| More prestige than power | Nationalization of politics |
| President was a secondary figure | Weakening of political parties |
| Most presidents were politically weak | Presonalization of the presidency (Focus on Candidate rather than party) |
| Military figures | Top five presidents from the 20th century: |
| 2 strongest presidents: Andrew Jackson and Abe Lincoln | Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson |
### The Vice President
- If there was no consensus, at first, on what exactly the power of the president should be there was even less consensus on what the powers of the vice president should be and yet even less consensus on who the vice president should be
- Until 1801, the vice president was the person who second finished in the presidential election (A tie in 1800 meant that this system clearly had to be changed)
- Now the candidate for president selects their running mate
- Together they constitute a ticket (the Republican Ticket and the Democratic Ticket)
### Duties of the Vice President
- There are formal duties
- The vice president is the presiding office of the Senate, but only votes to break a tie
- The vice president presides over impeachment hearings, but not over the impeachment of the president
- Most importantly the vice president takes over the office of the president in any event of the presidents removal
### The Vice-Presidency
- In addition to formal duties, the vice president has both informal and symbolic responsibilities
- Informal: Advise the president
- Symbolic: Balance the ticket (Joe Biden was and old and white man, but Kamala was a black woman, 22 years younger. Donald Trump has led a controversial life but Mike Pence is an evangelical Christian who appeals to an important Republican consistency)
- Tim Waltz is an older white man who was former teacher and high school coach. JD Vance is a Harvard education ... *more on point in slide*
# Electoral College
## Gerrymandering
### 1912 (?)
- 8/10 most gerrymandered states favor republicans
- Supreme court has struct down gerrymandering
- Louisiana - Gerrymandered to Favor Republicans
- Maryland - Gerrymandered to Favor Democrats
## Congress
### Senate
- Upper House
- Elected every six years
- 2 Senators per state
- Approves legislation
- Cooler heads
### House of representatives
- Lover house
- Elected every two years
- Representatives determined by population (435)
- Writes legislation
- Hot heads
### What does the house do?
- Impeachment begins in the House
- The House controls revenue bills
- It is the House that must initiate tax bills
- It is the House that initiates appropriation bills (spending)
- If no president should receive a majority of votes in the Electoral College, then the House of Representatives would choose the next President. In this case, each state would only get one vote.
- Need 218 for the majority
Right now, republicans control the house, with 222 seats, democrats have 211
## Supreme Court
- Established by Article III of the constitution
- Highest court in the Federal Judiciary (in contrast to the states)
- It has jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases that involve a point of federal law and a number of original jurisdictional issues (including Ambassadors)
- Judicial Review: It can invalidate a statue for violating the Constitution
- It includes a chief justice and Eight associate justices
- The justices have a lifetime appointment, but can resign or be removed
- When a vacancy opens, the president with advice and consent appoints a new justice
- Congress Passes the law, Executive executes the law, and the supreme court decides if the law is legal
## The Politicization of the Supreme Court
- Robert Bork
- Nominated by Ronald Reagan in 1987
- Viewed as a very conservative judge
- Opposition was based on his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions
- Involved "The Saturday Night Massacre"
- Final vote 42 for 45 against
- Clarence Thomas & Anita Hill
- Sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill
- Senate vote on Clarence Thomas in supreme court
- Joe Biden vetoed the rejection and he assumed a supreme court justice role
- Merrick Garland and Neil Gorsuch
- Nominated by Barrack Obama, but lost in the senate
- Mich McConnell refused to bring his name before the Senate
- Obama was livid, but Hillary Clinton was expected to win
- Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford
- Similar to Clarence Hill, accused of sexual assault/harassment
- Republicans controlled the senate, so he was voted in
- Amy Coney Barrett
- Donald Trump's third appointment
- Devote Roman Catholic
- 5th woman to serve on the court
- Nominated to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- "Notorious RBG"
- The right to sign a mortgage without a man
- Right to have a bank account without a husband or father
- The right to have a job without being discriminated based on Gender
- The right for women to be pregnant, have kids, and work
## How to become a supreme court justice
- Get nominated by the president
- Senate judiciary committee conducts hearings and votes on wherever your name should be given to the senate for a vote. Then the full senate considers the candidates and usually they vote to confirm
- Rejections are uncommon, only 12 rejections have ever happened in US history
- The court nominates has become a partisan exercise. You now need to control the senate to get a justice confirmed
## Everything is on the table
- Size of the court is not set in the constitution
- 1808 - 7
- 1837 - 9
- 1863 - 10
- After WW2 - Back to 9
- Statehood to
- District of Columbia
- Puerto Rico
**SICK FOR A WEEK**
# American Elections 1980-2016
## Ronald Reagan (1980-1988)
- 40th president
- republican
- fiscal conservative (somewhat, cut social programs, increased military spending)
- big issues
- crime
- welfare
- limited government
- activist foreign policy
- not in a UN way (?)
- she used a word for it but it slipped by
- social conservative
- new voters: socially conservative working class, middle class in the west, southern conservatives and fundamentalists
## 1980 - 1984
He won in 1980 and in 1984 was a landslide victory for Reagan.
- More than 1/4 of registered democrats voted for Reagan
- African Americans went 91% of Walter Mondale
- 66% of Latinos voted democrat
- In 1984 the american electorate was 89% white and they went for Reagan 2/1.
