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Habemus Papam!: Leo XIV Will Succeed Francis

The College of Cardinals gave it a shot on Wednesday, and were unable to choose a new pope. Then, after spending the night in the Vatican's guest quarters, they managed to get the job done on Thursday. Perhaps that says something about the quality of the accommodations—we'll have to check the Yelp reviews. As they did with Francis, the cardinals chose a dark horse, Robert Prevost, as the next Vicar of Christ. He promptly picked Leo XIV as his regnal name, making him the first Leo in over a century (the last one ended his papacy in 1903).

Leo certainly has an interesting résumé. Born and raised in Chicago, he took his Bachelor of Science degree (in mathematics) at Villanova, his Master of Divinity degree at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and his Doctorate of Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. The latter is really going to need to change its name to the Pontiff-ical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, if it wants to take advantage of the marketing opportunity it's just been handed. He served as a math teacher for a short period before being ordained as a priest in 1982. Not long thereafter, he traveled to Peru, and formally joined the Augustinian mission there. Rising through the ranks of that order, he was named Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2015. Undoubtedly, his work as an Augustinian and in Peru were both selling points. The cardinals tend to like to rotate the papacy among the various orders (Francis, for example, was a Jesuit). And having an American who made his career in Peru covers two continents with a lot of Catholics, and suggests that Leo will have a fairly broad view of world affairs.

In 2023, after nearly four decades in Peru, Leo was created cardinal by Francis, and relocated to the Vatican. There, he assumed several important administrative posts, most obviously overseeing the appointment of new bishops as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. This was presumably also a selling point; a pope who is a bad administrator is a poor choice for the 21st century. As is typical for modern popes, Leo is a polyglot, and speaks—in addition to his native English—Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese. He can also read Latin and German. Regrettably, the world continues to wait for a pope who is fluent in Klingon.

Theologically, Leo is regarded as a liberal. Not quite as liberal as Francis, mind you, but definitely on the liberal end of the spectrum. His papal motto will be the very inclusive "In Him, who is one, we are one." In his introductory address, he proclaimed: "Help us as well—help one another—to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, uniting everyone to be one single people always in peace." Leo is particularly known for his work with, and concern over, those who live in poverty.

Stylistically, Leo has generally been more restrained, and more careful in his verbiage, than Francis was. That said, the new pope has most certainly been critical of the current presidential administration. Recently, he had some thoughts about love, and how J.D. Vance's understanding of that concept is off the mark. There is also an eX-Twitter account bearing Leo's (former) name that has many tweets critical of Donald Trump and of Vance, and in particular excoriating the administration's immigration policies. Various news outlets that contacted the Vatican to check if the account actually does (or did) belong to Leo received no comment. We would tend to interpret that as "We don't want to lie and say it's not his, but we don't particularly want to affirm that he said those things." In other words, we strongly suspect the account is legit.

It is extremely difficult to avoid the conclusion that the choice of an American-born pope—something generally seen as inconceivable before yesterday, since the U.S. already has more than its fair share of global power—is a response to Trumpism/authoritarianism. We doubt that pushing back against Trumpism was the only concern the cardinals had. However, they had to pick someone, and if they had several candidates with the appropriate credentials, it seems very plausible to us that poking Trump in the eye could be the tiebreaker.

Certainly, that is how some prominent American Catholics see things. Steve Bannon, who is both Catholic and Trumpy, correctly guessed last week that Prevost would be the choice, and lamented it, since Prevost was the "most progressive" candidate and would be "terrible for MAGA Catholics." After the pick became official yesterday, MAGA types were all over eX-Twitter and other social media platforms, slamming Leo as a Marxist, woke, a DEI pope, etc. At what point do those words cease to have any meaning at all? Although we will concede that, as we understand it, the cardinals did not consider a single Jew, Buddhist or Muslim. So, there was a type of affirmative action there, we suppose.

