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Trade War: Trump Is Just Making Things Up on the Fly
We have taken the position numerous times, including earlier this week, that Donald Trump has no trade policy. It is true that he loves one of the main tools of trade policy, namely tariffs. But there's no coherent or consistent plan that is being implemented.
There are many ways to tell that there's no plan. The first is that Trump talks about protecting American industry, and also about opening foreign markets to American goods. The former is protectionism, the latter is open trade, and they are fundamentally in conflict. The second is that exactly what tariffs will be imposed, and on what nations, and on what timeline, changes on an almost daily basis. The third is that the administration has promised that (literally) hundreds of trade deals would be in place by July or August, and yet there are only three trade deals so far, and two of those are preliminary.
In the past couple of days, Trump has put on yet another performance of his improvised one-man show, Trade War, and it left everyone's heads spinning. On Thursday, he sat for two interviews with NBC (one for Meet the Press, one for the NBC Nightly News), and announced that he plans to hit Canada with a 35% tariff, because that nation has failed to eliminate all the fentanyl in the universe. He also said that any nation that does not reach a trade deal with the U.S. soon would be hit with a blanket tariff of 15%, or 20%, or 25% (the number changed throughout the day). This is an increase over the 10% blanket tariff he had already promised to impose.
And that's not all. Thursday's decrees come on the heels of threats, earlier in the week, to slap a 50% tariff on all copper imports, and a tariff of as much as 200% on pharmaceutical imports. He also announced that the August 1 cutoff for trade deals that he had previously described as a "soft" deadline is now a "hard" deadline. We guess its Viagra must have kicked in. Or his did.
This wild oscillation is bad enough, and we haven't even gotten to the nuttiest development on the trade-war front. On Wednesday, Trump used his second-most-bigoted social media platform (see below for #1) to post a copy of a letter he sent to Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Here's the opening (and key) portion:
I knew and dealt with former President Jair Bolsonaro, and respected him greatly, as did most other Leaders of Countries. The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!
Due in part to Brazil's insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans (as lately illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which has issued hundreds of SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders to U.S. Social Media platforms, threatening them with Millions of Dollars in Fines and Eviction from the Brazilian Social Media market), starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50% on any and all Brazilian products sent into the United States, separate from all Sectoral Tariffs. Goods transshipped to evade this 50% Tariff will be subject to that higher Tariff.
As you can see, Trump is upset about two things: (1) the ongoing trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who is charged with trying to engineer a coup to keep himself in office in 2022; and (2) alleged censorship of American social media in Brazil.
It is hard to say which of these causes of action is more inappropriate. Obviously, in Bolsonaro—a wannabe dictator who tried to steal an election—Trump sees a kindred soul, and so has transferred a bunch of his own imagined grievances to the Brazilian. As to the social media portion, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has issued several rulings that limit the ability of social media companies to propagate anti-democratic and/or hateful content in Brazil. One of the companies that has been affected by those rulings is Trump Media & Technology Group, which has filed suit in Brazil.
Whichever of the two grievances is worse, in both cases, Trump is: (1) using tariff policy, under the aegis of an imagined "national emergency," to (2) tread upon Brazil's sovereignty, (3) in service of his own personal goals. Nothing here has anything to do with trade, and nothing here has anything to do with advancing the interests of the United States. It is all about Trump wanting—needing—to lash out, and picking up the largest and most accessible flamethrower with which he might do so. Off the record, White House insiders have confirmed that other options for pressuring Brazil were presented to the President, but they were too slow-moving and/or complicated for him.
It is hard to imagine what national leader would negotiate with the Trump administration under these circumstances. They might perform a negotiation pantomime, in which everyone puts on nice suits, and dines on lamb chops with mint jelly, and agrees to mild changes in trade relations, so Trump can claim a "major win." But beyond that? Trump's tariff threats are driven entirely by emotion and his own personal needs, and working with him (as Canada already has) affords zero guarantee that he won't aim the flamethrower at you again, when the mood strikes. Meanwhile, his "deadlines" have yet to amount to anything. ONE TIME he actually stuck to a deadline, imposed a bunch of tariffs, saw the markets (especially the bond markets) tank, and changed course after 3 days. Beyond that, he always grants himself an extension, or otherwise backs down. Remember, TACO. (Z)
Legal News: The Birthright Citizenship Ball Is Back in John Roberts' Court
On June 26, the Supreme Court, via its express docket, put on hold a district court's injunction against Donald Trump's Executive Order denying citizenship to certain people born in the U.S. The Supremes held that the lower court exceeded its authority in applying the injunction nationally instead of only to the parties who brought the case. But in doing so, the Court also held that a nationwide injunction may be appropriate in two situations: (1) where the district court has certified a class action challenging the XO; or (2) to ensure that the plaintiffs can obtain "complete relief" (e.g., the plaintiff states argued they would bear the cost of the different treatment in those states that chose not to challenge the XO).
