In June, 2024, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) surveyed 3,000 college and university students to determine their knowledge of American history and politics.  The resulting report, “Losing America’s Memory 2.0:  A Civic Literacy Assessment of College Students” lays the groundwork for upcoming recommendations to address the identified deficiencies in civics education.  As an admitted over-degreed student of political science and policy wonk, I applaud any effort to promote a better understanding of the American system of governance as messy and complicated as it so often seems.

However, a review of the survey instrument raises serious questions whether ACTA’s efforts will produce the desired outcome.  I will share two of the first six questions to make my point.

Q1. Who is the current President of the Senate?  Mitch McConnell? Charles Schumer? Kamala Harris?  Joe Biden?  Not Sure? 

This does not address a matter of history nor politics.  It is a current events quiz.  If you want to understand this position identified in Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the options are:  Leader of the Minority Party?  Leader of the Majority Party?  Vice President of the United States? President of the United States?  Not sure?

When raised as a question about the structure of Congress, the student is forced to think about the rationale.  Surely, the minority party would not pick the presiding officer.  If the president was also president of the Senate, then it would be an enumerated power of the executive and should have been in Article II, Section 2: Powers.  From a perspective of consistency, the logical answer is Senator Majority Leader.  If the president of the senate is the presiding officer, how is that any different from the chairman of a corporation being selected by a majority of the board of directors?  Furthermore, if the Speaker of the House, the presiding officer in the lower chamber, is elected by a majority of House members, why isn’t the same true in the Senate?

That the right answer is “the Vice President of the United States” is a real head scratcher for students of other systems of governance, especially parliamentary ones.  It appears to violate the separation of powers giving an executive officer a role in the legislative process.  There is no “president of the Supreme Court” who breaks a tie when the justices are evenly split.  Why would the founding fathers make what appears to be a significant exception to the principle of majority rule? That, not the name of the current occupant of this constitutional office, is a teaching moment.

Q4.  Who becomes President if both the sitting President and Vice President die, become incapacitated, resign or are removed from office by impeachment?  The Speaker of the House of Representatives? U.S. Secretary of State?  Runner-up from the previous election?  President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate?  Not Sure?

Are you kidding me?  If you’re going to promote civics education, the least you could do is develop a survey that is FACTUALLY correct.  What was the author’s transgression?  It leaves out the essential phrase “at the same time.”  The question would be valid, if and only if, it was 1964 or earlier.  Following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Congress passed and the states ratified the 25th Amendment which establishes the procedure by which, in the case of a vacant presidency, the vice president becomes president and appoints a new vice president with consent of the Senate and House.  Only if both die at the same time or before a vacancy in the vice presidency is filled is the Speaker of the House sworn in as president.

Talk about historical amnesia.  Whoever created this question should schedule an appointment for a full neurological workup.  Why?  In the history of the United States, with the exception of the 14th Amendment, no newly ratified amendment became relevant faster and more visibly than the 25th.  In 1973, when vice president Spiro Agnew resigned, no one was sitting around waiting to see if Richard Nixon, already being investigated for Watergate, would resign so House Speaker Carl Albert would become president.  Nixon appointed Gerald Ford vice president.  If that was not reminder enough how the 25th Amendment worked, when Nixon resigned in August 1974, Ford ascended to president and immediately selected Nelson Rockefeller to fill his former office.  And Speaker Albert stayed exactly where the Constitution required, ready to take over if both Ford and Rockefeller exited the scene in unison.

I often refer to my late colleague at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Michie Slaughter who frequently reminded us, “That which is not important is easy to measure.  That which is important is difficult to measure.” I wish more students understood the 10th Amendment which reads “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (my emphasis).”  Why?  It raises the question whether an issue such as “reproductive freedom,” if returned to the states, should be decided by State Legislators or voters in the respective states.  How does one measure that?

Do I care if students know exactly which amendment gives the people that right?  Not at all.  What I do want them to question is whether a state legislator should override the will of a majority of the people.  For example, through a statewide referendum, Florida voters changed the state constitution to give felons who had completed their sentence or parole to the right to register and vote again.  Immediately thereafter, the state legislature and governor revised the definition of “sentence” in the state code to nullify the will of the people.  Or when it became clear a majority of Ohio voters supported a state constitutional amendment to restore a woman’s reproductive rights, the governor and state legislature supported a superseding referendum to raise the voting percentage to approve a a constitutional amendment from 50 to 60 percent. 

