184 Comments

First, thanks all for reading and thoughtful comments. Rather than answer them separately, here are some thoughts.

First a clarification about not discussing the Electoral College outcome in the post, which I put in the first footnote to not interrupt the flow:

Nearly all of this post will be concerned with the national vote rather than the Electoral College, for one simple reason: in each of the last three elections, very small shifts in a couple of states would have changed the outcome. Therefore, we should wait until the voter files have been updated in the spring to avoid an irresponsible rush to judgment on what happened in the battleground states.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the dynamic was different in the two Sunbelt battlegrounds (Arizona and Nevada) than it was in the other five (Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). The Sunbelt dynamic was much closer to the national trends while the other five were distinctive in comparison to the rest of the country in terms of voter turnout (no change vs. 4 point drop) and presidential partisan swing (2.7 point drop vs. 6.7 points).

Second, with respect to voter suppression. For new readers, I have written extensively about the profound contribution the Shelby County decision and other Roberts Court rulings have had to suppress votes (see https://www.weekendreading.net/p/voter-suppression-since-shelby.) However, the point of this post was to understand what changed between 2020 and 2024 – again, outside of the battleground, where we don’t have enough information to draw conclusions yet. My focus was largely on the Blue states where Harris saw the biggest decrease in turnout from Biden in 2020. To the extent there were procedural reforms in these states, they made it modestly easier to vote for the most part. But, of course, it should still be more convenient for Americans everywhere to cast their ballots, and it is outrageous that many states continue to pass laws making it harder to vote as the majority of Blue states move in the opposite direction.

Third, with respect to the role of racism and misogyny. Of course, both continue to play a significant role in our elections, both in terms of who voters cast ballots for, and whether they cast ballots at all. I expect that, as was the case after recent elections, there will be worthwhile scholarship when more data becomes available. If you’re not already familiar with their work, I would point you to Chris Parker, Ashley Jardina, Mark Setzler, Rachel Wetts, and Robb Willer. https://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/people/christopher-sebastian-parker; https://blackinsightsresearch.com; https://ashleyjardina.com; https://marksetzler.org/HomeResearch.html; https://2f07d493-b4a5-4a94-9e9b-5880d0f5c5f3.usrfiles.com/ugd/2f07d4_d1667e0cb107465fb0cbef142ce91251.pdf

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Mr. Podhorzer, you wrote, "... specific groups that moved the most away from Democrats, such as blue collar workers, young men, moderates, etc...." I was disappointed that there wasn't more specificity here. *Who were the specific groups that moved away from Democrats (both those who stayed home and those who switched from Biden to Trump)? Was the shift nationwide for each of these groups, or were there in-group geographic differences?

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This is the most realistic post-mortem on the election that I’ve seen.

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He left out the effects of sexism.

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That was a big part of the loss.

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Amazing analysis! Thanks so much for doing all this work

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Thank you!

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For a democracy to function, you need an educated population. We don’t have an educated population. The proof….tariffs!

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Thank you for this excellent analysis. Over the past few elections, I’m increasingly impatient to see the disaggregation of votes and to read the results of post-election surveys. I love this “flatland” and “3D” comparison and the implication it carries for the messaging around these elections. (If I hear one more fatuous statement about a mandate for Trump, I’m going to blow a gasket.)

Dems have to be VERY specific going forward about framing this shocking loss. The fact that so many Americans believe their votes useless enough that they shrug off any concern for small-d democracy tells us plainly that our entire political/governmental system has failed. This is no small-d democracy in our federal government any more and people know it.

There are a myriad of reasons for the failure, not the least of which is the concentration of extreme wealth in a mere handful of people while more than half of us can’t afford eggs or gas. We are also drowning in a sea of lies and a fractured media ecosystem poisoned by corporate and partisan interests. The US Supreme Court is corrupt beyond repair. And when the Dems had control of all three branches in 2020, they couldn’t even pass voting rights bills, never mind codify Roe. (No wonder voters feel like it doesn’t matter who wins! And they absolutely do not value the brilliance of Biden’s policy achievements: they’ve either swallowed partisan propaganda or are otherwise non-critical thinkers.) Further, our international existential enemies like Russia and China know exactly how to exploit and worsen our divisions, destroying us, as Khrushchev promised, from within.

I continue to believe that Citizens United was the final nail in the coffin. Moneyed interests got what they wanted. How we dig out of this, I don’t know—but one thing I’m sure of is that the Dem party (which we are stuck with) has to call this venality out for what it is at every turn, hammer these faithless toadies with better ideas using language that everyday people understand, and use the same media tactics that have bested us for a generation now.

I’m not obeying in advance, and I’m not shutting up. I’m just one little person, but there are a lot of us out here and I suspect that most, like me, would rather go down swinging than meekly give in.

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One of the big factors in people not voting, especially youth, is that we don't have a system of universal high school voter registration. Many people who "stay home," were simply never asked to register. Pew published a study in 2017 about outreach efforts to promote voter registration. More than 60% of people (both those who were registered and those who were not) reported that no one had ever asked them to register. Only six to seven percent of people said they had been asked to register at school or as part of a class. In 2019, CIRCLE published a study that 40% of youth reported that no one had reached out to them about the 2018 midterms. https://www.thecivicscenter.org/blog/2019/3/19/nobody-asked

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My son had to sign up for draft or whatever it's called now. Isn't that still on?

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Regarding Citizens United, one change that would undermine the Court’s decision would be to amend the corporate laws in the 50 states to provide that corporations do not have the rights of natural persons under the First Amendment. For example, California Corporations Code section 207 says that “a corporation shall have all of the powers of a natural person in carrying out its business activities….” It is the conceit that a corporation is the same as a natural person that allows the Supreme Court to declare that a corporation has the right to have a religion (the Hobby Lobby case), and the right to political speech (Citizens United). The practical problem, of course, is that there’s going to be at least one state that sees it as a profit opportunity to preserve those rights for corporations which wish to engage in religious discrimination, or to contribute unlimited amounts of money to politicians, so that those corporations will flock to reincorporate in that state. I’m not sure how to get around that one.

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Money in politics is the problem? In '24, Harris's campaign had MUCH more money than Trump's. No shortage of "progressive" billionaires.

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It’s not money, per se, though that is certainly a problem. It’s dark money. Voters often know very little about WHO bankrolls some of the candidates in down-ballot races. Who funds the extremists who win seats on school boards and then push book bans, or who win state legislative races and push draconian restrictions on women’s access to healthcare? Many voters do not understand the forces behind such candidates and their real agendas. And to whom these candidates are actually beholden. This kind of money does a lot of damage to the structure of our political system—and winds up hurting way too many people.

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So you are fine as long as the money comes from liberal billionaires. Book bans? I'd love to see what would happen if someone wanted to put "The Turner Diaries" in every school library. "Progressives" would be screaming for book bans.

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I dislike black and white thinking, TBH. I dislike dismissive, superior attitudes. For the record, I’m actually not in favor of unlimited spending by anyone (and I did not say that at all), but because of the 1st amendment, it cannot be effectively limited. I’m just in favor of shining some light on who is spending, how much, and helping voters understand the interests behind the money. We have very little of that now. As for book bans, I do not support bans at all. Let people read and decide for themselves. I don’t see anyone banning Mein Kampf and I am sure The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is readily available, should one be inclined to look. In my view, if a book offends, you don’t have to read it. But it’s no one’s business what I choose to read and it is certainly no one’s business to decide whether or not I have access to it.

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These so-called "book bans" are entirely about what gets stocked in the school libraries and the children's sections of public libraries. "Progressives" think the Nazis are at the door because there are people who would rather not have the kids' school library stocking books on anal sex techniques for 10 year olds.

Look, there are 1 million new books published every year, including my own "One Potato Chip At A Time: The Fat Guy's Honest Diet Guide." I think it would do a whole lot more good for a whole lot more people than "Lawn Boy," but I don't whine about "censorship" because librarians across America don't stock it.

"Progressives" are simply lying about "book bans." Of course, "progressives" never question themselves about anything. There is an Iron Law at work: "You can always tell a 'progressive,' but you can never tell a 'progressive' a single god damn thing. They believe themselves to be smarter and better than everyone else. How do we know this? Because 'progressives' are the political equivalent of vegans: they constantly tell everyone how superior they are."