The Court put its decision on hold for 30 days to allow for follow-up proceedings in the lower courts and, sure enough, the next day, the ACLU amended a federal suit it had filed in New Hampshire to certify a class of children and their parents that would be affected by the XO. After a court hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante (a George W. Bush appointee) certified a class action lawsuit on behalf of current and future U.S.-born children (the class does not include parents, as the ACLU sought).
The judge had already granted a preliminary injunction blocking the XO, but only as to the plaintiffs in the case, so that order was not affected by the Supreme Court's order. On Thursday, after certifying the class action, LaPlante expanded the preliminary injunction to apply nationwide. He held that denying citizenship is clearly irreparable harm and that it was "not a close call."
"That's irreparable harm, citizenship alone," wrote LaPlante, in his order. "It is the greatest privilege that exists in the world." In expanding the injunction, he specifically invoked the high court's recent order: "It's a better process to narrow these decisions and not have judges create national policy. That said, the Supreme Court suggested a class action is a better option."
LaPlante put the order on hold for 7 days to allow for the inevitable appeal. Needless to say, assuming the First Circuit denies the request for a stay pending appeal, this will go right back to the Supremes on yet another "emergency" basis. By now, the playbook is well-worn; we'll see if the Court once again rescues Trump while claiming it's not actually deciding anything. (L)
Channeling Elbridge Gerry: GOP Desperately Trying to Save House Majority
House Republicans, from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on down, are putting on a brave front, and insisting that they are confident heading into next year's midterm elections. This is a necessity; showing weakness would undermine fundraising. However, every single Republican officeholder (except maybe Donald Trump) knows full well that: (1) midterm elections usually go against the party that controls the White House; (2) Trump is unpopular (12 points underwater, on average) and (3) the BBB is VERY unpopular (23 points underwater, on average). These things are not good omens for the Republicans' hopes on November 3, 2026.
That the GOP's movers and shakers know the truth, regardless of their public posture, is indicated by an effort, already underway, to hold onto the majority in the House. Although congressional districts are normally redrawn once every 10 years, it's legal to redraw them more frequently. And so, two Republican-controlled states are at work on this option.
If you think about it, you could probably guess which two states, if you don't already know. For this to make sense, these four things have to be true:
- The state's population has to be pretty large. There is nothing to be gained in trying to gerrymander a one- or
two-district state.
- The state has to be purple-red. That is to say, it has to be red enough that Republicans control the legislature and
the governorship, but purple enough that there are potentially some blue districts to steal.
- The district-drawing process has to be controlled—either initially, or eventually—by partisan actors.
- The state can't already be gerrymandered six ways to Sunday.
In case readers have forgotten, that last qualifier excludes Florida. Remember how the Florida legislature gerrymandered the heck out of the map, and then ended up in a war with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), because he wanted to gerrymander it even more aggressively? He eventually got his way, so there's no more blood to be squeezed out of that blood orange.
That leaves the two candidates that check all of the above boxes: Ohio and Texas. In Ohio, a new district map is required by state law, because the current district map did not pass with bipartisan support. The Ohio Redistricting Commission gets first crack, but if it cannot come up with a map that gets the backing of a supermajority of the members of the Commission, then it falls to the Republican-dominated state legislature.
Under Ohio law, the legislature can adopt a "permanent" map (that is, one in effect until the next census) with a supermajority, or a "temporary" map (that is, one in effect for a single election cycle) with a simple majority. There are rules for the "temporary" map, and whether or not they have been followed properly is a question for the Ohio Supreme Court. When the current "temporary" map was adopted, the Court was 4-3 in favor of the Republicans. Now, it's 6-1 in favor.
In view of this, Ohio Republicans are salivating, and thinking they can maybe turn the current 10R, 5D delegation into 12R, 3D, or possibly 13R, 2D. If this effort is successful, the two Democrats most likely to lose their seats are Marcy Kaptur, who has held on for years in a northwest Ohio district (OH-09) that is R+3, and Emilia Sykes, whose district in northeast Ohio (OH-13) currently has a PVI of EVEN.