Meanwhile, the most prominent liberal Catholic family in America has to be the Kennedys, right? (Sorry, Bidens.) Well yesterday, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend welcomed the choice. "He's a pope for peace. He said, All of us are equal. All of us are special under God. We're all children of God. So he's saying to each person, I love you. God loves you." It seems pretty clear that, just like every single other thing, Americans are seeing this through the Republicans vs. Democrats lens. Or, really, the MAGA vs. non-MAGA lens.

Trump, for his part, responded gracefully. On his 1/1,000th-the-reach-of-the-Catholic-Church social media website, he posted this:

It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!

We think that the only thing you really learn from this is that there are a lot of Catholic Republicans, and Trump cannot risk offending them. Surely, someone must have told Trump about Leo's critical comments, and surely Trump must be furious. We suspect that, sometime in the next week, he will tell his underlings to cancel all federal grants made to the College of Cardinals, ostensibly because they haven't done enough to stop the antisemitic protests on campus.

Perhaps the best indication of what an unexpected choice this was comes from the betting markets. Right up until the white smoke emerged from that chimney, Prevost was getting +5000, which is 50-to-1. Before that, the odds were as high as 100-to-1. One bettor made $63,650.65 on a $1,059.52 bet, while another made $52,641 on a $526 bet. At least four others made more than $20,000. Interesting times. (Z)

Trade Deal: What Would Paul Revere Think?

Well, it happened. Donald Trump announced his "MAJOR TRADE DEAL" and it got buried by the papal news. That might actually be for the best for him, as the announcement on Wednesday was considerably more impressive than the deliverables on Thursday.

It is worth remembering that the United States became an independent nation, in large part, due to trade issues with the United Kingdom. So, it is interesting to see that trade between the U.K. and the U.S. is once again a major issue, albeit coming from a very different place than back in the 1760s. Per the headline, if Paul Revere were alive today, he would of course want to see the U.S. "win" and the U.K. "lose." We guess that makes Revere a proto-Trump, on some level, although we should note that Revere preferred silver to gold, he did not shirk his responsibilities when a war came, and he was physically fit enough to mount a horse. So, we can't take this proto-Trump stuff too far.

Anyhow, it's hard to know what Revere would think of this "deal" because, predictably, yesterday's announcement was thin on details. As expected, it's not actually a deal, it's a framework for a deal. The stated plan is that the 10% tariffs on British imports to the U.S. will remain in place, at least for now, but that the announced 27.5% tariffs on British cars will be dropped to 10%, while the tariffs on British aluminum and steel will be eliminated entirely. In exchange, the British will ease the import of American beef and ethanol (i.e., products made by the farmers who are key to Trump's base) but the specifics are unclear.

This is enough for both Trump and British PM Sir Keir Starmer to declare a "win," something they both need, politically. But it's clearly not any sort of game-changer, even when (and if) the framework becomes an actual trade pact. Since we are not economists, we'll pass along this assessment from Stan Veuger, who actually is an economist, and who works for the center-right American Enterprise Institute: "[You] could say they basically took the status quo, made marginal changes and called it a deal."

If a person wants to be hopeful about the U.S. economy, and about the (increasingly small) chance that Trump won't drive the economy off a cliff, then here's the positive spin: If the U.S. and U.K. can actually work something out, it could become a template for trade deals with other countries, trade deals that might allow Trump to back off the tariffs while still saving face and "winning." We do not propose this is particularly likely, but it's the "glass half full" way of looking at things (although, in this case, we'd say the glass is really only about 5% full, so it requires several extra servings of Pollyanna-ism to make it work). (Z)

The Clown Show, Part V: Ed Martin Is Out

We had an item yesterday headlined "The Clown Show, Part II: Next Quack Up" about how the Trump administration yanked one nominee for surgeon general and then chose someone arguably even worse. Looks like we're going to have to continue on that theme, because the White House has done it again.