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

In fact, it's really the other way around. The constant need of "progressives" for affirmation, and their urge to dictate even the smallest details in other peoples' lives, not only implies insecurity and psychological instability, it shouts those things. So carry on. We know you will. You just can't help it, any more than a schizophrenic can help hearing those voices.

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Yes!

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While I agree with everything here (and learned some useful thIngs I didn't know!) there is a glaring omission of the impact of voter suppression. The Republicans spent the last four years making it harder and more confusing to vote with a particular focus on dissuading potus year only voters from showing up at all. Meanwhile, 2020 was literally the easiest POTUS election to vote in in American history.

This analysis makes a convincing argument that Trump didn't gain voters but Harris lost voters. The analysis here of why Dem voters decreased is incomplete. Like the analysis of the voter choice the reasons why people didn't vote (saying they stayed home suggests everyone has the same ease of voting and ignores that most voters who cast ballots in 2020 stayed home--they voted by mail) is multidimensional. This analysis does not allow for that reality.

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I think this shows we need educated Americans and lots of people still will not vote for a woman . Sad but true.

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A long-time educator here of 45 years and we MUST have a required American civics class in every grade from K-12! Most Americans cannot name the Governor and U.S. Senators of their state! Pathetic!

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My high school government class in 1967 had a whole unit on the Constitution and another unit on important Supreme Court rulings of the past. It also featured comparative government, where we looked at the history of poitical thought since the Code of Hammurabi. This was a public school. This course was required of all students. I use this knowledge every single day -- one of the most useful courses I ever took in either high school or college.

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So great to hear about this, and sad that this hardly exists any more. There are many great civics educators out there, but too often, they are operating without real support from their districts. At The Civics Center, we've found it helpful to pay stipends to educators so they can learn how to support students running nonpartisan voter registration drives in their high schools. Teachers are way over burdened and under resourced.

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Couldn't agree more. The thing I've been obsessed with since the 2016 election is making voter registration part of every high school in America. Civics education has been gutted. It needs to be tied to practical efforts about how to participate and how power works. Most people don't realize that routinely in presidential elections, fewer than half of 18 year olds are registered to vote. It's less than 1/3 in midterms. In 2022, only 30% of 18 year olds were registered. We've got toolkits for educators and lots more on our Substack and website https://thecivicscenter.substack.com/p/a-new-free-resource-for-high-school

thecivicscenter.substack.com

thecivicscenter.org

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I agree this is how you lose election with simple civics classes in 6th grade and again when the hormone fog clears. 10th grade? It should just be required. Immigrants study to take their citizenship and probably know more about our government than the young citizens.

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Yes! I am getting that! Also that some of us, maybe most, live in a bubble or misconception about the rest, and the state of the country.

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Could it be that Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton just weren't the right women? Nah, it must be the misogyny. There can't possibly be any other explanation.

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It was some, but not all, of the explanation.

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An effect of propaganda is exactly demobilisation of voters. Plus the vilification of adversaries. The MAGA media machine could be an important factor of these results.

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Thanks for mentioning the propaganda machine that makes it a priority to denigrate democrats. Also, as a female myself, the country is in a great deal of denial about the level of misogyny. Put more kindly, Americans just have trouble visualizing a female president.

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Maybe, just maybe, they have had a problem with the deficient female presidential candidates offered by the Democrats. Nah, couldn't be. Must be the misogyny. Has to be.

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The MAGA media machine? You mean like the NY Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Associated Press? The funny thing to me was that Joe Rogan, who I'd barely heard of and had never listened to, got something like 70 million hits for their interviews of Trump and Vance.

Harris played games with 60 Minutes, and tried to pull the same trick with Rogan. Oops. By the way, I listened to both of Rogan's shows. No question that they were softballs, yet I learned more about those candidates (note: I cast my third straight presidential write-in vote in '24) than I did from the legacy media "debates" and the 60 Minutes show with Harris.

The media story is that the major media have less and less influence. This is because larger and larger segments of the public don't trust them to be fair or thorough, for good reason. But hey, tell yourself that the media were on Trump's side. We all need a good laugh.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx

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First, thanks Michael for providing a whole lot of grist for this mill. There is a lot to examine here, a lot of material to chew on and a lot to consider for the next elections.