In Texas, by contrast, there is nothing that requires maps to be redrawn—Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) just wants to do it, in service of his partisan ends. He has called a special session of the Texas legislature to commence in a little over a week, and by state law the Governor gets to set the agenda for that session. Abbott has just added "discuss redrawing the Congressional district maps" to the legislature's to-do list.
Currently, the Texas House delegation is 25R, 13D. Because the gerrymandering plans are still in the preliminary stages, it's not clear how many seats the GOP might try to pick up. Undoubtedly, the districts of Democrats Henry Cuellar (TX-28, R+2) and Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34, EVEN) would be targeted. There could be others, but it would require some very acrobatic map-drawing, as the next "reddest" district occupied by a Democrat is the D+11 TX-16 (Veronica Escobar).
In neither state is a more aggressive gerrymander a done deal. It is at least possible that the politicians will be leery, in part because gerrymandering is politically unpopular, and in part because a more aggressive gerrymander entails greater risk. The more Republican districts that are created, the greater the chance of big losses in a blue wave. And even if the state legislatures agree to play ball, the courts will be asked to weigh in, and you can never tell what will happen there. In any event, with the House the most vulnerable part of the current Republican trifecta, this is going to be an important story over the next year or so. (Z)
The Epstein Files: MAGA Base Continues to Freak Out
If the goal is to make the Jeffrey Epstein story go away, the White House is doing about as poor a job of it as is possible. As we noted yesterday, the video footage of Epstein's jail cell on the night he died is missing one minute. Consider how many conspiracy theories have been launched by the 26.6-second Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, which is not missing ANY frames. That may give a sense of how much room for speculation is afforded by a film that's missing an entire minute.
Beyond that is the now-legendary Epstein "client list." Earlier this week, as we noted, the administration announced that there is no client list. This is not going to be an easy notion for the White House to sell. After all, "Attorney General" Pam Bondi said that she'd seen the list, and even noted, back in April, that it was sitting on her desk. Elon Musk has claimed multiple times that he's seen the list. Yesterday, Alan Dershowitz said that he has also seen the list (which has been rumored to include his name), but that he cannot say more because of attorney-client privilege.
Perhaps worst of all, Donald Trump himself has apparently seen the list. Although the President has not commented directly this week, he did speak to former Fox entertainer Bill O'Reilly about the subject, and O'Reilly has been all over the place recounting that conversation. He claims that Trump is unwilling to release the list because some people on it would be "unfairly destroyed."
We are not remotely inclined toward conspiratorial thinking, but here, even we must join with the conspiracists in rejecting the White House's claim that there is no client list. Exactly what the nature of that list is, and how clearly it is identifiable as specifically a list of clients for sexual trafficking activities (as opposed to, say, just being an address book, or a list of e-mail contacts, or something like that), is open to question. But there is clearly a document that exists, and that has been seen by a lot of people, and that was clearly identifiable as being somewhere in the ballpark of a "client list."
That, then, raises the question of why the administration is trying to bury the document. If it unambiguously implicated one or more Democrats, and ONLY Democrats, then it would be posted to Truth Social so fast it would make your head spin. So, it's clearly not that. That would seem to leave only two possibilities. The first is that it implicates one or more Republicans (including, possibly, Trump himself). The second is that it doesn't really implicate anyone, but that the names of people who appear in the document (including, almost certainly, Trump himself) would be damaged merely by association.
We would guess it's probably the latter (though we do not entirely rule out the former). Again, if the document could be used to harm Democrats, Trump would deploy it with much glee. And if it only harmed other Republicans, Trump would almost certainly release it, regarding those Republicans as collateral damage as he tried to make sure that the MAGA base remained happy. The only thing that really makes sense is that, in some way, Trump is protecting himself, and he thinks that the damage that he'll take from being part of a "cover up" is less bad than the damage he would take by being more tightly linked to Epstein. (Z)
Never Forget: Back to the Beach
Today, we hear from C.W. in East Hills, NY:
My dad was a German Jew who came to the States in the mid 1930s. He enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor. He was working for the New York Public Library. His name is on the plaque in the main room honoring employees who had left to serve. The guys with asterisks didn't come home. (There also is one for World War I.)
Dad became a radio operator and was one of the thousands who trained in Slapton Sands, England, for the invasion. In one instance, his group was waterproofing equipment. Dad turned around and an entourage of officers, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, was watching. Later, Dad tripped over some cables and badly hurt his ankle. Whenever an officer passed by he would force himself to walk normally lest he be pulled from the invasion.