Yesterday, the head to (semi-)roll belonged to acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, Ed Martin. A couple of weeks ago, we wrote an item with the headline "Ed Martin Is out of Control." In that, we listed a bunch of the crazypants abuses of power that Martin had engaged in, and observed that by making his moves before being confirmed by the Senate, he was probably overplaying his hand, and making himself radioactive. It looks like we were right; Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) came out earlier this week and said he would not vote to confirm. That's a problem for two reasons. First, Tillis is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his "nay," coupled with all the Democratic "nays," would have resulted in a non-recommendation being sent to the full Senate. Second, while a non-recommendation is not always fatal, there was much evidence of other "nay" votes among non-Judiciary Committee Republicans in the Senate, including Susan Collins (ME), John Cornyn (TX), John Curtis (UT) and Lisa Murkowski (AK). And so Trump, in a clear acknowledgment that he doesn't have the political capital to move the nomination, yanked it instead.

As with other folks whose heads have recently rolled, Martin is not out, he's just making a "lateral" move. Former NSA Mike Waltz is headed to the U.N., failed surgeon general Janette Nesheiwat is going to be given a job in HHS, and Martin will now work for the Department of Justice's brand-new "weaponization working group," which is focused on conspiracy theories about how the federal government has been very unfair to Donald Trump. In short, a match made in heaven—a ridiculous job for a ridiculous man.

You would think that the replacement for Martin couldn't possibly be worse. And, if so, you would arguably be wrong. Trump has decided to replace one show horse with a different show horse, and has tapped—predictably—one of the entertainers employed by Fox. Yep, it's yet another crazypants conspiracist: Jeanine Pirro. Even Pirro's own producer once described her as "completely crazy." Unlike Martin, Pirro at least has prosecutorial experience, having served as ADA and DA of Westchester County, NY, for many years. However, she's been at Fox for almost 15 years, so her law skills are probably a little rusty. That said, you probably don't need to remember the finer points of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure if your real job is to make headlines fighting back against wokeness, and DEI, and critical race theory and yadda, yadda, yadda. And unlike Martin, Pirro is at least smart enough to keep her cards close to the vest until she's been confirmed. Though one wonders if she's been told she'll be trading in a salary of $3 million per year for one of $165,209 per year.

Also, as long as we are on the general subject, Trump also fired the Librarian of Congress yesterday. Carla Hayden had been on the job since 2016, and was generally well regarded. However, she is Black and was appointed by Barack Obama, and in the last couple of weeks, the right-wing commentariat has been attacking her for being "woke, anti-Trump, and promot[ing] trans-ing kids." So, she had to go. Our prediction is that for her replacement, Trump picks someone who is white, male and thinks the best thing to do with books is burn them. (Z)

Malicious Compliance: Teachers Know How to Trigger Conservatives

Yesterday, in an item about right-wingers trying to use the educational system to indoctrinate students, we wrote this:

Now, in some cases, a rule or a standard is not optional for teachers—for example, the new Louisiana rule about posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. It is for this circumstance that malicious compliance was created—follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit. There are all kinds of ways to pull this off, as an educator. Indeed, we are reminded that several readers wrote in to ask us what WE would do if required to display the Ten Commandments in our classroom. We were at work on our answer, but didn't get it finished, and then the endless march of BIG NEWS intervened. Maybe we'll try to get back to it for tomorrow's posting, as an illustration of what we mean by malicious compliance.

If ever there was a day to deliver on that promise, it's the day that a new pope was chosen. And so, to start, note that the size constraints of a website don't really allow us to give an exact representation of what we have in mind. However, the plan would be a chart. The top row of the chart would be a list of what might be called "issues"—for example, "idolatry," "respect for ancestors," "lying," "false gods," etc. The far-left column would be a list of major religious traditions. And then each quadrant would be filled in with scripture, wherever there is a match.

For example, consider a column with the header "murder." That column might be filled in something like this:

Note that religions are listed in order of age, from oldest to youngest. Obviously, additional religions would be included; we're just trying to keep this manageable for illustrative purposes.