- Since 1968 the democrats have lost 4/5 presidential races
### What caused the realignment
- Disruption of the existing political order because of the emergence of one or more strongly divisive issues
- An election where voters shift their support strongly in favor of one party
- A major change in policy brought about by the stronger party
- An enduring change in the party coalitions, which works to the lasting advantage of the dominant party
## George H.W. Bush
- One term president
- Not traditionally understood as a period of significance
- Yet most of the changes that came to define the 21st century in the 1990s
- "Read my lips, no new taxes"
- And then new taxes
- Third straight victory for the GOP
- Third straight landslide
- Bush took 50 states
- GOP won 5/6 elections
## 1992
- Modern political problems emerge
- Gridlock
- Modern talking points
- Immigration
- Culture war
- etc
- Why?
- Republican Revolution
- Began personal attacks, This was new in the house
- Republican became tougher and more militant under this leadership
- First republican Speaker in the house in forty years
- A transfer of power so jarring people began asking of the Democratic Party had a future.
- Quick backlash against "Gingrich-ism". White collar, professionals found themselves alienated from the new republican party.
- Contract with America
- Legislative agenda put forward by the Republican Party during the 1994 congressional elections
- 100 issues
- Laws that apply to the rest of the country apply to congress
- Cut committees
- Require 3/5th vote to increase taxes
- Cut welfare programs
- A step too far
- Ken Starr, White Water, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Linda Trippe
- "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
- House charged Clinton with two crimes: Lying under oath and obstruction of justice
- Trial in the senate; neither received the necessary 2/3rds vote
- 2nd President to be impeached, but never convicted
# 2000s
- After 1990s, people dug in and chose a side
- During election night in 2000
- Wide swings in emotion
- Major errors in exit polls
- The vote counting that produced them
- Hanging chads
- Popular vote does not win the election
- Florida recount. George W Bush wins Florida by 537 vote margin
- Still debated if they had done a full recount if he would have won
- Closest thing to a tie in modern history.
- George vs Gore Electoral College
- Red for Republican states
- Blue for the Democratic states
- The colors were accidental, they had been used interchangeably as no election had been this close in a generation
- Red vs Blue america born on Nov 7, 2000
- "The product of a nation torn in half"
- George W Bush (2000 - 2008)
- 43rd President, Republican
- Social conservative
- Universalist foreign policy
- Increased military spending (not a fiscal conservative)
- Increased deficit
- Activist federal government
- Barack Obama
- 44th President
- Increase social programs (education and health care)
- Cut military spending?
- Lower taxes for the middle class
- Federal intervention in the economy (Great recession of 2008)
- Multi-lateral foreign policy
- Federal intervention in the environment
- Mobilized the black vote
- Could be highest voter turnout ever
- Closest States
- Missouri (0.5%)
- North Carolina (0.5%)
- Indiana (1%)
- Florida (2%)
## 2016
- Considered one of the biggest upsets in US history
- 5th time a candidate lost the popular vote and won the Presidency
- Trump over performed his polls winning important swing states
- He won in Democratic Leaning states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
- Won by less than 80 000 votes
- Russians determined in 2017 to have interfered in the election
- Donald Trump
- Right wing populist campaign
- Make america great again
- Opposed political correctness, illegal immigration, and free trade
- Hillary Clinton
- Expansion of Obama's policies
- Race, LGBT, Woman's rights
- Inclusive capitalism: Address growing income and wealthy inequality within western capitalism following the financial crisis
- "Basket of deplorables"
- Gender and 2016 Election
- She was said to lack "feminine warmth"
- She was "overly masculine" or "insufficiently feminine"
- Trump used "locker room banter"
- "Macho man"
- Power has been allocated to men based on masculinity
- Disrupting the gender status quo of a political institution (...)
- How did trump win the 2016 election?
- He consolidated support by white voters
- Overwhelmingly won whites without a college degree
- White with a degree had usually voted Republican, in 2016, many but not all voted democrat
- African Americans, Hispanics, Asian American overwhelming backed Clinton but not the same averages as Obama
- ... One more point, missed it
## 2016
Donald Trump Elected
- Rolled back government regulation in ever area
- Opposed free trade
- Universalist
- Nationalist
- Anti Abortion
## Impeachment
The ability to impeach an office holder is embedded in the constitution.
Congress holds the power to impeach certain government officials on trial and remove them from power
Who can be impeached?
- President, VP, All civil officers including federal judges
- Senators are except
- Army and Navy exempt
How it works? (says could be on test)
## Impeachment (Zelenski)
- Phone Call
- CrowdStrike Investigation
- Whistle-blower complaint
- Charges
- Abuse of power
- obstruction of justice
- Released 658 page report, saying bribery, wire fraud, abuse of power
- Only republican that voted to convict was Romney
- The senate voted to acquit
## 2020 Election
Defining the election:
- COVID Outbreak
- Recession
- Higher voter turnout since 1990
- Biden won more votes than any candidate in a US election: 81 million
- Trump first Republican to lose re election since George H.W. bush in 1992
Central topics:
- Economic impact of COVID
- Civil unrest over George Floyd
- Supreme Court
- Future of the Affordable Care Act
### The Talbot boys (on test!!)
- Erected in 1916 on the grounds of the country courthouse in Easton Maryland
- In features a boy looking into the distance and carriyng a confederate flag
- 96 names of Confederate soldiers from Talbot county are carved into the granite pedestal
- "To the Talbot boys
- ... more on slide
### What happened
- In 2015 after a white supremacist ...
- Voted 5-0 not to remove
- ... More on slide
Problems with these arguments
- History is being rewritten all the time
- History is not being erased, it's still in books, museums, graveyard and battlefield tours