His landing craft was in the third wave. It was hit and began sinking. The men were instructed to stand up, take out their knives, turn to the right, cut the packs off the man standing in front of them and to abandon ship. Many of these men died. Dad swam in among gunfire and barely made it to shore. He hunkered down on the beach and survived.
Dad was able to stay on the beach. As a radio operator, he helped the harbormaster coordinate equipment transport and as a German, he helped interrogate prisoners.
He was transferred to the Philippines, and was there when the war ended. He became a civilian employee of the government and helped in the de-Nazification program in the port city of Bremerhaven.
Dad returned to the states and graduated with a law degree from NYU. He spent the bulk of his career helping win restitution for Nazi victims for stolen property. In his mid-80s, he became general counsel to the Joint Distribution Committee. His last act was arguing the appeal of a case related to material stolen from the Berlin Museum late in the war. He was 90 and won the appeal.
This is him being interviewed, after going back to the beach many years after the war:
Thanks, C.W. (Z)
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Jackson 8
Yes, we know, it was actually the Jackson 5. But there was so much musical talent in the family that they kept adding members to the act. Patriarch Joe Jackson decided it would be silly to keep changing the number in the group's name, and so they became The Jacksons. But if Joe HAD kept changing the number, they would have ended up as the Jackson 8. See for yourself:
The anniversary of Michael Jackson's death was a couple of weeks ago AND his family is still fighting over his estate (16 years later), so he's been in the news a bit.
Anyhow, for last week's headline theme, we gave two hints. The first was: "[E]ven if you're having trouble with the solution, eventually, you shall overcome." The second was: "[W]e really wanted to get 'Lewis' into a headline, but there was just no way to make it work." And here is the solution, courtesy of reader H.W. in Seattle, WA:
Luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement. What an outstanding choice for this week! Or any week.
- This Land Is Your Land: Anti-Trump Protesters Will Once Again Marshall Their Forces—Justice Thurgood Marshall
- In Congress: Jeffries Parks Himself in the Speaker's Well for Almost 9 Hours—Rosa Parks
- Looking Back: No Kings Protests Demand... Well, No King—Martin Luther King Jr.
- I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Wings at the Speed of Sound—Reverend Daniel Speed
- This Week in Schadenfreude: Dr. Phil Has Burned His Bridges—Ruby Bridges (still alive, at 70)
- This Week in Freudenfreude: The Farmer Is the Man—James Farmer
The headline for this item adds Jesse Jackson to the list.
Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:
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The 50th correct response was received at 8:52 a.m. PT on Friday.
For this week's theme, we cannot exactly say how many words per headline it relies on, but we can say it's in the category Language. As always, the "Never Forget" Headline is not part of the game. For a hint, we'll say that yesterday, the official White House eX-Twitter account posted another ridiculous meme that is meant to: (1) make Donald Trump cool, by connecting him to popular culture, and (2) burnish Trump's credentials as a strongman (or, at least, a strong man). We'll share the actual meme as tomorrow's hint, but for now, we'll say that the #1 comment on the tweet is: "His only kryptonite is bone spurs and Epstein lists."
If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line July 11 Headlines. (Z)
This Week in Schadenfreude: Grok Does a Villain Turn
Elon Musk obviously has a pretty good nose for how technology is going to evolve, and how he can set himself up to profit from those changes. His current obsession is AI, and the AI product he owns is Grok, which has now been merged with eX-Twitter.
There are some very foreseeable problems here, however. From a business perspective, the AI space is crowded, and all the 800-pound-gorillas—Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.—are fighting for their slice of the pie. For this reason, Musk decided that Grok would be the most "truthful" AI engine, by which he means "the right-wing" AI engine. Other than Rupert Murdoch/Roger Ailes/Fox, these big bets on right-wing media/social media products don't ever seem to pay off, but a bigot can always dream, we guess.
From a tech perspective, Elon Musk doesn't really understand the tech underlying AI all that well, and he's gutted much of the engineering staff at eX-Twitter. Even if he DID understand, AI is still in its infancy, and nobody knows how to train the AI bots without making a lot of mistakes. It's also not clear exactly what data sources Musk is using for input, but if the goal is to steer Grok in a right-leaning direction, one can guess what some of the possibilities are. Keep in mind also that AI learns from its user inputs, and there are some people who have an interest in taking Grok in a VERY far-right direction, while there are others who have an interest in embarrassing Musk as thoroughly as is possible.