Here's one other sample column; this one would have the header "suffering":

That certainly gives a sense of things. In a complete chart, all Ten Commandments would make an appearance, along with a fair bit of non-Commandment material. And, by citing them by verse, it even avoids the problem of showing favoritism to one sect's list of the Commandments over another's (for example, "You shall not murder" is the Fifth Commandment for Roman Catholics and Lutherans; the Sixth Commandment for most Jews and Eastern Orthodox Christians; and the Eighth Commandment for most Protestants).

And this is not only malicious compliance, it's also a case of taking lemons and making lemonade. Such a chart could be the basis for discussions about points of agreement between religious traditions, and why those points of agreement exist, as well as variances in the ways the various religious traditions see some things, and what the implications of those variances are. Depending on how old the students are, one could also assign each of them to research a specific verse on the chart, and to do a brief presentation on the verse, and how it fits in with the chapter/book/surah it came from.

After yesterday's posting went live, we heard from numerous readers, many of them teachers, about their ideas. We thought we'd share some of those; as you can see, our readers are quite fluent in the language of malicious compliance:

As you can see, quite a few readers caught our basic drift. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: From the Desert of Khartoum to the Shores of Tripoli

Last week, we gave the hint "we'll say that this theme certainly wasn't our first choice." We thought those italics would be a pretty dead giveaway, but we were wrong. So, we added this on Saturday: "We really wanted to work the words 'supper,' 'resort' and 'rites' into headlines, but couldn't do it." And now, courtesy of reader M.L. in Iowa City, IA, here is the solution:

They're all last or final in some way. Because in the immortal words of the great American philosopher Ricky Bobby: "If you're not first, you're last..."

From the headline for this item, "The Last Desert" is a place name in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:

  1. I.H. in Washington, DC
  2. M.W. in Altea, Spain
  3. E.V. in Derry, NH
  4. C.W. in Atlantic Beach, FL
  5. M.M. in Dunellen, NJ
  6. A.D. in Vass, NC
  7. D.S. in Layton, UT
  8. E.S. in Cincinnati, OH
  9. M.T. in Simpsonville, SC
  10. S.W. in Winter Garden, FL
  11. K.L. in Sterling, VA
  12. M.L. in Iowa City
  13. S.K. in Ardmore, PA
  14. G.K. in Blue Island, IL
  15. K.R. in Austin, TX
  16. H.B. in Toronto, ON, Canada
  17. R.L.D. in Sundance, WY
  18. M.S. in Canton, NY
  19. S.B. in Los Altos Hills, CA
  20. T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts
  21. P.H. in Fort Lauderdale, FL
  22. M.C. in Newton, MA
  23. R.R. in Pasadena, CA
  24. D.L. in Springfield, IL
  25. K.F. in Berea, KY
  1. N.H. in London, England, UK
  2. J.T. in Philadelphia, PA
  3. R.O. in Nordland, Norway
  4. M.N. in Lake Ann, MI
  5. T.B. in Wiscasset, ME
  6. M.G., D.K. and P.K. in Marseille, France
  7. N.T. in Paris, France
  8. B.U. in St. Louis, MO
  9. S.S. in Lucerne, Switzerland
  10. R.A. in Chesterfield, MO
  11. R.S. in Milan, OH
  12. J.M. in Nashville, TN
  13. B.F. in Nashville, TN
  14. K.S. in Harrisburg, PA
  15. D.D. in Carversville, PA
  16. M.M. in Dunellen, NJ
  17. E.W. in Skaneateles, NY
  18. J.N. in Zionsville, IN
  19. J.E. in San Jose, CA
  20. A.P. in Kitchener, ON, Canada
  21. S.R. in Sammamish, WA
  22. M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO
  23. A.O'N. in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany
  24. R.H. in West Grove, PA
  25. P.F. in Las Vegas, NV

The 50th correct response was received at 6:41 a.m. PT on Saturday.

