-Vote.com? What was your first interaction with the site? Did you imagine then that someday you'd be a featured writer on the site? What was your first contact with (V) like, or about; and, did you expect things to turn out the way they have? Finally, do the staff dachshunds realize now that you are famous?
(V) & (Z) answer: Unfortunately, (Z) has little memory of the answer to the first question. It was sometimes in the Barack Obama years, but that's as specific as he can get.
(Z)'s first interaction with (V) came in 2014. (V) wrote a piece about polling in which he noted something like: (1) "pollsters have to use math to correct for the fact that they don't get enough responses from some demographic groups" and (2) "it is not clear that the (then-new) online pollsters like YouGov can be sure that the people they are hearing from are reporting their demographic profiles honestly." So, (Z) did an experiment where he endeavored to pass himself off to YouGov as an 80-year-old Black lesbian Republican living in Denver, and was able to do it. And he e-mailed (V) to report the result.
At the end of the 2014 cycle, (V) issued his then-usual end-of-cycle message that he might be back in a year or so, but no guarantees. So, (Z) reached out with an offer to co-author, and did not hear back. Initially, he concluded that meant "not interested," but then realized that (V)'s Electoral-Vote.com e-mail address was probably overloaded. So, sometime later (maybe 6 months), (Z) e-mailed (V)'s academic address, and heard right back. There were a few e-mails back and forth, then a video phone call (no FaceTime back then, so we used Skype), and the rest is history.
The staff dachshunds are aware of little, besides how long it's been since their last meal.
E.A. in Los Alamos, NM, asks: I really enjoy trying to solve each week's headline theme. They are challenging puzzles that are a welcome diversion from what is happening in the world. I also like that you exclude headlines regarding war and human suffering from the game. It is the right thing to do and makes a strong moral point. As a result, I was wondering why you chose to include the headline "SCOTUS: ICE Must 'Facilitate' Return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia" in the game? I would have thought that the conditions being faced by Mr. Abrego Garcia would have been the type of suffering that would lead to the headline's exclusion.
(V) & (Z) answer: We never include stories where people died in the headline game. Beyond that, it's a judgment call. We allowed that one because: (1) the story wasn't really about Garcia himself, but about a court decision, and (2) we were able to incorporate the theme without being flippant. "Ice" was organic to the headline, whereas including something like "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" would have been much more tasteless.
J.B. in Chicago, IL, asks: When are you guys coming to BlueSky?
(V) & (Z) answer: We will probably do it one day, but it's a pretty low priority, and just getting a post up each day takes up most of our Electoral-Vote.com time and energy.