This week, these various threads came together in a very predictable way, as Grok absolutely went off the rails. Most of the coverage is focused on the bot's extreme antisemitic turn. It began referring to itself as MechaHitler, issuing forth with "Heil Hitler" and other Nazi salutes, and opining that Adolf Hitler is the perfect person to "deal with such vile anti-white hatred" that comes out of Hollywood. These are just a few examples, but there were dozens of others.
Getting less attention, but also frightening, was Grok's turn toward sexual violence. It shared some graphic opinions about the sexual proclivities of eX-Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino. It also offered up detailed instructions for how to commit sexual assault against Will Stancil, a policy researcher and one-time candidate for the state legislature in Minnesota.
In the short-term, the immediate effect of this is that Yaccarino resigned after two years on the job. So, she's now the ex-eX-Twitter CEO. She said all the polite things on her way out the door, such that it's not clear if she resigned due to the Nazi stuff, or the sexual stuff, or both, or if she was headed out the door anyhow, and this was just the final straw and/or an opportune time. Musk's response to her departure was terse, suggesting that the split was not warm and fuzzy, despite Yaccarino's public posture.
In the longer-term, time will tell, but there are warning lights going off everywhere. While eX-Twitter is still king of its corner of the social media universe, it's quickly losing market share to Threads. And it's not profitable, as Yaccarino was not especially successful at stopping the advertiser exodus that began when Musk took over. Further, the vision for eX-Twitter a couple of years ago was that it was going to become a one-stop shop for a wide range of online services. That has not happened, and now Musk is more interested in AI than he was in the previous plan. Unfortunately for him, the AI marketplace is not only crowded, but Grok has now suffered several high-profile failures (this week's were only the latest, and the worst), which may be fatal. It's all good and well to attract the cosplayers who put on fatigues and march around with AK-47s in the woods out back of their houses on the weekends, but the money in AI is in institutional users. And institutions are not going to buy a product that might start spitting out rape fantasies and Nazi propaganda at any time.
There may be no entrepreneur in American history who has risen so far, so fast, as Elon Musk. And, in 5 years, we might well be writing that there may be no entrepreneur in American history who has fallen so far, so fast, as Elon Musk. (Z)
This Week in Freudenfreude: The Farmer Is the Man, Part II
Last week, we had a Fourth of July quiz, commemorating America's history of protest. Today, it's the answers and the results. First, the answers:
- What is being protested in this image, which documents events that took place on December 16, 1773?
a. Merchants charging exorbitant prices for salt (chosen by 1.5% of respondents)
b. Taxes on tea (97.5%)
c. An outbreak of diptheria, blamed (incorrectly) on tainted, imported spices (0.5%)
d. "Immoral" tobacco (0.5%)
Explanation: It is, of course, a rendering of the Boston Tea Party. - What is being protested by this flag, which was created in the year 1844?
a. Catholic immigrants (62.5%)
b. Chinese immigrants (23.9%)
c. Communist immigrants (9.4%)
d. Canadian immigrants (4.2%)
Explanation: This is a Know-Nothing flag; the Know-Nothings were focused primarily on Irish Catholic immigrants. Chinese immigration did not become an issue until the California gold rush of 1849, and even then, the anti-Chinese movement was the Workingmen's Party, and not the Know-Nothings. - What is being protested by this newspaper, which began publication in 1831?
a. Women's oppression (0.8%)
b. Masonic influence in American culture (4.4%)
c. Andrew Jackson (and, later, Jacksonian policies) (6.2%)
d. Slavery (88.5%)
Explanation: The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison, was the leading abolitionist newspaper. - What is being protested in this image, which documents events that took place on April 2, 1863?
a. The price of bread (90.1%)
b. Native American raids on Southern cities (0.5%)
c. The disputed New Orleans mayoral election (4.3%)
d. The publication of the "pornographic" The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (5.1%)
Explanation: The Richmond Bread Riots were the most notable among many examples of anti-war protests that broke out in the South during the Civil War. - What is being protested in this image, which documents events that took place on July 14, 1863?
a. A tax on wool and wool clothing (essential for winter, in that era) (54.8%)
b. The military draft (42.5%)
c. Unsafe drinking water (1.7%)
d. A ban on firearms within the city limits of New York City (1%)
Explanation: This is an engraving of the New York City Draft Riots. - What is being protested in this image, which documents events that took place on July 6, 1892?
