#beballotready

A Very Short Fact: To regain control of the Senate in United States midterm elections, Democrats would need to keep all of their seats and capture two of the Republican seats for a 51-49 majority.

“In creating a bicameral system, James Madison saw the Senate as “a necessary fence.” Selected by state legislatures, senators would serve six-year terms, and only one-third would stand in each congressional election. Madison trusted that this would insulate the Senate from shifting public opinion so it therefore could proceed “with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” Later in the nineteenth century, a story spread that may be apocryphal yet captured the Senate’s essence. It claimed that when Thomas Jefferson returned from France after the Constitution had been adopted, he questioned George Washington on why the new government needed a Senate. Washington asked, “Why did you pour your coffee into your saucer?” “To cool it,” Jefferson replied. “That is precisely why we created the Senate,” said Washington, “to cool it.””

[Pg 14: The US Congress: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed.) by Donald A. Ritchie]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: Donald Trump’s presidency has brought the nation back to familiar constitutional territory: talk of impeachment. As the US political climate heats up in the lead-up to the 2018 Midterm Elections, we want to know:

How useful is impeachment? 

The framers purposefully made impeachment difficult to achieve. In order to impeach, convict, and remove someone from office, the government has to go through several hoops. Getting through all these successfully is hard. Other than the impeachment of a pres­ident, vice president, or Supreme Court justice, an impeachment is unlikely to generate much interest among the public and there­fore little motivation in the members of Congress to put aside other business for the sake of participating in impeachment proceed­ings. The likelihood that impeachment diverts members from work is more likely to be pertinent to their re-election, and the fact that impeachment is cumbersome has made impeachment quite un­common as a recourse for handling the misconduct of certain public officials. It has been surprisingly rare in our history: the House has impeached only nineteen people; and of those, only eight were convicted and removed from office. Of the people convicted in an impeachment trial by the Senate, all have been lower- court federal judges, three of whom were not only removed from office but also disqualified from ever holding another federal office or receiving any federal pensions for their federal service.

[Page 22, Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know® by Michael J. Gerhardt]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: A common refrain among many frustrated people on th American and European Left is that white working-class people “vote against their own interests.” As U.S. citizens gear up to vote in the 2018 Midterm Elections, we want to know:

Do white working-class people vote against their own interests? 

A fundamental misunderstanding about white working-class interests is that these interests are singular and economic in nature. Many white working-class people balance a variety of interests at once. The average white working-class American or Briton likely supports a range of protectionist economic policies and a range of nativist social policies. Since the 1990s, no mainstream American or British party has advocated for protectionism in the way the Left once did. This shift has left greater contrasts in the realm of social policy. Where white working-class interests are singular, the data suggest that they care far more about social and cultural affairs than those pertaining to the economy. In other words, by supporting UKIP, Donald Trump, and Republicans, white working-class people do vote in their interests—their social interests, not their eco­nomic interests. 

One of the primary conclusions of my research is that white working-class voters are absolutely rational. They seek representatives who care about their perspectives. They seek platforms that act on these perspectives. And they respond to parties and organizations that invest in them with time, resources, and candidates. This is not different from any other group of voters. The difference is that social and economic forces have isolated the British and American white working class as a political constitu­ency to the extent that many feel like an afterthought in the countries they once defined. They have responded with rebellion.

[Page 130-131, The White Working Class: What Everyone Needs to Know® by Justin Gest]

A Very Short Fact: In recent US elections, around 36% of total citizens have voted in midterm elections and about 50% in presidential.

“First, Americans elect more than 500,000 public officials, more than is the case in any other democracy. We separately elect executives, legislators, and in some cases judges (that varies from state to state), at the federal, state, and local levels … The so-called long ballot evolved in the nineteenth century as a way to extend democracy, but some claim that our system might have produced too much of a good thing.

Because the presidency is the largest prize in the system, the quadrennial election of the president of the United States dominates all other elections. As a result, citizens concentrate on the presidential election and pay less attention to other elections “down the ballot.” Some citizens vote only for those elections at the top and leave other choices blank. This phenomenon is called falloff and can amount to more than 25 percent on extremely long ballots.”

[Pgs 1 - 6: American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed.) by L. Sandy Maisel]

A Very Short Fact: As of September 2018, Gallup polling found that 26% of American identified with Republican, 27% as Democrats and 44% as Independents.

“Independents in the electorate often determine the outcome of an election. They are not a unified group. Some are very involved in politics but choose not to affiliate with one party or the other, because their views are not in line with either party’s views. Others, once affiliated with one party, have become disenchanted but are not willing to move to the other side. Still, others are interested in politics but disapprove of politicians who are too partisan to maintain their independence. Finally, a large group are uninterested in politics or government policy and do not identify with either party because they are not concerned enough to follow the discussions. Thus, some of the independents are among the most informed and most concerned of citizens; others are among the least informed and least concerned. Candidates must be aware of both groups and determine how to make appropriate, effective appeals. Making this judgment is often more art than science and based more on emotion than substance. Often, in the relatively few competitive races that do exist, those judgments separate winners from losers.”

[Pg 89: American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed.) by L. Sandy Maisel]

Elections Explained: should the U.S. worry about China?

Over the course of Xi Jinping’s tenure as CCP general secretary and president, he has accrued progressively more institutional and personal power. Unlike his immediate predecessors, he has assumed control of all the most important leading committees and commissions that oversee government policy; demanded pledges of personal loyalty from military and party leaders; eliminated political rivals through a sweeping anticorruption campaign; and adopted the moniker of “core” leader, which signifies his ultimate authority within a traditionally collective leadership. By many accounts, Xi is the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

There are many examples of successful U.S. diplomatic efforts with China that have yielded important benefits globally. With U.S leadership, the two countries found common ground in advancing global cooperation on climate change, arresting the spread of Ebola, and preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. Such cooperation is inevitably hard won. However, Xi Jinping’s ambition for China to assume a position of leadership in a globalized world has the potential to provide the United States with greater leverage in encouraging China to do more on the global stage.

All eyes are on the U.S. political landscape heading into the 2018 Midterm Elections in November. With all 435 seats of the House of Representatives and about one-third of Senate spots up for grabs, the next decade of politics lies in the hands of voters. Party control of both the House and the Senate will determine the future of the current presidency. Coming off the controversial 2016 Presidential Election, the midterms will not be without hot topics. From a Supreme Court nomination to potential Supreme Court legislation at risk of being overturned, voters have significant part to play.

On this episode of the Oxford Comment, we are taking a look at how elections are influenced by technology with the help of Jamie Susskind and Siva Vaidhyanathan. From fake news to Cambridge Analytica, the 2016 election was the first look at how digital media will influence modern campaigns. The 2018 midterm elections will amplify the effects seen by social media in the last election and how our current dependence on technology will affect the future political power structure.

Listen to the full podcast here