But, let's talk about what hasn't been said in all of this analysis, and that's three enormous issues that really can't be quantified with the stats listed here. The first is how many people, even those considered to be "liberal," are still (STILL!) not ready to vote for a woman as Commander-in-Chief.

I worked on Hillary's fundraising campaign in 2015 as she announced her candidacy and I spoke with a lot of big money Democratic donors across the country, some of whom told me, with no prompting, mind you, that they weren't ready for a woman president. You can imagine how the conservatives reacted.

In fact, you might remember that Biden was floating the idea of getting into the 2016 race and that some supporters were waiting to see if he would.

Sexism is an issue, and in politics it's even bigger than racism. Let's remember that in 2008, we got Barack Obama, possibly in part because his opponent in the primary was a woman (Hillary) and the GOP had Sarah Palin, one John McCain heartbeat from the Oval Office.

Next, the third party candidate issues are well-examined, but you have to remember that if you do not like the system of politics as it is, you are hoping to destroy it. And for many voters, trump is the Great Destructor.

What I mean is these independent voters want the whole system to be completely redone. But that really can't happen if a "Status Quo" candidate is elected. So, for them, it's better to get someone who is going to shred things and maybe wreck how elections work so we can have a "fresh start." Never mind that destroying how elections work might actually destroy the country. That isn't the independent voters' concern. They just want a new path forward.

We can and should look at the psychology of these independents and understand that if they participate in the system, they are always trying to change things.

But finally, and most glaringly, is the unspoken reason why most people find the Electoral College woefully unfair, and the adjustment that should have been made, decades ago, to shore that up.

The Electoral College is made up of voting delegates representing each state, and based on population of that state. We can talk about how these delegate counts aren't accurate, but I won't pick that nit here. Instead, the bigger issue is how the Electoral College votes are always the same no matter how many people voted in the election. How is THAT fair and accurate?

What should be happening is you get Electoral votes based on the turnout of the popular vote. This would accomplish two things. It would guarantee that there would be no voter suppression, because the totals would be based on all eligible voters casting their ballots. And it would reflect the attitude of voters who chose NOT to vote, for whatever reason. And that deserves to be heard as a part of the process as well.

If the EC was tied to the turnout for the popular vote, everyone would realize just how important their votes are, smaller states could outvote larger ones depending on those numbers, and getting to 270 would be more challenging than just handing those EC delegates in full, based on only half of a state's electorate casting ballots.

If we could make that change to the Electoral College, I think that would go a long way toward a better, more accurate and more equitable method of electing a POTUS.

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With all that on-point analysis in mind, and while I really like the Flatland analogy applied to our over-privileged, under-educated electorate, we also know that the enemy continued to practice several of its tried-and-true voter suppression strategies - from perennial legislation to multiple intimidation methods to coordinated propaganda campaigns designed to splinter and suppress the pro-democracy vote.

Understanding the "why" of voter disenchantment demands outreach and insight into passive ennui and engineered actions that kept voters at home. Going forward, energizing just one tenth of the eighty-nine million voters who didn't vote in 2024 could crush the plutarchy before it hardens.

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Maybe a lot of formerly Democratic voters stayed away because they just weren't into Kamala Harris? Nah.

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Kamala pushed out centrist messaging and they shut down Tim Walz when he talked about getting rid of the Electoral College--something that many people want because it doesn't work in these times when we aren't the long ago post-colonial America. The D establishment apparatus thinks that we need to go R-lite and have been doing that since Willy Clinton. Clearly, this thinking fails and yet they keep it up. If they think we are going rightward, they'll still keep it up and we will still keep losing. So, while I preferred Harris to Crazytown's pick and did vote that way, I didn't really want her or Hillary Clinton either. However, I'll take AOC someday.

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Two points: first, the 2020 election was unique in that it occurred during COVID and mail in voting was much more pronounced. That may have skewed the numbers quite a bit. It may be better to compare 2024 with 2016; especially when considering Democratic voter patterns .

Second, the fact that the public refused to believe most of Trump’s “proposals” would occur are an indictment of media ( that sane washed Trump at every turn) and evidence of how disengaged the voting public is. At some point we have to admit that vast numbers of voters are too lazy to spend even a little time becoming acquainted with the candidates and issues. They blame politicians over and over but do nothing to change this.

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Just wondering: is it harder to vote in urban areas than rural (longer lines, fewer polling places)?

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Yes. We also seem to have collectively forgotten the bomb threats made to urban battleground state polling places on election day.

Who knows how many votes that might have cost?

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Urban areas tend to have much lower rates of youth voter registration. Many young people don't drive and don't get driver's licenses, especially if they live in cities. So Motor Voter misses them.

This report we at The Civics Center issued with the University of Maryland has a chart showing how low the registration rates were for youth in major cities in the months leading up to the 2024 election. https://thecivicscenter.substack.com/p/new-data-in-maryland-improved-voting

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Thanks!

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The ability to mail or put ballots in drop boxes has been a very good addition, making it easier to vote, but if you have waited until Election Day and then find it will take a couple hours or more because of long lines, it’s a temptation to just forget it. I think that generally speaking it is harder to vote in urban areas, and, as you say, there may be more worries around threats of various kinds. Maybe that could help explain the downward spikes in the NYT map/chart? If it’s hard to vote it takes more motivation.

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GOP legislatures pass laws designed to suppress urban voting, as that's where they know their opposition is.

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Impressively and persuasively argued. Yet as someone who (like most) pays closer attention to voting trends close to home, in my case New York City, the recent shifts towards the GOP in Asian-American and (to a lesser but still significant extent) Latino communities here are quite striking, and could portend further realignment. These mostly new urban Republican voters are mostly not registered Republicans, but that could change. There is widespread distrust of the reigning political establishment here, which is still almost wholly Democratic, driven by not unreasonable concerns about housing costs, public school problems, mass transit safety and efficiency, and many other quality-of-life issues. New York could conceivably have both a Republican governor and a Republican NYC mayor two years from now. It's happened before.

Though the absolute GOP gains in New York State (& neighboring New England & New Jersey) vote counts in 2024 and 2022  (not just presidential but for everything from city councils upwards) were numerically  far smaller than the drop in Dem turnouts here, I like many tended to look more at the former than the latter as worrisome trends. This is a helpful fact-based corrective.   Unsure what we do with this information, strategically, given the parallel mutually exclusive media environments shaping what Podhorzer correctly says are now almost like two distinct electorates, instead of one divided but still-shifting demographic as in decades past.

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Michael Podhorzer distinguishes himself as a serious, careful, evidence-based, thinker and writer whenever he turns on this word processor, it seems. The data-driven method he likes sometimes makes for a slower, more deliberate read, but he doesn’t disappoint.

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Thank you.

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Great analysis with one critique that this could be construed that the 19mil voters didn’t turn out for Harris when it could be argued that they didn’t show up for the Democratic nominee. I know from other analysis that Harris was digging herself out of the hole Biden dug. That and she didn’t differentiate herself enough from Biden.

I think it’s important that readers understand this or they will continue with the false story that she lost due to misogyny & racism (which played a role but isn’t the primary reason). Maybe that is a different post.

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It wasn't exactly a Genius Moment when Harris said she couldn't think of anything she'd have done differently than Biden did. Oops.

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According to the major surveys, Democratic Senate candidates in competitive states did better among youth than Harris. I'll be having a post about this tomorrow.

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I don’t doubt that. I was just pointing out Harris did better than Biden would have done. Love your work!

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Great analysis, as always. The worst part of this entire situation is what policy analysis would label "market failure" in our democratic system. We can see that something that our Founding Fathers did not foresee as even plausible at the Constitutional Convention in fact came to pass: being a criminal, a convicted felon even, would not be a Presidential disqualification. Even more so, the Radical Republicans who were in political control after the Civil War thought that they had addressed the issue of the political resurrection to federal office of insurrectionists who defiled their oaths to the Constitution. So the voters will manage to elect the Cubs over the White Sox as the greatest team in baseball if they will, but our Constitution was supposed to protect us from criminal insurrectionists slipping through the same market sieve by screening certain types of people out...Our current Supreme Court has held though, that nothing is "self-executing" and all of this requires the consent of a Republican Congress.

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