a. The damage wrought by the Johnstown Flood (1.7%)
b. Immigration (10.2%)
c. Wages for steel workers (81.4%)
d. A tax on whiskey (6.7%)
Explanation: The events at Homestead pitted steel workers against management (particularly Henry Clay Frick) and the Pinkerton guards that were hired to break the strikes/protests. - What are the women protesting for, in this photo taken on January 26, 1917?
a. Child labor laws (6.6%)
b. Women's suffrage (67.7%)
c. The outlawing of gender-segregated universities (25.2%)
d. Temperance (0.5%)
Explanation: One of the arguments against women's suffrage was that women were not smart enough to vote; the pro-suffrage protesters wore sashes bearing the names of their alma maters to make clear they most certainly were smart enough. - What are the people protesting for, in this photo taken on August 28, 1963?
a. Jobs and freedom (55.8%)
b. Law and order (0.0%)
c. Fairness and equality (43.8%)
d. Peace and prosperity (0.4%)
Explanation: The full title of the famous March on Washington was "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." - This headline, from June 21, 1967, was the result of a protest against what?
a. Segregation (2.7%)
b. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (1.8%)
c. The criminalization of marijuana (1.4%)
d. The Vietnam War (94.1%)
Explanation: Cassius Clay, soon to be known as Muhammad Ali, was punished for resisting the draft during the Vietnam War. - What is being protested, in this photo taken on April 22, 1970?
a. The damage done to the environment by mankind (61.3%)
b. Chicago's infamous "Flower Law" (repealed soon after) (3%)
c. The meltdown at Three Mile Island (6.2%)
d. The use of chemical weapons, especially Agent Orange, in Vietnam (29.5%)
Explanation: This is from the very first Earth Day. - What triggered this protest, in this photo taken on January 22, 1973?
a. The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (89.6%)
b. The Supreme Court's lifting the national moratorium on the death penalty (9.3%)
c. The United States' final withdrawal from Vietnam (0.3%)
d. The successful test of the "Castle Bravo" nuclear bomb (0.8%)
Explanation: This picture shows anti-choice demonstrators who descended on the Minnesota Capitol building after the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was announced. - What are the people protesting for, in this photo taken on June 28, 1978?
a. Funding for public transportation (1.7%)
b. Better healthcare for veterans (0.4%)
c. Gay rights (93.1%)
d. Ending discrimination in housing (4.8%)
Explanation: This is Harvey Milk, during his brief time as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. - What was being protested against, in this photo taken on September 12, 2016?
a. Police brutality (98.9%)
b. Donald Trump (0.5%)
c. The "slave wages" paid to football players (0.4%)
d. Poverty (0.2%)
Explanation: This is Colin Kaepernick, and his main concern was police brutality. - What was being protested for, in this photo taken on March 24, 2018?
a. Stronger vaccine requirements, particularly the COVID vaccine (0.2%)
b. Forgiveness of student loans (7.3%)
c. Stricter limits on abortion (0.8%)
d. Better gun-control laws (91.7%)
Explanation: We left just enough detail in the picture that it can be seen that this is a photo of the March for Our Lives protests. - This photo, taken on June 11, 2020, was part of protests that emerged in response to what?
a. The Keystone XL Pipeline (3.9%)
b. The death of George Floyd (77.2%)
c. The publication of new history "standards" in Texas (12.9%)
d. The renomination of Donald Trump at the 2020 RNC (6%)
Explanation: One of the signature elements of the George Floyd protests was toppling or defacing statues of historical figures (Christopher Columbus, Junípero Serra, Robert E. Lee, etc.) associated with oppression of minority groups.
Tiebreaker: The largest protest in U.S. history (by number of participants nationwide) that also included participation from the sitting president took place in what year?
1970. There is some question as to the largest nationwide protest in American history; it's widely agreed that the first Earth Day involved 20 million participants, while the George Floyd protests involved anywhere from 15 to 25 million. However, Donald Trump most certainly did not participate in the George Floyd protests, while both Richard and Pat Nixon were a part of the first Earth Day, planting a tree on the White House lawn in honor of the occasion:
Yes, it's a pretty obviously staged photo-op, but the Nixons really were pro-environment.
There were a total of 63 readers who got all 15 questions right. Among those were six who got them all AND hit the tiebreaker on the nose. Here are those six:
- A.C. in Lake Mary, FL
- C.M. in Leesburg, FL
- G.J.B. in Rowland Heights, CA
- M.A. in Park Ridge, IL
- M.L. in West Hartford, CT
- T.K. in Salem, MA
Congratulations to these six readers, and indeed, to all readers who put up a perfect score! Oh, and the average score was 11.9, while the median score was 12. (Z)
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