Dem
47
GOP
53
If you're still working on the headline theme, a second hint is that the folks in question ostensibly lived in Miami, but the house that was always shown is actually about a mile from where (Z) lives in Los Angeles (and go a few more miles east, and you can also visit Seinfeld's apartment building in "New York City").
P.Y. in Watertown, MA, asks: I am not a lawyer and don't understand all this very well. I'm trying to get inside the heads of the Supreme Court to understand their point of view. Could the jurisprudence of the Roberts court be summarized as "They know that they are doing legendarily shady stuff, but, to them, the ends justify the means"? Is that ultimately what's happening? They have a long-term ideology that they are aiming for, and this is what needs to be done?
(Z) answers: I don't like to be a wild-eyed pointer of fingers but, at this point, there's no other compelling explanation. First, because "promote the Republican Party" is the only clear through-line on the Roberts' Court's jurisprudence. Second, because the Court is so very willing to trample on longstanding customs and precedents, but only in cases where it advances the goals of the Republican Party.
R.H.D. in Webster, NY, asks: Since this is Pride Month, I had to ask: Given what this SCOTUS did with overturning Roe and now gutting the Voting Rights Act, do you think that Obergefell could be on the chopping block in the near future?
(Z) answers: This strikes me as a very real possibility. Three of the six conservatives on the court right now (Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) wrote dissents in that case. All it would take would be two of the three remaining conservatives to agree to hear a case, and to vote with that trio.
The primary concern of Roberts, and possibly some of the other conservatives, might not be stare decisis, or any other such legal issue. It might be that a new decision could very well end up being an invitation to blue states to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, and to say, "Roberts has his decision, now let him enforce it." It would not be good for the Court's image if states with, say, 150 million citizens were openly rebelling against one of the Court's decisions.
S.S.L. in Baltimore, MD (currently), asks: You have mentioned Donald Trump wanting $1 billion from Congress but promising the ballroom wouldn't cost taxpayers a cent. Serious question: Might Trump legitimately not understand how congressional funding works? I'm imagining something like "Treasury prints money, Congress makes a proposal, president approves or disapproves the proposal." He might not conceive of taxes as anything more than roads and salaries.
(Z) answers: I doubt his understanding of things is quite that crude, but with him, you just never know. I wouldn't believe any president of the United States, much less one elected as a "businessman," could have as poor an understanding of how tariffs work as Trump does. So, I suppose no possibility is truly off the table.
L.H. in Denver, CO, asks: Why do I keep reading and hearing that Donald Trump settled with the IRS, when the judge specifically said in that case there was no settlement? So confusing.
(Z) answers: That is because the word "settlement" is used to refer to many different things. There was no legal settlement because the Trump family dismissed its case. What did happen was a settlement with the IRS, an arrangement properly known as an "offer in compromise." However, 90% of Americans, if not more, would not know what "offer in compromise" means, so reporters just write/say "settlement."
T.P. in Cleveland, OH, asks: Are there any states throwing their own celebrations of the Semiquincentennial with the intent to outdo the "Great American State Fair," e.g., with better entertainment? It seems like a great way to demonstrate that love of country is real without love of MAGA.
(Z) answers: During the Bicentennial, there were a number of states that had their own events, or their own organizing committees, or both. These were generally the states most poised to benefit from the attention and the tourist dollars (e.g., states with a lot of Revolutionary-era history).
By and large, the same is true with the Semiquincentennial. I would not describe these efforts as an effort to "outdo" the Trump administration, because the state-level efforts largely predate those of the Trump administration. The states that have substantive Semiquincentennial plans include Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and Texas. There are also some cities that have put programs together, most notably Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
R.D. in Philadelphia, PA, asks: Years ago, there were many questions regarding Vladmir Putin's health, and claims that his health was in decline and he was close to the end of his life. What is the status of his health? I hear he has invested enormous amounts of money to try to live "forever."