As to this week's headline theme, it relies on one word in some headlines, multiple words in others. It's in the category Wild Card, we suppose—any other option would give the wrong impression. As to a hint, we suspect that when many readers get it, they will say: "Of course, of course."

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject "May 9 Headlines." (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Uh, Could We Get a Citation for That?

There are, of course, many Trumpy members of Congress who reflexively and loudly support anything Donald Trump says or does because he is, after all, the Dear Leader. A number of these folks are in the habit of supplementing their support with "facts," which—like many of the "facts" that Trump shares—are completely made up out of whole cloth. One of the worst offenders is Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY). There was a time when she was pretty much a normal Republican. However, once Hageman decided that her path to the promised land involved taking down then-Rep. Liz Cheney, and becoming the anti-Liz, such niceties were out the window. And these days, Hageman is 100% MAGA.

This week, the House Rules Committee, of which Hageman is a member, was meeting to discuss a resolution to officially rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That resolution doesn't really change anything, since Trump already has the authority to order federal government maps to be changed, while any other maps are outside the purview of the federal government. In other words, the resolution, which ultimately did pass the House, is just a show bill. It will undoubtedly stun readers to learn that the main sponsor was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Anyhow, Hageman decided that she also wanted to get in on the show-horsery. She couldn't sponsor the bill, since Greene got there first, but she could use her committee time to make some MAGA noise. And so, she decreed:

I think another reason why we should change this to the Gulf of America versus the Gulf of Mexico is, for over 40 years, the country of Mexico has been dumping raw sewage into the area near San Diego, California. That's another reason we need to retake and claim ownership of this area. I was just in San Diego meeting with some folks down there, and they described the situation. It's an absolutely horrific, horrific situation. It is an environmental catastrophe and disaster created.

Is there anything here that's true and accurate? For example, did Hageman—who, again, represents Wyoming in the House—really visit San Diego for some fact-finding?

In any case, you don't exactly have to be Rand or McNally to realize that Hageman's geography is completely wrong, and makes no sense. San Diego is not on the Gulf of Mexico. San Diego is not CLOSE to the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, San Diego is about 1,500 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. Put another way, the distance between New York City and Miami is smaller than the distance between San Diego and the Gulf of Mexico.

So, Hageman was left with some egg on her face. Good enough for her, if she's going to make up nonsense out of thin air. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Popemobile to Become a World Traveler

We had a few possibilities for this space, but this is obviously the timely one, so we're going with it. We are not Catholic, so we're not in a position to evaluate the recently departed Francis from that vantage point. But, by virtue of having followed politics for decades, we do know a thing or two about sniffing out phonies. Some leaders pretend to care about the poor, or other marginalized groups, but it's just a show. Boris Johnson, to take one example that immediately leaps to mind, always struck us as being as fake as Donald Trump's tan. However, every bit of our instinct says that when Francis said that he cared about the poor and downtrodden, he really meant it.

One of the former pope's final gestures serves as a pretty good illustration of this. As readers will know, the sitting Bishop of Rome travels in one of several popemobiles that are meant to maximize visibility while at the same time minimizing risk of assassination. It's a delicate dance, to say the least. And as one of his last earthly acts, Francis, working with the organization Caritas, and with financial support from several allies, arranged for one of his popemobiles to be converted into a mobile health clinic. According to a statement from Caritas, "There'll be rapid tests, suture kits, syringes, oxygen supplies, vaccines and a small fridge for storing medicines."

Francis also made arrangements for the new pope-med-mobile's first assignment. It's going to Gaza, to help treat sick and injured children. The pontiff described this as his "final wish for the children of Gaza" in the weeks before he passed away. At the moment, and for the last 2 months, Israel has closed off all foreign aid to Gaza, meaning that the project is currently in dry-dock. But once the Netanyahu administration lifts the blockade, deployment will take place.

And so, one last tip of the mitre to Francis. En pace requiescat.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)


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