We saw how important this differentiation in the 10th Amendment between “the state” and “the people” can be when Donald Trump and his surrogates tried to pressure governors and state legislatures to overturn the results of the 2020 election in several swing states.  While the process of conducting elections has always been a state responsibility, for the first time, one candidate believed “state officials” could determine the result, not just administer the process.

In the next blog, assuming there is not an intervening issue to address, I will lay out an entrepreneurial approach to civics education.  One that recognizes the need to create “market pull” not just “supplier push.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Truth, if rejected, is found to be false.  Facts, if rejected, are said to be incorrect…Truth is determined by the inquirer’s intention; facts by the inquirer’s outcome.

No truth has been changed by applying further knowledge.  Many a fact, however, has been discarded when proven incorrect.

Jon Huer/Tenure for Socrates

Synchronicity is alive and well this Saturday morning.

During an interview on  MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” co-host Michael Steele asked former New Jersey Republican governor Christine Todd Whitman (a Harris supporter) why Donald Trump still holds on to 45 to 47 percent of the American electorate.  Whitman replied, as I believe Huer would have.  Donald Trump has been “their truth” for a decade, and it is hard for people to admit their truth might be wrong.  In the previous segment, Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO), when asked how the new-found enthusiasm and excitement around the Harris/Walz ticket would translate into votes, he talked about the more than 200,000 new volunteers who signed up since Kamala Harris announced her candidacy.  The intersection of those two answers is what triggered today’s post.

Quantity and quality are two different things.  Volunteers talk to family, friends and neighbors.  They also knock on strangers’ doors or engage them at public events.  For many of these individuals, Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda may still be “their truth.”  They will not be swayed by telling them, “You know, Trump has been lying to you about the economy, immigration and crime.”  First, volunteers would be replacing “their truth” with “my truth.”  Second, as Whitman suggested, people do not want to be told “their truth” is wrong.

New truths come not from external sources, but from within.  So, the question is, “How do we get voters to create their own new truth that Harris/Walz would be better, not only for America, but for them personally?”  This explains why Huer provides a more likely path to conversion when he says, “Many a fact, however, has been discarded when proven incorrect.”  What can you say to someone willing to listen that will get them to say to themselves, “Hmm, if that’s a fact, maybe I need to reconsider what I believe, my truth.”

In several recent posts, I have provided examples, largely from Project 2025, that are provable facts.  If Head Start is eliminated, families with young children will face $6,800 a year in childcare expenses.  The two-bracket income tax proposal will reward the wealthy and punish middle class families.  Mass deportation of migrant workers will further increase food prices.  However, these are things that were most apparent to me.  Volunteers must be prepared to respond on issues that are at the top of the list of the people they want to influence.

Let me give you one example how this might play out.

VOLUNTEER:  I can see you’re worried about the future.  Anything in particular?

VOTER:  I’m worried that, if Harris is president, she will take the country deeper and deeper into debt.  Yesterday, I got an email from my congressman who said, “Our national debt officially hit $35 TRILLION. If families across #FL04 are required to live within their means, then the federal government should do the same.” I think he’s right. [NOTE: The quote is an actual post from my favorite MAGA congressman Aaron Bean.]

VOLUNTEER:  We all recognize the need for government to live within its means.  But Project 2025 says that the federal government should be debt-free.  But to suggest families do that is just not correct.  Don’t we have mortgages?  Car loans?  Student loans?  Outstanding medical bills?  When a family budgets each year, they include loan payments in their calculations.  The president and Congress have to do the same thing.

VOTER:  Hmm?  Doesn’t that mean the annual payments increase as the debt goes up?

VOLUNTEER:  You’re referring to what is called “debt service” and you are correct.  Do you think Donald Trump will be better at that than Kamala Harris?

VOTER:  Yes.

VOLUNTEER:  That was not the case when he was president.  In four years, according to U.S. Treasury records, the debt increased by $6.7 trillion, more than any one-term president ever.  And over $4.0 trillion of that is due to the Trump tax cuts which mostly went to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.  Harris supports making those who have benefited most from doing business in America pay their fair share while Project 2025 proposes even more tax cuts for the same people who got the benefit last time.

VOTER:  Hmm?  I’m not sure I’m convinced.

VOLUNTEER:  That’s okay.  I just appreciate you giving me a chance to tell you why I’m so excited about America’s future under a Harris/Walz administration.  If it’s okay, I’d like to give you this brochure which has some links to confirm what we talked about and how future President Harris proposes to make it better.  Thank you for your time.