(Z) answers: There are still questions about Vladimir Putin's health. First, because he's 73. Second, because he's definitely showing his age, and his appearance these days is a clear contrast to the image of "strength" he was trying to project back in the day when he was posing for shirtless pictures on horseback. Third, because the Kremlin is ultra-secretive, and when a leader is that aggressive about keeping details about their health secret, a lot of people assume there must be a reason. The "secrecy" dynamic is heightened these days by the fact that Putin stays out of public view most of the time, to reduce the chances that Ukraine will be able to assassinate him.
There is no hard proof of anything. The only thing that is verified is that Putin does indeed spend a LOT of money on trying to live "forever."
A.T. in Bloomington, IN, asks: Historically, what have been the biggest PVI upsets? For example, has there ever been, say, a D+25 seat that flipped to the GOP (or vice-versa)?
(Z) answers: As you might imagine, the likeliest way that a district like that changes hands is if a primary challenger knocks off an incumbent (such as when Dave Brat, R, beat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R, in VA-07, which was then about R+15, in 2014). In that case, of course, the seat does not change parties, only representatives.
If you want a partisan change, then the really big PVI "losses" tend to happen at the state level. Govs. Laura Kelly (D-KS) and Andy Beshear (D-KY) both won election in their states at a time when those states were around R+15 (Kentucky still is R+15, Kansas is now R+8).
At the House district level, it's hard to do an exhaustive assessment, because there are so many districts and district boundaries change all the time. However, the largest flip we are aware of is the victory of Conor Lamb (D) over Rick Saccone (R) in PA-18 in 2018. Lamb flipped a district that was then R+11, and he did so with help from unusual circumstances (weak opponent, special election, sitting representative had quit in disgrace).
What it amounts to is that R+10/D+10 is pretty close to an upper limit for "at least possible to flip" House districts.
R.L. in Alameda, CA, asks: When Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced his retirement about a year ago, he immediately became a foil to Trump, occasionally voting with Democrats against him. After the primarying of Sens Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX), you have referred to the above 3 senators (along with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY) as the YOLO caucus. All four have recently voted against Trump.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced her retirement last fall, yet she has not made herself into a thorn in Trump's side. Apparently, she is not a member of the YOLO caucus. Why is this? Is she a true believer, whereas the four men mentioned above are not?(Z) answers: I think she is indeed much more a true believer than they are, much more a MAGA Republican than a Reagan Republican.
It is also possible that, at just 55 years of age, she sees a future for herself in Republican/MAGA politics, in a way the four men do not.
I would also point out that she lives in a state where people are very used to coming into direct contact with their political leaders. And we are talking about a movement that embraces violence and threatening behavior. Oh, she's also a woman. It may be that she is concerned for her future safety in a way the four men are not.
J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, asks: You referred to Albert Olszewski (R, who is running for the U.S. House in MT-01) as a "former state Senator and perennial candidate." I have always thought of a "perennial candidate" as someone who "tilts at windmills" and runs again, and again, and again with zero success. (In Montgomery County, MD, for example, we have Robin Ficker.) But if Olszewski is a former state senator, then he's clearly had some success at the polls and thus does not meet that definition. So, what really is a "perennial candidate"?
(Z) answers: There is no set definition, though one can win an election or two and still become a perennial candidate. Harold Stassen is archetype of the perennial candidate, and he served in a major political office, namely the governorship of Minnesota. He even ran a semi-viable presidential campaign. It wasn't until he ran another 11, increasingly less viable, presidential campaigns that he became known as a perennial candidate. Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel is another one who went from "high-level officeholder" to "perennial candidate."
We don't have a hard-and-fast rule of thumb, but we are generally willing to call someone a perennial candidate if they've launched two or three (or more) campaigns that had little or no chance of success.
M.T. in St. Paul, MN, asks: Why do Democrats run can't-win candidates in states where an independent might win (e.g., Nebraska, Montana)? It seems more like the (D) after the name is more important than the causes the party claims to promote.
(Z) answers: You must resist the temptation, which is epidemic in the media, to think that the national (or state) parties are pulling all the strings. This may have been the case many years ago, but it's not so any more.
It varies by state but, by and large, it's pretty easy to get on the primary ballot for whatever office a person wants to run for. Things are set up to make democracy, well, democratic. And if one or more random people enter their party's primary, then one of them is going to win, no matter what the national or state party thinks.
These unknowns are not necessarily fatal to the chances of the independent-who's-really-a-Democrat candidate. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) always draws a Democratic challenger, and so does Sen. Angus King (I-VT).
R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: Do you agree with this assessment:
This is a good way to test [Graham] Platner's [D] strength as a candidate ahead of the general. Weak candidates in virtually uncontested primaries still tend to underperform in the primary.
Under 70%: Massive red flag
70-80%: Worrisome for him, but he's probably fine
80%+: He'll be fine(Z) answers: Not especially. It would be better for Platner if the voters he needs in November were already happy to vote for him, but I don't think his November numbers are really projectable from his June numbers. First, he is in the middle of yet another scandal right now (which we will be writing about this week). We can't know how aggressively that scandal will stick to him, long-term. Second, there is an actual, sitting governor on the Democratic ballot alongside Platner. It is nearly impossible to know exactly what votes for Gov. Janet Mills mean. Could be "thanks for your good service," or "Graham, I'd like to see you hew in Janet's direction," or "I do not want Platner, and I won't vote for him."
P.Y. in Watertown, MA, asks: Why are all our politicians Slytherins? Where are the Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors?
(Z) answers: The core qualities of Slytherins, per Pottermore, are ambition, resourcefulness, cunning and determination. That lines up pretty well with the skill set demanded of politicians. Most folks know about the studies suggesting that something like 75% of presidents qualify for a diagnosis of sociopathy.
However, I don't think the other houses are completely unrepresented in American politics. The core qualities of Gryffindors are bravery, chivalry, nerve and a strong sense of justice. I'd say that describes, among others, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and John McCain.
The core qualities of Ravenclaws are wit, wisdom, intelligence and creativity. Sounds a lot like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Al Franken to us.
The core qualities of Hufflepuffs are dedication, hard work, patience and loyalty. In that description, we see Abraham Lincoln, Ted Kennedy and John Lewis.
J.M. in Sewickley, PA, asks: My understanding is that the Constitution is not unambiguously clear on whether states can legally succeed from the union, but the American Civil War created a practical answer to that question. Does the Constitution, or jurisprudence since the signing of the Constitution, address whether a group of states can expel other states from the union?
(Z) answers: The Constitution contains no mechanism for removing states from the Union, and the Supreme court has said, specifically in Texas v. White (1869), that the union is perpetual.
However, and as the Court observed in that very decision, if 49 states agree on kicking 1 state out, they can certainly make that happen. All it would take is a constitutional amendment that either specifically ejects that state from the union, or that creates a process by which states can be ejected.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: Thanks for the explanation of how much time the Senate will be working for the next few months. Depending on one's point of view, it's either a good thing how little they work or it's appalling. My question is about the congressional staffs. Do they get all that same time off or are they working the whole time?
(Z) answers: They are, by and large, working the whole time.
Congressional staffs are responsible for, among other things, doing research, drafting legislation for their member to propose, reading legilation proposed by other members, processing communications (phone calls, e-mails, etc.) and handling constituent services. These things need to be done whether or not the Senate is formally in session.
K.R. in Austin, TX, asks: When you discuss Senate work days, are Senators actually in the Senate chamber all of those days? I've seen videos of people giving speeches to an empty chamber, although that might have been the House.
(Z) answers: They are not in the Senate chamber all of that time, or even most of it. It's just that they have to be available, if there is a vote or other full session. Otherwise, they work in their offices, meet with their committees, meet with key people, etc.
R.E.M. in Brooklyn, NY, asks: I don't think you have it right that a discharge petition in the Senate can be effected by 50 Senators plus the Vice President. Such a petition (that is, a resolution) is subject to a cloture vote, i.e., a 60-vote majority. Only after a successful cloture vote does it become a 50+Veep regular vote.
In other words, discharge petitions are subject to a filibuster, and thus there is zero chance it will happen to confirm Blanche. The only way he advances to a regular majority vote is if the Committee votes in favor of him.(Z) answers: When something like this comes up, we have to decide how weedy to get. We did not get weedy enough in this case, it would seem.
If a committee vote is tied, there is a Senate rule that says that debate on a discharge is limited to 4 hours. That means the filibuster is not available. If the vote fails, then the discharge petition would be filibusterable... unless a simple majority votes for another carve-out.
A.S. in Black Mountain, NC, asks: Has there ever been a country/culture that has not believed in some sort of supernatural force (religion) that thrived?
Can you imagine an America with no religion? What would it be like? I do not have the smarts to imagine that.(Z) answers: Officially, communist nations are, or have been, atheistic. That's about as close as you're going to get.
However, even in communist nations, some sizable number of citizens have (sometimes illegally) continued to practice the religions they have historically practiced, or have embraced various folk traditions, or have followed philosophies that toe the line between "way of life" and "religious system" (e.g., Taoism).
So, there is just no way there could ever be an America without religion.
A.T. in Elkton, MD, asks: Your note about Calvin Coolidge's health on May 30th sent me down a small rabbit hole and I read on Wikipedia that, during his post-presidency: "He kept a Hacker runabout boat on the Connecticut River, and local boating enthusiasts often observed him on the water."
While obviously there was a growing media in the late 1920s and 30s, I'm very curious if the average person would have recognized politicians at this point. Presidents, I can see, but am very curious if anyone would have recognized, say, Speaker Nicholas Longworth (R-OH).
At what point in the media timeline did people become familiar with their political leaders by sight? Are we even aware of them now? (Obviously, Electoral-Vote.com is a group of high-minded nerds. ♥)(Z) answers: The ability to put woodcuts and other engravings into printed material was developed around the time of the Civil War. So, it was around that time that people started to have a real sense of what their leaders looked like, though this also depended on how good the artists were. Early engravings of Ulysses S. Grant were so poor that he was still able to be effectively anonymous when he arrived in Washington, DC, in 1864 to take command of all Union armies.
The ability to reproduce photographs was came in the last couple of decades of the 19th century. So, the potential to really know what people looked like was certainly there by the dawn of the 20th century. That said, back then, as now, coverage was dominated by a fairly small number of political leaders. So, I'd guess the average American back then and the average American today could probably identify about the same number of politicians by sight—maybe 15 or so national figures, and half a dozen or so state and local leaders.
B.C. in Walpole, ME, asks: Some of America's more popular historians, such as Stephen Ambrose (now deceased) and Doris Kearns Goodwin, could never be hired in academia because they committed the crime/sin/mistake of plagiarism. They didn't commit "Heh, heh, heh. I know! I'll steal other people's work and call it my own! Bwahahahahaha!" plagiarism, but they failed to give credit where credit was due. In most cases I've heard of, this came from working with a team of (uncredited) underlings who committed the actual errors.
While the layman would see these errors as very small and not terribly important, in the profession where the standards of scholarship are higher than popular history, even small and unimportant little plagiaristic mistakes are unacceptable.
My questions are: Do I have it right about how popular historians get into trouble? And, are not more and more academic historians working collaboratively on large problems? How does this sort of work proceed?
I very much appreciated Jon Meacham's book, American Gospel, but somewhere I got the impression that he depends to too great an extent on secondary works, the work of others, rather than primary sources. Is that pretty much true of most popular historians?(Z) answers: You never know until your department begins discussing a hiring decision, but I don't generally think that sloppy-but-not-malicious plagiarism would be automatically disqualifying. Kevin Starr got caught in the same way as Ambrose and Goodwin did, and he still got an academic job. Admittedly, it was at USC, but still.
The bigger problem is the other one you identify, which is that popular writers, by and large, don't do much primary research, relying instead on syntheses of secondary works (with maybe a little bit of primary documentary evidence thrown in). They also don't develop new areas of scholarship, or new ways of thinking about existing areas. Instead, the pop historians tend to work in genres that are, by and large, multiple generations out of date—traditional biography, military campaigns, etc.
With that said, history departments (and, even moreso, the universities that house them) very much like glory, and they very much like people who can help with fundraising. So, even with her plagiarism issues and her pop profile, I do not think Goodwin would have any problem landing a gig if she called, say, Yale or Harvard, and said she was available for a professorship.
And collaborative work in history is still pretty rare, because it's really hard to integrate two or three or four different peoples' work into one cohesive monograph. It happens with essay collections, and with textbooks, and there are sometimes works with two authors, but that's about it. In some disciplines, the work is more modular, and so it's more plausble for many different people to plug their pieces in. And in some disciplines, the work is presented as collaborative, but largely is not. There are lots of names on lots of scientific papers that credit people who had relatively little to do with that particular paper.
J.D. in Rohnert Park, CA, asks: Not a lot to challenge in your list of great actors, but Paul Muni certainly belongs in there somewhere. He was a shapeshifter, playing in everything from Scarface to The Good Earth to those great biographical pictures. And what about Dustin Hoffman?
M.L. in West Hartford, CT, asks: I noticed that (Z) did not include Al Pacino or Robert De Niro on his list of the best actors. Then, I looked again at the list and realized that none of the ten actors he chose experienced the prime of their careers in the 1970s, with the possible exception of Diane Keaton. This era is often lauded for the rise of so-called "auteurs," such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, and for a break from the pat narratives and formulaic tropes of the studio system. The omission of the major actors of that time from his list suggests that (Z) is not a fan of this period of American filmmaking. Is that true? What is (Z)'s take on 70's film?
(Z) answers: To start, I think the 1970s is in the running for the greatest decade in the history of American cinema. Just the two Godfather movies alone might be enough, but that decade also gave us The Conversation, Rocky, Annie Hall, Patton, Animal House, Jaws, Star Wars, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Shootist, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, The Sting, Saturday Night Fever, Shampoo, The Bad News Bears, Smokey and the Bandit and M*A*S*H. I know the 1970s also gave us Apocalypse Now but, as I have written on previous occasions, I don't actually care for that film.
I'd say the only decades that can give the 1970s a run for its money are the 1930s and the 1980s.
As to Pacino, De Niro and Hoffman, I think they tend to lack range. The latter tends to play some version of "neurotic guy" and the former two tend to play some version of "angry Italian guy," sometimes straight, sometimes for laughs. That is not to say that they haven't given SOME interesting and nuanced performances, and that isn't to say that they haven't broken out of their "safe zone" on occasion, but I think their overall body of work is a little one-note. So while they are worthy inclusions for a Top 50 list, and maybe even a Top 25 list, they don't make my Top 10. I kept John Wayne out for the same reason.
D.G.H. in Barnegat, NJ, asks: What are the five most important animated films, regardless of technique (painted, rotoscoped, computer generated imagery, stop motion, etc.)?
In chronological order:
- Alice's Wonderland (1923): As the first of the "Alice comedies," it was the first successful (if crude) blending of live action and animation, and was the starting point for Walt Disney Studios, which would become the Goliath of animated film worldwide.
- Snow White (1937): The first commercially succesful full-length animated film, proving that full-length cartoons were viable.
- Speed Racer (1967): The first anime film to be successful worldwide; paved the way for films like Princess Mononoke, Akira and My Neighbor Totoro, among many others.
- Toy Story (1995): First computer-generated animated film; brought animation into the CGI age and established Pixar as a major player in the animation field.
- Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018): The starting point and foundation for what is known, at least at the moment, as "modern animation."
J.E. in San Jose, CA, asks: Is there a backstory to having the same teacher for both kindergarten and first grade? It stood out to me. Also, is it unusual that all your favorite college instructors were professors? Perhaps my state school experience lended itself to having lecturers who were not professors yet were still able to uniquely inspire me.
(Z) answers: When a proper answer was still available, I was too young to ask that question. I have the impression that Mrs. Heitman had been teaching for so long that kindergarten and first grade were combined when she commenced her career (sometime in the 1930s), and that they kept it that way for as long as she was teaching, in deference to her long service. But that's just an impression; all I can say for sure is that the school doesn't do it that way anymore.
UCLA doesn't have all that many lecturers. And even the lecturers it does have still use "professor" as their title when being addressed. Several of the people I listed (e.g., Susan Rhoades Neel, Jeff Cole) actually were lecturers, but I only know that now because I joined the profession. I would not have known it when I was an undergrad.