Fact-based.  Civil.  Respectful.  The issue is irrelevant.  It’s the VIBE.  Even if the voter still doesn’t like Harris, maybe he or she will still like the volunteer.  Which is one more “Hmm” moment.  Gee, this Harris supporter isn’t the radical socialist they’re painted to be.

It may not help on November 5th, but it will make a difference on January 20th.  I am betting voters who have these kinds of encounters with Harris volunteers are not going to believe the election was stolen or support an unconstitutional or violent effort to overturn the election.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

You knew it would happen eventually.  Somebody was bound to throw a bucket of water on the bonfire of enthusiasm generated by Kamala Harris’ emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.  This time it was a YouGov poll, which according to The Hill, found:

While the respondents said that both Trump and Harris are equally qualified for the job, with 49 percent saying they are, voters are hesitant about the idea of a female president — 54 percent of the country says they are ready for a woman president and 30 percent said they aren’t. 

That number is down from 2015, when an Economist/YouGov poll found 63 percent of voters were ready for a woman president.

So far the heavyweight matchup on November 5th is being promoted as “the Prosecutor versus the Felon,” monikers which do not identify the contestants by gender. After all, both men and women are attorneys and criminals.  For every Johnny Corcoran there is a Marcia Clark.  And for every Clyde Barrow there is a Bonnie Parker. 

In 2016, Hillary Clinton deemphasized the historic possibility of the first FEMALE president, and how did that turn out?  When MAGAworld declared Harris to be a DEI hire, she embraced both her gender and mixed racial background.  In fact, she dared the opposition to keep it up.  “Bring it on,” she demanded.

As you know, I believe the 2024 Democratic ticket should be all-female, and I laugh when people suggest voters would not accept that option.  Why? Since ratification of the 12th Amendment on June 15, 1804, there have been 55 elections where the president and vice-president ran together.  That means there were at least 110 pairings, not counting third parties, in which 106 of the tickets were all-male.  I do not remember any complaints about those first 180 years of all-BRO tickets before Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.

There may be, however, a better reason to think about what America has missed without a woman sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.  To fully grasp the difference two female hands on the helm of the ship of state could make, instead of a courtroom analogy, I suggest we draw on classical Greek mythology.  When you think about the contenders in November, it strikes me as a rematch between Athena and Ares, those half-siblings, who faced each other on opposite sides of the Trojan War.  

One need only review the descriptions provided by the website “Greek Mythology Tours” to understand why Ares and Athena are worthy avatars for Trump and Harris, respectively.

Ares is the Greek god of war or rather the representation of the unpleasant aspects of war. These are violence, and one might even say blood-lust. He is almost opposite to his sister Athena, who is represented as logical and strategic.  Born the son of Zeus and Hera  he was said to be hated by both his mother and father. Ares was also unpopular with the other gods and people. Apart from Aphrodite that is, with whom he had an affair and numerous children.

Athena was depicted as a beautiful, yet stern Goddess in Greek mythology. She could be best described as being calculating – weighing up all the options before making a decision. As such, Athena was revered for her wisdom and unmatched intelligence, especially when it came to matters of war or even peace.  This was because unlike many of the other Olympian Gods, who were temperamental at the best of times, she made rational decisions and could also be a good broker of the peace.

Describing American values in ancient mythological terms is not new.  What is more representative of the American ideal than the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol?  Both are women. 

According to the National Park Service, “classical images of Liberty are often depicted in a female form. The Statue of Liberty was modeled after the Roman Goddess of Liberty, Libertas.” “Lady Freedom,” the 19.5 foot sculpture which adorns the the Capitol dome was designer Thomas Crawford’s third iteration after then U.S. Secretary of War (drum roll) Jefferson Davis, opposed the first two versions because the figure wore a “liberty cap,” a symbol of defiance originally associated with ancient Greek and Roman slaves.  Slaveowner and future president of the Confederacy Davis wrote then superintendent of Capitol construction Captain Montgomery Meigs, “History renders [the liberty cap] inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved.”  (Source: Senate Historical Office)  What would have been appropriate was for Davis to replace the phrase “a people” with “people of European ancestry like me.”  Crawford compromised, replacing the liberty cap with a helmet similar to one worn by Athena in Rembrandt’s 1657 portrait “Pallas Athena.”  Crawford justified his choice by claiming it symbolized not war, put peace through strength.

Since “Lady Freedom” was unveiled on December 2, 1863, and the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York on June 15, 1888, these two women have been a visual representation of  ideals that are central to the American experience.  November 5, 2024 seems like the perfect time to give “liberty” and “freedom” a female voice. 

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP