What's Up With The U.S. Space Force?

Many Americans were taken by surprise when a whole new branch of the military - the U.S. Space Force - was launched during the Trump administration. But this branch of the military wasn't created on a whim, and its mission is more complicated than you might expect. 

On this episode, we unpack the history of the militarization of space, the creation of the Space Force, and ask the question: is it here to stay? 

Our guest is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, Associate Professor of Strategy and Security Studies at US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.

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Transcript

Note: This transcript was machine-generated and may contain errors

Nick Capodice: Hannah, did you know that each branch of the military has its own theme song?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. They also have their own marching bands.

Nick Capodice: Six marching bands here. And I'm going to do a little quiz, Hannah; guess which branch this song belongs to?

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Yeah, That one's the Marines. It's very recognizable.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's the United States Marine Corps hymn. How about this one?

Hannah McCarthy: Believe it or not, I used to sing this a lot with my friends.

Nick Capodice: It was very popular in chorus.

Hannah McCarthy: It's very- that's the Navy.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, you got it. The name of it is Anchors Aweigh. And here's the last one.

Archive: (Music).

Hannah McCarthy: Ohhh. Well, it sounds like it's the Coast Guard?

Nick Capodice: No.

Hannah McCarthy: Is that the Army?

Nick Capodice:  Wrong. I'm going to give you a hint. The name of the song is Semper Supra, which is Latin for "always above".

Hannah McCarthy: Ok, the Air Force.

Nick Capodice: Nope. So close. This is the song for the newest branch of the U.S. military. The Space Force.

Archive: Music

Hannah McCarthy: I guess it does feel kind of John Williams-y, right? Like Star Wars-y.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. You are not the first person to make that observation.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: This is unconfirmed, but I did hear a rumor that John Williams, the composer behind Star Wars and a lot of other movies, had offered to do the theme for them, and they turned them down because they, you know, obviously, they wanted their own people to do it. But that's an unconfirmed rumor.

Nick Capodice:  That is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: I am an associate professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, otherwise known as SASS.

Nick Capodice: Wendy is a self-proclaimed space geek and went to school near the Space Coast in Florida.

Archive: 5,4,3,2,1, ignition.

Hannah McCarthy: I love that it's called the Space Coast.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: I grew up watching space shuttles launch my whole life.

Nick Capodice: Wendy was teaching a course on space policy at the United States Air Force Academy when that Space Force theme song dropped.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: My memory associated with it is just hearing what these young future space leaders are really excited about and being able to sort of get in on the ground floor of something new that they're building and, you know, having to come up with a song and think about it and- and what does that tell the world and our citizens about what it is that we do?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Space is a very unseen, invisible sort of world. People don't know a lot about what actually goes on up in space. So all we have, all the references we have to go on are science fiction for the most part. So I think it's hard for the public not to see those connections, even if they were not deliberately trying to make them.

Archive: We'll call it the Space Force... Think of that Space Force.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You know, it's hard when the public hears these things or sees something like the Space Force logo to disassociate and disconnect, you know, what you're doing in the real World Space Force from what they see on TVs and movies.

Archive: Space Force! Space Force! Look, look.As long as J.J. Abrams directs and Mark Hamill has a cameo, I'm in.

Hannah McCarthy:  I remember a lot of jokes about the Space Force on late night TV shows.

Archive:  But there's no threat in space. Who are we fighting? Satellites? A bunch of frozen monkeys? Elon Musk's convertible?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. The Space Force has been the butt of many a joke since then. But Wendy says that a lot of that has to do with what we didn't hear when the branch was unveiled. Perhaps because we were so wrapped up in how sort of sci-fi it sounded.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: A lot of the things you see on Star Trek or Star Wars or any other science fiction show- that's not really possible given the laws of physics today. So, you know, I think the public, just in general, needs to have a better understanding of what the reality is. We're not actually going up there and fighting pew pew with lightsabers and all of these things. But it is really important to our everyday lives, especially here in the United States. It's going to get more important as the years go on. We all need to have a better appreciation for it and understand the realities and what can and can't be done there. So again, you know, we're not going to be fighting. We're not going to send the Space Force to plant the flag on- the Space Force flag on the moon and take over the moon. That's not happening.

Nick Capodice: This is civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: And today we're going to take a look at the United States Space Force, our newest branch of the military. We're going to clear up what the Space Force is actually doing, why it was formed, and who is being recruited for it. And I have to admit, Hannah, like a lot of people, I didn't really get it when the Space Force was created. Like, is this whole other branch of the military even necessary when we already have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard. And not to mention, isn't space covered by NASA exclusively?

Hannah McCarthy: So is the Space Force doing brand new things, or is it taking on responsibilities that other branches and departments were doing? Because creating a new military branch, that is a big deal. I mean, it's got to be expensive.

Nick Capodice: We are going to get into all of that. But first, Hannah, I want you to think about our military branches. So when you think about the Navy, you think about its role in fighting and protecting territory in the sea. And the Army, you think about land forces. And here's where Wendy says the Space Force fits in.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: They do have a really important purpose to serve in protecting what we do have there and making sure that the United States is able to access an area that has become vitally important to each and every one of us.

Hannah McCarthy: Wendy mentions protecting what we have out in space. What exactly needs protecting?

Nick Capodice: Have you ever thought, Hannah, about space as a militarized zone?

Hannah McCarthy: Only in the context of like Star Trek.

Archive: We're venting plasma.

Archive: Reroute power to aft shields and return fire.

Archive: You're just prolonging the inevitable.

Archive: We've defeated the Borg before. We'll do it again.

Archive:  Not this time.

Nick Capodice: Well, in the real world, it didn't really used to be considered a militarized zone until human technology reached it. And the technology that is there now, a lot of it relies on and relates to the military.

Archive: At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Army's Jupiter-C rocket is ready for America's second attempt to launch a space satellite. No relation to the IRBM-Jupiter.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: We say that space is militarized because we use space for military purposes.

Nick Capodice: The United States Space Forces stated mission is to, quote, "conduct global space operations that enhance the way our joint and coalition forces fight, while also offering decision-makers military options to achieve national objectives. So in practical terms, Hannah, the Space Force's job is to protect our access to space and to operate and defend military satellites and their ground operations.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Since the very beginning, since the Soviet Union launched its first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957- the Soviet Union and the United States have known that space is important for military purposes.

Nick Capodice: Military purposes being things like intelligence gathering, surveillance and communications.

Archive: The Soviet Sputnik beep beeped its way across the sky. The reaction was one of astonishment and concern. For it was now known that a potential enemy was at least temporarily ahead in developing means for space travel.

Nick Capodice: After the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik, the first satellite launch in human history, America was in shock. Right?

Hannah McCarthy: Right. Because it wasn't just that Russia was our rival. Right? It's also that the occasionally self-proclaimed "greatest nation on earth" could not understand how Russia could have beat us into space.

Nick Capodice: Exactly. Many of Russia's claims of military and technological superiority had been sort of ignored up to that point.

Archive: Russia has in recent months been threatening nations who grant bases to America. Those threats have not been taken very seriously. But now the world knows that it took a far more powerful projectile than America possesses to push that satellite into its orbit in space.

Nick Capodice: But Americans could no longer ignore it when another superpower had the capability to launch rockets into orbit around the Earth. So the United States ramped up its space program and engaged the Soviet Union in a space race. With each side trying to one-up each other and tech and military hardware.

Archive: Today, a new moon is in the sky, a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket. Here, an artist's conception of how the feat was accomplished. A three stage rocket-

Hannah McCarthy: Wait a minute. They called Sputnik a moon?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. Very quickly Hannah let me define the word satellite. Satellite is really just an object that circles a larger object, like a moon circling a planet. So a moon is a natural satellite.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yeah. And, of course, there are artificial satellites, machines made by humans and launched into space.

Nick Capodice: Yes. And just like that Sputnik launch, we still use rockets to launch satellites into orbit. Some satellites are the size of a school bus or a hippo like the GOES 15, which is a weather satellite launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But some satellites are the size of a lunchbox. They can hitch rides into orbit on rockets whose main objectives are other missions. For instance, delivering supplies to the ISS, the International Space Station. And the cost of manufacturing. A satellite has dropped dramatically. So, more and more of them are being launched, both by global government agencies and private corporations. And these satellites serve a variety of purposes. As Wendy mentioned, a lot of them are military in nature. But even if you aren't taking spy photographs of Russia, you are benefiting from satellites.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It's very hard to think about something that we do on a daily basis that isn't affected by space. When you go to the ATM and take money out that- you're using a satellite to make that withdrawal. When you go to the gas station, you're- and you pay at the pump, you're using a satellite to make that payment. Many of the day-to-day economic transactions we make are supported by these space-based systems. And so the fear over the past couple of years is, as we have come to depend more and more on these space-based systems, other countries see that and can potentially threaten our dependence by shooting down satellites. And so that would be a very bad day.

Archive: This morning outrage from U.S. officials after Russia carried out a missile test early Monday, firing an anti-satellite missile into space.

Archive: We were recently informed of a satellite breakup and need to have you guys start reviewing the safe haven procedure. It's nine decimal two one.

Archive: Obliterating one of its own satellites and creating a vast debris field that's now orbiting Earth.

Archive: At least the occurrence is out of control to have a conversation on dragon the ground about-

Nick Capodice: But the value of our satellites goes way beyond how we pay for stuff and move money around. They are the reason, Hannah, we can reach in our pocket and see where we are and how we're going to get where we're going. Because 31 satellites make up what is called the Global Positioning System, G.P.S..

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: G.p.s. is one of these things that I think we all sort of take for granted because we're using that information on our phone nearly every day.

Hannah McCarthy: I have to confess, I almost entirely depend on a map app on my phone, like, I can get around my hometown, but that's kind of it.

Archive: In two miles Hannah make a right on navigation-dependent Boulevard.

Nick Capodice: And those GPS satellites have been important to the military long before the creation of the Space Force. Quick interesting fact The network of global positioning satellites orbiting the Earth was developed by the Air Force in the late 1970s and used to be called NAVSTAR. The mapping technology was first made available for civilians in 1983, when President Reagan authorized its use by commercial airlines. The first consumer GPS devices came in the market in 1989, but the GPS satellites are still owned by the government and operated by the Space Force. But here's the thing, Hannah, there's something else those GPS satellites do that is vitally important. They provide incredibly precise timing data.

Hannah McCarthy: Timing?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. So each GPS satellite has an ultra precise atomic clock on board that continuously sends out what time it is according to that clock. This precise timing is used in financial transactions and by institutions around the world.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You trade a stock, let's say, you want to buy it at the price it is at that very moment and not 5 minutes from now, not 5 minutes ago. So they use these ultra-precise timing signals to make these transactions and make them happen and make them match up. We also use these same signals for things like emergency services. If you think about how often we're making economic transactions on a daily basis, imagine what happens if you lose that capability. Many of us in society today don't carry a lot of cash. If GPS goes down, you're not going to get cash out of the ATM. You're not going to be able to use your credit cards or make financial transactions. In the past, where there have been errors in the timing signals of GPS satellites, emergency services have been unable to get signals and know where to go or know that they need to go somewhere.

Hannah McCarthy: So there are a bunch of extremely important and expensive pieces of equipment orbiting above us in space, and a lot of them have to do with supporting the military. But a lot of the value of these satellites is in making the modern world run. So my question is, given that collective value, is this the first time that our government has considered making a military branch to protect all this important stuff in space?

Nick Capodice: Yeah, the idea of having a military force for space came long before the creation of the Space Force. Over the years, many leaders in Congress and the military have considered consolidating space operations. There was talk of a military space service in the late 1950s. President Ronald Reagan also toyed with the idea. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to consolidate space operations, but then those plans were sidelined by 9-11. Wendy said that over the past couple of decades, members of Congress started pushing for more proactive defense of our space based assets. And the Trump administration ran with it.

Archive: You know, I was saying it the other day- because we're doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the Space Force. And I was not really serious. And then I said, What a great idea. Maybe we'll have to do that. That could happen.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb:  The president's support for this was sort of the culmination, the final point of this movement, this push to do it, this recognition that space is really important and really fragile. And we really need to think seriously about how we protect what it is we're doing in space.

Hannah McCarthy: Who was in charge of that protection before the Space Force was created?

Nick Capodice: The responsibility was shared. Before the Space Force, The Air Force was in charge of protecting and maintaining military satellites, and NASA was in charge of its own equipment in space. And the other branches, like the Army and the Navy, have recently turned over all of their military satellite communications to the Space Force as well.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, earlier, you mentioned that it wasn't just military satellites orbiting the Earth. I know a lot of US corporations have equipment up in space, too. Does the Space Force have any interaction with those satellites? Do they protect them or monitor them? You know, kind of like how the Coast Guard has both military and civil jurisdiction when it comes to waterways and boats?

Nick Capodice: Well, that's not part of their stated mission today. But, Wendy says it's actually not clear what role the Space Force could play in the future. It's possible.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb:  There are very few rules of the road when it comes to operating in space. And I think a lot of that's going to depend on whether the companies themselves want the protection of the Space Force or not. Some companies might say, "listen, it's not- you know, our satellite isn't worth a lot. We'll launch another one. Don't bother." I- because they don't want to get involved in the conflict. So you can imagine, like you might have a company like Planet, which provides remote imaging services. So they have a fleet of satellites up in space and taking pictures of the Earth, oftentimes with very good image quality. And let's say they are under threat of attack. They might not want the Space Force to step in because, you know, maybe that would just bring more threat to their satellite versus just sort of leaving it alone. I think a lot of it would also depend on the type of threat. And there's different ways to attack things in space. You can do it obviously physically by shooting it down essentially, or you can do it electromagnetically by blinding it or lasing it. So there's different types of sort of weapons in that sense. So I think a lot of it depends. A lot of it is unclear. The companies are under no requirement to tell anybody they're under attack. And even then they might not know they're under attack because it's very difficult to know what's going on up in space.

Nick Capodice: But this points to one of the reasons the Space Force was seen by a lot of people as needed in the first place. There is a lot of stuff up there military satellites, corporate satellites, space junk, a ton of space junk. That's the debris left by us in space when things break or are just abandoned. Aside from military threats, space is simply becoming more and more crowded. So it's a riskier place to operate. And that might require a dedicated branch of experts.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Maybe we need a service that is specifically dedicated to the protection and defense of our space based systems and our access to space, and that perhaps having a group of specialists and people who are really knowledgeable about space might be the better way to do that.

Hannah McCarthy: I would assume that there was quite a bit of conversation and debate about this, right, Because you can't just go ahead and create a whole new branch of the military without some push and pull.

Archive: The committee meeting will be come to order.

Archive: I'm like the chairman. I'm genuinely undecided, although as you can tell, I'm skeptical. I don't think it's broken. I think you're doing a good job. Why are we going to fix it?

Archive: So, Senator, I think we have been doing a good job, but we've been doing a good job in an environment where space has not been contested.

Hannah McCarthy: Given that the Space Force does indeed exist today, this was obviously resolved. But how did it get done?

Nick Capodice: Like so many things are resolved in politics, negotiation. In December of 2019, Congress was working on a new defense spending bill the Republicans wanted to include in that bill the creation of the Space Force, which the Democrats opposed, and the Democrats wanted to include paid family leave for government employees, which the Republicans opposed.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: And so, the space Force ended up as this bargaining chip. The Republican Party wanted the space force, the Democrats wanted paid family leave. And so they sort of traded it at the end of the day. I don't say that to take anything away from the Space Force, because saying that might say that might sound sort of glib and that it was a trade- they got it because of a trade. But I think it's also a reflection of, you know, very real political realities that we have in the country today. Whether you- whether a policy move is going to be good for national security or not, it has very real implications. And you're going to spend more money on space. Well, then maybe the other party is going to say, "well, let's spend some more money on this area." So I think it's very much par for the course, so to speak, with- with what we see in government today. And it doesn't make the Space Force anything less than what it is. But it- I think it acknowledges the very real political reality that we face today in the United States, having the political system and the party system that we do.

Nick Capodice: The establishment of the Space Force was ultimately included in the $738 billion defense spending bill. And with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on December 20th, 2019, the US launched that shiny new military branch. The Space Force was born.

Archive: Today also marks another landmark achievement as we officially inaugurate the newest branch of our military. It's called the Space Force.

Hannah McCarthy: Now starting a brand new military branch, how does the government go about that? You've got a whole chain of command that has to be established, command centers. You have to build buildings, among other things, I would assume. How did it all work?

Nick Capodice: I shall tell you all about the intricacies of branch building, Hannah, right after this quick break. But first, do you know how to tell if you're wishing on a star or a GPS satellite?

Hannah McCarthy: Honestly, I have always wondered that because I take my wishes very seriously.

Nick Capodice: That's the sort of stuff we put in our civics 101 newsletter, Extra Credit. It comes out every two weeks and you're going to love it. Sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Archive: According to regulations

Archive: According to regulations

Archive: And the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Archive: The Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Archive: So help me God.

Archive: So help me God.

Archive: Congratulations and welcome to the United States Space Force.

Nick Capodice: We're back. You're listening to Civics 101 and we are talking about the Space Force and all the work that needs to be done when a brand new branch of the military is established like this one was in 2019.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, before the break, Nick, I asked you a pretty big question. How do you create a whole new arm of the military from scratch? How was the Space Force created?

Nick Capodice: Yeah, so similar to how the Marine Corps is organized under the Department of the Navy, which also oversees the United States Navy. The Space Force is organized under the Department of the Air Force as a, quote, "separate but co-equal branch along with the US Air Force."

Hannah McCarthy: How big is the force? Does co-equal mean it's the same size as the Air Force?

Nick Capodice: Absolutely not. Not at all. Of the approximately three hundred and thirty thousand active duty air force department military personnel, only about eighty four hundred are in the space force.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It makes it the smallest service. Even aside from the Marine Corps, which had been the smallest service to date.

Nick Capodice: And that is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, again.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: One of the concerns when they created the Space Force was that you would create too much bureaucracy, too much organization and too much duplication of effort. And so one of the things that they have really worked hard is to keep the organization as small, flat, fast and efficient as possible. To sort of avoid some of those concerns. So I don't think there's necessarily any political appetite to enlarge that in the near future. Of course, barring something happening, if something happens and we find out, "wow, we really need to be doing more." You can imagine a situation where we might start to enlarge what the Space Force is doing and give them more people to do that. But I think for the most part it's going to stay relatively small.

Nick Capodice: Once the newly created US Space Force had indeed achieved liftoff, there was a lot of work to do to keep that bird in the air, so to speak. There were the monumental tasks of organizing the branch, recruiting skilled active-duty Air Force personnel and civilians. And of course, branding. And branding is important. Military folks know this, every branch has its own singular identity, and the Space Force needed one too.

Hannah McCarthy: Branding like a theme song?

Nick Capodice: Exactly. And also sleek new uniforms, a memorable symbol, a motto. These are all important parts of the Space Force's identity and brand. And while these may seem like little details to civilians, they all play a pretty big role in shaping the culture and character of the Space Force as a vital part of the U.S. military Space Force.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. So here's my question.

Nick Capodice: Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: Members who serve in different military branches are called different things. In the Army You've got soldiers. In the Navy, you've got sailors. And the Marines, You're called a marine. What do they call the personnel within the Space Force?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Again, this was something that the Space Force had to take a new eye to. In the Air Force, we actually call members of the Air Force, "airmen" not necessarily gender inclusive. And so, you know, I think the Space Force wanted to be sensitive to being gender inclusive, but also find a name that spoke to what it is that they intend to do. They did take some suggestions from the public about what to call members of the Space Force.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, boy. So one of these open to the public things?

Nick Capodice: Yeah

Hannah McCarthy:  Like, kind of, when we asked grade school students to design quarters. My quarter design was not accepted by the state of Massachusetts, by the way. What kinds of names did they get?

Nick Capodice: I think there was a paucity of sort of Boaty Mcboatface jokes, but there were a lot of fun submissions. My favorites were the Thunder Children and Mars Bars. But Wendy says there was a common theme in many of the public's suggestions.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Many of them did end up being sci-fi inspired in many ways. And I think that again, was another place where the Space Force tried to sort of separate out the science fiction from the fact. Obviously, when you hear the term guardians, you might think Guardians of the Galaxy. But I think the- the choice of the name Guardian really says what it is they want to do. They don't want to get actively involved in a war unless they have to. Their job is to guard. Guard our assets, guard our way of life, guard our access to space from any potential threat. And so I think that really is descriptive of what it is the Space Force hopes to do and what they see their mission as.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. Now, you said earlier that. The Space Force brought in active service members. And you mentioned recruitment. So where are these new guardians coming from? Like, are they being wooed away from other jobs in, say, NASA or even civilian jobs that have to do with space, like working with corporate satellites?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: The core of the new Space Force has been taken from the Air Force. And a lot of the space units that the Air Force was operating, a lot of the space professionals that the Air Force already had. The other services also had some space professionals and space systems. And so over the past couple of years, the Space Force has started to sort of consolidate a lot of the military space operations under their umbrella.

Hannah McCarthy: So to recap, the Space Force was formed to pull together a bunch of things that other branches, but primarily the Air Force, were in charge of before. They are essentially maintaining and protecting military satellites and the military access to space. And this includes potential attacks, collisions with space junk, communications. Are they doing anything else?

Nick Capodice: Well, one of the most important things is the support they're providing to all the other branches of the military, not just satellite operations, but communications, intelligence, navigation capabilities and missile defense. But they're not holding a total monopoly on government operations in space. Hannah have you ever heard of the National Reconnaissance Office, the NRO?

Hannah McCarthy: I have not. What is that?

Nick Capodice: The NRO was a highly, highly classified office during the Cold War that only became declassified in the 1990s. They run a lot of space based systems for the wider intelligence community. That's going to stay its own organization separate from the Space Force. And of course, NASA is still overseeing science and technology related to space and space exploration. And private corporations with a footprint in space aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: The civilian companies like Space X, Blue Origin will still be there. Obviously, the Space Force has looked to recruit from those companies and sort of bring in these working professionals who already have large areas of knowledge.

Nick Capodice: Wendy said that the Space Force has often sent its personnel to work with commercial companies in order to foster collaboration. There's a big focus on these private public partnerships, as well as international governmental relationships, which makes sense considering the diverse international mix of satellites orbiting our planet right now.

Hannah McCarthy: So I know that the Space Force falls under the Department of the Air Force and is this, quote, separate but co-equal branch with the Air Force. But given that the Space Force is so new, what is that relationship like?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: So there's still a relationship there between the Air Force and the Space Force. And in fact, the Air Force is still going to provide many of the support services for the Space Force. So over the past couple of years, we've renamed some Air Force bases to be Space Force bases. So Patrick Air Force Base, down near the Kennedy Space Center, used to be called Patrick Air Force Base. It's now called Patrick Space Force Base.

Nick Capodice: As of this taping, there are six main Space Force bases and seven smaller stations. There's even a base called Space Base Delta One, just a few miles from where we are taping this very podcast. It's in New Boston, New Hampshire.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: So we've broken out a lot of the space specific operations to be the purview of the Space Force. But the Air Force is still helping a lot in terms of providing some of those foundational things like base security that they're not necessarily big enough to do on their own. It's kind of, I guess, a sibling like relationship. we're at, right at the moment, between the Air Force and the Space Force.

Hannah McCarthy: What is training like for these guardians? Does the Space Force have a boot camp?

Nick Capodice: More like a space camp.

Hannah McCarthy: I always wanted to go to space camp. Looked so cool.

Nick Capodice: Space camp?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: We don't have astronauts going into space. They're not necessarily going into a war zone to fight. But we still want to make sure that they're healthy. There is a Space Force boot camp or basic training that they're running that they have broken out and they are currently the Space Force is currently working to separate their out their own system of professional military education and enlisted education to separate that out from the Air Force.

Nick Capodice: Wendy said guardians won't necessarily be going into battle like an Army soldier or Marine would, but that doesn't mean they're not doing dangerous work.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Many of them do get deployed and sent down range to operate satellite communications links and other valuable on the ground assets. So, you know, and being a military service, they still do have standards that they need to meet. However, the Space Force has really thought long and hard about what those requirements should be. And so they are looking to change it somewhat from the traditional military physical requirements that you would think of. They've been trying to take a more holistic attitude not just to physical fitness, but to health and wellness and to really encourage their guardians to have a a lifestyle of being fit. And so they're working on standards that that talk more about how much physical activity a guardian should be getting on a regular basis. So I think the Space Force has really been trying to think about how they might do things differently, especially in an era where we have a lot of wearables and technology that can look at it, what we're doing over time. So, you know, and it's a very interesting question. We don't have astronauts going into space. They're not necessarily going into a war zone to fight, but we still want to make sure that they're healthy.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Got it. But I cannot help but think about the brain training. I mean, we're talking about working on the ground with equipment in space that is highly scientific, esoteric stuff. How are the Guardian recruits being trained for that?

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It's very hard to visualize sometimes. I think the the outer space environment. But you have these very large, sometimes very large satellites, and sometimes very small satellites, moving at incredible speeds in different directions, at different orbital inclinations. And orbital trajectories are just crazy. And so, you know, I think the Space Force has been really thinking hard about, well, "how do we train to operate and work in an environment that we can't necessarily be in all the time?"

Nick Capodice: Wendy says that the Space Force is looking into cutting edge technologies like virtual reality headsets with 3-D replicas of satellites, space stations and mission control rooms.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You know, our satellites aren't necessarily set up for instant servicing. If something goes wrong with the satellite, you don't just send up a repair person. So, yeah, there's just different ways of operating in space that we have to learn and figure out and use the best tools to our advantage when you can't really get there. And we're not really anticipating sending guardians into space in the near future either.

Hannah McCarthy: I would assume that building a virtual reality space station is more affordable than sending someone into space, but I bet it doesn't come cheap.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's all pretty pricey. The 2023 budget bill passed for the Space Force was $26.2 billion. That's more than a 70% increase over their 2022 budget. And here's a staggering statistic that never fails to shock me. The United States comprises about 40% of the world's total military spending. That's more than the next nine countries combined. And with this highly specific branch addition, that number's going to keep going up. But these satellite and space programs already existed and already were expensive. They were just spread out under other agencies. And now with them being consolidated into one place, this funding could theoretically be harder to cut.

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: And it sounds like a lot. And it is it's actually a little bit more than what NASA gets. But, you know, compared to the other services, it is rather small. And this, I think, has been a concern to people who support the Space Force, because one of the things about what the Space Force does is it supports the other services. It supports everything else the Army does, the Navy does, the Marine Corps does by providing communication, by providing missile warning services, by providing remote sensing. You know, this is one of these things that the Space force has tried to argue that, like we need to get more money to do these things for the other services. It's not the U.S. Space Force doing it for the US Space Force sake. It's the Space Force doing it for the Armys sake.For the Marines sake. The Navy sake, or the Air Forces sake.

Hannah McCarthy: Is there a chance that political winds will shift and Congress could decide, you know, "let's just dismantle the Space Force, split the responsibilities back up under different branches and programs."

Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Listen, anything's possible. I'm never going to say never. But as someone who has studied bureaucracies, government bureaucracies, once one is created, it's very hard to kill it. It never really goes away. It might become morph into something else and change, but it never really goes away. But I think now that the Space Force is an organization, it's been around for three years now. It has people who support it. It has a budget line. It has facilities that they're starting to create. It makes it even harder to stop. So I think as as an agency gets older, it just gets even harder to kill. Even if a new administration came into office after the 2024 election, that means you're still going to have a space force that's been around for several years, and that's going to be even harder to kill than it would be now or two years ago.

Nick Capodice: Well, that is it for the Space Force here on Civics 101. This episode is created by our producer, Jacqui Fulton, with Rebecca Lavoie, Hannah McCarthy, and me, Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Music in this episode by Larry Poppins, Bonsai Needle Mouse Rubik's Cube, Rubio's Lupus Knocked Silver Maple Bio Unit, Anissa Orchestra, Nando and such military musical entities as the United States Navy band, the President's own US Marine Band and the United States Air Force Band. And last but never, never least, Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio. Blast off.

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The Government and Housing: One City's Story

Atlanta was the first city to erect public housing in the United States. It started with Techwood Homes, an all-white development that went up in 1936. Sixty years later it would be torn down, along with others of the now-neglected developments that were the promise of FDR's New Deal. Akira Drake Rodriguez leads us through the story of how residents of public housing in Atlanta worked with, against and despite housing policy in their city.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: Hi there. This is part two of a two parter on federal housing in the United States. And while you can listen to it all by its lonesome, I do recommend that you hit pause. Go back and listen to part one on housing policy in the US. The federal government has not always been involved in housing, but once it got involved, the policies that it adopted shaped housing and home ownership in drastic ways. Listen to that one to help you better understand what we're about to talk about in part two, Housing and Atlanta, Georgia.

Nick Capodice: Because Atlanta had the first public housing, right.

Hannah McCarthy: The very first 1936 Techwood Homes. The federal government's answer to both houselessness and what it saw as insufficient housing, what it would call slums in the United States. And just in case you do skip part one, I'll go ahead and not bury the lead. Techwood Homes was an all white housing development. Atlanta [00:01:00] also built all black housing developments, but public housing was segregated as a matter of policy. So keep that in mind. Let's get into it. This is civics one on one. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: And to talk about public housing in general is nearly impossible. There are so many stories, so many different approaches and shifts across the country. I am choosing Atlanta because of the story that public housing residents created in that city. It's a story that Akira Drake Rodriguez, who we met in part one.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: I'm assistant professor of city and regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania's Weitzman School of Design.

Hannah McCarthy: Describes in her book Diverging Space for Deviance.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: So in terms of piloting public housing policies, administration and programs, and sort of distributing them out across the country, certainly Atlanta has a very sort of dominating role.

Hannah McCarthy: So before we can dive into the housing itself, it's important to know what Atlanta looked [00:02:00] like as public housing first went up in that city and not just housing wise, but politically.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: So after Reconstruction, Atlanta did elect some black representatives to city council, to the board. However, that was immediately repealed with the implementation of this white primary in the 1890s, where effectively the Democratic Party as a private institution was allowed to engage in race based discrimination. So this was not protected under any sort of constitutional amendment. This was simply the way of life. And this was a very sort of popular play of Southern states post reconstruction. So you see it in Texas and Louisiana and Georgia. And this way, primary existed until 1946 when it was repealed by the Georgia Supreme Court. And you start to see this like increase in black descriptive representation as a result. However, until that point, this sort of like geography [00:03:00] of black Atlanta was a very constrained.

Hannah McCarthy: Now black Atlantans made up around 32% of the population of Atlanta, but resided on only about 16% of the land.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: And so they were unable to get, you know, sidewalks, landfills, trash service, bus service, really any sort of public goods and services because they were effectively barred from voting.

Nick Capodice: Okay. I don't think I even knew about the white primary as an even if black Atlantans can technically vote in the general election, they weren't allowed to decide who they would ultimately be voting for.

Hannah McCarthy: Right. Because it isn't the government who is in charge of the primary, it's the parties. So when a whole demographic is prevented from selecting their choice candidate, when a whole group is not allowed to say we want this politician because we believe that this politician will take care of us, a couple of things happen. One, politicians are simply not courting that demographics vote. That [00:04:00] demographic is seen as less politically consequential to that means that that demographic is actually less likely to be taken care of as and have city resources like trash collection and street maintenance in the areas that they occupy. And that is exactly what happened in Atlanta with the all white primary when it came to what the black community actually received.

Nick Capodice: So you had neighborhoods that the city was not actually taking care of, full of people who did not have much political power. And of course, that lack of political power is part of the reason that the neighborhoods weren't well taken care of.

Hannah McCarthy: And at the beginning of the episode, I told you that Akira wrote a book. Its title is Diverging Space for Deviance, and I want to come back to that.

Nick Capodice: I did wonder about that title. Hana Deviant usually has sort of a negative connotation.

Hannah McCarthy: In this case. It's a term that Akira found in this political science article from the 1980s. Akira is specifically talking about political deviance [00:05:00] here, which is a term I had never heard before. By that she means people who deviate, who don't fit a certain standard of political behavior, who maybe don't vote as often, whose demographic is passed over in the political sphere, whose lives politicians don't feel like they need to represent.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: The deviant category, which was, you know, unemployed people who deal with substance abuse, people who are, you know, single mothers, for example. Those are considered deviants. Especially because they do not participate politically in the same way. So these are not the most engaged voters. These are not the targets of political ads and campaigns. And so they are both marginalized in public policy, but also severely underrepresented.

Hannah McCarthy: We're going to come back to this idea of the political deviant [00:06:00] right after a quick break. But before we do, just a reminder that civics one on one also has a newsletter, because let me tell you, we cannot fit everything into these episodes. We need somewhere else for all of the information to go. If you were a fan of trivia and ephemera, I highly recommend that you subscribe to that newsletter at civics101podcast.org. It's free, it's fun. It never has any ads, and we're not there to clog your inbox up. We're just there to talk. Again, you can subscribe at civics101podcast.org. We're back. This is civics one on one. And we're talking about public housing in Atlanta, Georgia. Right before the break, Akira was describing to us this notion of political deviance. And here's why. Atlanta is such an interesting city to look at when it comes to public housing and its segregationist roots. Because Akira noticed something about a, quote, deviant population in the all black housing developments in Atlanta.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: I sort of dug deeper [00:07:00] into the history of tenant organizations and the role they played in sort of taking the politically deviant public housing resident into a more sort of politically active and knowledgeable person. And so this was the idea was to kind of understand how the politics of public housing changed over the course of the 20th century. And so what I was really more interested in was the sort of political activism and organizing of tenants over time and how that changed based on public housing policy.

Nick Capodice: Tenant organizations like when tenants come together to complain to the landlord about leaky pipes or what have you.

Hannah McCarthy: That's not how it started in Atlanta, though. That is where it ended up, just not where it started. Like Akira said, tenant organizing changed as housing policy changed. So, for example, the first all black public housing in Atlanta went up around the [00:08:00] same time as the first all white public housing in Atlanta. It was called university Homes and the relationship between the tenant organizations and the people managing these homes started out like this.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: They were allies out of the managers. And so because the managers depended on the tenants and vice versa to make public housing a viable program and policy in the United States, they did a lot of work together. They did a lot of programs, a lot of classes, a lot of political education, a lot of, you know, gendered activities like, you know, ROTC and and small domestic classes for women, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, etc.. To me, it was really important to study this history of public housing in Atlanta, because the first black public housing development opened in 1937 before the white primary had ended. And so they weren't able [00:09:00] to get streetlights, they weren't able to get sidewalks, they were able to get like good housing. They were able to get housing that was actually managed by black people. So there was no white landlord. There were only black housing managers and staff.

Nick Capodice: So before the white primary had ended, meaning that black voters still could not select their choice candidates, they could not get proper representation. But inside of this all black public housing, there was this kind of microcosm of power.

Hannah McCarthy: But there's a limit here, and that limit is about who is actually allowed into these public housing communities.

Nick Capodice: There were rules about who was and was not allowed to live in public housing.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Yeah. So again, in the beginning, the New Deal policies for public housing were very conservative. And so you needed a minimum income, you needed a maximum income, you needed to have your employment verified. Someone would come to your house and conduct an interview. They were checking [00:10:00] references. And so it was it was quite difficult actually, to get access in to public housing. And once you're kind of family situation changed, whether you lost your job or you were even widowed or divorced, you were evicted from the from the housing development.

Nick Capodice: I just have to ask, what is with this widowed and divorced thing? Wouldn't people who are potentially losing the income of a partner need assistance all the more?

Hannah McCarthy: All right. Here is what you've got to understand about public housing. It is not actually for all members of the public, and the qualifiers are not as straightforward as a certain level of income. Some limitations that continue to exist to this day are based on whether or not you've been arrested or if you have a criminal conviction. I should also clarify that while it is overseen and funded by the federal government, public housing is run by local housing authority. So there are variations in how things are [00:11:00] done. But when things first got started in Atlanta, there were these bi racial advisory committees for public housing made up of the city's elites, and they had certain ideas about certain populations.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: They were all sort of subscribing to the same sorts of politics, namely what we call racial uplift politics. We kind of look at the minutes of these local advisory committees. There was a lot of discussion about, you know, we should set rents lower for the black developments because even though there are two adults working, that's still less than the wages of a white male earner in the white public housing developments, they were allowing for higher maximum incomes because they realized that because of the racialization of the kind of emerging mortgage industry, there actually wasn't a lot of financing, a lot of land available [00:12:00] for black private homeownership. And so they kind of made these exceptions for black families.

Nick Capodice: So the committee recognized that because of racist and segregationist policies in the workplace and in the housing market. That it would be reasonable to have lower rents in all black public housing, both because of lower income and because even families who should be able to buy a home couldn't obtain mortgages.

Hannah McCarthy: And it wasn't just about being reasonable. It was about uplifting black families. And this, by the way, was a specific motivation on the part of some educated, prosperous, influential black Americans in this era. There was a sense of responsibility for the well-being and civil and social elevation of black Americans generally. But what will being actually looked like could be limited. So lower rents for black families. Agreed.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: But then when it came time for [00:13:00] the sort of allowances around the number of individuals in the unit.

Hannah McCarthy: Meaning how many people can live in an apartment and in what situations.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: The woman named Florence Reed kind of makes this point like, Hey, what about teachers? They're single. They have to be single. That's sort of the law at the time. They should be allowed to you know, they should be the exception. That shouldn't just be about full families. It should be about these single women. Or at least allow for a single woman to reside with the family, as is often the case with people who take on caretaking duties in order to get room and board.

Nick Capodice: And we definitely need to talk about compulsory singledom for teachers in a future episode. But back to this woman, Florence Reed. She's basically saying that we should figure out an exception for single low wage earning women as well.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: And this was struck down. This was going to be according to a lot of the black men on the advisory committee. That would be the [00:14:00] end of the black family. That would create too much disorganization and chaos in the black family. So although they were advocating for a lot of the unique sort of economic and labor and class issues, they were not always so forgiving when it came to gender or other forms of deviance.

Nick Capodice: There's that word deviance again. So single women are a politically deviant population at this time.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Even when public housing was fully funded was really just for like people who couldn't afford to buy a house. And you had to be working. It had to be, you know, like literally you get sick and you lose your job and they evict you from public housing back in the day. So it was always just like really kind of like morality was like, was it? And it wasn't about like, caring compassion. It was about, like, judgment. Right? Like you're not deserving enough of this benefit. You're not contributing to the economy, so you're not going to get any money [00:15:00] in the end. You're not going to be able to benefit.

Nick Capodice: So this housing program, which was designed to give homes to Americans who needed them, was also designed to exclude disenfranchized and vulnerable populations, in part because of these value judgments about who was deserving of public housing, who hit the moral or ethical brief.

Hannah McCarthy: Honestly, that in a nutshell, sometimes feels like the twisted history of federal financial assistance for low and no wage people and families in America. But let's get back to how people used their situation to get what they really needed. You've got these all black public housing developments with all sorts of resources for the community and not just the tenant community, but the surrounding black community as well.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: They put in a library, they put in one of the second public auditoriums in the city. And so literally the right to assemble comes through this public housing policy at once. The primary is deemed unconstitutional in 1946. [00:16:00] They are immediately registering voters in this auditorium and in this public housing development. So it starts off immediately as this sort of hotbed of political activism.

Hannah McCarthy: This new high density physical space ended up being crucial to political power in the community, specifically Akira found among single women.

Nick Capodice: But earlier, you said that this concept of a single woman in a public housing apartment was not the advisory committees idea of the right kind of family.

Hannah McCarthy: That started to shift with the 1949 Federal Housing Act, which was passed with the goal of providing a, quote, decent home and suitable living environment for every American family. As the country entered a post-World War two housing crisis, it's basically Harry Truman's expansion of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt started. Suburban areas boomed while cities were viewed as increasingly unsightly. [00:17:00] This was, by the way, 100% tied to increasingly white suburbs and black cities and racism. And the act included money for cities across the country to demolish their, quote unquote, slums.

James Baldwin: They were tearing down his house because San Francisco is engaging, as most northern cities now are engaged in something called urban renewal, which means moving Negroes out. It means Negro removal. That is what it means. And the federal government is it is an accomplice to this fact.

Nick Capodice: This was a nationwide program to demolish neighborhoods.

Hannah McCarthy: Which is not too terribly different from how the first public housing in Atlanta came to be. Teakwood and university homes were constructed where, quote, blighted neighborhoods had stood only a year before. The difference in this project, [00:18:00] which was billed as urban renewal, was that it was more widespread. Despite the pledge for more housing, the federal government also limited spending on housing infrastructure itself.

Nick Capodice: Infrastructure like the materials for the apartments themselves, cheaper material, shoddy or construction, etc..

Hannah McCarthy: Bingo. So you have more apartments, but not particularly well built apartments. Now, by the way, the 1949 Federal Housing Act included a provision that for every dwelling that was demolished, an affordable housing unit would be built. But that 1 to 1 construction did not exactly pan out. And then, of course, with the clearance of loads of black neighborhoods across the country, public housing saw an influx of new tenants, new tenants who joined tenant associations.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: And so you start to see the public housing development and particularly the tenant association change from being [00:19:00] kind of, you know, coupled households and male leadership and the tenant association to single parent households and more women leadership in these organizations.

Hannah McCarthy: And it is with this shift that Akira started to notice something powerful, this politically deviant population, black women, often single mothers, leveraging the power of their numbers to make gains for their communities.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Mary Sanford, he was the head of the Tenant Association and Perry Homes was very pivotal to getting subway service. And in Northwest Spur, where most of the public housing was concentrated, and Louise Whatley, who also kind of was tenant organizer at Carver Homes and other major development in the Northwest. Susie Laborde I write about her a lot. She was the organizer at Great Eight Homes, and she went to the White House and met with President [00:20:00] and started economic opportunity. Atlanta. Even Davis, who also met with Jimmy Carter and brought a lot of resources to East Lake Meadows in particular.

Nick Capodice: So you had these women who, because of housing policy, had needs that weren't being met. And so they pushed they pushed for better conditions. But it also sounds like those conditions didn't stop at the apartment gate, so to speak, because subway service, for example, is city infrastructure, like it might serve public housing, but it changes the actual landscape.

Hannah McCarthy: Exactly. They were attempting to bend their physical space to meet their needs. And then on that apartment level, there was a shift away from tenant associations being the allies of management to prove public housing a viable project. These women knew it was a viable project. They were living there. They were creating political power. What they needed was investment [00:21:00] in this viable program.

Archival: This project is 40 years old, the oldest one in the world, and it's also to the first one built and the largest one. And we have not gotten anything and it's gone down. The community building look like a shamble. What are you prepared.

Archival: To do to see that these things are taken care.

Archival: Of? Whatever action needs to be done, if we have to, whatever step we have to take farther to go, we we we are just tired. The people is really tired.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: They are like the pipes are leaking, There's vermin. You never built a sidewalks. You actually never built anything after you initially build this out. And so they started engaging in a lot of direct actions like protests and rent strikes and occupations as a way to express their disapproval, but also to show themselves as sort of independent political thinkers and actors. There was meaningful change and, you know, so they got [00:22:00] policies, they got grievance procedures, they got autonomy, they got greater sort of control.

Hannah McCarthy: These women represented what Akira calls black feminist spatial politics. They were motivated by the public housing policies that shaped their lives, and they in turn used the public housing space to create a space conducive to their lives and their needs. Or is it cure? Calls it building cities hospitable to the modern deviant. And then just as soon as these black feminist politics were truly gaining momentum.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: These sort of successes because of the timing of. Kind of correlate when when we see the federal government pulling back from funding public housing. And so again, and thinking about those earlier kind of like social constructions, a policy target as the, you know, tenants become less white and less married, [00:23:00] you start to see this sort of shift in how the government is approaching and thinking about public housing. It goes from kind of like a necessary steppingstone for the middle class to, again, this sort of housing of last resort and creating almost like a new slum.

Nick Capodice: Even though the whole point of these developments was to replace what city leaders designated as slums.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: They constantly like think of them as an eyesore. And it's actually pretty ironic or funny, or maybe both or neither, because these public housing developments were supposed to replace slums which were also maligned in the same way. So any time you have this sort of concentration of what I call deviance, but, you know, underemployed, you know, marginalized populations, vulnerable populations, a concentration of them and in substandard housing is considered a blight. Right. Is considered a scourge, not just for those who live [00:24:00] in it, but also for city leaders in particular.

Hannah McCarthy: Public housing was integrated with the 1968 Fair Housing Act. We talked about this earlier with Richard. Right. You could no longer segregate these homes into all white and all black. And while it took some time, the populations of places like Teakwood homes, the first ever and all white federal public housing development in Atlanta did eventually integrate. But this is also an era of the federal government pulling back. Five years into the Fair Housing Act, President Richard Nixon announced that this model of federally subsidized housing construction had essentially failed the new model one that he promised to be a lot less expensive for taxpayers would be to directly provide people with money to seek housing in the private market.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Tenants were very protective of their property and really just wanting greater investment.

Archival: When you have said that it's the government [00:25:00] got down, maybe it else. But I tell you what, you got some proud folks here and I'm just as proud as I am. If I lived in Sandy Springs and I tell you what, my home, my yards are just like those in Sandy Springs.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: And so, you know, the seventies and eighties are a rough time in urban policy. So federal government doesn't have any money. Cities definitely don't have any money. And so it is very, very difficult to get any new resources.

Hannah McCarthy: No money, by the way, because of a massive recession in the seventies. So the physical conditions are deteriorating, but the community and the space shaping power it created remained for as long as it could.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: All of them were really, really fierce advocates for public housing. They wanted to keep public housing. You know, maybe they wanted to change the shape of it, change the funding, change the population. But they were very sort of adamant that public [00:26:00] housing wasn't good and did not deserve to be demolished.

Hannah McCarthy: Eventually, though, they would be between the housing voucher program, which was appealing to many public housing tenants and the disinvestment of cities. This space for black feminist politics was about to crumble.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Literally, it was all kind of for naught. And so because of this very sort of constrained resource environment of austerity, you see these conservative politics emerge and eventually kind of contribute to the demise of public housing.

Hannah McCarthy: And then in 1990. Atlanta, Georgia, won the bid for the 1996 Olympics.

Archival: The 1996 Olympic Games to the city of Atlanta.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: So [00:27:00] the Olympics is kind of like the major catalysts, right? Investment is coming in. This is a mega event. The Atlanta Olympics was the first modern Olympics to turn a profit. They made $3 billion at the Olympics. And the goal was like, we absolutely cannot have this blight or the eyesore of public housing near our new stadium.

Hannah McCarthy: This was as straightforward as, Oh, no, If you drive toward the center of Atlanta along the freeway and glanced to the side, you'll see the sprawling eyesore. And that will not do for all of the visitors headed our way.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: And so the demolition discussions, the redevelopment discussions began in the early nineties, and they were demolishing public housing in Atlanta through the late 2010.

Archival: By this [00:28:00] time next year, all public housing projects in the city of Atlanta will be gone. The Atlanta Housing Authority says it's ahead of schedule in reaching its goal to be the first major city...

Hannah McCarthy: Check out our episode on the Olympics, by the way, for a clearer picture of what hosting the Olympics often does to cities and why it is not always positive. So there is this long, drawn out process of demolishing these developments. And I should mention, not every city demolished all of its old public housing stock. Many still exist in this country today, but Atlanta did.

Nick Capodice: But they had to replace it with something, right?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, a few years before the Olympics, the federal government launched a program called Hope six. It was designed to replace existing public housing with mixed income rentals. Smaller developments that are usually privately owned. Some of the apartments in these developments are rented at market value and others at a more affordable cost for qualifying low income renters. These low income apartments [00:29:00] can either be paid for with Section eight vouchers or are simply available because the government gives that private company a subsidy to provide affordable housing.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: When you privatize the management at lease of public housing, you're privatizing kind of like the leasing terms and leasing options, which means that you may meet the kind of like income requirement, but you have bad credit or you were arrested or, you know, you took a drug test and let's say you're disqualified or someone in your household hits these kind of strikes. And so that kind of lost a lot of population as well prior to you even demolishing them. They were doing a lot of what was called the one strike rule, which is if anyone was arrested in the household, you could be evicted. And so you see these like changes in welfare policy, changes in public housing policy, all sort of happening at the same time in the early nineties. So [00:30:00] the actual population that has to be kind of relocated or rehoused is shrinking every day.

Hannah McCarthy: So again, Nick, this is the Atlanta story, one of many public housing stories in the country. Atlanta's post Nixon housing era looks different from Boston's. Boston's looks different from San Francisco's, San Francisco's from Kansas Cities. But the Atlanta story is important because of what occurred in developments that would eventually be deemed a failure. Political power and attention achieved by a deviant group, in part because of the space they occupied. When that space was eliminated. So was their coalition.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: So I was reading a lot about these mixed income developments, and I noted how there were homeowner [00:31:00] associations to kind of advocate for the interest of the homeowners and the development. But there were no tenant organizations. And the reason for that was that a lot of the developers said that, what do you need a tenant organization for if, like you have a new apartment? Right. And so the idea was that the only reason that these tenant organizations existed was to complain about the property or complain to the landlord, and that was effectively ended.

Hannah McCarthy: I asked Akira for her one big takeaway from all of this research What should people learn from the story of what happened, if so briefly? Within Atlanta's original public housing.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Tenant associations are for more than just complaining about your landlord. They are literal spaces of working class politics, organizing and mobilization. And so they should be standardized everywhere and not just sort of [00:32:00] like this weird, archaic thing. So that would be my my one takeaway.

Hannah McCarthy: So the Atlanta story, you know, the why of telling it is not simply that it was the first for me in the context of federal public housing policy, a policy that was explicitly designed to segregate a policy that prohibited so many black Americans from securing a path to wealth, which, by the way, is the same thing as a path to political power and civic influence. That is why the Atlanta story and this last message of a is is so significant, so important because political power and civic influence happened anyway, both in spite of and because of these policies. This [00:33:00] episode is produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with help from Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by Anemoia, Nul Tiel Records, Kesha, Xylo-Ziko, Experia and Chris Zabriskie. You can listen to part one of this two-parter on federal housing by going to our website, civics101podcast.org and clicking on episodes. It is there you will find all of the many, many other episodes that we have made, and you'll also have the opportunity to submit a question of your own. Part of our job is to answer them sometimes in an episode. Civics 101 [00:34:00] is a production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Government and Housing: Policy

"Public housing" did not exist prior to the Great Depression. So it wasn't until Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal that the government had the chance to impose segregation at the highest level. The effects of segregation policy in housing continue to this day in the United States. Akira Drake Rodriguez and Richard Rothstein are our guides to how and why the government did it.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: In the early 1990s, the city of Atlanta began a wide scale demolition project.

Archival: This is the day that many have dreamed of and others feared would eventually come. The first phase of.

Hannah McCarthy: Some of the first buildings to be razed were part of a federal housing development called Techwood Homes.

Archival: These apartments are very, very old and new, and they have to come in here constantly to keep them up. It's a danger to the tenants, some conditions.

Hannah McCarthy: And by the time these homes were demolished, they were considered blighted property. It's an official term. It's still used today to describe uninhabitable or dangerous places. And it wasn't just teakwood. Federal public housing, like it in Atlanta and across the country, had deteriorated. Broken elevators, broken lights, unreliable heat and hot water. Trash piling up in garbage chutes, boarded [00:01:00] up, apartment units, organized crime. This kind of public housing. Some said it had been a nice idea. It had offered hope.

Archival: Anyone that has pads in the high rise projects and looking in from the outside, it seemed like a beautiful home, a clean home and a lovely place to live in.

Hannah McCarthy: But it just hadn't worked out.

Archival: I live inside and I know there's some fear that I am living in.

Hannah McCarthy: So, Nick, I bring up Techwood in part because it wasn't just one of the first to come down. It was the first, as in the very first in the United States to go up.

Nick Capodice: This was the first ever public housing.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: So Atlanta has the first public housing in the country. Right. So Teakwood Homes in 1936, first public housing development that was federally financed. Locally administered.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Akira Rodriguez.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: An assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania's Weitzman [00:02:00] School of Design.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: And this is part one of two on federal housing in the US. Later on, I'm going to talk about Teakwood and Atlanta because the story of what happened within that city's public housing can teach us a lot about people, space and power. But first, we need to understand what we talk about when we talk about federal public housing. That is part one housing policy.

Archival: The story of Homes How people live is the story of the foundation on which a nation is built.

Nick Capodice: Very quickly, Hannah, can we just define what public housing is?

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Yes, public housing to me is housing that is subsidized.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: By the government. And so that is a very broad definition and kind of includes all housing, which [00:03:00] is the point to me. It should be like all housing is actually public housing.

Nick Capodice: Hold on. All housing in the US.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: This is like a favorite housing policy stat that our largest housing expenditure from the government is the mortgage interest tax deduction. It is not Section eight, it is not, you know, constructed public housing units. That is actually our biggest giveaway. And so all of us receive benefit of varying degrees from the federal government in order to support our housing costs and needs. And it really is the stigma, particularly the racialized and gendered stigma of public housing, as we think of it, the tall buildings, the empty lots that it has this negative connotation. But we all live in public housing.

Hannah McCarthy: So when we say subsidized housing in America, the typical association is with very low income renters [00:04:00] who qualify for government subsidized housing units or housing assistance vouchers from the government. But what Akira is saying is that the biggest subsidy is in mortgages for private homes. Anyway, for this episode, when we talk about public housing, we're talking about that last category that Akira described constructed public housing units, apartments and homes that the US government financed, the construction and provided for the management of.

Richard Rothstein: The federal government first got involved in housing in the New Deal. It first got involved with the creation of the first public housing in this country.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law.

Richard Rothstein: The first public housing in this country was created by the Public Works Administration, the first New Deal agencies. It created projects around the country, the first civilian public housing ever created in this country.

Nick Capodice: The New Deal. This is that period during and after the Great Depression, [00:05:00] when Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed a bunch of legislation through Congress to stop the U.S. essentially from going under. Yeah, and due to various financial and policy disasters, there were hundreds of thousands of people without jobs or homes. So FDR created a bunch of agencies and programs to help Americans survive and bring the economy back from the brink.

Archival: The legislation that has been passed is in the process of enactment, can properly be considered as part of a grounded, well rounded plan.

Hannah McCarthy: And infrastructure wise, we got the Public Works Administration. It spent billions of dollars to hire companies and administer projects across the country, and it built, among tons of other things, public housing, the very first being teakwood homes in Atlanta.

Nick Capodice: And the federal government had never been involved in housing like this before. This was the first time, right?

Hannah McCarthy: Public [00:06:00] housing was a brand new concept in the US, and when they came in, cranes blazing, the government made sure to include a crucial policy about the public homes that were being built. Here's Akira again.

Akira Drake Rodriguez: Public housing starts off as a segregated program. And so in the New Deal, which is when public housing begins in Atlanta, out of the sort of suite of programs and policies offered by Franklin Roosevelt, it is you know, we're going to build six public housing developments in Atlanta. Three of them will be for whites, three of them will be for African-Americans.

Nick Capodice: The federal government literally said that these homes are going to be segregated.

Richard Rothstein: This is public policy, administrative policy. And it began in the New Deal during the Roosevelt administration, during the Great Depression, because there was no federal involvement in housing prior to the New Deal.

Nick Capodice: Okay? This is policy, not law. Congress did not pass a law saying [00:07:00] heretofore housing shall be segregated in the United States. Nope.

Hannah McCarthy: Instead, this was the policy of the Public Works Administration or the PWA. Like an internal rule. Black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods. Black housing and white housing. But I do want to make it very clear this was a policy that was written down.

Nick Capodice: So this wasn't de facto segregation. This wasn't some sort of off the books way that people simply behaved due to bigotry and racism.

Hannah McCarthy: This was how the CWA operated. It was the federal government actively segregating people, bureaucrats deciding what housing of this kind should look like. It's just that housing of this kind hadn't existed before.

Richard Rothstein: So there was no opportunity for the federal government to impose segregation. There were many efforts at the local level and state levels to do it. And with the creation of the first [00:08:00] public housing in this country, everywhere it created it, it segregated it, creating separate projects for African-Americans, separate projects for whites, frequently segregating neighborhoods that hadn't previously been segregated.

Nick Capodice: As in the PWA wasn't just building segregated housing units. It was also segregating neighborhoods that had not been segregated before.

Hannah McCarthy: In some cases, the PWA would look at an integrated neighborhood and just designate it like this is now a black neighborhood, or this is now a white neighborhood. And then they would demolish the existing neighborhood and build in either all black or all white public housing development.

Nick Capodice: But how did the federal government justify this?

Richard Rothstein: In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration was established.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. We're going to do a quick zoom out here to figure out what happened. Are you with me?

Nick Capodice: Let's go.

Hannah McCarthy: Part of the New Deal was [00:09:00] to establish public housing. Another part of the New Deal was to help people buy homes. A big part of the financial system collapsed during the Great Depression is that people were defaulting on their mortgages left and right. The government passed the Federal Housing Act and created the Federal Housing Administration. Now, the FHA made a couple of things happen. For one thing, it changed the terms of mortgages. You could make smaller payments over a longer period of time.

Archival: And so they leave reluctantly, it seems, or they both would like to have this place for their very own. Too bad they can't afford it all. But maybe they can. Well, according to this sign, they can buy this house with monthly payments that are less than they now spend for rent.

Hannah McCarthy: For another, the FHA would insure mortgages.

Nick Capodice: Basically, even if someone did default, is it not pay their mortgage? The [00:10:00] federal government would have the mortgage lenders back, essentially protecting banks and other financial institutions. So we didn't end up in another financial mess all over again.

Hannah McCarthy: That's right. But they'd only insure mortgages in certain neighborhoods.

Richard Rothstein: It imposed a program of excluding African-Americans from neighborhoods where it was issuing mortgages or guaranteeing mortgages, rather, or insuring mortgages or where it was financing developers to build suburbs.

Hannah McCarthy: Nick, you asked for a justification for all of this, and there is one. It is on the books and everything that's coming up right after this break.

Nick Capodice: But before we go, I just want to remind everyone, it's tough to take something like public housing or an amendment or a foundational document and cram it into one digestible episode. We do our best, and it's the job of our very patient executive producer to just take out the stuff [00:11:00] that's a bit extraneous. But some people out there might like the extraneous stuff. If you are one of those people who likes ephemera and deep dives, you should definitely subscribe to our newsletter. It's called Extra Credit. It comes out every two weeks. It's fun, it's free, and you can sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy: We're back. This is Civics 101. And this is part one of a two parter on federal public housing part one policy. How did the United States government approach housing once it finally got itself involved?

Nick Capodice: And before the break, Hannah, you were telling me that the government had a reason. It had a justification for excluding black Americans from the housing assistance it was providing to white Americans. And so I want to know what exactly was that justification?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, the justification here, the reasoning behind generally not granting black Americans these insured [00:12:00] mortgages and new affordable homes was that black owned homes were thought to bring down the value of homes around them and that black owned homes because of that, were not the kind of thing that the federal government was generally going to insure. This becomes glaringly clear when developers start building the suburbs.

Richard Rothstein: The Federal Housing Administration began to finance developers build subdivisions in suburban areas, which really ramped up after World War Two, when millions of returning war veterans were coming home needing housing. The only way they could do it was by going to the Federal Housing Administration and then the Veterans Administration and both of those agencies required as a condition of their issuing bank guarantees for the loans that these developers needed to build the subdivisions as a condition that they never sell a home to an African American. And they [00:13:00] went so far as to say you couldn't even guarantee the bank loan for a developer was going to build an all white project if it was going to be located near where African Americans were. The Federal Housing Administration had a manual that laid this out. This wasn't the action of rogue bureaucrats. It was a policy written policy of the federal government.

Hannah McCarthy: This manual was distributed all over the country. And how does a home being owned by a black individual or family bring down its value? According to this manual, alongside the various factors that would make a neighborhood a bad financial investment. Environmental factors like smoke, odors and fog. This was an indicator.

Richard Rothstein: Infiltration by harmonious racial groups.

Nick Capodice: That language was explicitly in the manual.

Hannah McCarthy: It was. And let me just give you an example of what this looked like. There is this infamous dividing line in Detroit, Michigan, called Eight Mile Road. [00:14:00] To the south of Eight Mile Road was an historically black community. But white families began to settle closer and closer to that area, and suddenly neither black nor white families could secure FHA insured mortgages.

Nick Capodice: Because the FHA saw the threat of in harmonious racial groups, which was on its no loans list.

Hannah McCarthy: So a white developer looks at this issue and comes up with a solution. He builds a wall between the white area and the black area.

Nick Capodice: A literal wall.

Hannah McCarthy: Yes, literally, it is still there. Anyway, the wall goes up. In 1941, the FHA reappraised the white homes and lo and behold, it approved their mortgages.

Nick Capodice: But not the homes of the black families.

Richard Rothstein: In the 1930s, although there was a federal agency called the Homeowners Loan Corporation, which created maps of almost every major [00:15:00] city in the country. And the maps were designed to guide the federal agencies like the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration to where it was safe, low risk to make loans, guaranteed loans, I should say. The federal government doesn't make the loans. It guarantees the bank loans or insures them The areas where it was too risky to insure mortgages or loans to developers were color grid. And one of the criteria that the map developers used to decide which neighborhoods would be colored red was whether there were African-Americans living in it. Now banks follow the similar policy. It wasn't because of the maps, but the term redlining comes from these maps that the Home Mortgage Loan Corporation originally drew. And the redlining refers to the fact that there are neighborhoods where [00:16:00] the government, where banks were insurance companies won't support housing, but because they are black neighborhoods.

Nick Capodice: Okay, I've certainly heard of redlining, but I don't know if I've realized that there are actual physical maps with red lines drawn around areas, drawn around the homes that this loan corporation says are undesirable. And of course, undesirable in this case means in a black community. Was all this just totally out in the open?

Richard Rothstein: It was well known at the time. This is not the secret policy that the government was following. Certainly people who were directed to separate housing projects based on their race knew what was happening. Certainly people who bought homes where their deeds said that they couldn't sell or rent to an African-American knew what was happening. So this was a well known public policy. It was not something in the South, it was a national policy, and it was the cause of much of [00:17:00] the segregation that we have today. Without these policies, we would have much more integrated society today. But this was, as I say, it was done by the officials of the Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans Administration. It wasn't the single person who was dictating this. This was a widespread federal policy across several federal agencies, all the agencies that were involved in housing.

Nick Capodice: All right, Hannah. Just pause here for a minute. It's just that all of this, at first blush, sounds massively unconstitutional. Am I wrong about that?

Richard Rothstein: Well, it is unconstitutional. You can take as many blushes as you want. It's unconstitutional. The Supreme Court annihilated the intent of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution in 1866 following the adoption of the 13th Amendment, which [00:18:00] prohibited not only slavery but the characteristics of slavery, and authorized the federal government to implement that provision. In 1866, Congress passed the law prohibiting discrimination in housing, private or public. Prohibiting discrimination in housing. That law was amended a couple of times, and the Supreme Court eventually evaluated the 1893 and said it was unconstitutional.

Nick Capodice: The court said it was unconstitutional to prohibit discrimination in housing.

Hannah McCarthy: It took a very, very narrow view of the 13th and 14th Amendments, essentially saying these amendments cannot control individuals and they also only apply to literal enslavement. And eventually segregation would be deemed unconstitutional in various cases. But there's this really important point that Richard made when it comes to that desegregation, federal segregation in housing, as [00:19:00] in where people live, has a much more lasting effect than segregation in other spheres of life. Even after the court acknowledges that it is not constitutional.

Richard Rothstein: Once we've created segregation, it's hard to undo. You know, if you we had segregated restaurants and busses prior to the 1960s. We pass a law saying you can't segregate restaurants anymore. The next day, anybody can go to any restaurant. They pass a law saying you can't segregate neighborhoods. The next day, things would look much different.

Nick Capodice: Because housing doesn't change overnight. You don't just wake up the next day and move.

Hannah McCarthy: And the reasons why are bigger than, well, it's hard to integrate. When we segregated housing and who was allowed to have certain kinds of housing, the United States profoundly affected housing access for generations. Richard talks about this place called Levittown. It was this large FHA insured, all white, affordable development built for veterans returning from World [00:20:00] War Two.

Archival: Five years ago. This was a vast checkerboard of the. Bombs on New York's Long Island today. A community of 60,000 persons living in 15,000 homes all built by one firm. This is Levittown. One of the most remarkable housing developments ever conceived.

Richard Rothstein: The white returning war veterans, as well as other whites who were living in urban areas and wanting to move to these suburban homes, bought them for eight $9,000, $100,000. I'll use current dollars from now on, $100,000 in today's money. And they gained wealth over the next couple of generations as those homes appreciated the value. So you can't buy a home. Levittown today for $100,000. You can't buy a home in any of these suburbs for $100,000. They now cost, depending on the area of the country, at 203 hundred and 400,000. In some places, $1,000,000 in the more. So the white families gain wealth [00:21:00] from the appreciation of the value of their homes. They use that wealth to send their children to college. They use it to perhaps take care of medical emergencies or temporary employment. They use that to subsidize their own retirements, and they use it to bequeath wealth to their children and grandchildren. Who thou? Who then had down payments for their own homes. African-americans are prohibited from participating in this wealth generating program.

Hannah McCarthy: Desegregation in housing specifically. Eventually came the Fair Housing Act of 1968 said, okay. Black individuals and families can live in formerly white only neighborhoods. But that doesn't take care of the generational wealth gap between white families and black families, which was created in large part by racist housing policy.

Richard Rothstein: Levittown today is, [00:22:00] oh, about 2% African-American. There are some African-American families going abroad who could afford to buy $500,000 homes. But Levittown is located in an area is probably about 13 to 14% African-American.

Nick Capodice: Because if you essentially prohibit homeownership assistance to black families, then a huge part of the population can only rent for decades. They can't buy a home.

Hannah McCarthy: And owning a home is pretty much the best way to accumulate wealth over generations. You can take out loans and you can use your house as collateral. You can sell a home for way more than you bought it for and give some of that wealth to your family. But that path to wealth was closed to a lot of Americans.

Richard Rothstein: What the Fair Housing Act itself cannot fix. So it's possible to redress this, but it requires enormous financial commitment, subsidies to African American families [00:23:00] to move to places that they were unconstitutionally prohibited from living it.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So, Nick, that is the big picture When we talk about federal housing policy in the United States, when we talk about who got help and what kind and how. We need to understand that the process was steeped in racist segregationist policy, and that policy made home ownership more difficult for black Americans as it made it easier for white Americans. Many of the affordable homes built for white Americans following the Great Depression still stand today. But if some of the homes specifically built for black Americans, homes like the rental apartment projects of Atlanta, Georgia, many of them have been deemed a failure and razed to the ground. So now we are going to take a very specific and close look at federal housing in one city, Atlanta, [00:24:00] Georgia. That's in part two of federal Housing One City's Story. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with help from Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer, and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by Anemoia, Xylo-Ziko, Arthur Benson and Rockett Jr. You can listen to part two on federal housing in the United States, as well as the entirety of the rest of our catalog at Civics101podcast.org, where you will also find a bunch of other resources. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Federal Courts: Muhammad Ali and the Draft

This episode is the culmination of our series on famous federal court trials in US history. 

In April of 1967, Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) refused to step forward at a draft induction ceremony in Texas. His opposition to serving in Vietnam launched a sequence of trials and appeals that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It's a case about conscientious objection, protest, America's shifting views of the war, and how athletes have the unique role of "soldiers without a weapon."

This episode features Winston Bowman from the Federal Judicial Center, and Jeffrey Sammons from the NYU History Department. 

Support our show and our mission with a gift to Civics 101 today, it means the world to us.

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Transcript

Ali final

Archival: Friday in Houston was the champion's moment of truth. He showed up at the induction center but refused to step forward, bringing on the threat of prison and a shattered career.

Muhammad Ali: I'm not going to help nobody give something my Negroes don't have. If I die I'll die here right now,fighting you if I'm going to die, you my enemy. My enemy is the white people. Not Viet Congs or Chinese or Japanese, you my opposer, when I want freedom, you my opposer when I want justice, you my opposer when I want equality. You won't even stand [00:00:30] up for me in America for my religious beliefs. And you want me to go somewhere and fight. But you won't even stand up for me here at home.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: And this is Civics 101, the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. Today we are concluding our series on famous federal court trials with a trial that involves one of the most famous individuals in modern history. Some say one of the greatest.

Muhammad Ali: I told you all [00:01:00] that I was the greatest of all time.

Nick Capodice: Athletes in the world. The case is US V, Cassius Clay, aka Muhammad Ali.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, We're talking about the trial with heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refusing to serve in Vietnam, correct?

Nick Capodice: Right. And this case is not just about one individual's protest. It's about conscientious objection, the draft, religion, celebrity, and most importantly, the complicated relationship between athletes [00:01:30] and politics. And to take us through it all, Hannah, I got two titans of jurisprudence, as well as lovers of the sweet science of bruising. Can I use the salad bowl for this? All right, here we go.

Nick Capodice: In the right corner. Winston Bowman.

Winston Bowman: My name is Winston Bowman. I'm an Associate.... I'm sorry. I'll start that over. My name is Winston Bowman. I am an associate historian [00:02:00] with the Federal Judicial Center.

Nick Capodice: And in the left, Jeffrey Sammons.

Jeffrey Sammons: Yes. Jeffrey Sammons, professor Emeritus, Department of History, New York University. Well, I feel like a boxer coming out of retirement, and I have a lot of ring rust.

Hannah McCarthy: Nick, I know that you are a lover of Muhammad Ali. But before we get to the circumstances of the trial, can you give us a sort of quick bio on the guy?

Nick Capodice: Sure. Cassius [00:02:30] Marcellus Clay, and I'm going to get back to his name change a little later, he first learned to box as a kid in the 1950s. Now the story is that another kid stole his bicycle and Clay learned to box to get it back.

Jeffrey Sammons: So that's how he was introduced to boxing. Of course, he would become a very good amateur boxer and actually go to the Olympics in Rome.

Archival: But the most popular U.S.A. winner was the light Hearted Cashes Marcellus Clay, the fifth in [00:03:00] white here who easily defeated Poland's Zbigniew Rakowski.

Jeffrey Sammons: And won a gold medal and became quite the celebrity as a result of that. And then there's this story that after he comes back, he realizes that he's just the same black guy that he was before in terms of how the people in Kentucky and perhaps the wider United States viewed him.

Muhammad Ali: I went and got my gold medal, went back in order to cheeseburgers, [00:03:30] and they said, I'm sorry, we we don't serve Negroes. I say, I don't eat em either, just give me two cheeseburgers. And she said, You're getting smart. She called him manager and he said, Somebody, I don't care who he is. She says, Cassius Clay, okay.

Jeffrey Sammons: And the story is that he tossed his gold medal into whatever that river is that runs through Louisville. So then he becomes a professional boxer. He's seen as the sort of Johnny Appleseed figure spreading [00:04:00] boxing, which is kind of a bit in the doldrums.

Nick Capodice: Jeffrey told me that lovers of the sport of boxing are always looking for a hero, a champion to elevate the sport. And the heavyweight champion at that time was a boxer named Sonny Liston.

Jeffrey Sammons: And Sonny Liston had these ties to organized crime. In fact, he was known as an enforcer of four of the Mafia in Saint Louis in the 1950s [00:04:30] that, you know, those who owed loans, etc., to the Mafia, they would send Liston after them. So when we see Rocky, you know, doing the same thing, they're borrowing on, I think Sonny Liston's real example.

Archival: Did I give you a job this morning or didn't I? So why don't you break his thumbs like I told you to? When you don't do what I tell you to do, you make me look bad, Rock.

Jeffrey Sammons: And when this young, brash, [00:05:00] handsome, clever Cassius Clay comes along, then Madison Avenue, the boxing establishment, say this is our savior of the sport. And of course, the sport is always looking for some kind of savior. But at the same time, revealing that he is a member of the Nation of Islam. And the boxing establishment would rather have somebody identified with [00:05:30] the mafia than with the Nation of Islam.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Can we talk a little bit about the Nation of Islam?

Nick Capodice: Absolutely. Very briefly, because it's a big organization with the big history, the Nation of Islam, which is not the same thing as the religion of Islam, which is the one that about 2 billion people across the world practice. The Nation of Islam is a religious, social and political organization that was founded in the 1930s. Malcolm X was their spokesperson at this time, the Nation of Islam differs significantly [00:06:00] from the central tenets of Islam and was and remains to this day, a very controversial organization.

Jeffrey Sammons: But it also condemned black people who they saw as kind of wedded to the legacy of of of slavery and also railed against whites. It also called for the separation of the races. And interestingly, Malcolm X would actually meet with members of [00:06:30] the Ku Klux Klan at some point because both agreed upon the need for the separation of the races.

Nick Capodice: Clay made a public announcement in 1964 that he had converted and he was a member of the Nation of Islam. He first changed his name to Cassius X, citing that Clay was a name passed down to him through his family's former enslavers, and soon after that he adopted the new name Muhammad Ali.

Hannah McCarthy: Wasn't there some famous fight where there was someone who kept [00:07:00] calling Ali, Clay and Ali would hit him and say, What's my name?

Nick Capodice: Yeah, that was Ernie Terrell, 1966. This was a few months before the draft induction ceremony that's going to launch this case.

Archival: Why don't you call me my name, man? Well, what's your name? You told me your name was Cassius Clay a few years ago. You? My name was Cassius Clay. My name is Muhammad Ali. And you will announce it right there in the center of that ring. After the fight, if you don't do it now.

Jeffrey Sammons: So. So with Terrell, he just. He refused to knock him out. He just kept basically hitting [00:07:30] him in ways that that would punish him but not finish him off.

Archival: Terrell is now being examined by a commission doctor. What impels a man to go out there? His pride and always the fact that he has the chance. He still has a chance.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. Let's pivot to the Vietnam War. You've got President Eisenhower bringing Americans into the conflict in Vietnam in 1955. When do people start to get drafted to fight? [00:08:00]

Nick Capodice: Now, this is tricky because the famous first draft lottery for Vietnam was in 1969, But that was a new way of doing things. Before the lottery system, everyone who had registered for the Selective Service, which is almost all males between the ages of 18 and 25, were evaluated by a draft board and either drafted or not due to their individual circumstances. Muhammad Ali was indeed registered for the Selective Service, but he was not a candidate for conscription until 1966. [00:08:30]

Hannah McCarthy: Why is that?

Nick Capodice: I'm going to bring back Winston Bowman for this one.

Winston Bowman: The reason for that is that although Ali signed up for the the draft, his test scores were initially too low to make an eligible for the military. And a lot of people are sort of incredulous about this at the time because he seems like such a bright guy, but he actually wasn't a terribly sort of dedicated student.

Nick Capodice: Ali, in fact, joked to some reporters by saying, I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.

Winston Bowman: What [00:09:00] happens is that in February of 1966, the Army gets more desperate for soldiers and lowers the test scores necessary. So that's actually what makes Ali eligible for the draft.

Nick Capodice: At this time, Ali makes public his intent to refuse to serve. He files for conscientious objector status and makes a famous statement.

Muhammad Ali: I will not go 10,000 miles from here to help murder [00:09:30] and kill a lot of poor people simply to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker peoples of the earth.

Winston Bowman: And that triggers this sort of administrative proceeding where basically the Department of Justice and the FBI conduct a background investigation on him to ascertain whether he meets these three criteria.

Nick Capodice: So [00:10:00] let's talk about conscientious objector status. You can claim it and refuse to serve if your beliefs oppose war, but only if you indeed meet three criteria. And they've changed a little bit since then. But these were the criteria in the 1960s. Number one, your belief must be sincere. Number two, that belief must be religious in nature. And number three, that religious compunction must be against serving in all wars, not just the [00:10:30] one you were drafted for. So Ali applies for this status. A judge in Kentucky reviews it and finds he does meet the criteria and refers his findings to the Department of Justice.

Winston Bowman: The DOJ looks at that information, but ultimately they make a recommendation to the body that whose word is law, The draft board that he should be denied conscientious objector status. And they say that he actually fails all three of the criteria.

Hannah McCarthy: All [00:11:00] right. Hang on. Let me make sure that I've got this right. Ali claims conscientious objector status. All such claims are reviewed by a judge. A judge reviews Ali's claim and finds it perfectly legitimate. But the judge also sends it to the Department of Justice. And the DOJ disagrees with that finding.

Nick Capodice: Exactly.

Hannah McCarthy: Why.

Winston Bowman: They say that he's you know, this isn't a sincere belief because he's really only asserted it since he became eligible for the draft [00:11:30] and it became an imminent possibility. They say that it's not a religious belief because the Nation of Islam is not fundamentally a religious organization that is beliefs of basically racial and political, that he doesn't want to fight in a white man's war. And then as a final part, they say that his beliefs are inherently selective about the kinds of war that he does and doesn't want to fight in.

Nick Capodice: Now, the draft appeal board could hypothetically go against the [00:12:00] DOJ's opinion, but they do not. The Appeal Board rejects his claim for conscientious objector status, but they don't give the reason why. And this is important for later, I promise. So Muhammad Ali is summoned to a now famous induction ceremony in Houston, Texas, held on April 28th, 1967.

Winston Bowman: And they're lined up and they all have to take a step forward when their name is called to indicate that they are going to join the military. And when it comes to [00:12:30] Muhammad Ali's turn, at first they call out his formal legal name, Cassius Clay, and he does not respond at that point. They call out his his taken name, Muhammad Ali. And again, he he doesn't take the symbolic step forward. And at that point, then he's taken in by military authorities and later indicted for draft evasion.

Archival: Former world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay refused to take the oath of induction into the Army. The Black Muslim [00:13:00] fighter, who is also known as Muhammad Ali, was immediately stripped of his title by the World Boxing Association. Clay insisted that he is an ordained minister and should be exempt. Clay also charges race discrimination by the Houston draft board. He faces federal prosecution and a possible five year prison sentence plus $10,000 fine.

Hannah McCarthy: What happens next? Does he go to jail? Was he fined?

Nick Capodice: Well, what happens next is a political and religious battle that takes years to complete. And we're going to walk you through all of it [00:13:30] and the reverberations surrounding the clash of politics and athleticism that ring to this very day right after this break.

Hannah McCarthy: But first, if you want to know more about everything we do on the show that's on and off the mic, that sort of thing is in our newsletter, Extra Credit. And I will bet $100 the next one will include Nick telling you why When We Were Kings is the best documentary ever made.

Nick Capodice: That's easy money, Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy: You can sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy: We're [00:14:00] back. This is Civics 101. We're talking about US v Clay, the court case regarding Muhammad Ali's refusal to serve in Vietnam. So Nick, Ali files for conscientious objector status. That claim is ultimately denied. He is summoned to an induction ceremony where he refuses to step forward when his name is called. So what happens next.

Nick Capodice: A lot happens to Ali and it [00:14:30] happens very quickly. Here's Jeffrey Sammons again.

Jeffrey Sammons: Immediately after he refuses induction. So even before there's a trial, they strip him of his boxing license and in some instances of his title, he's basically becomes eventually deprived of a right to make a living as as a boxer.

Nick Capodice: Muhammad Ali was approached by numerous officials and told things along the lines of, well, you don't have to fight the war necessarily. [00:15:00] You can just go over there for morale. Do some boxing, give some speeches, that sort of thing. But Ali flat out refused over and over no matter what.

Muhammad Ali: Well, shoot them for what? How am I going to shoot them? Little and poor Black people. Little babies and children and women. How can I shoot them poor people. Just take me to jail.

Jeffrey Sammons: And he said that he was actually willing to face a firing squad to die rather than to violate his principles, to fight [00:15:30] in, you know, a kind of nationalistic war and especially one against another people of color. And that's the thing that Ali also saw of himself as a member of a global nonwhite majority.

Hannah McCarthy: He said he would rather face a firing squad than go to Vietnam.

Nick Capodice: He did. He said he was prepared to go to prison or even die instead of going to Vietnam to fight in that war. [00:16:00]

Jeffrey Sammons: His famous statement was that he had no quarrel in his war with them Viet Cong. And he actually also wrote a poem about about that.

Hannah McCarthy: He wrote a poem about it?

Nick Capodice: He did.

Hannah McCarthy: Can I hear it?

Nick Capodice: Sure.

Jeffrey Sammons: Keep asking me, no matter how long on the war in Vietnam, I sing this song, I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, [00:16:30] how did the American public react to his refusal?

Nick Capodice: The reaction fluctuated quite a lot over the years, and it's important thing to consider when we talk about this case. Now we watch movies and documentaries and videos of protest, and it's easy to think that the Vietnam War was always deeply unpopular, which it eventually was. But initially, when Ali refuses, the war is much more popular. Here's [00:17:00] Winston Bowman again.

Winston Bowman: At the time that he first comes out against the war in 1966, he is widely criticized for it and really kind of made persona non grata. Even individuals like Jackie Robinson, a very critical of him for taking this stance, basically saying, you know, you're happy to take all the advantages from American society but not willing to sign up to fight for the country.

Archival: And the tragedy [00:17:30] to me is that Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he's not willing to show his appreciation to a country that is giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.

Winston Bowman: I think it's also true that Ali's very kind of bombastic persona plays against him initially, that he does not fit the archetype of what most particularly white middle class Americans want from their sports [00:18:00] heroes at the time, right? He's sort of this larger than life character who will not be cowed. And a lot of people at the time talk about Ali as sort of getting above his station.

Hannah McCarthy: Which is patently racist.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, And Winston told me that racism was a huge part of what he called, towards Ali, a roiling cauldron of growing unpopularity.

Winston Bowman: And in fact, the files for the draft board are filled with hate mail from people saying, [00:18:30] Why haven't you drafted this person yet? Why hasn't he been charged, etc., etc.. Much of it is, you know, very clearly racially motivated. But certainly there's a widespread sense that he is a deeply unpopular figure at the time he comes up for trial.

Nick Capodice: June 16th, 1967. The trial of US V Clay begins, and this trial is over quickly.

Winston Bowman: The [00:19:00] trial takes two days. There's only a handful of witnesses called by each side, and the prosecution basically consists of calling a handful of military officers who saw that Ali was called at this ceremony, refused to step forward.

Nick Capodice: Ali's attorney argues that Ali should be considered a minister for the Nation of Islam. There was an exception for ministers. Ministers did not have to serve.

Winston Bowman: The judge sort of laughs this out of court and says, well, [00:19:30] I happen to know he's the world champion boxer. So clearly he has more on his hands than being a minister. As far as the Department of Justice's recommendations go, Ali's lawyers don't strenuously contest them. And this is probably a mistake. The jury only takes 20 minutes to deliberate and returns a guilty verdict.

Nick Capodice: The jury, six men, six women, all white, gives their verdict to the judge, who in turn gives Ali the maximum [00:20:00] possible sentence. Five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Ali's lawyers ask the judge, Judge Ingraham, for a lighter sentence, like probation or 18 months, as other people had gotten. But the judge flat out refused. Interestingly, there were about 500,000 men accused of draft violations during the Vietnam War, but only 8700 were convicted.

Hannah McCarthy: It's so interesting. This is probably one of the few instances that [00:20:30] the entire American public came to understand what happens when you don't give in to the draft.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's like here's the repercussion.

Hannah McCarthy: So did he go to jail?

Nick Capodice: He did not. Ali's legal team immediately started the appeal process and he was allowed out on bail, but he had to pay the fine as well as the significantly greater legal expense fees. But he was not allowed to box anymore. He couldn't box in the US and he wasn't allowed to fly out of the country to fight in other countries. Here's Jeffrey Sammons again.

Jeffrey Sammons: He [00:21:00] had to go on speaking tours to to support himself. And actually, I was a student at Rutgers when he came to Rutgers and gave a speech which I attended because I had been this enormous Ali fan. And, you know, it was amazing to to to see and hear him in in person.

Hannah McCarthy: So there's something specific to athletes that I really want to talk about here, [00:21:30] especially when it comes to being told they cannot compete due to legal issues or even injury. How old was Ali at this point? Was he in his twenties?

Nick Capodice: Yeah, he was 25.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So those are his prime boxing years, right? Every year that he cannot fight is a year that he can't get back.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. And this takes a few years. He appeals to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals and he loses. And you know where you go next if you lose a circuit court appeal, right.

Hannah McCarthy: I sure do, the very top.

Winston Bowman: So they initially appealed to [00:22:00] the Supreme Court in 1968. And I think most people, although it's impossible to know with 100% certainty, would say that the court would have been unlikely to take the case in 1968. But what happens is that three days after they file for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, there's a scandal in the FBI.

Hannah McCarthy: A scandal?

Nick Capodice: Yeah, an illegal wiretapping scandal.

Winston Bowman: And it turns out that the FBI has been running a series [00:22:30] of programs where they're legally surveilling domestic political groups, including the Nation of Islam.

Jeffrey Sammons: Some of the information that is used in the case is gained by wiretaps on Martin Luther King Junior's phone authorized by Bobby Kennedy. So it shows people that we would come to believe as liberal and progressive, are determined to support [00:23:00] and protect and defend the war effort.

Winston Bowman: And it turns out that Ali had five illegal wiretaps during the pendency of of his case. So what happens is that the Supreme Court remands Ali's case and a series of other appeals back to the trial courts to see if that illegally obtained information had what they call tainted the trial in any way.

Nick Capodice: Remand, by the way, means it's not ruled [00:23:30] upon, but it's sent back to the lower court with new information. So the case goes back to that first judge in Houston to determine if the prosecution's case had been tainted by these illegal wiretaps. And this is a long hearing. The judge listens to the wiretaps in his chambers, and he eventually rules that while these taps were indeed illegal, they did not taint the prosecution's case and his previous ruling stood.

Hannah McCarthy: So Ali is still found guilty after all of this.

Nick Capodice: After all this. Absolutely. But contrary [00:24:00] to how it affects someone's boxing career in this instance, time is on his side. This wiretap issue delayed the whole process. And Ali appeals to the Supreme Court yet again. But now it's 1971.

Archival: Some 175,000 people from all walks of life with differing ideologies and purposes marched from the White House to the Capitol. Washington has grown accustomed to [00:24:30] this method of voicing dissent, though larger than most. This was an organized demonstration with parade permits...Marshals and responsible leadership...

Winston Bowman: And by that time, the whole draft process itself has come under much greater scrutiny. There's a widespread sense that the draft is unfair, that it disproportionately affects particularly [00:25:00] African-American, but also other minority groups and poor whites, because they're unable to claim college exemptions and things like this. There are reforms made to the draft machinery, but the Supreme Court, I think it's fair to say, is more concerned to show that it is also ensuring the fairness of that process.

Nick Capodice: The court decides to take the case and the arguments are heard. In April 1971, four years after Ali had [00:25:30] refused to take that step forward at the induction ceremony in Texas.

Archival: Number 783 Clay against the United States. Mr. Eskridge. You may proceed whenever you're ready...Mr. Chief Justice. And may it please the court.

Nick Capodice: Ali's advocate argues to the 8 justices that the denial of his conscientious objector status was invalid.

Hannah McCarthy: Hang on. You said eight justices. You mean nine justices?

Nick Capodice: No, [00:26:00] there was one missing.

Winston Bowman: What the reason that there's eight justices is that Thurgood Marshall, who's a relatively recent appointee, was solicitor general at the time that all these prosecution was taking place. And so he recuses himself.

Hannah McCarthy: You're telling me that the one Black justice on the court could not weigh in on a case in which race is a major factor?

Nick Capodice: He could not. And initially the justices were set to vote 5 to 3 against Ali, upholding that initial conviction in Texas. [00:26:30] But something happens before the opinions are written.

Jeffrey Sammons: One of the justices, John Marshall Harlan, is introduced by a clerk to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and comes to believe that Ali is truly a conscientious objector on the basis of religion, that his beliefs are sincere.

Hannah McCarthy: John Marshall Harlan In the Seventies,

Nick Capodice: Yeah,

Hannah McCarthy: Because there was a John Marshall Harlan before that too.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, so this one is sometimes called [00:27:00] John Marshall Harlan 2. He is the grandson of the other Supreme Court John Marshall Harlan, That is the justice who was the lone dissenter in the Plessy v Ferguson case.

Jeffrey Sammons: So he changes his his vote and makes the count four four. If it's at four four, then the lower court rulings would be upheld. There would be no opinion. Ali would never know what happened.

Nick Capodice: And some on the court believed that no opinion [00:27:30] would cause an absolute maelstrom of protests in opposition.

Jeffrey Sammons: And I forgot to mention, remember, you know, we had the assassination of Martin Luther King in 68 and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in the same year, riots across the country. So the court is really fearful of contributing to social unrest. There was a fear that if Ali were acquitted on the basis of [00:28:00] being a conscientious objector because of his membership in the Nation of Islam or even his ministerial role, that the Nation of Islam would grow enormously because Blacks would join in droves. Right. So and its strength would also grow because of that. And it was a feared organization. On the other hand, if it votes to [00:28:30] uphold the conviction of Ali, this is going to make Ali into this incredible living martyr and is going to release potential new hell on the streets of of the United States.

Hannah McCarthy: So the court does not want to leave it to a 4 to 4, because in a 4 to 4, there's no opinion issued. Right. Which means like no transparency, this whole Supreme Court case about Muhammad Ali and we never get to hear about what actually happened. And there would be protests in the street. [00:29:00] They don't want to endorse the Nation of Islam by acquitting Ali, and they don't want to imprison him because he would then be seen as a martyr. So how do they actually rule?

Nick Capodice: Now, it might be silly to call it a TKO, but Justice Potter Stewart, you'll know when you see him, found a technicality. He found a way to frame the question so none of those things happened. Hannah, you remember like 20 minutes ago when I told you that Ali filed for [00:29:30] conscientious objector status, it was approved, the DOJ reviewed it, and they disagreed and advised the draft appeal Board to deny his claim. And they did?

Hannah McCarthy: I do.

Nick Capodice: Well, while the DOJ explained their reasons why they felt it should be denied, the draft board who made the actual decision never explained their reasoning. They just denied his claim. And Justice Potter Stewart tries to convince the other seven justices to go along with him to make that the reason the denial should be invalid.

Hannah McCarthy: So they can say that that tiny [00:30:00] step in this whole saga was flawed and therefore Ali is not guilty.

Nick Capodice: Exactly. And none of their feared repercussions happened. It's just a dry technical misstep and it works. The decision is unanimous. 8 to 0 in favor of Ali. So after learning about the circuitous path this case took over the course of four years, I asked [00:30:30] Winston, Why does he teach this case? Why is it important? What does U.S. V Clay tell us about the judiciary?

Winston Bowman: For me, this case illustrates nicely the difficulty the government can sometimes have in distilling people's beliefs down into something that's sort of legible to the bureaucracy, right? The government is very good at things that fit a check box and very bad [00:31:00] at sort of messiness. And when you're talking about religious ideas and beliefs fitting into particular categories, that could be very difficult for legal organizations to deal with.

Hannah McCarthy: There's another reason why this case is so important, and it's something that you brought up earlier that still is going on today. It's this unique relationship of celebrities, specifically athletes to political discourse.

Archival: Wouldn't you [00:31:30] love to see one of these NFL owners...When somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that ______ off the field right now, Out. He's fired. Fired.

Nick Capodice: When I spoke to Jeff before the interview, he said something to me on the phone I could not get out of my head. He said, An athlete is a soldier without a weapon. They are representatives of the might of a nation. [00:32:00]

Jeffrey Sammons: And that athletes were always supposed to be loyal and patriotic and supportive of the government and and especially because they had benefited so much from an American meritocracy as as as as it were. So they were upheld as the symbols that if you apply yourself, you have discipline, determination that you can make it [00:32:30] anywhere. You know, this is happening in sport, and sport is such a crucial element to upholding sort of the American system that this notion of hegemony, of that, that's not control from the top, but it springs up from all these institutions in which people believe and in the values of the nation. And sport is an important bolsterer of that system.

Nick Capodice: To put it plainly, when [00:33:00] we look at the long history in America of athletes being chastised or punished for acts of protest, it is almost without exception, Black athletes. Jackie Robinson wrote in his memoir that he never could sing or stand for the national anthem. And over 70 years later, Colin Kaepernick didn't have his contract renewed to the 49 ERs for doing exactly that, refusing to stand, and later kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality.

Jeffrey Sammons: Kaepernick [00:33:30]. He'll never play professional football again, and it shows the influence that Ali had, but also how the reaction to the engagement of athletes and politics hasn't changed, that they're still punishing. Kaepernick is not the first one. There was the player for the Chicago [00:34:00] Bulls who wore a dashiki to an event at the White House. He also presented Bush some list of grievances, and he was never seen in the NBA again. Or the gentleman who played for the Denver Rockets who refused to stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick saw the example of Ali and John Carlos and Tommie Smith [00:34:30] and decided to use his standing as a star athlete and the platform of football to take a stand and and paid a very heavy price for. So that is a sort of cautionary tale. And that's the other thing I want to say about Ali, that that that he took on America in ways that no one else did, that that he opposed basic, so [00:35:00] called ideals and values, or at least that failure to live up to them. But he was acting sort of truly on Black terms and not willing to go along with the system. That brings up one other thing, too, that Ali had more of a support system, as it were, although he was out there all alone in some respects and paid a heavy personal price. I think the society was very [00:35:30] different than in terms of of activism.

Nick Capodice: Jeff mentioned that in the 1960s it wasn't just the Nation of Islam that backed Ali. They were part of the Black Power movement, along with SNIC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers.

Jeffrey Sammons: He wasn't out of step with those people, that's for sure. You know, they had his back in a kind of, you know, you're our man. We're really behind you. You are now the people's [00:36:00] champ. He lost, you know, money and his prime as a result. But he he became a transcendent figure because of his of his, you know, principled stand.

Archival: He's exercising his constitutional right to make a statement. I think there's a long history of sports figures doing so.

Archival: The United States leads the Olympics in medal awards [00:36:30] and is just about supreme in the Sprint races. Thanks to men like Tommie Smith and John Carlos, it started with the news that the Black Power Disciples, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Olympic 200 meters gold and bronze medalists had been suspended by the United States Olympic Committee and given 48 hours to leave Mexico. I had said that if there were any demonstrations at the Olympic Games, by anyone, the participants would be sent home. President Trump tweeted the Kaepernick had sent a terrible message. The NFL had this to say. The social [00:37:00] justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action. Two very different points of view.

Nick Capodice: That’s US v Cassius Clay, and hey! Before we say who we are and whose music we used in this episode, Massive, massive thanks to our friends at the Federal Judicial Center for the idea of making a series on federal court cases. It was a delight from stem to stern. So special thanks to Catherine Hawke at the American bar Association, Christine Lamberson from the FJC, and the GOAT of the ABA as far as civics 101 is concerned, the infinitely supportive Frank Valadez. [00:38:00]

Nick Capodice: This episode was made by me Nick Capodice with you Hannah McCarthy. Jacqui Fulton is our producer, Christina Phillips our Senior Producer and Rebecca Lavoie our Executive Producer. Music in this episode by a lot of the old greats, Bio Unit, Cycle Hiccups, The New Fools, AGST, Dreem, Peter Sandberg, Autohacker, Fabien Tell, Peerless, From Now On, Carlton Lees, Ikmashoo Aoi, Jesse Gallagher, Scanglobe, Needledrop Sessions, and the reigning Civics 101 middleweight champion of being used in our episodes, Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, NHPR. Here's George Carlin.

Archival: Big fight coming up, Ali [00:38:30] and Frazier. Muhammad Ali. I call him Muhammad Ali because that's what he wants. Of course, he had a strange job, beating people up. Government wanted him to change jobs. Government wanted him to kill people. He thought it over and he said, No, that's where I draw the line. [00:39:00] I'll beat him up but I don't want to kill em. And the government told them, Well, if you won't kill em, we won't let you beat them up!

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Last State To Hold Out Against Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is publicly revered across the nation, a symbol of civil and human rights worthy of a memorial holiday. Federal and state legislatures have agreed to honor this man. But that agreement took awhile. The final state to acquiesce, New Hampshire, resisted the holiday until 1999. The story of that resistance reveals a public sentiment about King and the Black Freedom Struggle that is far from the reverence of today. This is the story of how a man becomes a national symbol, and the fight to make that so.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy, and today we are doing something a little different. There is a reporter and producer here at New Hampshire Public Radio where we make Civics 101 named Jack Rodolico And for the past little while, Jack has been reporting out what I consider a really interesting, good story specifically. And I'm not going to bury the lead here. This is the story of how Martin Luther King Jr Day came to be a holiday at the federal level and in every state across the country. And the thing about this particular holiday is that it did not happen overnight, nor did it happen without a fight. And the most epic of those fights, the longest resistance to the holiday honoring Dr. King. It happened right here where we make this podcast. Jack got the details. Hello,

Hannah McCarthy: Jack Rodolico.

Jack Rodolico: Hello. It's good to be here with you.

Hannah McCarthy: It's good to have you here.

Jack Rodolico: I'm an honored I am honored to be a guest.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm an honor.

Jack Rodolico: I can't call myself an honor. That's not how that works. But I am honored to be here.

Hannah McCarthy: We are honored to have [00:01:00] you. And you have a story for us today.

Jack Rodolico: Yeah. Okay. So this is a story of MLK Day. Yep. How it became a thing. So there's this fact about New Hampshire that I have known for a long time, and it's honestly something that I found unsettling about this place where I have chosen to live. And I finally got to the point where I just needed to understand it. There's a story there, and I wanted to know what it was behind this fact. The fact is New Hampshire was the 50th state to recognize Martin Luther King Jr Day, the last state to do it.

Hannah McCarthy: When you say the last state, like, how long did this take?

Jack Rodolico: Well, New Hampshire, how long did it take? It was not a close race. It was not a close race. I mean, something like a decade and a half after the federal government, something like more than a decade after most states recognized MLK Day, that's [00:02:00] when New Hampshire got on board.

Hannah McCarthy: Why did it go down that way?

Jack Rodolico: I thought I wanted to know. And I think the most natural place to start is with a guy named Harvey Key. Introduce yourself.

Harvey Keye: My name is Harvey Kaye. I am a human rights activist. Period.

Jack Rodolico: Now, you were born.

Harvey Keye: In Birmingham, right? Yeah, 1932.

Jack Rodolico: So Harvey Key is 90 years old. He is like an extremely active 90 year old gentleman, still involved in the community, still involved in politics in different ways. He's the head of the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission, among other things.

Hannah McCarthy: So he was born in Birmingham. Now he's living in New Hampshire. Yeah. When did he come up here?

Jack Rodolico: Yeah, Harvey came up here with this family in the seventies. He raised his kids here. But Birmingham is what made Harvey Key who he is. The MLK story that you're about to hear. Harvey has told this before. In [00:03:00] fact, he once told it before the New Hampshire state legislature back in 1999. Harvey was a state rep at that time. As a little.

Harvey Keye: Boy, I could not walk the streets and look white people in the eye because that was a threat to white people. I could be arrested for disorderly conduct. I could not shine shoes on the street. I could not deliver paper on the streets.

Jack Rodolico: Harvey goes up deep in the Jim Crow South.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, so this is this era following the end of reconstruction, right where there are all of these laws in a lot of former Confederate states and some border states that basically codified a racial caste system, they were anti Black, anti enfranchisement laws that dictated a whole swath of behaviors for how Black people in America would have to act.

Jack Rodolico: Yes. And enforced with state violence and vigilante violence.

Harvey Keye: As a young man, I saw many shootings [00:04:00] of colored men who supposedly had stolen something from a store and shot in the back by white policemen. For a long time. I found it difficult to look people in the eye. Sometimes I find it difficult now. At age 14. I had no self esteem. I didn't have much hope for being anybody. So I became a game gang leader. I was put in jail at age 15 for assault and battery with attempted murder.

Jack Rodolico: So Harvey is on this very precarious course as a young man. He's dejected, he's angry, and he's surrounded by violence against Black men like him. So he starts to respond with a bit of violence himself. That's how he describes it. At the same time, he wasn't entirely without hope and positive examples of what his life could become. He has Black role models. [00:05:00] He has Black teachers at school, people who give him some hope that he can have a future.

Harvey Keye: My mother had a fourth grade education and she said to me one time, If they can, you can. Well, I don't know what that meant at that time. I know now.

Jack Rodolico: Despite setbacks, despite being jailed at 15, Harvey gets out of jail and starts to do really well in school. He is very smart, very studious. He goes on to college and to grad school. He develops a stronger sense of self. But as an adult in Birmingham, he still has this hot coal of anger in his chest because whenever he tries to assert his rights or even just dream about his future, he cannot do it. He can't vote.

Harvey Keye: Told me if I wanted to vote, I had to count the number of beads in a jar.

Jack Rodolico: He can't get a job.

Harvey Keye: And I had a degree in pre-med. He said I had too much education. It didn't have enough. I don't know whatever they said, but I couldn't [00:06:00] get a job.

Jack Rodolico: He even joined the army and fought in Korea. But there he got no relief from the racism all around him. He tells this story about waiting in line at the mess hall.

Harvey Keye: One of the soldiers says, Why don't you get back there where you belong? Uniform on. Same troop. And he had the nerve to say, get in the back where you belong.

Jack Rodolico: And so after the Korean War, Harvey comes back to Birmingham and he's just getting fed up. You know, he has a lower tolerance and he's not easily intimidated. He starts carrying a gun and he says that he was ready to use it if he had to. And just as Harvey has taken all that he can. Martin Luther King Jr is about to advance the front line of the Black freedom struggle to Harvey's hometown of Birmingham. So in the spring of 1963, King and [00:07:00] other leaders of the Black Freedom struggle descend on Birmingham.

Archival: It was against this background That Dr. King was asked what he meant when he said that achievement of a breakthrough in Birmingham.

Could crack the whole South.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Well, Birmingham is a symbol of hardcore resistance to integration. It is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. And they just had more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: And in a city in The United States.

Jack Rodolico: There is this campaign to desegregate the city. And King and others at the time said, you know, so goes Birmingham, so goes the country potentially. Right? That was the idea. And it's this 63 is this whiplash window of time in Birmingham. A lot of things that we might know about from history books happened in this like six month period. There were hundreds of arrests.

Archival: Arrests were made in mass lots. Everyone charged with the same offense parading without a permit. [00:08:00] The Negroes had asked for permits and had been denied them.

Jack Rodolico: King's letter from a Birmingham jail he wrote that year. There was a children's march where kids were blasted with fire hoses. These are images of the civil rights movement that many people have seen attacked by police dogs. There was even that church bombing where four little girls were murdered at a church.

Archival: And they died in Birmingham at the 16th Street Baptist Church, rallying point of the Negro drive in the nation's most segregated big city. Dynamite exploded on a Sunday morning, killed four little girls in Sunday school, injured 20 other Negro.

Jack Rodolico: So through all this, there is this one place in the city that serves as a hub for all of this civil rights activity for King and other activists. It's called the AG Gaston Motel.

Harvey Keye: It's the only motel in the city of Birmingham [00:09:00] that allowed colored folks Negroes to spend the night.

Jack Rodolico: Now, Harvey didn't ever spend a night there, but there was a hotel bar, which was one of the only places he and his friends could drink.

Harvey Keye: We used to have a few cool ones, I think. You know what I mean? On this one day we were having a cool one and Martin Luther King was having a conference with some of his SLC leaders or members. And shortly after, a big bomb blew a hole in the wall.

Jack Rodolico: The day in 1963 after the city and protesters announce a truce. Someone detonates a bomb at the A.G. Gaston Motel. It's an explosion. It tears through the building, actually just below the room where King and others were organizing.

Harvey Keye: And me and my boys were ready to go after them because we were tough and young and not too smart. But we were ready to pick up [00:10:00] anything. We had to go and get the guys and kill them.

Jack Rodolico: Now, before Harvey acts on this impulse, which could very likely get him killed for whatever reason, before he does, he decides to do something else. He's heard about this man, Dr. King.

Harvey Keye: You know, he was just a preacher, you know.

Jack Rodolico: And he goes to this press conference to hear King speak, and he says he was electrified. That was his word, electrified. And after the speech, he talks to.

Harvey Keye: King and he could see the anger on our face. He said, hey, where are you going? What are you doing? And we said, we're going to go and get him. He said, No, that's not the way we do it. And he gave us some other kind of a soap story that would mean a soft soap. In other words, you you That's not the way we're going to fight this battle.

Jack Rodolico: However, you cannot quote what [00:11:00] Dr. King said to him in that moment. Harvey does remember exactly how it made him feel.

Harvey Keye: And he didn't say it, that I can't remember exactly what he said, but whatever he said changed. It was impressive enough that I didn't carry a gun anymore.

Jack Rodolico: But something like that. Did it change?

Harvey Keye: It changed.

Jack Rodolico: But you didn't even know who he was.

Harvey Keye: Didn't know he was.

Jack Rodolico: He was just that charismatic.

Harvey Keye: Yes.

Jack Rodolico: In this moment, Harvey was sort of looking off into the distance. And I swear it felt like for a moment he was back in 1963, this young man on the verge of vengeance with all of these emotions standing in front of Dr. King and changing. And he just froze up while we were talking. It feels like you're there. Yeah. Excuse me.

Harvey Keye: Yeah. It's [00:12:00] tough. It's hard to think. That other human beings treated us so poorly. But I was changed from feeling the hate about how I was treated as a youngster in Birmingham, but I was changed instantly a better off because I carry I want to say it this way. He never said this. A pocket full of happiness. Wherever I go now, I didn't have that before.

Jack Rodolico: This is the story of what it took for America, for all of America to set aside a single day to honor a single Black life. It is a life that profoundly [00:13:00] changed those of others. But it's not actually a story about milk. It's a story about the politics of transforming a person into an official national symbol. Harvey Quay is going to play a role in the final stage of that transformation, as will the state of New Hampshire, and will return there soon. But I want to stay in the sixties for just a moment here, because, of course, that is where this all starts. The story actually starts right after Martin Luther King was assassinated. So he is murdered. Memphis, Tennessee, April 4th, 1968. And immediately there is this massive outpouring of grief across the country, particularly in Black communities.

Archival: This is [00:14:00] how Washington looked from the air tonight. At one point early in the evening, more than 100 fires were burning, some of them in an area just 20 blocks from the White House.

Jack Rodolico: In the immediate days after King's assassination, there are riots, particularly in northern cities across the United States.

Archival: And as darkness fell, arrests increased. To this hour, More than 700 people have been arrested. Some of them picked up in spot checks by police enforcing the curfew.

Jack Rodolico: You know, and this is this expression of frustration with, you know, living conditions, with job opportunities, everything that King stood for and fought for in the Black freedom struggle. You know, it's not like everything had been fixed by 1968. And so it was just this overflowing outpouring of anger and grief.

John Conyers: And so I said, what what is the greatest honor that I could pay this man? What do I do now?

Jack Rodolico: Okay, so this is John [00:15:00] Conyers. He's dead now. This tape is from 2008. And Conyers was a Democratic congressman from Michigan. He actually served in the House for 52 years, and he was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Influential guy for a long time. Back in 1968. He was only in his second term in the House. And after King was assassinated, Conyers wants to do something. And he has an idea that would become the seed of this huge social movement.

John Conyers: And I called Coretta Scott King, and I asked her permission and agreement. And we introduced the bill four days after his assassination.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. What bill is he talking about here?

Jack Rodolico: Conyers bill would set aside the third Monday of January as a federal holiday. The federal government [00:16:00] would shut down every year specifically to honor King's life and sacrifice. Now, today, we live in a world where King is pretty much universally recognized as a hero. That was not the case when he was alive. I mean, he was very popular among Black Americans, but among whites, he was divisive. He was unpopular. I mean, there was actually a national poll that found 31% of respondents said that King brought his death upon himself.

Hannah McCarthy: Wow.

Jack Rodolico: So in 1968, Conyers bill went nowhere in the House. But while the federal government sat on its hands, the idea of an m.k day starts to grow in popularity at the local level. All throughout the seventies.

John Conyers: It happened from the ground up because the theory was, well, there's a lot of emotion [00:17:00] around losing Dr. King. But as the years would pass, the enthusiasm would diminish. But just the opposite happened.

Jack Rodolico: Activists and local governments start to say, okay, if Congress won't declare a King holiday, then we'll declare a local king holiday. Cities like D.C., St Louis, Atlanta celebrate MLK Day. Those were the first MLK Day celebrations. Often, they were just activists without government sanction, celebrating on their own. But cities very quickly got on board.

John Conyers: In local areas in schools. States passed resolution.

Jack Rodolico: So you could see this momentum start to grow. State legislatures declare state holidays. The first one was Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey. Follow. And it actually starts to become a bit of a red line in politics. Are you for the holiday or are you against it? That becomes a symbol for other things that you believe in.

Hannah McCarthy: I don't know if you'll actually know the answer to this question, but let's give it [00:18:00] a shot. So, you know, you're saying that it's happening at the school level, happening at the city level, at the state level. Was there a shift among the sort of whole body politic when it came to sentiment about Martin Luther King?

Jack Rodolico: Yes, there was actually, because there is polling on King's popularity before he died and after he died, actually for years going up into recent years. And every single poll through the decades finds that he has more, particularly among white Americans, more and more. Virtually recognized as a hero in the seventies, the picture was still very muddled. But you did have cities and you did have local places that were fully on board. Before everybody else.

John Conyers: Unions started, including as a collective bargaining day in their negotiations. And more people began joining on the bill in the Congress. [00:19:00]

Jack Rodolico: So then the local pressure boomerangs back to Congress.

Archival: I support the Democratic platform, call for making his birthday a national holiday, and I will work for it.

Jack Rodolico: So in 1979, President Jimmy Carter gives a speech at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. This was the church where King was a pastor. He is there with Coretta Scott King behind him. All of these civil rights activists. And he publicly throws his support behind the bill. It's a big deal.

Archival: And I particularly hope that in this 50th anniversary year that I will be able to sign a bill proclaiming January the 15th as a national holiday in honor of Dr. King's principles.

Jack Rodolico: The momentum is moving. The bill does go to the House floor. It loses by five votes that year. So Jimmy Carter does not get that opportunity, but it sort of enters the public consciousness [00:20:00] in a way that it had not before, particularly because this is one of the most interesting things I feel like I learned. Okay. Stevie Wonder.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.

Jack Rodolico: The Stevie Wonder. Happy Birthday song.

Hannah McCarthy: I know it well.

Jack Rodolico: I know it well. Okay, So if you ask me, this is the best birthday song. It's better than the birthday song, right? It's just a it's a birthday anthem. I have heard it all my life. And Stevie Wonder wrote this song for Martin Luther King Day. He released it in 1980, specifically calling out the whole country. Why won't we honor this man? Why not create a holiday? The hook is happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. But the rest of the song, all of the lyrics are about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hannah McCarthy: I cannot believe I didn't realize that.

Jack Rodolico: I did not either.

Archival: And like for all of you to please join me urging the US Senate and your Senators [00:21:00] in particular to vote yes on s400 a bill to make. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday A national holiday.

Jack Rodolico: So in 1982, Stevie Wonder and Coretta Scott King deliver 6 million signatures to the speaker of the House supporting this holiday and the next year. In 1983, 15 years after John Conyers first introduced the bill, it passes in the House by a wide margin, 338 to 90. So makes it out of the House, and then it goes to the Senate, where it passes by another wide margin, 78 to 22, but only after some very anti MLK filibustering on the part of Jesse Helms. He was a North Carolina senator who made campaign commercials along the lines of this.

Archival: You needed that job.

And you were the best qualified. But they had [00:22:00] to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?

Jack Rodolico: The commercial shows just a pair of white hands.

Hannah McCarthy: Wow.

Jack Rodolico: It was actually called White Hands. That's what the commercial was known as.

Hannah McCarthy: Unbelievable.

Jack Rodolico: So the Senate shuts Helms' filibuster down as quickly as it can, but not before he gets across some pretty forceful messaging about MLK being a communist.

Hannah McCarthy: Which I feel we should say he was not.

Jack Rodolico: He was not. Mlk was not a communist. But it's worth bringing up because plenty of people across the country, predominantly white people, agreed with Helms assessment of milk, which would be a part of King's legacy for a long time. Anyway, the bill passes. Reagan signs it into law.

Archival: The White House staged an impressive ceremony today. The president and Dr. King's widow walking into the Rose Garden together in an effort to spruce up Mr. [00:23:00] Reagan's tattered civil rights image. The president signed the bill, which he had so strongly opposed, making Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday.

Archival: Then we will see the day when Dr. King's dream comes true and in his words, all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning. Land where my fathers died. Land of the pilgrim's pride. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. Thank you. God bless you. And I extend.

Hannah McCarthy: We're going to take a quick break. But before we do, a reminder that Civics 101, all of the work that we do here, [00:24:00] this story that Jack brought us, it's all made possible because our listeners support us both in spirit and when possible, with donations. This is public radio. That's how we work. If you're in a position to make a contribution to the show, please consider doing so. It's quick, it's easy, and it's a way for you to show your belief in free, accessible civics education and good stories. Click the donate button on our home page at civics101podcast.org. You're listening to Civics one on one. I'm Hannah McCarthy. And today we are talking to reporter and producer Jack RODOLICO about the creation of Martin Luther King Junior Day. This holiday did not come about without a fight. Many fights, in fact. But in 1983, Ronald Reagan finally did sign a bill making MLK Day a federal holiday, which means that it was recognized by the federal government, [00:25:00] but not that it had to be recognized by the states. All right. So we've got this federal holiday. Jack, you have established that there are states across the nation celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday in that state or in a city or even in a school district. But as I know, a federal holiday does not mean that everyone in the country has to do it right. It's still up to the states as to whether or not they want to make it a holiday. So how many states are left who are not doing this?

Jack Rodolico: Well, Reagan signs the bill in 83. The first federal holiday is three years later in 86. And by 1986, 44 states officially recognize MLK Day. So by the time the first federal holiday comes around, there are only a handful of states that are refusing to create the Martin Luther King Junior holiday. [00:26:00] And Hanna, I will tell you, you and I are sitting in one of those states. And so yeah.

Jack Rodolico: For this handful of recalcitrant state legislatures, this starts to become a pretty potent issue. So, for example, in 1987, Governor Evan Mecham, basically as soon as he is inaugurated, rescinds Arizona's MLK Day.

Hannah McCarthy: So Arizona had signed it into state law.

Jack Rodolico: It had been by executive order, his predecessor.

Jack Rodolico: He ran campaigning that he would remove that executive order. And he does.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay.

Jack Rodolico: For what it's worth, he was later impeached for other issues. Wow. In Idaho, one lawmaker claims MLK Day is a, quote, Black holiday. [00:27:00] And another state lawmaker in Idaho says forget milk. Let's name a holiday after a real Black hero. I'm paraphrasing here, Bill Cosby. Okay.

Hannah McCarthy: Can you imagine?

Jack Rodolico: I cannot. I mean, obviously, these positions don't age very well. Now, New Hampshire is on that list, too. And kind of like Congress had for a very long time. The New Hampshire legislature mostly ignored the King holiday debate until they couldn't. The King State holiday bill first came up in New Hampshire in 1979, but it took a decade for the pressure to build up. And I want to give you a sense of the lawmakers who were at the state house when this discussion came to a head.

Linda Diane Long: It was hard to hide at that time. You could not just blend in. You can stand in the sea of 400 white people and still hold your own. You're not doing too bad.

Jack Rodolico: This is Democrat Linda Diane Long. She's now a Baptist minister in Georgia. [00:28:00] And in the late eighties, she was one of a small handful of Black lawmakers in New Hampshire's 400 member House of Representatives. Next up.

Wayne Burton: You have to understand, I was a full time assistant dean that year. H Right. And a full time legislator and a full time doctoral student with three kids. And I coached hockey and soccer and baseball.

Jack Rodolico: That's Wayne Burton, a Democrat and retired college administrator. And finally, Jackie Domaingue, a Republican. She splits her time now between New Hampshire and Florida, which is where I found her.

Jackie Domaingue: Her when I entered the legislature in 1987. I was 37 years old. The average age is 63.

Jack Rodolico: So the MLK Day pressure is coming from both outside the state of New Hampshire.

Linda Diane Long: We were seeing nationally how the national push for the holiday had picked up steam when Stevie Wonder wrote, you know, the song. And Jesse [00:29:00] Jackson, of course, was running for president.

Jack Rodolico: And from inside the state, from the state's biggest city.

Jackie Domaingue: The Manchester school board determined, wanting to recognize Martin Luther King Day in the hopes that it would help get it passed at the state level.

Jack Rodolico: So 1989 is a big year for the bill in New Hampshire. It is the first time that the public really turns out in force to tell the legislature to pass this bill.

Linda Diane Long: And the hearing itself started off very emotional, you know, with prayer. It was packed. We had children. We had white people, we had Black people, we had Native Americans, a variety of people speaking that day. So it wasn't a Black issue.

Jack Rodolico: A few members of the public spoke against the King holiday. Most spoke in favor. So break this down a little bit for me. You're asked to orchestrate the theater of a floor fight. Five monologues.

Wayne Burton: I would speak last because I had the story [00:30:00] of meeting Dr. King.

Jack Rodolico: One of the reasons Wayne Burton cared so much about a King holiday bill is that he met Martin Luther King back in 1964. Ml K came to Wayne's College in Maine for a lecture, and he met him in person. And, you know, as Harvey said earlier, it was just a life altering experience for him.

Wayne Burton: So he sat down on a couch and we were talking quite a while. And after a while I said to him, This is all wonderful stuff, but what's it got to do with me, a white kid or a white school in an all white state? And that's when he said, If your conscience stops at the border of Maine, you're less of a person than you should be, and yours is responsible for what happens in Birmingham as you are in Brunswick, Maine. And I was really taken aback. I'd never been challenged like that. We have a borderless conscience.

Jack Rodolico: Okay. [00:31:00] So now, for her part, Jacky Domaingue had been asked to speak to, but for the opposing side.

Jackie Domaingue: I was not a fan of Martin Luther King. I understood what he did. But unfortunately for me, I'm the daughter of an Army corporal who served on Iwo Jima, and I lost several classmates from elementary school to high school to the Vietnam War and comments that Dr. King had made.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: But they asked, and rightly so. What about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problem, bring about the changes it wanted.

My questions hit home and I knew that I could never again.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed and the ghetto without having first spoken [00:32:00] clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. My own government.

Jack Rodolico: It's a little hard to hear there, but that is King calling the United States the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. He compares state violence against Black Americans to America's violence against the Vietnamese. And many Americans, particularly white Americans, considered his words an insult.

Jackie Domaingue: They didn't volunteer for that war. They were drafted and lost their lives. I felt it was unkind what he had said. And so I got on the floor and opposed the bill.

Jack Rodolico: Now, there were lawmakers at the time who were much more cutting. One called King, quote, an evil man. And this did come down to partizan politics. I mean, New Hampshire was controlled top down by Republicans. It basically had been for about 100 years. This is a state at the time where the most powerful media outlet [00:33:00] was a newspaper, the Union Leader, And that paper's editorial board was vehemently against MLK Day. Lawmakers are picking this paper up every day and reading it. And between 1988 and 1991. The Union Leader published an even 100 editorials and editorial cartoons about MLCs Day, relentlessly attacking King and his legacy and his supporters. They called him treasonous. They called him a demagogue. So what was it like to sit there and listen to people propagate these? You know.

Linda Diane Long: Just that they had a blood pressure about 300 or 2000 during that time.

Wayne Burton: They tried to demonize Dr. King by saying he was a communist because he had gone to North Vietnam during the war.

Jack Rodolico: How did you take that communism line as a Vietnam veteran yourself?

Wayne Burton: I took it quite badly [00:34:00] because I had spent I had almost been killed several times killing communists. And then to be accused of being a communist myself got me angry, quite honestly.

Jack Rodolico: So after the hearing, Wayne Burton was in the press a lot. He became sort of a de facto spokesman for the holiday bill. And because of that. T had a target on his back.

Wayne Burton: And I started getting anonymous letters without return addresses. King is a crime. He get out of our country and the cut out little letters out of Time magazine and so hate sentences. And there was some death threats to me and my kids that people would call on the phone, my house phone.

Jack Rodolico: Address how you're pointing to your phone and the next.

Wayne Burton: yeah.

Jack Rodolico: Same house. Yeah.

Wayne Burton: And I it's I was just astounded that someone would would do that.

Jack Rodolico: Were you scared for your life? I mean, how did you contextualize those threats?

Wayne Burton: Yes, [00:35:00] I was it was not dissimilar to some of the feelings I had in Vietnam. It is a terrible feeling to think that the price of doing the right thing may be your life.

Hannah McCarthy: And I just want to pause here and reflect on this. We are talking about a man who was trying to pass a state holiday, right?

Jack Rodolico: Mm hmm.

Jack Rodolico: In 1989, the holiday bill died in New Hampshire House by a wide margin. Like legislators voted almost 3 to 1 against it.

Hannah McCarthy: Wow.

Linda Diane Long: I wasn't that hopeful. I had hoped that it would change some minds from the hearing. I really hope the hearings would have opened some eyes, but it didn't. [00:36:00]

Jack Rodolico: So, again, it wasn't terribly surprising that the bill failed. What is surprising, at least to me, is Jackie Domain's response. Now, remember, she was opposed to this bill. Did that feel like a victory?

Jackie Domaingue: No. Evans No. It was very sad, I confess. Really? Yes. Yeah. It was very sad. It stayed with me for a long time. Yes, we won. But what did we want?

Hannah McCarthy: Wait. Okay. So Jackie and other Republicans, they got what they wanted, right? I mean, this is this is what they were aiming for. So why would she reflect on that and feel sad? That doesn't track for me.

Jack Rodolico: So after the vote, Jackie says someone in the antechamber of the house screamed at her and called her a racist. This person had tears in their eyes. And Jackie says that whatever [00:37:00] her personal feelings are about Martin Luther King, she also understood how important he was to so many other people. And she didn't like the feeling of obstructing progress. She says most New Hampshire voters at that time weren't ready for an MLCs day, so she wound up proposing something that she felt could pass the House.

Jackie Domaingue: The Purpose of a Civil Rights Day was to get to move the issue forward and not leave it where it had been left in 1989 in anger.

Jack Rodolico: In 1991, the state Senate was ready to create an RMC holiday. They passed a bill to do that, but the House was not, so they compromised. New Hampshire became the only state in the country that celebrated Civil Rights Day. One state rep at the time who hated this compromise said, quote, We would have been more honest to call it the anything but Martin [00:38:00] Luther King holiday.

Hannah McCarthy: We're going to take a quick break here, but when we're back, it is the final insistent push to once and for all spread the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr's life and work to every state in the nation. We're back. You're listening to Civics 101. And today, reporter and producer Jack RODOLICO is sharing the story of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the decades long struggle to make it truly a nationwide holiday.

Jack Rodolico: Okay, so, Hannah, this final stretch of the story is the part that I was honestly most curious about because the holiday bill seemingly enters this purgatory period. In hindsight, it feels inevitable [00:39:00] that New Hampshire would do this. But it's going to take all of the nineties, like all of the nineties. So what is going on? What does it take for New Hampshire to finally honor the holiday? That's what I wanted to know. I kind of assumed the bill languished, but in fact it.

Ray Joseph: Didn't at the time. For us, it was pure racism.

Jack Rodolico: This is Ray Joseph, and this is where things get really kind of unwieldy and unpredictable. So in 1990, Ray is a student at St Paul's School. Saint Paul's is one of America's most exclusive boarding schools, a high school. Historically, boarding schools are like the epitome of WASPy exclusive institutions, but at this time they were diversifying and Ray was part of a minority of very bright Black students on the Saint Paul's campus. By the way, Saint Paul's school is two miles from the New Hampshire State House.

Ray Joseph: You've got to [00:40:00] remember, this was the late eighties. So we were listening to Public Enemy, Fight the Power, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. So it wasn't me, but one of my roommates said we should boycott, we should not go to school. And it was that seed of an idea that wound up turning into something to bigger.

Jack Rodolico: So Ray in some classmates are like, This is BS. And at first they say, let's walk out of school tomorrow. This is the night before MLCs day in 1990. But they actually start talking to school administrators like the headmaster. And he says, well, actually, I was going to give you the day off. And you see, this was actually happening all over the state. School administrators, all over New Hampshire were saying, forget what the state government says. We make our calendars. So we're going to give students the day off for MLCs Day. But Ray and his classmates weren't satisfied with that. They are sharp. They are young. A lot of them are from New York City, and they [00:41:00] are just opening their eyes to the culture in New Hampshire.

Tommieka Teixiera: Yeah. You know, in my 15 year old mind, it was just New Hampshire was just a place that was beautiful and just empty of all forms of joy and entertainment. You know, it was just you know, we had light of FM. I think it was one on 1.9 was the only radio station. I mean, they didn't even play Bon Jovi. I mean, it was, you know, no Depeche Mode, no anything.

Jack Rodolico: This is Tommieka Teixeira, another Saint Paul student in 1990.

Linda Diane Long: I didn't know that there were people who would not celebrate MLK Day. Like, what do you even talking about? That's unfathomable to me, right?

Jack Rodolico: It wasn't just that they saw an omission of Black culture in New Hampshire. Tiffany Gill, another student, says this was sometimes a hostile environment for her.

Tiffany Gill: The first and only time I've ever been called a racial epithet that I've heard was walking down Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire, as a high school student.

Jack Rodolico: So MLK Day 1990, The [00:42:00] Saint Paul's kids are like, We can't protest the school, but the school winds up sanctioning the protest and joining it.

Hannah McCarthy: That feels so rare to me.

Jack Rodolico: Doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The school was really on board and they made a plan together. Students and faculty and administrators walk from Saint Paul's two miles to the state house.

Ray Joseph: And so we spent the preceding night that Sunday night developing, you know, signs, wristbands, armbands. I remember filing out of chapel just as that New Hampshire snow begins to fall upon us. It was cold, as it always was in January in New Hampshire.

Tiffany Gill: It was a it was a warm feeling. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful line of us walking, you know, off the grounds together.

Tommieka Teixiera: Nothing had been plowed. And we all just came out with [00:43:00] excitement, with a little fear. I think we didn't know what we were to encounter and cars honking and showing support.

Jack Rodolico: You know, something they all kind of reflect on is that it was kind of like MLK had given them a roadmap for what to do in this situation. March Right. Go to the seat of power, make your demands known.

Tiffany Gill: You know, for us, it was like our mini civil rights movement.

Ray Joseph: We believe that it's time for change. But honoring Dr. Kent with a state.

Jack Rodolico: Holiday, is this the video with you, with the bullhorn?

Ray Joseph: You got it. That's exactly right.

Jack Rodolico: Yeah.

Ray Joseph: I declare our commitment to realizing King's dreams of eradicating racism, poverty and violence.

Jack Rodolico: So ultimately, this was inspiring for these Saint Paul's kids involved. But they had no political clout in New Hampshire. And they knew that. Right. They're not old enough to vote. They're not residents of the state. Their parents don't pay taxes here. So after the 1990 March, they [00:44:00] start to reach out.

Mike Vlasich: I was Forrest Gump in all this. So you have to understand, I was just in the right place, the right time.

Jack Rodolico: This is Mike Vlasic. He was a kid in the Concord Public High School at the time. By the way, Mike is now a Biden appointee in the Small Business Administration. And I have to tell you, like the number of youth involved in this milk fight in the 1990s in New Hampshire, to me, anyway, seemingly a big percentage of them are lifelong activists. And they will they will tell you that this was activating for them for the rest of their lives. Back then, Mike was a kid who had no contact with this exclusive school in town.

Mike Vlasich: If you're a Concord High public school student, interacting with St Paul's kids was not the norm for something so close to us, that institution. We wouldn't have thought that we were part of that.

Jack Rodolico: Saint Paul students and Concord High kids start a letter campaign and they invite kids to protest with them so that in 1991, more than 1000 [00:45:00] high schoolers descend on the state house lawn.

Arnie Alpert: So that was a cool thing again, because you had the basically the Black kids from the elite school with the white Townees.

Jack Rodolico: This is Arnie Alpert. Arnie had been advocating for Milk Day in New Hampshire since the early eighties. He was on a committee of active. It's dedicated to this cause. But, you know, they were all adults. They were all politicos, you know? For him to see a thousand kids come out for Milk Day. It felt like this thing had finally taken on its own momentum.

Arnie Alpert: Because the state was resisting the holiday. It actually made it more important. It was a holiday of celebration and resistance at the same time.

Jack Rodolico: Up until this point had it, there wasn't too much national press about New Hampshire's stance on MLK Day. But that was about to change because Arizona was about to painfully become the 49th state. So [00:46:00] this part of the story is kind of bananas to me. In 1990, the NFL, the National Football League Awards, the Super Bowl to Tempe, Arizona.

Hannah McCarthy: As in Tempe will host the Super Bowl.

Jack Rodolico: Tempe will host the Super Bowl and it will draw in the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Super Bowl brings in to that area. So the NFL says, okay, Arizona, you're in line to host the Super Bowl. But there's a caveat. We will take this game away from you if you continue to reject MLK Day. This is not a popular stance for the NFL to take at the time. The question, though, goes to a popular referendum. And Arizona voters reject MLK Day by a slim margin and the NFL follows through. It takes the Super Bowl away from Arizona with all of its profits. It's a projected $225 million would come into the state. So it's effectively a massive boycott.

Archival: Nfl Commissioner Paul Tagliabue [00:47:00] said. Arizona can continue its political debate without the Super Bowl as a factor, site selection Chairman Norman Braman said. How could anybody in his right mind go to play there?

Jack Rodolico: And I mean, Hannah, like Public Enemy, wrote a song at this time called By the Time I Get to Arizona, it is a tirade against Arizona about MLK Day. And in the song, which is really good, they namecheck New Hampshire.

Sister Souljah: Public Enemy believes that the powers.

Sister Souljah: That be in the states of New Hampshire and Arizona have found psychological discomfort in paying tribute.

To a Black man tried to teach white people the meaning of civilization. Good luck, brothers.

Hannah McCarthy: I mean, this is just so interesting, right? I understand why these songs are being written. It's not just Happy Birthday, right? It's also Public Enemy because it's like this is an unbelievably public display of pretty hard to deny racism.

Jack Rodolico: Yes. Well, and if you think about if you think about birthday song, Stevie Wonder, this is a happy go lucky song, right? Yeah. And because it's really kind [00:48:00] of calling out every way, Public Enemy, it's like you don't want to be Arizona or New Hampshire. And Public Enemy's crosshairs is very different, calling out America for racism and being in those crosshairs as one state. Yeah. So it starts to get pretty intense for these last final states. And then in 1993, Arizona voters redeem themselves. They approve MLK Day finally. And Stevie Wonder and Rosa Parks come to Arizona on MLK Day as a kind of a reward to the state, you know, And then the eyes of the nation turn to just one state. And it's like New Hampshire, whether it intended or not, sent up a racist bat signal. There is huge press coverage in 1996 of a white supremacist from Mississippi who gets a permit to demonstrate at the New Hampshire State House on MLK Day. He comes here to thank lawmakers.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, man, that's a bad look.

Jack Rodolico: It's a bad look. [00:49:00]

Archival: Last year's celebrations were marred by white supremacists from Mississippi, but this year, only one dissenter was found in the crowd, far outnumbered by the young people seeking change.

Archival: Because it's our future, you know, even though the adults they're important to.

Archival: But You know, it's going to be us up there next. And we want our children to have a better future than, you know.

Jack Rodolico: By now. It's the mid 1990s and this is when it feels like, come on, it's got to happen. In 1996, the political landscape in New Hampshire starts shifting dramatically. The state elects a Democratic governor for the first time in a long time. A woman, Jeanne Shaheen, who's currently New Hampshire's senior senator. She campaigns on MLK Day. And Democrats make big gains in the state house with women at the helm. Jackie Weatherspoon was elected to the New Hampshire House that year. She was the third Black woman ever elected to the New Hampshire House. In 1997. She was on the House floor when the MLK [00:50:00] bill lost again. This time, the vote count was 178 to 177.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh.

Jackie Weatherspoon: I was there. Oh, my God. We lost that by one vote. And you could just hear it, see it, feel it when we lost by one vote. And then it became something like we became a laughingstock. We lost. It was the humiliation.

Hannah McCarthy: That's like an insult. That's just, ooh.

Jack Rodolico: Well, it just becomes like, what's it going to take?

Hannah McCarthy: Right, Right.

Jack Rodolico: You know, Maya Angelou spoke out. Spike Lee spoke out. Stevie Wonder, you know, Public Enemy wrote a song. I mean, so was that an element of like, you don't tell us what to do no matter what it's about, don't tell us what to do.

Mike Vlasich: I think for a certain element that was an excuse that they were using and they were not understanding that there was an increasing grassroots movement in New Hampshire that wasn't. [00:51:00] Political over the years. The further we have gotten from the civil rights movement, there has been a tendency to turn Martin Luther King into something of a Santa Claus of the movement.

Jack Rodolico: Tiffany Gill, one of the Saint Paul students, she's actually now a historian and associate professor at Rutgers University. And for her, looking back on this window of time, in a way, it's not really about New Hampshire per se. It's about the disconnect between the way MLK is viewed today, the way he was viewed when he was alive, and the slow march from one perspective to the other.

Tiffany Gill: One of the things that I always say is that I have to avoid social media on Martin Luther King Day because we are inundated from every political side with sort of shrinking Martin Luther King down into slogans and phrases. So it erases the fact that there was such [00:52:00] hatred toward King that he was not the beloved figure, that he has come to be within memory. His life was under constant surveillance by the FBI. His family was attacked and that he was ultimately assassinated.

Jack Rodolico: In 1999, the table was finally set. Or so it seemed. The MLK Day bill had failed in the New Hampshire House every time it had come up for the prior 20 years. So nothing was a sure bet. And proponents of the bill wanted a closer somebody who was really going to make a case, and they picked to give the last word to Harvey Quay.

Archival: Because the final speaker, the member from Nashua, representative key members to be taking their seats. A roll call has been requested. We're on the last speaker. [00:53:00]

Harvey Keye: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Honorable men and women of this historic House of Representatives, I rise to support the addition of Martin Luther King's name to the current House Bill 68.

Jack Rodolico: You remember Harvey? Of course.

Hannah McCarthy: Yes, of course.

Jack Rodolico: It's hard to forget from the beginning of the story, that old tape we heard of him earlier. That was from his floor speech to the New Hampshire House in 1999. He told them about meeting King and a few other things, too.

Harvey Keye: I have a granddaughter who is six years old, and she wrote me a poem and she said.

Papa, papa.

Harvey Keye: All the way from Alabama with a banjo on your knee up to New Hampshire to help keep people free. It's tough for me. Members [00:54:00] of this august board, please vote for Bill 68.

Archival: The question before the.

House is the adoption of a majority committee report has to be in order. The House will be in order.

Jack Rodolico: On May 25th, 1999, the New Hampshire House, the final stubborn block of resistance in America to honoring Martin Luther King Jr with a holiday. It voted 212 to 148 to do just that. I asked Harvey, How did that feel?

Harvey Keye: Heavenly.

Jack Rodolico: Harvey has lived for 90 years of unimaginable change, right? He was born under the thumb of Jim Crow. And now he and his wife own their home in New Hampshire. He has grown kids and [00:55:00] grandkids, and he sees history to him for what it is. You know, things move forward. Then they wrench backwards, back and forth. And all he can control is how he feels about it and how he feels is a gift. He was handed in Birmingham by Martin Luther King Jr.

Harvey Keye: I have a pocket full of joy and I hope to keep carrying a pocketful of joy everywhere I go. And that makes me 99.9% happy all of the time.

Hannah McCarthy: This [00:56:00] episode was produced by Jack Rodolico and me, Hannah McCarthy Nick Capodice is my co-host. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. You can find helpful links, resources and our entire episode archive at our website, civics101podcast.org. Special thanks to Steve Davis, Arnie Alpert, Meg Heckman, Jada Hebra, Marci Chang and Eleanor Dunphy. Music in this episode by Dilating Times, Nul Tiel Records meter ScanGlobe, Shaolin Dub, Anemoia, Kirk Osamayo and Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Life of a Political Operative

Ever wonder what life is really like for those who work to support a politician’s career? In September 2022, Hannah McCarthy sat down with Huma Abedin for a show called Writers on a New England Stage. This is an excerpt from their conversation. Huma discusses her memoir, Both/And, and describes what it's like to work alongside and advise a former First Lady, Secretary of State and presidential nominee. You can catch the whole conversation at nhpr.org.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. I had the great pleasure in September of 2022 of hosting writers on a New England stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This episode is an excerpt of a conversation I had with Huma Abedin, longtime aide and adviser to Hillary Clinton, about Huma's book Both/And. Huma gave us a peek into the life of an indispensable adviser of a prominent politician, including stories from the campaign trail. How much time and devotion it really takes and how her life growing up in Saudi Arabia granted her a unique perspective in her role. So here's Huma Abedin, four writers on a New England stage. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for [00:01:00] joining us here tonight. It is a pleasure and privilege to be here. And thank you so much, Huma Abedin, for joining us tonight. I am so glad that you were here. Now, first things first. You know, I host a show called Civics 101. I always try to get out the question right off the bat of what someone does for work. Now, you spent so much of your career in this all consuming public service job. What are you doing right now?

Huma Abedin: Well, I'm having a really good time. Let me start with that. First of all, I'm having definitely an emotional moment being here because. For those of you who knew who I am or know something about my life, I've been in politics for the last decade, 25 years, 26 in September. And when the gentleman picked me up at the airport in Boston, he's like, Have you been to New Hampshire before? And I almost said, I think I've spent more time in New Hampshire than I have in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I was born. Definitely have. By the way, aside [00:02:00] from being here with you, I'm able to find a little more rebalance in my life. I'm a mom of a ten year old going on 17 year old little boy goes by very quickly. We just optioned the book to be made into a television series. So Freida Pinto is making it into a show. And I'm actually flying to Los Angeles tomorrow and for a few other things. But so I'm very excited about that sort of turning because I know a lot of people I used to love to read when I was little and but I know a lot of people won't read the book and might watch it on the screen.

Huma Abedin: So I'm excited about that. And I'm working on this production company with Hillary and Chelsea. We just had two projects. We have lots of projects going on, but this is really become a new passion project and so one is called Gutsy and it's on Apple. Tv+ Some of you may have already watched it, but it's it's it was based on a book that Hillary [00:03:00] and Chelsea wrote, and I was one of the producers for this show. And really for me, this notion of shifting from politics and public service after the 2016 election, kind of this forced kind of shift to sort of reimagine what you're going to do when you grow up. At least that's what I've had to do. And so it's shifting a little bit to storytelling and really enjoying it and and figuring out what else I want to do in my life. And I'm lucky to have a lot of opportunities.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, one of my favorite parts of this whole book is the beginning, which I actually thought was all too brief a description of your childhood. And as you said, you grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You were born there, and then shortly thereafter you were transplanted to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And I was reading through your book, and at a moment I put it down and I murmured to myself, This woman comes from remarkable people. For those in the audience who perhaps have not read your book or don't know your story, who are your parents?

Huma Abedin: I'm a product [00:04:00] of two immigrants, an Indian father, a Pakistani mother. And for us, for them, really, education was a religion. They were Fulbright scholars, and they came to the United States in the sixties and they met at the University of Pennsylvania. They were both meant to go back to their home countries to marry people they were betrothed to, but they fell in love and they got married and they moved. My father was a political scientist. My mother is a sociologist, and they said, Well, move over. We both can get jobs. So we moved to Michigan, which is where I was born and when I was two. And this is one of the first lines that I wrote in the book when I sat to write. When I was two, my father was diagnosed with renal failure. And in 1977, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, essentially, the doctor said to him, you should, you know, you probably have 5 to 10 years, so you should get your affairs in order. And I think about it in my father was my age when you [00:05:00] know now my age now when he was given this diagnosis. And it's one of the first it was the first line I wrote when I sat down to write the book, which is my father was told he was dying. And so he went out and he lived. And two months later we moved to Saudi Arabia for a one year sabbatical, and we just embarked on this great adventure. Hannah I mean, it was this my parents were so curious about one of the things they really wanted us to number one, even though my father always said, you know, your eyes are at the front of your head for a reason is to look forward.

Huma Abedin: He really wanted us to learn history and learn about other cultures and places and spaces. That's why the book is called Both. And I mean, this notion of you can be both. And my parents came from two countries that were at war and India and Pakistan. They couldn't go back and live there, which is why they got asylum in this country. But I feel like that curiosity, that sense of kind of wonder and joy about learning and respecting others places and spaces is a real gift they gave us. So [00:06:00] a combination of moderation was very important in our family and discipline was really important. But at the end of the day, it was like, We don't care what you do as long as you're educated. You can grow up and be and do whatever you want. And so here, you know, I walked into the White House 21 and had this incredible kind of really, you know, sense of my parents identity. They raised us as and maybe only a child of immigrants can really say this. And every time you say it, you get emotional. And I certainly do. But this notion I mean, we were raised as Americans and most. And faith was a very big part of my childhood. But to travel around the world and to land at airports everywhere, from Turkey to Japan to, you name it, and to land and have that blue passport, I mean that you you carry this great sense of pride at the country that you represented and that we represented. [00:07:00] And so I brought all that experience to me when I walked into the White House to work for Hillary.

Hannah McCarthy: And when your family moved to Saudi Arabia, you're in a very different culture. And you also emphasize that your parents constantly raised you with a sense that you had choices.

Huma Abedin: Yes.

Hannah McCarthy: That you were going to be able to be autonomous in your life. How were they able to reinforce that despite a culture that maybe didn't always reflect that?

Huma Abedin: My mother tells the story that the first time my father says, we're going to go to Saudi Arabia and I was to my mother is like, do they even have diapers in that country? Like, what are we doing? And I think about it. I mean, she landed, you know, this is pre the world of, you know, cell phones and, you know, obviously, you know, computers and Internet. I mean, she was so isolated and so alone and women could not drive and she had to veil herself when she went outside. I mean, it was socially it was a very, very challenging environment. She didn't speak the language. She taught herself Arabic [00:08:00] to communicate with her Saudi students at the university. It was really difficult. And I think it's one of the reasons I did turn to writing and my imagination. And and I created these worlds in my head. And my parents always told us, you can do whatever you wanted. But it was. It was not easy. I mean, certainly it was not easy. And I really commend my mother and my father. But this they made everything kind of this little adventure. And and we got to leave a lot to, I think, know, people often say to me, look, how how did you deal with that, not being able to drive and having to be so in such a conservative environment. I mean, I knew I had a way out. I mean, every we traveled so much and I knew I was going to come home to the United States in the summers and eventually move back here. I love that I was able to do both worlds. And one of the things I did love about growing up in Saudi Arabia was this notion, and we [00:09:00] call it the Ummah, which is basically translates to the community that ever present community. And what I loved about that kind of environment was that there was always a sense of support and you felt like you were part of something much bigger than yourself. Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: Now I'd love to jump back to how you got to the White House to begin with. Yeah, I know that you you start off with an internship in the Clinton administration and you were required to work 15 hours a week.

Huma Abedin: Oh, yes.

Hannah McCarthy: And you did not?

Huma Abedin: Yeah, I did not. Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: How quickly did you know that you were the right person for this kind of job?

Huma Abedin: Oh, God. I never knew. I was not. I didn't know. All I knew was I loved it. I you know, I went to university in Washington because I wanted to become Christiane Amanpour, and I'd seen her eye and turn on the TV. Cnn International had just arrived in 1992 during the first, you know, Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War, second Gulf War, depending on your perspective. But and just saw this woman [00:10:00] reporting from Baghdad, and she just was first of all, she looked like she came from my part of the world. She was so smart. She was so, you know, I saw her as sort of this, you know, truth seeker. And I just admired her so much. And so I went to study journalism and then got this internship by accident in the White House. I had a friend who was interning for Mike McCurry, and she says, Well, that's how you become Christiane Amanpour, go intern for Mike McCurry. I apply for the internship. I get it. Don't get a job in the press office. I get a job in the first lady's policy office because of my background. And I remember calling my mother and saying, Mom, I don't know how am I going to come become Christiane Amanpour in the first lady's policy office? And she said, well, you know, sometimes planning doesn't work out, but maybe Plan B will be, you know, pretty good. And and she was right. And even though I was raised by a father who said a good life is a balanced life, I did not follow that advice.

Huma Abedin: I just fell in love with the work. I just I, I very careful about how I use [00:11:00] that word that I really became addicted to it. And I was never the best at anything. I mean, there are so many stories in the book of my constant failures. I mean, and, and the attitude in this White House was basically like they tossed you into the deep end and you you either sank or you swam. And and all I knew I was never the best. I mean, I was I was not the smartest. I was not the prettiest. I was not the easiest of anything. All I knew is that I was prepared to outwork everybody else. And and I think that's one of the reasons I mean, I really I mean, I really did succeed. And there's a couple of, you know, crazy stories in the book. Like the very first speech I had to staff Hillary four, and I was super nervous. And I you know, here she is, the first lady. I'm this kid. No one's really told me what to do. And I, like, carry her speech. And I put it on stage and and she goes on stage and I'm at the back of the room because that's what you're supposed to do as a staff person, be invisible. And then [00:12:00] she's sitting on stage and all of a sudden she does this. And I thought, okay, this must be really bad. And I approached the stage and she leans over and she says, I don't have the right speech.

Huma Abedin: And it was the first time that I felt that from like the tip of my toes, like fire up into my head thinking. But that that's the moment when, you know, you either, like, completely fall apart or you say, which is what I said. For the very first time that night, I said, I got it. I didn't have it, definitely didn't have it. But I ran out to the car and sure enough, open the limousine. And there is, while I've been carrying my pristine copy of the speech, there is a speech like with all notes that she had edited the speech on the whole ride from the White House to the venue. And I run up, and by the time I get back to the stage, she's already at the podium and she readjusts the pages, delivers the speech. I expect it to be fired. By the way, when we walked off the stage and this tells you so much about Hillary, and I suspect there are people in the audience [00:13:00] who've actually met her and spent some time with her. And the very first thing she says to me is, you should ride in the limousine with me from now on. And it was her way of acknowledging that for this relationship to work when you are the primary person. You needed to know everything that that. And that's how she solved. And that was my first time in a limousine, and it's been 26 years. So it was all kinds of crazy adventures like that. But I survived.

Hannah McCarthy: And I have to know the Civics 101 in me has to know. When you were described as a top adviser, an aide to Hillary Clinton. What does that mean? What were you doing on a daily basis? What was your job?

Huma Abedin: You know, and that's, I think, one of the challenges of having such an amorphous job. I mean, it really became this kind of air traffic controller. I mean, so much of it, you know, I always said that in the 2008, if I was the manager of anything, I was the manager [00:14:00] of sanity, because so much of it on a daily basis, you're just juggling 100 balls. You know what what do you tell her when how to take somebody through a day, how you deal with your hosts, how you figure out what the right thing to say is. So it's actually it is very hard to describe the job that somebody like somebody like I did, but in part was a sense of getting ultimately your message across every single day, trying to think long term, trying to think short term. So it's it really is a little bit of everything. But it is it's it's hard to describe. I mean, for me, I wanted her to be able to go out there and just do the best job that she can. And then we are you know, we're the feet beneath the duck, you know, just paddling to make sure that everything is is smooth.

Huma Abedin: And also, for me, a big part of it, I tell young people who work for me now and you're who do what we call advance. I know everyone here knows what advance is. I had to describe what an advance person is when I was in Saudi Arabia earlier. But I [00:15:00] would say to my I say to my staff now, when you go somewhere and you're negotiating for event, it doesn't matter if you work for Hillary, if you work for Barack Obama or if you work for Microsoft, if somebody has a bad experience, they're not going to say, You, Jane Smith, are terrible. They're going to say Hillary Clinton sucks or Microsoft suck you. You know, so, so much of it is you really are an ambassador for what you represent. And that's at least how I was raised. And so you can see even 25 years later, I still struggle to figure out how to describe what the job is that I did.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And I wonder, having spent so much of your young adult years utterly devoted to this individual in this cause and this party, how were you able to preserve yourself?

Huma Abedin: Well, you know, I was I lived a very I didn't I lived a very for those of you who, as you if you read, end up writing the book, I mean, I, I everything was work. I mean, I didn't have relationships. I didn't see my family. I didn't I actually write [00:16:00] about the fork in the road moment that when 1997 I get a call, I'm at a family wedding in Manhattan, this fairy tale wedding. And my cousin was getting married. And I get a phone call from the White House and and my supervisor calls and says, Do you want to go to Argentina to advance a trip for the first lady and the president? I was so green, I didn't even know what it meant. And it meant I would have to miss the wedding. I would leave in the middle of of the of the wedding and get on a plane and go to Buenos Aires. And I didn't even stop to think of it. And I that's my fork in the road moment. I mean, I had one path right in front of me, you know, the snow, this future of family and kids and, you know, or this. And I didn't even know what was down this other road. No, no idea. All I knew is I wanted it. And and so for me, I spent two decades of of work being my priority. And I really and I, I wouldn't change [00:17:00] a thing, but having a rebalance, I mean, my diet was horrible. I mean, I literally had like 15 cups of coffee a day. I survived on snack bars and then I'd go to dinner and I would have, you know, two orders of entrees and four desserts. You know, it was it was a really unhealthy it was a really physically unhealthy ex existence. So I'm healthier now at 47 than I was at 37, for sure.

Hannah McCarthy: You're listening to an excerpt from my conversation with Huma Abedin, for Writers on a New England Stage. There's plenty more coming after this quick break. But first, hello. You're listening to this podcast. Thank you. Seriously, our job here at Civics 1 to 1 is to answer your questions, respond to your needs, and this ever complicated tangle of American government and politics. And we hope that you turn to us with the confidence that you'll actually get something substantial out of a listen if you do and you have the ability. I'm asking you to take a moment. Go to Civics101podcast.org [00:18:00] and consider making a contribution to the show. This is public radio. It belongs to you. And it exists because of your donations. Got a little extra goodwill. Cash burning a hole in your pocket. We are a really great place to put that cash. I promise we will do good. Work with it. All right, that's it. And thanks for listening. This is civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. This episode is an edited version of my conversation with longtime Hillary Clinton, top aide and advisor Huma Abedin for Writers on a New England stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth. In part because this conversation happened in New Hampshire, Huma wanted to share the ground breaking, or, as she might tell it, glass ceiling shattering moment that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary. And no, I'm not talking about 2016. I'm talking about the first time around. I'm talking about [00:19:00] 2008.

Huma Abedin: It was one mile down the road where she made history. I like I actually see that. I mean, it's it's just not honored more in some ways because that so this is I'm taking us back to for those of us who remember the 2008 presidential election, I certainly do. It's seared into my memory. But when Hillary Clinton got in and it was a very, very crowded primary, you know, she was the front runner and that she it came with all the advantages and the disadvantages of her being the front runner. And, you know, for those for those of you to remember, I mean, Joe Biden was running and John Edwards was running. I mean, it was a it was a big and we knew we had research when she got in into the campaign that it was going to be hard for a woman. It's one of the reasons why she didn't you know, she did the whole I'm in it to win it and kind of running as the most qualified candidate. And here was then-Senator Barack Obama, just [00:20:00] just this extraordinary, inspiring, you know, brilliant candidate. And so we're off to the races. And we worked really hard, invested a lot of time in Iowa. And and then she has this stunning loss, I mean, stunning loss where she didn't come second, but she came third. After John Edwards. So Barack Obama won and John Edwards came second and Hillary came third.

Huma Abedin: And the entire time leading up to this very, very long, very, very brutal campaign schedule. Like we were reeling. And I recount the story in the book of of of how shocked we all were. So immediately she does her concession speech, which she had not anticipated giving in Iowa. And we immediately get on a plane. And so we land in New Hampshire 3:00 in the morning, January 7th, 2008. And we are basically preparing to lose. I mean, it's now like we just didn't know what was going to happen in New Hampshire at that point. [00:21:00] At that point, oh, my God, Like everything went south. And so here we are about 11 points down in New Hampshire. And I remember slogging through that first day and ending up at a rally, if I remember correctly, in Manchester, and Wes Clark, who had run for president himself. We show up at an event and we're all kind of super depressed. And I said, you know, and he comes off stage and he's like really energized. And he said, General, how does it feel? And I because I was my normal question, I was like, why did I ask him? And he puts his hands on my shoulder and he says, Huma. She is going to win here. You can just feel it. And I'm looking at him like he's crazy. And but he did. I mean, he had been in New Hampshire, and it was something that you just you just can't you can't explain it.

Huma Abedin: But if you're in politics or you, you know, you can feel so. Gave us kind of a little a little bump. But one of the reasons I share the story is, you know, the day had been so long and we get up [00:22:00] at 5:00 in the morning and we basically got this message from our campaign manager, which is you should be prepared to lose here and which nobody knew at the time, obviously publicly weren't saying this, obviously. And we end up at Cafe Espresso down the road in Portsmouth. And I was on the bus because we had just gotten this devastating news. And I got on the phone with a few of her campaign advisers and to figure out what are we going to do, like what New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada and all this. And I get a knock on the door. Somebody comes running out and knocks on the bus door and says, We need you. She's crying. And I literally look at this advanced person. I mean, who is crying? What are you talking about? Because you cannot show emotion as a woman. Oh, my God. In politics. And long story short, a woman had had got up at the cafe and said, you know, this must be so hard. How do you do it? Marianne? [00:23:00] Yes, yes.

Huma Abedin: I mean, she does. And I really I mean, Marianne should get credit. I mean, it was that moment, that just human moment of how that was the people forget. The question was, how do you do it? This must be so hard. And it was I mean, as cheesy as people might think, this is I mean, she basically said, I do it because I care. I mean, I know I have this enormously privileged life and I see all these problems in our country. I know I can fix it. And that was it. And that moment, that brief moment, that emotional moment. Thank you, Marianne. And it really changed the tide. And so that I mean, sure enough, fast forward to everyone knows history here. She won she won New Hampshire. And it was extraordinary. It was nobody. And she did that. And this state did that for her. And the [00:24:00] very next morning, the first question she just got asked is, how do you explain your failures as opposed to how do you explain she made history that night, by the way, no one has done it since. Nobody no woman has done it since. And I that's why I have such a. And so we both of us have such deep. I'm sorry I'm rambling about this, but such deep kind of gratitude and affection and and love and because it was done here.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, well, this I think this is a great question because you actually you speak to how how very much public service and being a civil servant felt like you're calling and felt like the ultimate thing to devote yourself to a member of the audience asks, How do you envision the future of public service poll workers, teachers, voter registrars, etc.?

Huma Abedin: I think that it is all about passing that passion on to young people, which is why I'm happy to hear that. You say that college students are that you've spoken to are really motivated because, I [00:25:00] mean, I even see it in New York when I go vote in Manhattan. And poll workers are always, you know, it's always older, like how I want to make it exciting to young people to be part of take them along for the ride. It's and show you know, I write in the book about really getting to a very, very low, very, very bad place in my life. And, you know, post 2016. And I for some part felt very responsible for her loss. And and this notion of really being prepared to just you know, I had some very dark thoughts and that was that wasn't so long ago was in 2019. And I wrote the book when the book a lot of the writing the book was therapy. I tell all young people, by the way, to write their story. I mean, I think that act of writing is and storytelling is so, so powerful. And frankly, being in politics, what is being in politics, it's telling a story, right? [00:26:00] Ultimately, it's telling a story. And to now be this person in 2022 and to feel this much joy and satisfaction and sense of just possibility and and hope is I mean, like, if I can do that, I really do feel like it's it's it's possible for for anybody. And so maybe politics isn't my future. But I, I do feel very hopeful about the future and about our country. And I just think a big part of it is this is just being in community together again and and having conversations and not yelling and screaming at each other.

Hannah McCarthy: I do. I have to ask you, because I think so many young people really don't think politicians care at all about them, in part because they can't vote under certain age. Right. Their demographic maybe doesn't matter. Are they at all wrong?

Huma Abedin: I think some people are in it just for the platform. Absolutely. I mean, I would you know, but I think there are there are [00:27:00] there are so many candidates, forget running for president, you know, state, local elections who are doing some incredible, incredible things. And I think they should all be honored as secretaries of state and gubernatorial candidates and House candidates. There's a lot of good work and good people and well intentioned public servants out there who should be honored.

Hannah McCarthy: State and local government, everybody. That's where it's at.

Huma Abedin: Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: Huma Abedin, thank you so very much.

Huma Abedin: So much. Thank you all so much.

Speaker3:

Hannah McCarthy: This has been an excerpt from my conversation with Huma Abedin, longtime Hillary Clinton aide and adviser and author of the book both. And this conversation was recorded live before an audience at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Writers on a New England Stage in partnership with New Hampshire [00:28:00] Public Radio. A longer version of this conversation will be available at npr.org. A big thank you to everyone who helped put that show together. The musical executive Director Tina Sawtelle. New Hampshire Public Radio President and CEO Jim Schachter. New Hampshire public Radio producer Sarah Plourde, the Music Hall production manager. Zhana Morris. The Music Hall Live Sound and recording engineer. Ian Martin, musical director and band Bob Lord and Dreadnought and the Music Hall literary producer Brittany Wasson. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy. Nick Capodice is my co-host. Christina Phillips is our executive producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Lavender Scare

You've probably heard about the Red Scare - the panic around the perceived threat of communism during the Cold War. But the Lavender Scare is lesser known. This was a time when the federal government investigated, persecuted and fired thousands of LGBTQ+ employees, calling them security risks and threats to the country. 

In this episode of Civics 101, we dive into the origin and timeline of the Lavender Scare, and meet the man who pushed back, and in doing so, started a movement. We also talk about the ripple effects we're still seeing today, with Dr. Lillian Faderman,  author of Woman: The American History of an Idea, and David K. Johnson, author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, which became the basis for a documentary film that was broadcast nationwide on PBS.

Transcript:

Note: The following transcript was AI-generated and may contain errors.

Hannah McCarthy: Just a quick note. This episode includes outdated language that is offensive. Hey, Nick. Can you describe for our listeners the video that I'm showing you right now?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. So you've got people picketing in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And they look like sort of clean-cut people. They're well groomed. And they also have signs, signs that say things like sexual preference is irrelevant to employment. And homosexual citizens want equal treatment as human beings. But it's kind of eerie. And because nobody's saying anything, there's no chanting. There's no yelling.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, this is a silent protest. The group protesting is part of the Mattachine Society. The founder and leader of the silent protest is that guy wearing the suit and the tie with the pocket square. Talking to a reporter. That's Frank Kameny.

Archive: I have lived for eight months on $0.20 worth of food a day when I had the 27th. This is at a time when people in my profession were in higher demand than they had been in all of human history. And I could not get a job specifically because I was a felon.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: Frank Kameny was very rare in his fighting back against the federal government and his being fired from his job. What usually happened when a homosexual, as we were all called, was fired from his job or her job is that that person would sort of slink off into silence and hope that nobody would find out help, that it could be kept as quiet as possible. Frank Kameny refused to be quiet, and on top of his refusing to be quiet himself, he encouraged other homosexuals to protest their firing.

Archive: And I am not alone. I know many people who have done the same. I see careers ruined, lives destroyed for no other reason. These were people with a great deal to offer to society simply because society is prejudiced against them and will not allow them equality of opportunity.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: And today we are talking about something called the Lavender Scare. This was a time when the federal government investigated, persecuted and fired thousands of LGBTQ+ employees, calling them security risks and threats to the country.

Archive: American. Beatniks, homosexuals that time.

Hannah McCarthy: But this moral panic had the unintended effect of fueling the gay rights movement, and it paved the way for federal protections for LGBTQ+ employees.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: Lavender Scare actually began in the late 1940s.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Dr. Lillian Federman.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: I'm a historian. I'm most interested in lesbian history, women's history, and LGBTQ history.

Hannah McCarthy: Her latest book was published in 2022. It's called Women The American History of an Idea.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: The Red Scare. It was a period of paranoia when witch hunting of so-called communists began.

Archive: The world is divided into two factions. On the one side, the forces of freedom. On the other, the forces of communism. In recognizing a communist, physical appearance counts for nothing. If he openly declares himself to be a communist, we take his word for it. But there are other communists who don't show their real faces, who work more silently.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: And eventually it leapt over into witch hunting of homosexuals, as we were all called at that time. Whether we were lesbian or gay or bisexual or trans, which was not a term at that time, transgender. And these same kind of witch hunting that was applied to suspected communists was also applied to suspected homosexuals, first on the federal level and then in various states, and then among private employers as well.

Nick Capodice: Okay, So we've mentioned the Red Scare before on the show. That was the hysteria that happened during the Cold War around fears of communism spreading in the United States. So red and red scare, that refers to the color of the Soviet flag and communist allegiance. But what's the meaning behind the lavender scare?

Prof. David Johnson: Well, it wasn't called that at the time. It's a term historians have used since, only starting in the in the nineties, when people like myself and other historians started looking at the phenomenon.

Hannah McCarthy: This is David Johnson. He wrote the definitive book on the Lavender Scare, and there's a 2017 PBS documentary based on this book.

Prof. David Johnson: But Lavender has has long been associated with homosexuality. There are different theories about why that is. Some link it back to as far back as the ancient Greeks. That's that the lesbian poet Sappho associated violet with homosexuality. The other explanation is that lavender is a mixture of colors. It's red and blue or pink and blue. So it's like male/female colors. And homosexuality is often associated with with some sort of gender inversion. But it was fairly widely known in the fifties that lavender they talked about the lavender lands in the State Department. The Cold War is seen as a as a moral crusade, right. Against atheistic communism. That's an attack on the family. And gay people, of course, are also seen as immoral and an anti family. There's that sort of moral connection in the popular imagination. They're also both seen as as psychologically disturbed. Mccarthy talks about anyone who's attracted to communism. There must be something wrong with him. They must be mentally twisted in some way.

Hannah McCarthy: Senator Joseph McCarthy played a big role in this moral crusade. We're going to talk more about Joseph McCarthy in a bit. But this attitude wasn't coming out of left field. Bigotry had permeated almost every facet of American society. If someone was not white, Protestant, part of a nuclear family, middle to upper class or straight, then they were viewed as the other and faced all kinds of discrimination. Here's Dr. Lillian Federman again.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: The LGBTQ community really suffered great threats and great discrimination to the churches. Without exception, virtually, we were all sinners to the medical health profession. We were all crazies. Until 1973, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and was in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which was virtually the Bible of mental health professionals.

Hannah McCarthy: Licensed doctors tried to, quote, cure patients with everything from electroshock therapy to lobotomies. The stakes were just that high. So people lived double lives. They didn't want to risk the exposure.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: To the federal government. We were all subversives. We were open to blackmail, and we would give away federal secrets. And we weren't loyal to this country because of that.

Nick Capodice: So the government justified the persecution of gay federal employees because Russians or communists could blackmail them. Is that where this is headed?

Hannah McCarthy: That was the idea. That was the crux of the government's argument.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: If you were a homosexual, it was against the law in every single State of the Union, and you would be susceptible to blackmail by the Reds and you would give away the secrets of the federal government. This was true even if they were secretaries working in a federal job or truck drivers working for the federal government, they were still considered threats to the safety of the country, which was nonsense. Of course, there was never any evidence that a homosexual was blackmailed into giving up the federal secrets.

Hannah McCarthy: And here's where we come back to Joseph McCarthy. He was a Republican senator from Wisconsin who had been flying under the radar after taking office in 1946. But then he gave a speech that put him right in the national spotlight.

Prof. David Johnson: This kind of rise to power is when he makes a claim. At a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in February 1950, he has a list of 205 card carrying communists currently working in the State Department with the knowledge of the secretary of state.

Archive: The president's own loyalty board found 284 unfit for service. He said, We only discharge 79 and we at that time called upon the president, the Secretary of State, to tell us who the 205 were and why they were kept on.

Prof. David Johnson: That captures the media attention they want. They want to see the list and they want to know who's on this list.

Nick Capodice: Was there any truth in McCarthy's claims?

Hannah McCarthy: Not according to the person actually in charge of the State Department at the time.

Prof. David Johnson: The secretary of state, Dean Acheson, is asked about this. He says, oh, no, no. Communists here in the State Department have been fired and they haven't found any. It's all good. Nothing to see here.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, in the meantime, the press was also pushing Joseph McCarthy to give more details about the 205 people on the list.

Archive: How do you still maintain, in view of what you've learned since that there are 205 or any similar number of communists working in the State Department today? Let's get our figures straight.

Hannah McCarthy: But McCarthy's claims kept shifting.

Archive: Unfortunately, I cannot get the names, but I do have in my hand the names of 57 individuals who were either communists were certainly loyal to the Communist Party.

Prof. David Johnson: First there's 205, then there's 87, later there's 57. And first they're card carrying communists, and then later they're loyalty risks or security risks. The language keeps changing.

Hannah McCarthy: A week after McCarthy's speech in Wheeling. Secretary of State Acheson attended a hearing on Capitol Hill. He was officially there to talk about the budget, but a senior senator from New Hampshire named Styles Bridges started asking questions mainly about security risks. These questions led Acheson to eventually reveal some things.

Prof. David Johnson: He admits that while we have fired 202 people we consider to be security risks. And then his aide finally admits, Well, and almost half of those 91 of them were homosexuals. And it's that revelation really that sets off the lavender scare. The reaction could have been, Oh, great, you know, you found these people and you got rid of them, you know? Right. But that's not how a moral panic works. People were like, well, where did those 91 go? Did they did they go to other government agencies? And how many of these homosexuals are working in the Department of Commerce? And and and why were they hired to begin with in the State Department? So it seems to corroborate McCarthy's otherwise groundless charges.

Nick Capodice: So, in other words, because neither government officials nor the public were satisfied with the firings, because these potential threats may still be in the government, McCarthy's seemed all the more justified in his hunt. So what did the government do? You had the public up in arms. There is a so called moral panic. I imagine the newspapers are having a field day with this covering like mad. How does the government respond?

Hannah McCarthy: The response came from the House of Representatives in the form of a series of congressional investigations.

Nick Capodice: Well, the Red Scare was known for its congressional investigations.

Hannah McCarthy: Yes, perhaps best known for those conducted by the House un-American Activities Committee or who back.

Archive: The growing menace of communism arouses the House of Representatives un-American Activities Committee. Among the well-informed witnesses testifying is J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Hoover speaks with authority on the subject. The Communist Party of the United States is a fifth column, if there ever was one. It is far better organized than were the Nazis in occupied countries prior to their capitulation.

Hannah McCarthy: Who act was created in 1938 as a special committee of the US House of Representatives. Its primary mission was to look into fascist and communist activity in the United States, and this committee used some fairly ruthless tactics. If a witness didn't comply or answer questions, they could be found in contempt of Congress and sent to jail. People who are asked to testify before, who act often refused, taking the Fifth Amendment and staying silent, which is a constitutional right, by the way. But this was often looked upon as an admission of guilt.

Archive: What do you mean by that? Are you now a member of the committee? You like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot and see, Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest the witness be directed to answer the question. You are directed to answer the question. I invoke the Fifth Amendment and forget it. I respectfully suggest the witness be directed to answer the question whether if he gave us a truthful answer, he would be supplying information which might be used against him in a criminal proceeding.

Hannah McCarthy: And taking the Fifth didn't stop their careers or reputations from being left in tatters. Hundreds of people were jailed, thousands were fired and blacklisted, which, by the way, it means a person's name was put on a list of names of people who should not be hired. And there are a lot of well-known people who were affected by this. Lucille Ball, W.E.B. Dubois, Albert Einstein. That's just a few of them. So in 1950, the Senate passed a resolution asking its committee on expenditures to look into how many and this is the actual quote. Homosexuals or other sex perverts worked for the federal government.

Nick Capodice: Wow.

Hannah McCarthy: I should note that although McCarthy is the senator who kicked off the Lavender scare at that point, he kind of took a back seat. He was on the committees, but a whole new set of lawmakers stepped into the limelight to demand a, quote, pervert purge. And this was not new and neither was the idea of targeting LGBTQ+ individuals. In 1947, the US Park Police had what was called the, quote, sex perversion elimination campaign. Men were arrested if they seemed suspicious and their personal information was put in a. And again, this is a real quote pervert file.

Archive: This 19 year old service man left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. The men's room was under a police surveillance. Anybody going to hear about this? My parents. Your parents don't know of this, but your community commander will probably find out about.

Nick Capodice: All right. Let me recap this timeline real quick. World War Two is over. Americans are scared of Russia. There's a suspicion of communists working in the government. Mccarthy says he has a list of communists in the government. The connection to gay government workers is made. And this leads to the Senate responding by creating a resolution to look into, quote, employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in the government. And then these Lavender Scare hearings began. So what happened?

Prof. David Johnson: They call in witnesses. They call in police officers, vice officers, government security officials, the head of the CIA, which is then a newly formed organization. And ask all of them, are gay people a threat to national security or are they vulnerable to blackmail? And they all say absolutely, yes, yes, yes, yes. They're capable, are vulnerable to blackmail and therefore a threat to national security.

Nick Capodice: Really? Was there any pushback to that claim?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, the chief counsel of the investigation, his name was Francis Flanagan. He did ask for evidence.

Prof. David Johnson: Do you have any proof of this? Do you have. Can you give us an example? And nobody could. They couldn't give any examples. They would occasionally give an example of of a gay person who had been blackmailed in terms of money, asking for money. And then the gay person would go to the police and the police would capture the blackmailer and charge them because that's illegal. Blackmail is illegal. And they would use that as evidence that gay people were vulnerable to blackmail when in fact, it's really evidence that they're not vulnerable to buy. Right. Because they did not fall victim to the blackmail scheme.

Hannah McCarthy: To be clear, during these congressional investigations, evidence was not uncovered that gay federal employees were vulnerable to blackmail. And that did not stop with federal government employees.

Prof. David Johnson: They don't have an example of a single American citizen, gay citizen who has under threat of blackmail, has revealed state secrets. And despite the lack of evidence, the main committee, the WHO committee, publishes a report that says definitively that gay people are vulnerable to blackmail. They're a threat to national security. It now has the imprimatur of the of the US Congress on it, and it seems to be fact.

Hannah McCarthy: David Johnson pointed out that even though the congressional investigations were started by McCarthy and other Republicans, they ended up being a truly bipartisan effort.

Prof. David Johnson: No one no one is standing up and saying this is wrong, that gay people should be able to serve their government. No one is saying that.

Hannah McCarthy: The politics of the Lavender Ccare were not limited to Congress. This period played a big role in the presidential election of 1952.

Prof. David Johnson: And the Republican campaign slogan that year was Eisenhower and Nixon. As the two presidential and vice presidential running mates, their slogan is Let's clean house. Let's get rid of all of these bad people in Washington. Communists, homosexuals. Get them out of Washington. Let's clean house. And because they win hugely in 1952 against Adlai Stevenson, who is effectively gay.

Nick Capodice: Baited, David just said gay baited. Can you explain what gay baiting is?

Hannah McCarthy: It's basically a political tactic where there's an implication that a rival might be gay without providing any proof. There are codes that are used to kind of skirt around it. It's never said outright. Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic nominee for president for the second time.

Prof. David Johnson: He's considered somewhat of an intellectual egghead. He's a former State Department official and he was divorced. And the Republicans made a lot about his divorce and why was he divorced? There were sort of rumors about that. Maybe it was because he was he was gay. Apparently, the FBI even spread rumors that he had been arrested on a on a morals charge, on a on a sex charge.

Nick Capodice: The FBI was getting involved. Why would that even happen?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, the FBI was headed by J. Edgar Hoover.

Nick Capodice: Okay.

Hannah McCarthy: He was a conservative guy and he used his power to meddle in elections. Now, one outcome of this that you might not expect is that this homophobia being weaponized in politics led to something that we now see all the time.

Prof. David Johnson: Eisenhower and Nixon campaigned almost all the time with their wives and sometimes even with their children. And the campaign literature emphasized that they were family men and had pictures of them with their beautiful wives and children, or in the cases of the Eisenhower's, they had to trot out their grandchildren. To make a contrast with Stevenson, who had no wife, and therefore there would be if he were elected, there would be no first lady.

Archive: Both Pat and I have considered it a privilege to talk, to travel over America, to talk many, many times a day, and to work for your election as president of the United States.

Hannah McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower wins big, and one of the first things he did in office in 1953 was Pass Executive Order 10450 titled Security Requirements for Government Employment.

Prof. David Johnson: Which sets up this new security system in the federal government and a whole list of reasons for excluding people from the civil service. And one of them is sexual perversion, which is perceived as as homosexuality. And that remains in effect from 1953 until 1975. So every civil servant under the Eisenhower security program is subject to an investigation. This new security system puts everyone under the gun of this this investigative apparatus.

Hannah McCarthy: And we will hear more about that investigative apparatus and the man who fought against it after the break.

Nick Capodice: But first, there is all sorts of stuff that we cannot include in our episodes because of time that ends up on the cutting room floor. And if you want to know what that stuff is, you should subscribe to our newsletter. It's called Extra Credit. It comes out every two weeks. It's free, and you can sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org. There also, we have links to our weekly Civics 101 quiz and a Wordle. So check it out.

Hannah McCarthy: We're back and we're talking about the Lavender Scare. This was the persecution of LGBTQ+ federal employees by the US government during and in the wake of the McCarthy era.

Nick Capodice: All right, Hannah, you said that Eisenhower issued this executive order 10450, which directed the heads of federal agencies and the Civil Service Commission to look into federal employees to see if they were security risks. And this is what really kicked things into high gear.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, it did. Government agencies, especially the State Department, immediately ramped up their efforts. They made relationships with other intelligence agencies and worked with local law enforcement to cross-reference their files. They got help with background checks, and they were notified when NSA employees were arrested or charged with wrongdoing. Every government employee had to pass some sort of clearance. In the CIA, it was polygraph tests.

Prof. David Johnson: They would investigate a government employee. They would interview their family, roommates, friends, former professors, coworkers. And if they found any sort of suspicious activity, if they found that they knew other people that the government had identified as known homosexuals, they would be under suspicion if they had been reported to be at gay bars, which were being monitored by the government. You know, that would be a clue. Even if they were if their dress and self presentation were slightly non-conforming. Right. Women were slightly butch or men were slightly effeminate in their you know, in their walk or the kind of clothes they wore. That would set up red flags.

Hannah McCarthy: And when a red flag was raised, like if a fellow employee or manager thought they saw something that was, quote, suspicious, that would lead to a deeper investigation and eventually an interrogation of the suspect.

Prof. David Johnson: So you would be called in by civil service investigators to a room. You'd have to swear an oath. You weren't allowed to see an attorney or have an attorney present. And usually the first question was the Civil Service Commission has information that you are a homosexual. What comment do you care to make? And confronted with that most gay and lesbian civil servants, they would refuse to answer. But then they would ask more questions. Do you know Kate Smith? Do you know John Doe? Do you know these people who the government knew to be known? Homosexuals? Have you ever been to the Redskins lounge? Have you ever been to the Chicken Hut, which were known known gay bars in Washington at the time? And. Most people, when confronted with these kinds of interrogations, they would confess to something small just to kind of satisfy the interrogators. And that would usually be enough. Confessing to being at a gay bar, confessing to knowing other gay people.

Hannah McCarthy: And when someone confessed to something they were asked about, even if it was not true, they were fired, were forced to resign.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: And if you were fired from a job for homosexuality, it was virtually impossible to get another one. And this was true not only if you worked for the federal government, but it really it filtered down into all aspects of employment.

Hannah McCarthy: I think, to better describe the fallout from these investigations. It's a good idea to bring back the person we introduced you to at the very beginning of this episode, the person leading that silent protest, Frank Kameny.

Nick Capodice: This is the guy wearing the suit with the pocket square.

Hannah McCarthy: That's right. He was an astronomer who had studied at Harvard, a super brilliant guy.

Prof. David Johnson: Right at the beginning of the space race with the Soviet Union, when the United States needs astronomers. Government hires Frank Kameny. He's working for the Army Map service. He's helping the Army create accurate maps of the globe, particularly the Soviet Union, where we're aiming our ICBM nuclear missiles.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: But fairly early on, they did a background check, and it was discovered that he was once arrested, accused of illegal sexual activity in San Francisco, and he was fired.

Prof. David Johnson: Frank is a you know, he's a nerdy scientist. He doesn't understand why the government is interested in his sex life. You know, as a scientist, he thinks rationally and about facts. And he knows this has nothing to do with his ability to do his job. And so he kind of thinks it's a mistake. He doesn't know about this whole lavender scare that it started in 1950 and knows nothing about it. So he fights it.

Nick Capodice: How did he fight it?

Hannah McCarthy: He fought it administratively within the appeals process for the civil service.

Prof. David Johnson: First, he writes all kinds of letters to civil service and writes to the president and writes to members of Congress.

Hannah McCarthy: For years, Frank tried every avenue available to appeal his termination. Each appeal was rejected. So Frank took it to the courts. He personally drafted up the legal paperwork, a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Prof. David Johnson: At this point, he's literally unemployable because in 1950s Cold War America, if you have a PhD in astronomy, the government is pretty much where you're going to work for or some government contractor where you need a security clearance. And he couldn't get such a job. He's almost starving to death as he struggles with the government.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: He was living on, as he said, frankfurters and boiled eggs, which were cheap. And that was his diet.

Nick Capodice: Sounds awful. Did he ever get his job back?

Hannah McCarthy: No, he never did. David actually described seeing Frank near the end of his life.

Prof. David Johnson: You know, he's kind of disheveled and his teeth are bad. He doesn't really look very good. And part of that is because he was impoverished for much of his life, because he literally couldn't find a job.

Nick Capodice: How many people lost their jobs during the Lavender scare?

Prof. David Johnson: Well, we'll never know definitively. We have some partial figures. The State Department alone, which is kind of where the controversy began and was most intense. And department officials admitted in the 1960s to firing 1400 suspected gay men and lesbians. And that's just the State Department. So extrapolating from that, there were probably between five and 10,000 people who lost their jobs because of the lavender scare. And that doesn't even include there are people who chose not to apply. People who chose not to apply for another job or a promotion because they would be investigated doesn't count applicants who were who were denied jobs because they already had figured out they were gay.

Hannah McCarthy: People ended up switching fields entirely, sometimes getting much lower paid positions because they could not get a job of the same level that they had when they were working for the federal government.

Nick Capodice: You said at the beginning, Hanna, that Frank Kameny helped to bring an end to the Lavender scare, right?

Hannah McCarthy: He did, because although all the mechanisms failed. Frank the appeals process, lawmakers, the Supreme Court, he became an activist.

Prof. David Johnson: And he decides and I'll get other people involved in this struggle. And so he founded the Mattachine Society of of Washington, D.C. They begin a whole new kind of level of activism in the gay community.

Archive: The magazine Society picketed the State Department and got this reaction from Dean Rusk. I understand that we're being picketed by a group of homosexuals. The policy of the department is that we do not employ homosexuals knowingly, and that if we discover homosexuals in our department, we discharge them. There's a department that is concerned with the security of the United States.

Hannah McCarthy: By 1969, they were winning cases in the federal courts.

Prof. David Johnson: The federal courts are saying to the civil service, you can't prove a connection between Frank Kameny or anyone else is off duty conduct as a gay person and their ability to perform their job. You have to stop this.

Hannah McCarthy: Finally, by 1975, the Civil Service Commission, this was an agency that made sure federal employees were hired based on merit instead of nepotism, changed its policy to reflect the federal court's decision. And back to Frank's activism, by the way, he was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr's model of nonviolent civil action.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: And they actually members of the Mattachine Society in Washington attended Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963, and they actually said among themselves to each other, Why can't we do this for the gay community? Why can't we have a march on Washington?

Prof. David Johnson: So when magazine of Washington. Folks decide to pick it in 1965. It's a very controversial decision. It's never been done before. They don't know what's going to happen. They're afraid they're going to be attacked. Certainly a lot of them are afraid they'll they'll lose their jobs, whether in the government or elsewhere.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: And this was the first time in history that homosexuals, perhaps LGBTQ people, as we would call them, now, dared to appear in public, holding signs protesting the government's treatment of homosexuals. In 1965, Frank Kameny organized a protest in front of the White House. He organized a protest in front of the State Department. The protest in front of the Pentagon. A protest in Philadelphia, in front of the Liberty Bell.

Hannah McCarthy: That Philadelphia protest became an annual event.

Nick Capodice: But is this is this where pride parades come from?

Hannah McCarthy: It is a precursor to pride parades, but it looked very different. There were no rainbow flags, no floats, no incredibly dressed people. But there was a dress code of sorts.

Prof. David Johnson: They sort of camouflage themselves in a way, and a lot of them are they wear sunglasses, which isn't just a way of hiding a little bit. And they're sort to to dress up. So the men are wearing suits and ties and the women are in dresses and heels. And that was probably Frank Kameny. His idea like, we need to you know, we're claiming we want to be employed by the federal government. We need to look employable. And it's also a sort of politics of respectability. We don't want to be seen as these crazy radicals.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: Not only did they have to dress respectably, but they couldn't behave in what the straight world would consider an outrageous manner. And so there was no holding hands. For instance, they had to march single file. There was no chanting. They just had to carry signs that pointed out how unjust it was for the government to discriminate against homosexuals.

Hannah McCarthy: Frank was a product of his time, and conformity was seen as a way to make gains by being non-threatening. And David Johnson argued that in some ways this is still true today.

Prof. David Johnson: Well, I think in some ways the lavender scare helps explain why it is someone like Pete Buttigieg that emerges as the first openly gay presidential candidate was taken seriously.

Archive: You know, I served under General Dunford, way under General Dunford in Afghanistan.

Prof. David Johnson: Because the lavender scare created so much suspicion about gay people as subversives, as as as suspected communists, as somehow a threat to national security and and to American morality. So it takes a candidate like Pete Buttigieg, who is a veteran of the US military. He's religious. He's married to another man. He now has kids to demonstrate to to skeptical Americans. Right. That gay people are not are not immoral and they're not a threat and they're not these crazy radicals or communists. Right.

Archive: Rush Limbaugh, to whom the president recently awarded the nation's top civilian honor, described you as a 37 year old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, who loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage. Now, there has been bipartisan criticism of him for those remarks. I wanted to give you a chance to respond if you would like to.

Archive: Well, I love my husband. I'm faithful to my husband. On stage, we usually just go for a hug. But I love him very much. And I'm not going to take lectures on family values from the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Hannah McCarthy: Pete Buttigieg, who was appointed by President Biden as secretary of Transportation, which, by the way, made him the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history, has been able to express his love for his husband, Chasten, without being disqualified for public service. And that is a direct result of the LGBTQ+ movement that Frank helped to build.

Nick Capodice: So what happened to that? Executive Order? Order 10450.

Hannah McCarthy: Barack Obama officially repealed Executive Order 10450. On his last day in office. Frank Kameny was standing beside him.

Archive: Doesn't make much sense. But today in America, millions of our fellow citizens wake up and go to work with the awareness that they could lose their job not because of anything they do or fail to do, but because of who they are. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. And that's wrong. We're here to do what we can to make it right.

Hannah McCarthy: We still do not have federal protections for LGBTQ+ people across the board.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: There are certainly LGBTQ rights ordinances in various municipalities. There are states that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual identification or gender identification. There isn't yet federal protection for LGBTQ people. There is a bill, and there from time to time, the bill keeps popping up in Congress and has never managed to pass. But it it would assure protections for LGBTQ people on a federal level, but it doesn't yet exist.

Hannah McCarthy: The Lavender scare was a dark time in American history, but it also helped to pave the way for the gay liberation movement.

Dr. Lillian Faderman: I think the lavender scare is important for young people to know about because I really believe in the adage that if you don't know about history, you're destined to repeat it. And I think we were beginning to see how easily that can happen with don't say, gay bills in in Florida and and Arizona and the censorship of books that deal with LGBTQ subjects. We could come upon bad times again. And it's important to to know how bad times were in the past and to to prepare in case they happen again and to to take from history an inspiration to know that the good times that young LGBTQ people and our allies enjoyed today didn't always exist. They they came about because there was a long fight for our rights. And if times become bad again, I think people have to take inspiration from the history of the past.

Hannah McCarthy: This week's episode was produced by Jackie Fulton and Rebecca Lavoie and hosted by me, Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Music In this episode by Bright Arm Orchestra. Circles Nouvelles Zillow's Echo. Wendy Marchini Crosses Gridded Blue Sessions, Chris Zabriskie, Mary Riddell, Arthur Benson and KUSP. Don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss an episode. And if you're looking for the archive, you can find the entire thing and a bunch of other resources at our website civics101podcast.org. Civic's. 101 is a production of NPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

How the Government Makes a Holiday

There may be only 12 federal holidays, but we come up with hundreds of reasons to celebrate.

How does something go from an annual tradition to a mandated day off? Who decides to make a holiday official? Today we're taking a look at everything from Christmas to National Walk Around Things Day, from our twelve official federal holidays to some day made up by a sock company. Our guides to the holiday season are Jeff Bensch, author of History of American Holidays, and JerriAnne Boggis, Executive Director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire.

Transcript:

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:30] Nick, you know, when you're a journalist, that tends to mean spending every morning clicking through about a dozen or so press releases just to clean out your

Nick Capodice: [00:01:37] Inbox, yeah, there's a guy who was an extra in Pirates of the Caribbean who I get an email about, like once a month, who's got got an opinion to share about something.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:45] I feel like you should interview him.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:46] I Should.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:47] You just consider it and at least a few times a month, it's something like we hope you're planning to cover a National Diatomaceous Earth Day or National Clean Out Your Virtual Desktop Day.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:59] Last week, I got one that was like, Hey, we know, you know, it's National Peppermint Bark Day.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:04] Everybody knows.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:05] Here's what you should be doing to cover it, and if we have these experts to talk about it, if you're interested.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:09] And I'm always like, who came down from on high and decided that it was National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:16] I'm going to blame big bubble wrap for that one. Bunch of bubble wrap moguls sitting on their bubble wrap, thrones popping their product.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:25] I have looked into it. Some of these micro holidays, a term that I stole from Atlantic writer Megan Garber, are manufactured by industries to sell things. You're right. Now some are, to my mind, legitimate reminders that draw awareness to illness or social problems or important events. I'm cool with that, and some are just nonsense that has made its way onto the internet like National Walk Around Things Day.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:54] Is that real?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:55] Yeah. Well, I mean, what do you mean? Is it real? None of this is real, and I can only assume the point of National Walk Around Things Day is to celebrate the act of walking around things.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:05] I had no idea you were so passionate about this.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:08] I think it's the arbitrariness. It's not grounded in anything. Or maybe the excuse for selling stuff also really bothers me. Or maybe Nick, maybe five years of National French Dip Day press releases finally broke me.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:22] You're going to forgive me, Hannah. But aren't all holidays made up? I mean, somebody at some point says, this is the special day. Everybody take your kid to the doctor in a red wheelbarrow and eat some plums because it's William Carlos Williams Day.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:38] You wait, you'll get a press release for that tomorrow. But I take your point. Yes, all holidays have to start somewhere. But some holidays really go somewhere. There are holidays that are far more significant, far more real, if you will. So today, to cleanse the palate, Nick, we are going to talk about the holidays that rise all the way up to the powers that be, who proclaim them to be real, who make them official. This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:10] I'm Nick Capodice,

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:12] And today we are covering the 12 count them only 12 federal holidays on the United States calendar.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:20] There's only 12.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:21] Only 12.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:22] And this is the how and the why of becoming official.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:36] Right, and just to start, I want to clarify, calling something a national holiday does not make it a federal holiday.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:42] Correct. In actual fact, the United States does not have national holidays the way that some other countries do.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:50] Well, what do you mean?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:51] Well, you can't have a national holiday in the United States because Congress does not have the constitutional authority to force the 50 states to observe a holiday.

Jeff Bensch: [00:05:00] It only applies to federal employees.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:02] This is Jeff Bensch, the author of History of American Holidays

Jeff Bensch: [00:05:06] And in the early days and only applied to federal employees in Washington, D.C., shortly thereafter applied to all federal employees. And then the banks usually take the day off.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:17] But this is something I've always wondered Is a bank holiday the same thing as a federal holiday? Like, do banks somehow fall within the federal employee world because they're regulated by the Federal Reserve?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:28] That is a great question. No banks do not have to close on a federal holiday, but they usually do because they tend to follow the U.S. Federal Reserve calendar. Basically, it's hard to do business when the thing that regulates You takes the day off.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:44] It seems like we all tend to follow that calendar, though. Like every year, we get a list of paid holidays from New Hampshire Public Radio. And I'm pretty sure it adds up to about 12.

Jeff Bensch: [00:05:53] Generally, once the federal government declares a holiday, then the states will tend to ratify it afterwards.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:59] A state holiday is a day made official by state legislatures, and even on these days, with some exceptions from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, private employers are not required to give a paid day off. Sometimes, even a state employer doesn't have to pay a state employee during that day off.

Nick Capodice: [00:06:18] I feel like this is another tried and true example of how does the civics one on one topic work? And the answer is federalism.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:24] Yeah. Per usual, every state can do it differently.

Archival: [00:06:27] It's a state holiday today, meaning most government offices will be closed. It's all in remembrance of the Bennington battle...

Archival: [00:06:34] The state offices in both Alabama and Mississippi are

Archival: [00:06:36] Closed today for Confederate Memorial Day and for our state. It is one of three. Nevada Day is the best because everybody comes together. Everybody enjoys themselves.

Archival: [00:06:46] We all have a holiday in Rhode Island and only

Archival: [00:06:48] In Rhode Island. It's Victory Day, a state holiday that marks the end of World War Two...

Jeff Bensch: [00:06:55] Well, a couple of holidays, you know, states would resist it after the federal throughout history, you know, like Memorial Day, for one, because it started after the Civil War and the southern states were not not into it. It took them a while.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:10] Actually, this makes me think of New Hampshire in particular. I grew up when this argument was happening. Weren't we the last state in the Union to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a holiday?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:21] New Hampshire is kind of tied with South Carolina. They made it a holiday in 1999 and under a good deal of protest in the Legislature. I should add South Carolina state law gave public employers the option of observing either MLK Day or one of three Confederate holidays now that ended in the year 2000, when MLK Day became a compulsory holiday. But just for the record, Confederate holidays are still, albeit quite controversially celebrated in several states in the U.S., including South Carolina.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:55] Well, that's another prime example of federalism at work, I suppose. State legislatures can enshrine whatever date they want. I'm thinking, for example, those states that opt not to celebrate Columbus Day and celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead, right?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:10] Yeah. And that's something that the federal government has also considered doing replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, which gets to this practice that Jeff mentioned earlier, right, of the federal government copying what a state does. So Labor Day is actually a great example of this.

Jeff Bensch: [00:08:26] Different labor unions wanted a holiday to celebrate labor and the eight hour workday and then the 40 hour workweek, and after various strikes and riots before then, different groups had created their own Labor Day.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:41] Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day a legal holiday, and that was an 1887. There were 28 states celebrating Labor Day as a state holiday before Congress finally made it a federal holiday in 1894. And in a case like this, it is not like the federal government was a champion of laborers or unions.

Jeff Bensch: [00:09:01] It was a Pullman strike of 1894 that instigated Labor Day, and there the federal troops came in and that railroad strike was big and it spanned many other labor unions. But the federal troops came in and force the workers back to work and arrested a bunch and all that kind of stuff. But then later on that year, the president Cleveland agreed to make a federal holiday, hoping to win back some of the votes he lost by sending in the federal troops.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:38] So how does a federal holiday end up being signed by a president? I mean, if it carries the force of law, does it work like a bill? Does it go through the legislative process and get signed by the president at the end?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:49] Well, for one thing, presidents sign observations of holidays all the time. But that doesn't make a federal holiday.

Jeff Bensch: [00:09:56] You might get

Jeff Bensch: [00:09:56] A presidential proclamation or executive order that designates it as a holiday. And usually that might only be for one time or for a short period. It's really not an official holiday until it goes through Congress. It's just like any other law.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:20] The most common argument against a federal holiday at the legislative level, by the way, is money. It costs millions of federal dollars to shut down offices, but still pay employees for the day.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:30] And this is another thing where it's like any other bill. It's it's an issue of funding, right? So if all these holidays had to be established by law, that means that when the United States was established as a country, Thanksgiving, for example, was not a federal holiday.

Jeff Bensch: [00:10:46] There's the act of 1870. There was for holidays, New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:55] Hold on 1870. So it's basically one hundred years before we had any federal holidays at all.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:01] Yeah, the 1870 Act was passed quote to correspond with similar laws of states around the district and in every state of the Union. Loads of states already had Thanksgiving state holidays, albeit on different days. President Lincoln made it the fourth Thursday in November, years before Congress made it a paid holiday for federal employees.

Nick Capodice: [00:11:23] And real quick, I have to ask. I'm fairly sure Christmas is the only federal holiday that is explicitly a religious holiday, right? How is that legal? How can a law force the government to celebrate a religious holiday?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:37] Yeah, I looked into this. There was no significant separation of church and state debate on that 1870 bill when it was in committee, but there has been some debate since it was passed. And one of the best answers I've got is that Christmas passes the lemon test,

Nick Capodice: [00:11:54] The lemon test. You now have my attention.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:56] Lemon V. Kurtzman 1971. The Supreme Court establishes a three pronged test for determining whether a statute is in violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution. The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. Its principal or primary effect must be one that neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it must not foster, quote, excessive government entanglement with religion because there are three other holidays that are secular in that act, and because the passage of Christmas is a federal holiday, in no way compels anybody to practice religion. It merely says the office is closed. Christmas passes.

Archival from Lemon v Kurtzman: [00:12:37] It contains no religious classification or gerrymander. It is non preferential. It employs essentially religious means to achieve essentially secular ends without any primary effect of advancing religion, inhibiting religion. And I must refer you there to our brief on entanglement because we have had an inadequate opportunity to discuss the whole question of entanglement.

Jeff Bensch: [00:13:02] And then 1968t, we had the Uniform Holiday Act, which sometimes the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. So Washington's Birthday Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day were all put on on Mondays.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:15] And anybody who reads a fabulous newsletter will know that people were so mad that Veterans Day had been moved from November 11th that it was eventually switched back.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:25] All right, I've got eight so far, four in the 1870s, four in the 1960s. What are the other four?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:31] The next holiday to show up is a great example of what being a federal holiday actually means, because this holiday is only celebrated by employees in Washington, DC and only every four years. Any guesses?

Nick Capodice: [00:13:47] Yeah, but I didn't know this Inauguration Day is a federal holiday.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:52] Yep, as of 1957. Then comes Columbus Day in '68. MLK Jr. Day in '83. And finally, the very recent Juneteenth, which was made a federal holiday in 2021. And like many others, that is a holiday that has been celebrated since before the federal government had established a single one. Now that it's finally recognized at the federal level, though, what does that mean for this long hallowed holiday? I want to take a look at our most recently established federal holiday to ask what the pros and cons are of making something a federal holiday. I'll have the answer to that question after the break.

[00:14:34] There is so much I wanted to put in this episode that simply didn't fit. Like, for example, did you know that if you celebrated Christmas in Massachusetts in 1659, you would be fined five shillings?

Nick Capodice: [00:14:47] Oh yeah, those Puritans, they hated Christmas.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:50] They called it Foolstide because there was so much eating and drinking and mocking of authority. And people would go around begging and would sometimes just burst into the homes of the wealthy as well. And speaking of holidays, the Puritans were not a fan, just generally. They only took a few days off. They took off for the Sabbath. Election Day, Harvard commencement day. And then there were the occasional fast and Thanksgiving days. Fast days were also called humiliation days.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:21] Humiliation days.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:21] Well, who wouldn't want to be a Puritan Hannah?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:24] This is good stuff, right? So what do I do with it? Why I put it in our delightful and fun newsletter. Of course, that's where all of the stuff goes. That does not make it into the episode. Like the Isle of Lost Trivia.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:37] The Isle of Misfit trivia. It's called Extra Credit. You get it in your inbox every other Tuesday, and it is the best way to get the B sides of Civics 101. It's also where we put important updates and announcements, and I swear it is very much not annoying,

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:51] Absolutely worthy of space in your inbox.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:53] You can sign up by clicking Subscribe to the newsletter at civics101podcast.org.

[00:16:00] When we're not lounging around in our slippers on a cushy paid holiday, we at the Civic 101 team are working our collective backsides off to make this show that we love. So if you love it too, and you're in the position to do so, please consider showing us some support. What with the law and all our public radio station pays us holiday or no, and you can help ensure that they're always going to do so by clicking the donate button at Civics101podcast.org. Ok, back to the stuff that really matters.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:36] All right, we're back. And now that we've covered what a federal holiday is and how it happens, I want to get into the nuance of the thing what happens to a holiday when you make it federal and to do that? We're looking at our most recent one.

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:16:52] So throughout history, Juneteenth has been known by many names Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day and today, a national holiday. So Juneteenth is a holiday that's been traditionally celebrated by African-Americans honoring and celebrating what was considered the end of enslavement. On June 19th, 1865.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:33] This is JerriAnne Boggis, longtime friend of the show and the executive director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. Now, remember that date June 19th, 1865 a date celebrating the end of enslavement? That is two years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:17:58] And it often surprises people that we still had enslaved people in the Americas even after the Emancipation Proclamation. But it took the army actually marching into Galveston on June 19, 1865, and war then, you know, an additional war to officially enforce the Emancipation Act to free the enslaved people there.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:26] Right. It wasn't as if Lincoln writes this proclamation, and suddenly all enslavers freed their enslaved people.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:32] And it isn't even that all enslaved people were made free in 1865.

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:18:36] The exact date when we could say that all enslaved people were free is not really known because there were pockets of resistance across the country. There's pockets of fighting still enslaved people running away, self emancipating themselves all throughout the southern regions. We just don't know. But that June 19th was celebrated because we had hard evidence and hard facts of that order that came into Galveston from the federal government to enforce and to forcefully enforce the Emancipation Act.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:18] When I reached out to JerriAnne to talk about Juneteenth, I knew that the Black Heritage Trail had held educational celebrations of the holiday for years, and I knew that she was present when New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a law recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday. Though importantly, Nick, not as a paid day off for state employees. Remember, I told you that a state doesn't necessarily pay their employees on these holidays. Yeah, but I wanted to hear what it actually meant to her, to JerriAnne to have Juneteenth recognized at the federal level.

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:19:49] So I think everything comes with a double edged sword. There's always two sides to any coin. I'm really glad that it's been publicly recognized and federally recognized as a holiday because it changes the narrative of American history to say, you know, that all enslaved people were freed with the Emancipation Proclamation. This federal acceptance of this June 19 creates that debunks that myth, right? It serves as a place for that dialog for us to honestly look at what our history is, not a sugar coating of our history, but the reality of what it was and how that affects us today. The other side of the coin as typical typical American fashion that that's problematic and worrisome is that we'll turn it into a consumer event. You know, we'll have Juneteenth sales, you know, like Christmas sales. It'll just be another another marketing opportunity rather than an understanding of of what the holiday is.

Nick Capodice: [00:21:11] Yeah. And this makes me mad. This is a personal grudge of mine, and it makes me think of Labor Day in particular. Labor Day is ostensibly a day to commemorate American workers and their long struggle for protections and wages. But for most people, it is now just an end of summer holiday and a great time to get a deal on a car.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:30] And JerriAnne pointed out that even the celebration of Juneteenth has the potential to lose the thread to miss the whole point of remembering the emancipation of America's enslaved.

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:21:41] There's a celebratory feel to it because we are celebrating, but African-Americans are not out of the woods in our country. Racism is still strong, still intact, still affects every segment of our systems. So I think that knowledge needs to be also acknowledged that it's not the mint julep celebration, right? It is a realization of looking at. What's really going on in the country? So this is one of those things where you don't want to critique good folks who are trying to do good things but end up doing bad things, you know, because of a misunderstanding. I think we have to really think about how we celebrate it and what it means. I think event with just white votes doing African-American things doesn't feel genuine.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:40] So, for example, when a community jumps at the opportunity to celebrate Juneteenth this holiday, the federal government has finally said is worthy of recognition. The question is how are they really celebrating it and with whom?

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:22:54] I think some some communities hurriedly pulled together something to celebrate Juneteenth, right? And it was like, Oh my God. And you know, I think I have to put everything in its context to, you know, our last two years with the pandemic, you know, with the George Floyd murder case, our communities were really aware of the lack of diversity, their lack of action. So I think there was this push to understand or do something quickly to say, Oh, no, our community is not racist. Oh no, that wouldn't happening in our town. Or No, we need to figure this out. And in that frenzy created these events without thought.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:42] I want to reiterate JerriAnne is not disappointed that Juneteenth has been made a federal holiday. I asked her if it was a net positive, and she said yes. Of course, the point is really, is Juneteenth going to be just another day off in some states? Ok, for example, Nick, do you actually stop to give thanks on Thanksgiving?

Nick Capodice: [00:24:04] I try, but I sometimes fail.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:06] Do you mourn the deaths of hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers on Memorial Day? Do you think Americans 50 years from now are going to reflect on our history of enslavement and how it has haunted our society and laws every Juneteenth?

JerriAnne Boggis: [00:24:28] I think time will tell just what America will make of this federal holiday. I think that may scare some people to say that Juneteenth may be more celebrated than July 4th. You know, because July 4th is problematic when we think of, you know, a whole percent huge percentage of people being enslaved while we're celebrating July 4th, whereas June 19th, we're looking at a bigger picture, a more inclusive picture and what's out put it in quotes. Freedom is, you know, I'm just really glad that it's there. And I, you know, have big hopes for the celebration and really allowing people to create a different narrative of what America is.

Nick Capodice: [00:25:20] It's interesting to think of federal holidays as an opportunity, even if a federal holiday in practice does not apply to the entire nation. Giving an idea or an event federal recognition at the federal level, it's symbolic. It says that the U.S. government agrees that something is worthy of observance. Juneteenth was not made a federal holiday because the government thought everybody needed another day off or that like sock companies needed the excuse to make Juneteenth socks,

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:52] Which you can buy at Wal-Mart. By the way, they do already exist, which is exactly the slippery slope JerriAnne was talking about. Because you're right, Nick, when the federal government creates a federal holiday, that is a political statement, and it gives states and communities the chance to make statements of their own in the way they choose to celebrate both Juneteenth and every holiday.

Nick Capodice: [00:26:23] One last thing, Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:25] Go for it.

[00:26:26] I looked it up during the break and guess what today is

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:30] As we're taping this episode, it is December 4th.

Nick Capodice: [00:26:33] Yes, yes. But guess what that means?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:34] I don't want to.

Nick Capodice: [00:26:38] It's National Sock Day. Like for real.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:41] I have to go.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:48] And in a case like this, it is not like the federal government was championing it. How do you say that word? Championing, right?

Nick Capodice: [00:26:56] Yeah, it was championing.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:58] It was not like the federal government was championing labors. So really hard championing, championing.

Nick Capodice: [00:27:06] Yeah. Just like a champion of.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:08] Ok.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:11] This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Our staff includes Christina Phillips and Jacqui Fulton. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music in this episode by Yung Kartz, petrochines, Mello C, Marten Schellekens, Ketsa, Breakmaster Cylinder and Audiobinger. You can find this in all other episodes at our website civics101podcast.org. And if you're looking for more, albeit significantly quieter civics lessons, you can check out the book that Nick and I wrote. It's called A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works, and it was illustrated by the very wonderful New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Is Santa a Criminal?

Today we answer this question from a listener, "Is Santa a criminal?"

We get to the bottom of the myriad actions of the jolly old elf, and whether he could reasonably be tried for civil and criminal violations, including but not limited to trespassing, breaking and entering, voyeurism, stalking, surveillance, burglary, tax evasion, bad labor practices, emotional distress, and (in one instance) involuntary manslaughter.

Taking us through this complex web of charges is Colin Miller, professor at University of South Carolina School of Law. 

Transcript:

Archival: Now you give us the facts of the case. One can be found guilty.Of reckless driving in a number of different ways. Intentional infliction of emotional distress and illegal entry without the homeowners permission.

Archival: Hundreds of thousands of dollars in employment taxes ...We would make such a finding of burdening interstate commerce, presumably because we believe we have the capacity to figure out what is interstate commerce..we'll that's how we do it in the North Pole..well, that's not how we do it here. Santa Claus is FINISHED

Nick Capodice: You're [00:00:30] listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: And today on our podcast that explores the basics of how our democracy works, we answer a listener question. Elijah Grosvenor wrote us and asked, Would Santa be breaking the law when he enters your house through the chimney? Would he be a stalker because he knows everything that you do? In short, Hannah, is Santa a criminal?

Hannah McCarthy: The People versus Santa Claus, [00:01:00] also known as Saint Nick. Kris Kringle Pere Noel.

Nick Capodice: Babbo Natale, Father Christmas.

Hannah McCarthy: Do you remember in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when Santa just shows up?

Nick Capodice: It was like, Well, I guess Santa is here! And he's got a sword.

Now for your presents. Mrs. Beaver!

Nick Capodice: Gave that Mrs. Beaver a brand new sewing machine, if I recall correctly, anyways. The city fathers may cluck their tongues and cry, What [00:01:30] has this to do with civics? But, Hannah, I swear, this question begs a thorough investigation of how some laws apply to us. We're going to talk about trespassing, burglary, stalking, and also criminal versus civil cases, tort law, the commerce clause. And finally, how a legal professional might defend the jolly old elf were he to be on trial.

Hannah McCarthy: Can we start with that first violation? Santa comes into your house. Is he trespassing?

Nick Capodice: Well, [00:02:00] let's approach the entirety of Santa entering your home. And to do this, we're going to look at at least three possible offenses.

Colin Miller: Right. So trespass would be entering someone else's property without permission. And so on the one hand, you could say, sure, Santa's trespassing, and the other you could say there's implied consent or an implied license.

Hannah McCarthy: Colin Miller!

Nick Capodice: Yeah, that's right. I needed a legal hard hitter for this episode, so I reached out to Colin [00:02:30] Miller. He teaches criminal law and evidence at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Hannah McCarthy: I have heard Colin say that so many times because I used to edit the podcast that he co-hosted. Undisclosed Addendum. What is an example of implied consent or license?

Colin Miller: Like if I'm having people come into my home to do plumbing work or to do carpentry, etc., If I'm welcoming Santa in even without explicitly doing so, I'm leaving out milk and cookies. I'm welcoming him in. Then in that case, it [00:03:00] wouldn't be trespassing.

Hannah McCarthy: So the act of leaving milk and cookies and writing to Santa earlier that year could be argued as implied consent for his entering your home.

Nick Capodice: Right. And if we're talking trespassing, that's not him just coming into your house. Trespassing is somebody coming into the four corners of your property lot.

Hannah McCarthy: Does that include the air above your house?

Nick Capodice: Oh well, you know, we have to do an episode on who owns the air, who rules [00:03:30] the skies. But as of right now, the US Supreme Court hasn't ruled on a definitive number of feet above your property. That is yours, but it is generally accepted to be anywhere from 80 feet to 500 feet.

Hannah McCarthy: So if you fell from the sky and landed on somebody's house, could that be trespassing?

Colin Miller: Not necessarily. And this is interesting. There's a defense to trespassing called necessity. And so imagine you're flying a hot air balloon and all of a sudden it starts [00:04:00] malfunctioning.

Nick Capodice: I think we're going down! Nigel, we descend!

Colin Miller: And you land on someone's property. That would typically be trespassing. But you claim necessity. I was going to die unless I landed this hot air balloon. So, yeah, if Santa lands the sleigh on top of the house again, assuming there's not consent by the homeowner, which there might be, that could be considered trespassing.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. We've got the sleigh on the roof. Now let's go down the chimney. Is that breaking and entering? [00:04:30]

Nick Capodice: Not anymore. Not in most states.

Colin Miller: So breaking and entering is kind of the old common law crime that's become burglary, although some states still have breaking and entering. And even though it's called breaking and entering, it's not necessarily breaking something as much as moving something like opening a window, etc.. And so my question is, how does Santa operate when he enters the chimney? Is he actually moving something? Is he causing damage or magically is he going down the chimney and not causing damage? So breaking and entering probably [00:05:00] not.

Hannah McCarthy: Wait breaking and entering is not a thing anymore.

Nick Capodice: No, the breaking part has been removed in the majority of our country, so we have to consider Santa as a potential burglar.

Colin Miller: There are still some states that have breaking and entering, but for the most part it's been replaced by burglary. No. So burglary is entering the dwelling of another with the intent to commit a felony or theft inside. Meaning if I break into someone's home and I plan to steal their Monet painting and I'm caught before I [00:05:30] do so I'm still guilty of burglary because I had the intent to steal it. When I enter, Santa is giving gifts. The only thing he's doing in the home would be maybe drinking the milk and cookies. But again, that sort of offered to him, right? He's not taking that without consent that's being given to him by the homeowners.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. Now, this brings us back to the question of the day. Is Santa a criminal? Are these crimes?

Nick Capodice: I'm so glad you asked that, Hannah. I had call and [00:06:00] break down the difference between a civil and a criminal case.

Colin Miller: So criminal law is every state has criminal statutes. They prescribe, prohibit certain behavior, murder, trespassing, arson et cetera. And if the prosecution in a state believes you violated a criminal law and they can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, they represent the state, the people, and your punishment would be typically imprisonment. It could be a fine, it could be restitution, [00:06:30] etc.. And then the civil system would be I, as an individual, am suing for damages. Monetary damages based upon harm caused to me individually.

Nick Capodice: Trespass can be civil or criminal, and burglary is almost always criminal.

Hannah McCarthy: And what defines a felony?

Nick Capodice: Believe it or not, it is the punishment.

Colin Miller: For criminal violations, we have a dichotomy. We have misdemeanors and we have felonies. And so, for instance, at the federal level, a misdemeanor [00:07:00] is defined as a crime with a maximum punishment of one year or less. So it's a lesser punishment felony. The maximum punishment is more than a year. And so that designation of the severity of the crime.

Hannah McCarthy: So if Santa is found guilty of a criminal violation, he could face fines or imprisonment. But if it's a civil violation, he could be sued.

Nick Capodice: Yes. And this is an area of law that is called tort law.

Hannah McCarthy: Tort?

Nick Capodice: Do you know anybody who went to law school?

Hannah McCarthy: Yes.

Nick Capodice: And [00:07:30] you ever heard somebody say like, oh, I got torts at 5:00 tomorrow?

Hannah McCarthy: Not specifically, but I have heard them talk about tort law. Do you know what tort law is?

Nick Capodice: No, I don't. But I do know somebody who does. And as it is the holiday season, I think we should just give her a quick call.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, I know who this is.

Cami Capodice: Hey, little brother.

Nick Capodice: This, by the way, is my older, smarter lawyer sister, Cami. Everyone should have a lawyersister. You went to law school, right?

Cami Capodice: I did. I did.

Nick Capodice: Can [00:08:00] you tell us what a tort is?

Cami Capodice: A tort? Yeah. Well, the amateur baker and me wants to say it's a cake. I guess you want the legal definition. Yeah, Well. Well, the legal definition of a tort is an act or omission that gives rise to injury or harm to another. And it amounts to a civil liability as opposed to criminal liability. I think the example that most of your listeners will probably be familiar with is [00:08:30] a car accident, right? Or a slip and fall, something like that.

Nick Capodice: Did you enjoy like studying torts when you were in law school?

Cami Capodice: Yes, it was actually my favorite subject. It's different from a crime. So there is some overlap between torts and crimes, and I'm probably getting a little too in the weeds on that. But when I said civil liability and the definition of tort, what I meant by that was that it's a monetary damages are awarded as opposed to what we think of punitive damages, [00:09:00] like having to go to jail for a crime.

Nick Capodice: Okay. Thank you, Cami for answering my question. I've wanted to know that for a long time.

Cami Capodice: You're most welcome.

Nick Capodice: All right. Love you.

Cami Capodice: Love you, too.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, so how could Santa be prosecuted under a tort?

Nick Capodice: There is a tort called IIED or an NIED that is intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Colin Miller: So that would not be a criminal act. But yes, [00:09:30] you could have the family of the naughty kid getting coal suing Santa if they could establish that he caused their child's emotional distress.

Hannah McCarthy: I know we got to take a break, but I have one more civil case hypothetical,

Nick Capodice: Shoot.

Hannah McCarthy: It's funny you should say that, because let's say Santa gives a child a bb gun for Christmas.

Hannah McCarthy: This child wrote Santa and asked for it. They maybe [00:10:00] sat on his lap in a department store and asked for it. The kid gets the BB gun, shoots it and knocks his glasses off.

Archival: Oh, no. Where are my glasses?

Hannah McCarthy: Can Santa be considered liable here?

Nick Capodice: No, he cannot. Once a gift is given, it is the property, sole property of the giftee. Now, this hypothetical child could sue the Red Ryder BB gun manufacturing company and say that there were insufficient warnings about recoil. But in this case, Santa is totally off the hook. [00:10:30] And yes, we are going to take a short break, but when we're back, we're going to get into the complicated web of interstate and international commerce when it comes to the man with the bag.

Hannah McCarthy: But first, it is the holiday season

Nick Capodice: A Hickory dock

Hannah McCarthy: And if you are in the giving vein, our show is listener supported and we would be most appreciative of a tax deductible gift which you can make by clicking on the link in our show notes or at the top of our website, civics101podcast.org. [00:11:00]

Hannah McCarthy: We're back. We're repurposing every free music bed we can find that has sleigh bells in it because we are answering a listener's question. Is Santa a criminal? Now, Nick, we've covered the domicile part. But I want to know about another thing our listener brought up. Stalking and voyeurism. [00:11:30]

Colin Miller: Right, Right. Going to find out if you're not here. Nice, right?

Nick Capodice: Again, this is Colin Miller, law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Colin Miller: Depending on the state again. Right. The stalking is a crime. Voyeurism is a crime. They have all different elements. But Right. If you're having Santa monitoring 24 seven around the year to find out if the kids are naughty or nice, that could constitute voyeurism in terms of stalking. That would be about causing [00:12:00] harm or mental distress, etc., which that's not Santa's goal.

Hannah McCarthy: But again, as we heard earlier, giving a kid goal or nothing at all could be infliction of emotional distress.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, but that that's a bit of a stretch. However, there is a far greater possibility of violation if we look at Santa through the legal lens of surveillance. And we say this all the time in our show, but in this instance, it really matters when we go state to state, we are talking about consent [00:12:30] to be recorded. And since you and I work in radio, we think about this a lot.

Hannah McCarthy: Well, we think about this a lot because as journalists, it's never really a question as to whether or not we should ask for consent. But there is this idea of a one party consent or two party consent state.

Nick Capodice: Right. And journalists or not, here in New Hampshire. We are in what's called a two party consent state. We are one of 13 states that have some manner of two party or all party consent. We have to let the person that we're recording know through words or implication [00:13:00] that we are recording them. Now, the other 37 states are called one party consent states.

Hannah McCarthy: Meaning that if I am in Wisconsin or Georgia or New York, I could record audio or video of someone without their consent.

Nick Capodice: Yes, but your intent matters here. It's against the law to record somebody with an intent to blackmail or commit another crime. And there's a big exception here. You can't be recorded somewhere where you have the, quote, expectation [00:13:30] of privacy.

Hannah McCarthy: Right. Like a store can have a security camera behind the cash register, but not in the changing rooms or the bathroom.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, and I can't set up a camera from my house into my neighbor's bedroom because that would be a violation of their privacy.

Hannah McCarthy: So let's bring this around to Santa. I kind of feel like this one could be the definitive mark against Kris Kringle if he knows when you're sleeping. Is he in your bedroom?

Nick Capodice: My only counterargument to that is that we don't have evidence of illegal surveillance. [00:14:00] You know, he sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake, but we don't know how. He knows that. We're in another legal realm here. This is one of super powers, and there's not a lot of case law around that.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. Let's move this sleigh along to a very different legal world. Interstate commerce.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. Is Santa's skirting taxes or tariffs by a hauling that sack of toys hither and yon. Because as we've heard before, Hannah, things can get a little dicey whenever you cross [00:14:30] state lines.

Colin Miller: He is obviously crossing state lines and international lines, etc.. But in terms of commerce and commerce clause, he is not seeking compensation unless you unless you consider the milk and cookies, compensation for him giving gifts and showing appreciation. So that would then trigger the Commerce clause and he would have to declare the items that he is bringing in to sell. So yeah, I guess you could have a violation there.

Nick Capodice: And real quick to anybody out there who's heard of the Commerce Clause but isn't exactly sure what it is. Here [00:15:00] is a brief primer.

Colin Miller: Commerce Clause is all about the government regulating interstate commerce. So among the states and this sort of go with the classic Supreme Court case, and this is Wickard versus Filburn, which is a person growing wheat in their backyard. And that was like the Paradigm Commerce Clause case from a century ago that sort of been refined.

Archival: Now, the possession, the regulation of possession is so necessary to the prohibition of marijuana [00:15:30] in interstate commerce, the Congress should be able to reach it just as it was able to reach the growing of wheat in Wickard. That's the question that needs to be answered.

Colin Miller: But yeah, certainly if you were to say in this case that Santa is exchanging gifts for milk and cookies, then in that case he's going to have to deal with customs laws and everything regulating conducting a business internationally and across the states.

Hannah McCarthy: So Santa could be busted for tax evasion. [00:16:00]

Nick Capodice: That's how they got Capone.

Hannah McCarthy: You're not seriously equating Santa to Al Capone?

Nick Capodice: No, I'm not. But it's easy for us to just throw out the milk and cookies as incidental. But they keep coming up. They are part of the implied consent to enter the house, and they could turn his actions into those of a transactional nature.

Hannah McCarthy: How many people does Santa visit?

Nick Capodice: Well, that's a really tough number. There was a great article from the Washington Post that I read called The Breathtaking Scale of Santa Claus's Task on Christmas [00:16:30] Eve, which took into account ages of children across the world, religions, celebration of Christmas, even among those who don't practice Christianity. And their rough estimate is about 530 million children across the world. Now, that's going to be at least a billion cookies and about 3.6 million gallons of milk.

Hannah McCarthy: So Santa's real superpower is the ability to process that much dairy. I'm glad we brought the world wide perspective in here because I have always [00:17:00] wondered who governs the North Pole?

Nick Capodice: Everybody and nobody. Hannah. The North Pole is not land, it is ice. So therefore it is governed by the Law of the Sea. A treaty from 1982 which about 150 countries signed. Every single country that touches the Atlantic Ocean may claim ownership of the North Pole.

Hannah McCarthy: Seriously. So you can't if you're an inland country, you can't claim ownership of the North Pole. That's so silly. [00:17:30]

Nick Capodice: Well, you're owning a little part of the ocean, you know. And this matters when we look into our next issue. Does Santa violate any labor laws?

Colin Miller: It's like in the US we have OSHA, which is about workplace safety. We have FLSA, which is about labor standards. And whether you're, you know, obviously what are elves and how much are they working? Is this child labor around Christmastime? Are they violating labor laws by having them work too long and too hard? What's the workplace [00:18:00] like there? All of those could potentially be issues for Santa. Yeah, obviously, if there were complaints lobbied against Santa and the North Pole, you could have people coming in and determining, is this a safe workplace? How many hours per week are they working? How much are they being paid to Santa have money? Is minimum wage implicated? You know, there's all sorts of things that come into play if they're under US jurisdiction, if it's not. What law actually governs the North Pole? Unclear.

Nick Capodice: Before [00:18:30] we finish up, I just want to say. Yeah, all of this is pretty wishy washy. And that's kind of how the law works, isn't it?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I know. We cannot ever answer a listener question without saying. Well, it depends.

Nick Capodice: Well, it depends. That said, Collin laid out one charge against Santa. That's pretty ironclad.

Colin Miller: There's the song about Grandma got Run Over by a Reindeer.

Hannah McCarthy: I despise [00:19:00] that song.

Nick Capodice: You do? Yeah, I do, too. I hate, I hate. I hate Peter Pan. But not as much as I hate that song. But we've got to bring it up because according to the song, Grandma did get Run Over by a Reindeer.

Colin Miller: Assuming that's true and the kid singing it says it happened walking home to our house on Christmas Eve, Santa would probably be guilty of [00:19:30] involuntary manslaughter. You know, going back, he is reckless now or he is negligent. He caused the death of grandma. And so if that song is right, that's involuntary manslaughter.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So let's assume that Santa is charged with any or all of these criminal and civil violations. He comes into court. What would his defense be?

Nick Capodice: Well, I asked Colin if you were charged with representing Santa. What would you ask him before the trial?

Colin Miller: I don't know that I need to ask him anything because I think [00:20:00] I kind of know what his M.O. is and what he's doing. What I would try to do within the bounds of the law. Which is interesting because you're in New Hampshire. I think New Hampshire is the only state that advises and informs jurors explicitly about jury nullification.

Hannah McCarthy: What is jury nullification?

Colin Miller: So jury nullification says even if the state proves all of the elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, jurors have the inherent ability to nullify and say, [00:20:30] I think this is an unjust prosecution. I'm going to find the defendant not guilty.

Hannah McCarthy: So this means getting a jury to vote a certain way regardless of whether the defendant is guilty.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, and this is quite rare, but this is you saying to the jury, look, yeah, my client did these things. That has been proven, but they shouldn't be punished for it. And I ask you to vote not guilty even though they did it.

Colin Miller: And I think Santa would be the paradigm case of jury nullification of, [00:21:00] look, they're saying he violated these laws. You all know what Santa Claus does. He brings joy, he brings gifts, happiness, hope, etc.. If you were to find him guilty, he would no longer be able to do what he was doing. And it would be awfully tough to find 12 men and women on a jury, none of whom would nullify. Meaning. We have a unanimous verdict of guilt, meaning Santa is shut down. So jury nullification is my huge defense as defense counsel for Santa.

Nick Capodice: So [00:21:30] Santa is off the hook in my books today, Hannah. And my only regret is I couldn't figure out about the legality of owning reindeer because they're owned in the North Pole.

Hannah McCarthy: Right. And the North Pole is owned by everyone. Some countries that perhaps allow reindeer ownership and some that perhaps do not.

Nick Capodice: Can you name all the reindeer?

Hannah McCarthy: Dasher. Dancer. Prancer. Vixen. Comet. Cupid. Donner. Blitzen. [00:22:00] Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Nick Capodice: You missed one.

Hannah McCarthy: No, I didn't.

Nick Capodice: Yes, you did, Olive.

Hannah McCarthy: What's the joke?

Nick Capodice: Olive the other reindeer.

Nick Capodice: Well, that's enough of this huffamaruff. Happy holidays to all you out there from us at Civics 101. For real. This episode is written by me Nick Capodice with Hannah McCarthy. Our staff includes Jacqui Fulton, Christina Phillips as our senior [00:22:30] producer, and Rebecca Lavoie our executive producer. Special thanks always to and for my sister Cami. Movies I quoted in this episode are the BBC version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the Paper Chase and Santa Claus, the movie, all of which I know very well, and can perform on command, and also the Christmas story, which I cannot. Music in this episode by Ryan Kilkenny, Pandaraps, Howard Harper Barnes, Brightarm Orchestra, Timothy Infinite, The New Fools (not the girl by the whirlpool) Dylan Sits, Raymond Grouse, Anthony Earls, KieloKaz, ProletR, and the guy whose albums ALWAYS end up under my tree, Chris Zabriskie. Even [00:23:00] though they hold their heads in shame every time they hear it, Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The President & The 25th Amendment

When a monarch dies, power stays in the family. But what about a president? It was a tricky question that the founders left mostly to Congress to figure out later. Lana Ulrich, of the National Constitution Center, and Linda Monk, constitutional scholar and author of The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, explain the informal rules that long governed the transition of presidential power, and the 25th Amendment, which currently outlines what should happen if a sitting president dies, resigns, or becomes unable to carry out their duties. 

Click here for more charts of Civics 101 episodes by Periodic Presidents!

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TRANSCRIPT

Nick Capodice: [00:00:00] Hannah we have made a lot of episodes of Civics 101 since the show started in 2017. And at any one time we've got a list of 20 to 30 different topics that were either already working on or want to do soon. And yet there are few topics we keep coming back to over and over.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:21] Yeah, I mean, elections and voting, those are two I can think of. Yeah, we could probably fill a dozen episodes with things about the election process, the politics of voting, of representation.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:33] Yeah, there's one topic we've talked about multiple times on the show because it keeps coming up in the news during the presidencies of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

News Clip: [00:00:41] Have you emailed any members.With the investigative.Branch about.The President's health or the president's decline?Do you believe he's capacitated? Well, I think that we have got to be very careful. He needs to start.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:54] It has to do with presidential power and checks on that power.

News Clip: [00:00:58] The fish stinks from the head. Plain and simple. And so I believe the president is dangerous and should not hold office one day longer.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:09] But it's not impeachment. It has to do with the responsibility of the president, the vice president, and the cabinet to ensure we have a leader who is able to do their job.

News Clip: [00:01:20] I'm not saying he's not a danger. I do believe that there's grave risk there. But we've got 13 days.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:27] We're talking about the 25th Amendment.

News Clip: [00:01:30] People inside the.Administration, people in the cabinet were whispering about invoking the 25th Amendment. It's staggering. We're not at a 25th Amendment level yet.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:47] This is Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:49] I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:50] And today we are going to break down the 25th Amendment. This is the amendment that lays out what happens when, for whatever reason, the president cannot perform the duties of that office. And there are four parts to this amendment. The first part deals with the line of succession. The second is about replacing the vice president. The third is about when the president declares their own inability. And the fourth, the most debated, is about the vice president and cabinet's power to declare presidential inability. So today, we're going to explore what this 25th Amendment thing is all about anyway, and why Part four especially, is not as straightforward as it seems.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:28] And to do that, we need to go back to the beginning, to the creation of the Constitution, because there was a lot of time between then and when the 25th Amendment was actually ratified in 1967, the year was 1787, a bunch of men and Whigs were crowded in a room in Philadelphia debating how our government should work. And as it is often said, it was hot. Very odd. We're talking about the Constitutional Convention. And one subject of debate was what do we do if something happens to the president?

Lana Ulrich: [00:03:11] Well, they were debating exactly how they should frame the language addressing presidential succession in the Constitution. And they went back and forth as to how to say, you know, what happens when the president becomes disabled? Should there be an election? Should there not be an election?

Nick Capodice: [00:03:27] This is Lana Ulrich. She's the vice president of content and senior counsel at the National Constitution Center.

Lana Ulrich: [00:03:34] So they finally settled on the language that is included in the original Constitution and Article two, Section one, clause six, which says in case of the removal of the president from office or of his death, resignation or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the set office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and the Vice President declaring what officer shall then act as president and such office shall act accordingly until the disability be removed or a president shall be elected. And that seemed to clarify a bit as to what would happen, but it didn't answer all of the questions. And there was one delegate in particular, Dickinson, who was taking notes during the debate and sort of wrote to himself, what is the extent of the term disability and who is to be judge of it?

Nick Capodice: [00:04:29] John Dickinson, who represented Delaware at the Constitutional Convention, was a supporter of the Great Compromise. This is what gave smaller states equal representation to larger ones in the Senate and proportional representation in the House. And that word disability is very, very complicated. Throughout U.S. history, there have been deeply ingrained societal prejudices and discrimination towards people who have disabilities or require accommodations. So that word carries a lot of weight.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:00] So basically, the only real things the Constitution said at the time were that if something happened to the president, the vice president would take over the president's duties and that Congress was in charge of figuring everything else out, correct? Yeah.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:17] The Constitution left Congress to iron out many of the logistics of presidential succession, but it also failed to answer the question what does it mean for the president to be unable to carry out their duties? And perhaps even more importantly, who determines that the first piece of legislation that Congress passed that clarified the logistics of succession was the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, which basically laid out what would happen if both the president and vice president were unable to carry out the duties of the presidency.

Lana Ulrich: [00:05:50] And so something that is debated to this day. Now, what laws did Congress pass to help build on what was laid out in the Constitution?

Nick Capodice: [00:06:02] The first thing Congress did pertaining to that was to pass the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, which basically laid out what would happen if both the president and vice president were unable to carry out the duties of the presidency.

Lana Ulrich: [00:06:16] Under the first Presidential Succession Act. It was the president pro tempore of the Senate and then followed by the Speaker of the House.

Nick Capodice: [00:06:23] But at the time, the law still stated that whomever replaced the president would serve as, quote, acting president until the next election.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:32] What is the difference between acting president and just president?

Nick Capodice: [00:06:37] That's the thing. The word acting suggested that there was some distinction between the two, but those distinctions weren't actually written out. And then John Tyler came along. And as so often happens, when you put a rule into practice for the first time, you realize that your interpretation is not the only interpretation.

Lana Ulrich: [00:06:57] Right. So William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office, and he died on April 4th, 1841. His vice president, John Tyler, basically just insisted that he became president of the United States and was not merely acting president.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:12] Right off the bat, John Tyler seemed pretty eager to move into the White House and disregard the cabinet that his predecessor had appointed. And he told the cabinet, quote, I shall be pleased to avail myself of your counsel and advice, but I can never consent to being dictated to as to what I shall or shall not do. I, as President, will be responsible for my administration. And then he basically said that if they didn't agree with that, they were welcome to resign. And some people felt that this was a misinterpretation of what it means to be an acting president.

Lana Ulrich: [00:07:46] This became known as the quote unquote, Tyler precedent. And it was pretty controversial. And not everyone agreed that the vice president automatically became president, even if the president died in office. Even former President John Quincy Adams wrote to himself, I paid a visit this morning to Mr. Tyler, who styled himself president of the United States and not vice president, acting as president, which should be the correct style.

Nick Capodice: [00:08:10] Former President Harrison's cabinet had understood that the president would only do things if the majority of his cabinet approved of them, and they expected Tyler to follow the same rule as acting president, that he would consult them, trust their judgment, and wouldn't make decisions unless they approved.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:26] But this wasn't Tyler's cabinet, right? These were people appointed by Harrison.

Nick Capodice: [00:08:31] Yeah, they weren't his people. And to be frank, there was no love lost there.

Lana Ulrich: [00:08:35] Yeah. I mean, I think there were some that may have agreed with his interpretation, but as you know, John Quincy Adams did not. But Tyler basically took the oath of office. He gave an inaugural speech and he moved into the White House. And so there just to quell any doubts that he was, in fact, president, they were they were silenced at that time.

Nick Capodice: [00:08:55] And this is how we end up with the Tyler precedent, where the line between president and acting president is pretty much nonexistent.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:05] What about those times when the president is not obviously permanently out of office either because they've died or resigned? What if the president gets sick or has an ongoing medical issue?

Lana Ulrich: [00:09:19] There were sort of unspoken norms about what would happen if, at the same time if a president became disabled. And throughout history there were many presidents who were quietly incapacitated and due to many reasons, including the fact that there was no constitutional mechanism in place, they just kind of worked quietly behind the scenes to keep his illness under wraps until the next election. I mean, this happened with Woodrow Wilson, had a severe stroke and for a long period of time toward the end of his term, he was essentially not acting as president. But basically his wife and his cabinet were just kind of acting in his stead. Yeah.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:53] And this informal behind closed doors method of the vice president, the cabinet, even the president's spouse was working well enough, even though Congress wasn't really privy to it and didn't have much power over it. There wasn't enough urgency in Congress to rally behind something like a constitutional amendment until the threat of nuclear war came along.

Lana Ulrich: [00:10:17] Right around the time of President Eisenhower, who was also ill.

News Clip: [00:10:21] Stricken with ileitis, an inflammation of the lower intestine. The 65 year old chief executive was taken from the White House.

Lana Ulrich: [00:10:27]  Which coincided with the Cold War.

News Clip: [00:10:29] Soviet Unionn Has informed us That over recent years It has devoted extensive resources to atomic weapons.

Lana Ulrich: [00:10:38] It became clear that we needed something that was a bit more formalized.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:42] Nothing really happened immediately, though. There was a proposed amendment in 1963 that would give Congress the power to determine if the president was unable to discharge their duties. But many argue that it gave Congress too much power, especially considering that Congress already had the power of impeachment.

Lana Ulrich: [00:10:59] And I think the crucial moment in time was after President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

News Clip: [00:11:05] From Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th president of the United States.

Linda Monk: [00:11:41] And then Lyndon Johnson was in office without a vice president and he had a history of heart attacks.

Nick Capodice: [00:11:48] This is Linda Monk, constitutional scholar and dear friend of the podcast and author of The Bill of Rights A User's Guide. We have finally reached the 25th Amendment, which gives clearer rules about what to do if the president cannot carry out their duties.

Linda Monk: [00:12:03] So that's when Congress in 65 finally passed it through Congress, and then it was ratified, I believe, in 67.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:11] So this amendment does not come up until after we have had several presidents die or have major illnesses while in office.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:20] Yeah, And John F Kennedy's death, which made Lyndon Johnson president, put the issue of succession at the top of people's minds. The amendment was ratified in 1967. Here is Lana Ulrich again.

Lana Ulrich: [00:12:33] And so when President Nixon resigned in 1974, Vice President Ford became president under Section one.

News Clip: [00:12:40] To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication. Would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the president and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:19] But what if the vice president vacates the job? Because in that example, Gerald Ford was not Nixon's original vice president. He became vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:42] Well, that's part two of the 25th Amendment.

Lana Ulrich: [00:13:44] So this requires the president to nominate a vice president when the office is vacant, subject to the confirmation by a majority of the House and the Senate.

News Clip: [00:13:55] Mr. Nixon has asked the Republican hierarchy to propose possible successors by tomorrow evening. His choice and many names are being mentioned tonight, will have to be approved by majority vote of each House of Congress.

Lana Ulrich: [00:14:08] So in 1973, Gerald Ford became vice president through Section two. After Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. And then when Ford took over the presidency the next year, he invoked Section two and nominated Nelson Rockefeller to fill his vice presidential vacancy.

Nick Capodice: [00:14:26] And now we're going to get into those circumstances where the president hasn't died, but for some other reason, they are unable to do the job, either temporarily or permanently. And this is section three. Section three is about the president's responsibility to decide and disclose when they need to give their duties to the vice president. This is known as a voluntary transfer of power.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:49] So if the president needed a colonoscopy, for example.

Nick Capodice: [00:14:52] Exactly. Actually, most examples of this happening have to do with colonoscopies, specifically. For example, President George W Bush invoked Section three when he had to undergo colonoscopy, putting Vice President Dick Cheney temporarily in charge.

Lana Ulrich: [00:15:07] In 1985, President Ronald Reagan was also about to undergo colon cancer surgery. And so he designated Vice President George H.W. Bush to be acting president.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:18] And recently, President Biden discharged his duties to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:22] Because of a colonoscopy.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:24] Because of a colonoscopy.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:29] And this is the responsibility of the president, right? They have to be the one who says, okay, I'm going to transfer power right now.

Lana Ulrich: [00:15:35] You one would assume so. Yes. Since it's since it requires a written declaration to both transfer the power and then to resume power after the president's disability is removed. Yes.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:46] Isn't that interesting the way that Lana says one would assume so. I think the implication there being, as with so many wishy washy interpretations of the Constitution or.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:59] Flat out disregard of it.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:00] Disregard for the Constitution, the idea is, you know, this is how it has happened and might happen in the future, but anything can be done differently. And sometimes we do things differently and that can cause a constitutional crisis. So this is all voluntary.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:18] Yeah. And this is called a declaration of inability, where the president submits a notice to Congress saying presidential power is being discharged to this person, either permanently or until such and such a time. And if the president submits that, they then submit a follow up declaration when they are able to retake their duties. And this has been used, as we said, several times by different presidents.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:42] What about an involuntary transfer of power? Is it possible for a sitting president to be removed involuntarily without an impeachment?

Nick Capodice: [00:16:51] This brings us to the quite complicated part four of the 25th Amendment, and we're going to talk about that right after this break.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:00] But before we go, I have a feeling you're listening to this podcast because you want to know more about American democracy, but we don't tell you everything on the podcast. We sure don't. A lot of it gets cut in actual fact, sometimes the very best parts. But we have a place to put that. It's called Extra Credit. It's our newsletter and you could subscribe to it at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:26] We're back. This is civics one on one. And we are talking about what happens when the president dies, resigns, or decides they need to temporarily hand over their presidential duties to the vice president for a medical procedure or something like that. But those processes are not the reason why. About two years ago, in the beginning of 2021, everyone was suddenly talking about the 25th Amendment in terms of the vice president or the president's own cabinet taking away the president's power. Specifically, I'm talking about a lot of people wondering whether former President Donald Trump's vice president and cabinet might declare that he was incapable of doing his job, which of course, did not happen.

News Clip: [00:18:08] But in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, members of the president's family, White House staff and others tried to step in to stabilize the situation, quote, to land the plane before the presidential transition on January 20th. You will hear about members of the Trump cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and replacing the president of the United States.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:36] So what does the 25th Amendment say about those situations where the removal of power might not be voluntary?

Lana Ulrich: [00:18:48] Yeah. So section three is the voluntary transfer of power. But Section four details what happens when there may need to be an involuntary transfer of power when the president, for it's assumed medical reasons, is unable to make that conscious decision, whether he's in a coma or whether he has maybe a very severe mental impairment progressed dementia. In that situation, it allows for the vice president to be the crucial decider, essentially, and working with either the heads of the cabinets, the heads of the departments and or a disability review body that Congress may establish to determine that the president is no longer able to fulfill his duties and therefore trigger Section four and the mechanisms by which to involuntarily take power away from the president.

Nick Capodice: [00:19:40] That is Lana Ulrich, again, of the National Constitution Center. And this is Linda Monk, again, constitutional scholar and author of the Bill of Rights A User's Guide.

Linda Monk: [00:19:48] We talk about disability as though it's physical disability, but I think what the controversy about President Trump is raising is whether or not the president is capable of caring. Now, maybe that's not a physical disability, maybe that's other kinds of capabilities.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:09] So who gets to make that call?

Lana Ulrich: [00:20:10] Yeah, under Section four, the vice president is really the the one who starts the process to determine that the president is is disabled. And then if the president has the opportunity to contest that, but then the vice president and the department heads can go back to Congress and contest the president's contesting essentially as well. And so and if they're successful, then the vice president becomes acting president.

Linda Monk: [00:20:35] The language is, is that a majority of the cabinet and the vice president have to be involved. If it starts within the executive branch, if the president doesn't go along, it goes to Congress anyway. And it has to be a two thirds vote. That's a pretty big vote.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:56] So this is not something the vice president or the cabinet can do without the approval of Congress.

Lana Ulrich: [00:21:02] You know, we have impeachment, and that's a political process for removing the president. And I think that the 25th Amendment contemplates some kind of of disability other than, you know, the president is, you know, maybe did something illegal, is is just not performing well. There's got to be something else there. But it's it's not ultimately up to, say, the White House doctor to make that decision. I think the vice president may certainly consult with the president's doctors and ask for an opinion. But ultimately, I think it does boil down to a political decision to actually take that step, to say, okay, we're going to invoke Section four of the 25th Amendment.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:42] Has that ever happened?

Lana Ulrich: [00:21:43] No, it hasn't. And it's controversial for many reasons. One being that it takes power away from a duly elected president, essentially, but the other is that it's never been invoked. So we don't really know how the procedure and the practice will play out. And there are a number of gaps that are still left open. So there's a lot of open questions under this mechanism.

Nick Capodice: [00:22:04] For example, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, some of his aides suspected he had developed symptoms of Alzheimer's that were compromising his ability to do the job.

Lana Ulrich: [00:22:14] Some of his aides had discussed that among themselves, I think especially after Iran-Contra happened.

News Clip: [00:22:20] Good evening. I know you've been reading, seeing and hearing a lot of stories the past several days attributed to Danish sailors, unnamed observers at Italian ports and Spanish harbors and especially unnamed government officials of my administration. Well, now you're going to hear the facts from a White House source and you know my name.

Lana Ulrich: [00:22:40] And they briefly discussed it. And then I think they decided to do a case study and they went the next day and spoke with with the president and sort of interviewed him. And then they decided, well, he was acting completely normal. And so they felt that it wasn't appropriate at that time to invoke Section four. But they but they had kicked the idea around.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:59] Why would members of the executive branch, like the vice president or the Cabinet, choose to invoke the 25th Amendment instead of handing over things to Congress for impeachment?

Lana Ulrich: [00:23:10] You know, we have impeachment. And that's a political process for removing the president. And I think that the 25th Amendment contemplates some kind of of disability other than, you know, the president is, you know, maybe did something illegal, is is just not performing well. There's got to be something else there.

Linda Monk: [00:23:28] You know, our framers were very good at putting stumbling blocks to the exercise of power. And the reason you'd want to start with any kind of removal from office, from within the executive branch is because those people are supposed to be at least by constitutional duty, most. Oil to the president. This must be a blow to the Constitution and the country first. But they wouldn't have gotten there without the president. So you think those would be the people who would be most capable of making that determination without political motivation?

Nick Capodice: [00:24:03] For example, in 2021, some members of Congress and the public called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment because of President Donald Trump's potential responsibility in and handling of the January 6th riot on the Capitol during the certification of the election.

News Clip: [00:24:21] He may have only 13 days left as president, but yesterday demonstrated that each and every one of those days is a threat to democracy. So long as he is in power. The quickest and most effective way to remove this president from office would be for the vice president to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment.

Linda Monk: [00:24:46] Either way, it's going to come back to Congress. It's going to come back to the leadership in Congress and the vice president.

Nick Capodice: [00:24:54] But at the end of the day, that question that John Dickinson scrawled in his notes back in 1776 at the Constitutional Convention, what is the extent of disability and who is to be the judge of it is still up for debate.

Lana Ulrich: [00:25:10] Yes, it's definitely still an open question. And I think it's going to depend on maybe, you know, obviously a future situation that would call for the application of the amendment to see how it kind of plays out in real life.

Linda Monk: [00:25:23] Again, this is where I think Alexis de Tocqueville said it never ceases to amaze him how wonderful the Americans were at ignoring and avoiding the contradictions of their constitution. So oftentimes in our constitutional interpretation, it's what the political actors choose to do. And that that is part of the Constitution. It's not just supposed to be automatic words on paper. It's people exercising their judgment.

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Who gets to run for president?

What does the Constitution say about who is allowed to be president? And why is the answer to that question still a little unclear? 

Brady Carlson, host of All Things Considered at Wisconsin Public Radio and author of Dead Presidents.  explains the formal and informal rules that govern who is allowed to become Commander-in-Chief. 

---

Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:03] Nick, have you ever wanted to run for president?

Nick Capodice [00:00:05] Absolutely not.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:06] I think the very fact that I don't know how to tweet about anything is reason enough. You know, I can't be like I'm doing this, everybody, because that feels too self-promotional to me. It grosses me out, which is ridiculous. So I could I couldn't be a politician of any kind.

Archival: [00:00:24] If this is what the people want, then I will do that.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:30] Let's [00:00:30] just be straight about it. Are you considering running for president yourself?

Archival: [00:00:34] I want everybody to be absolutely clear. I'm not running for vice president. I'm running for president of the United States of America. I'm running.

Archival: [00:00:42] For president. I'm running for president. I'm running for president.

Archival: [00:00:45] I am running for president.

Archival: [00:00:46] I am running for president.

[00:00:48] Of the United.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:56] You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:58] I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:59] And today [00:01:00] we are talking about who gets to run for president and who doesn't.

Archival: [00:01:05] You just woke up this morning and suddenly decided to run for president.

Archival: [00:01:09] No, no, I just thought.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:18] So there are three qualifications a person has to meet to run for president. Now, two are pretty straightforward. One is not, and absolutely none of them have anything to do with [00:01:30] political experience, leadership abilities, or an affinity for oval shaped offices.

Brady Carlson: [00:01:36] The first one is age. You have to be 35 years or older, and that is when you take office. You can still be 34 on Election Day as long as your birthday's coming up.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:46] This is Brady Carlson. He's the All Things Considered host at Wisconsin Public Radio and the author of Dead Presidents An American Adventure into the Strange Deaths and Surprising Afterlives of Our Nation's Leaders.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:59] Okay, Rule [00:02:00] number one, you have to be at least 35 years old. Got it. What's the second rule?

Brady Carlson: [00:02:04] The second is a residency requirement that says you have to be an inhabitant of the United States for 14 years or more. This is mostly a carryover from the early days of the country. They didn't want someone who maybe lived in the UK up until, you know, the Constitution was ratified, suddenly taking a boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean and then saying, Hey guys, I'm here. I'm going to be your [00:02:30] new president. That said, though, there have been some questions about what exactly it means to be an inhabitant because it's not entirely spelled out in the Constitution. It says you have to be an inhabitant for 14 years. But does that mean 14 years in a row? Does that mean 14 years over the course of your life? And just the word inhabitant itself can be interpreted in different ways. Does that mean that you're physically in the United States for up to 14 years, or does it mean that you maintain a domicile like you [00:03:00] have a physical mailing address?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:01] For example, some of our former presidents were in the military and served overseas. That service does count toward the 14 years of inhabitant sea.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:11] But what if you were just working abroad, not as part of the military or you were living outside the U.S. for a stretch of time for some other reason?

Brady Carlson: [00:03:18] There was a question in the 20th century about Herbert Hoover.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:22] Hoover was a mining engineer. He studied geology in college and worked all over the world inspecting mines to figure out [00:03:30] if they were good investments or not.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:32] Hmm.

Brady Carlson: [00:03:32] He had worked overseas before he was elected president, and it was within that 14 year window. So if inhabitant meant 14 straight years of being in the United States ahead of being elected, he might have not been eligible to be president. That's obviously not what happened, though.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:47] The requirement of living in the United States for 14 years turns out to be less significant and controversial than the final requirement to run for president, which has to do with citizenship.

Brady Carlson: [00:04:00] Number [00:04:00] three is the most complicated qualification. So I'm just going to read it right out of the Constitution. No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution shall be eligible to the office of President. What it means to be a natural born citizen is something that the courts have not entirely weighed in on. So it is definitely up to interpretation.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:23] So you can't run for president if you weren't a U.S. citizen from the very moment you were born. Even if you became [00:04:30] a U.S. citizen later in life.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:31] That's right. But the term, quote, natural born gets even more complicated because you don't have to have been born on U.S. soil to be considered a U.S. citizen from birth. You can be born a U.S. citizen if you were born abroad, so long as at least one of your parents is a US citizen. And that parent has also spent time living in the United States. And there have been several presidential candidates over the years who were born outside the United States and had their qualifications [00:05:00] for presidency called into question. Take Senator Ted Cruz, for example. He ran for president in 2016.

Archival: [00:05:07] Jobs, Freedom. Security. Cruz. I'm Ted Cruz and I approve this message.

Brady Carlson: [00:05:14] I remember being at a primary event that he had in New Hampshire during the 2016 campaign, and a guy in the audience put it to him point blank. He said, Ted Cruz, you were born in Canada. To me, a person born in Canada is not a natural born citizen of the United States, and therefore you're not eligible to be president. [00:05:30] So here's the back story. Ted Cruz was born in Canada. His mother was born in Delaware. So she was an American born person. His father was born in Cuba. At that point, he was not a citizen of the United States, but he is now. They were working in Canada at the time. And so Ted Cruz said, by virtue of having a mother who was an American citizen, he was a natural born American. And the quote he gave was, I have never breathed a.

Archival: [00:05:54] Breath of air on this planet when I was not a US citizen. It was the act of being born that [00:06:00] made me a US citizen. So under the law, the question is clear. There will still be some who try to work political mischief on it. But as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward.

Brady Carlson: [00:06:10] Ultimately, it's a question that can be decided in the courts. Now, that's one that hasn't totally been decided in the courts. In Ted Cruz's case, there were several legal challenges to his candidacy. Most of those were turned away on procedural grounds. A few declared that basically that his explanation was good enough. But unless someone files [00:06:30] a lawsuit against you, basically your word is good enough to get you qualified. But there have been other challenges over the years. John McCain, in fact, when he ran for president, faced some legal challenges because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. He wasn't born in a state. Mitt Romney's dad, George Romney, when he ran for president in the 1960s, he was born in Mexico to American parents and they both faced these same kinds of questions.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:53] One example, of course, is the challenge to former President Barack Obama's qualifications before and during his presidency. [00:07:00] However, that conspiracy theory promoted by his successor, former President Donald Trump, was not really about the nature of Obama's citizenship, but rather the legitimacy of his birth certificate in the first place, which Trump called forgery, and about Obama's dual British and American citizenship. But when it comes to the question of whether someone qualifies as a quote unquote natural born citizen, if they were born outside the United States, to a parent who is a citizen, Ted [00:07:30] Cruz is not alone.

Brady Carlson: [00:07:31] Now, like I said, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn't taken this up. So the broad understanding up to this point is essentially, if you're born in the United States, you're a natural born citizen under the birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, if you're born in some other part of the world, But one of your parents, not both, but one of your parents is an American citizen, then you're still considered a natural born citizen. My favorite story is the one when Chester [00:08:00] Arthur became president, he was vice president under James Garfield and then moved up after Garfield died. He was born in a rural Vermont, and some of his political enemies started a whisper campaign that maybe he was actually born in southern Canada rather than rural Vermont. Obviously, that didn't go too far either. But it's not a new thing for people to speak of their political opponents as the other, or maybe not quite as American as other people are.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:32] Now [00:08:30] this brings us to U.S. territories. We have 14 territories, but only five have people living there Puerto Rico, Guam, the US, Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands with the exception of American Samoa. If you were born in a US territory, you are a US citizen. American Samoans are considered American nationals, meaning they can live on [00:09:00] American land indefinitely and can apply for citizenship.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:04] But people living in US territories aren't allowed to vote in federal elections. Right?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:08] Right. Citizens and territories can only elect a non-voting representative in Congress and they don't get to vote for president, though they can still participate in primaries and caucuses. So though someone living in a US territory may be a citizen, they don't even get to vote for president. However, as far as we can tell, [00:09:30] they can still run for president because they are by definition, still natural born citizens.

Archival: [00:09:38] I'm asking you to stand with me to build a movement.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:42] In 2019, we did have a presidential candidate who was born in American Samoa, Tulsi Gabbard of Freedom, justice, equality and opportunity for all. But her parents were U.S. citizens. So this question of whether she would have been qualified because [00:10:00] of her birth in American Samoa wasn't really relevant, and she was in a similar position to those other presidential candidates who had been born outside of the US.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:08] Has there been any push to change any of those requirements, for example, to allow people who gain citizenship later in life to run for president? Because there's got to be millions of people in the US who can't run for president, even though the US citizens because they aren't, quote, natural born citizens. Under the current interpretation.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:28] In actual fact, a 2019 [00:10:30] study estimated that there were as many as 20 million adults who wouldn't be qualified to run for president because they were naturalized citizens rather than citizens from birth. Now, some scholars have argued that the natural born citizen rule could be considered discrimination based on someone's national origin under the Fifth Amendment. But that argument hasn't gotten much traction at this point.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:53] Well, what about a constitutional amendment, one that wouldn't restrict someone from running if they got citizenship later in life? [00:11:00] Has that ever happened? Has that been proposed?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:01] Yeah. So there have been a few proposed constitutional amendments like that, usually inspired by specific individuals who are ineligible to run for president. Take Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Now, Kissinger, who was German born, was the secretary of state in the Nixon administration. And his popularity during the chaos of that time made some people start to think of him as potential presidential material, except, of course, [00:11:30] for the fact that he was a naturalized citizen.

Archival: [00:11:33] Do you think he's a political problem in the election? Do you think he is an issue? Not at all. He may have been a problem in the primary leading up to the convention, but the broad consensus.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:50] Among this led New York Congressman Jonathan Bingham, to propose an amendment that would allow naturalized citizens to run for president. There was also more recently, [00:12:00] a proposed amendment by Senator Orrin Hatch, sometimes called the Arnold Amendment because it was widely considered to be tied to establishing eligibility for Austrian born former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.

Brady Carlson: [00:12:13] I have, in fact, perused some newsreels from the Schwarzenegger library. And that time that you took that car.

Archival: [00:12:18] Oh, that Schwarzenegger library.

Archival: [00:12:21] Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential library. Wasn't he an actor when.

Archival: [00:12:26] He was president?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:29] So far, [00:12:30] no amendment has gotten enough traction to change that requirement so that naturalized citizens can run for president.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:37] Okay. Let me run this all back to you. You can only run for president if you're at least 35 years old, if you've lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years and you are a, quote unquote, natural born citizen, a term that's still up for debate, but once you actually get the job. Hannah, I'm wondering about what it takes to keep it after that first term, because as we've seen [00:13:00] in our most recent election, just because you can be president for two terms, that doesn't mean your party and the public will support your reelection.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:07] You know, Brady's got some great high drama stories about this very thing. And we will talk about the performance review of the tops, all performance reviews. The reelection of an incumbent right after this.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:20] But first, we are here to remind you not of the mess you made when you.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:24] And we're here.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:25] To remind you.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:27] But first, Hannah and I just want to remind you [00:13:30] that there are no. Qualifications whatsoever you must possess to subscribe to our newsletter, Extra Credit. It's fun. It's full of facts and fancy. It comes out every two weeks and you can do it at our website, civics101podcast.org. We're back. This is Civics 101. We're talking about running for president. Hannah, we have seen from as recently as the 2020 election that the incumbent president doesn't automatically [00:14:00] get reelected. But my question is, does that incumbent automatically get nominated by their party to run for a second term? Or could the party decide, you know what, Actually, we didn't really like you and what you did. So we're going to try this with someone new.

Brady Carlson: [00:14:15] No guarantees. You got to earn it. And in fact, nobody is a better case study for that than New Hampshire's only president, Franklin Pierce. He won election in 1852. And while it was common [00:14:30] in those days for people to serve just one term, he had his eye on reelection. The only problem was he had made himself very unpopular in his own party. And so when the 1856 Democratic Party convention came around, he actually lost the nomination to another Democrat, James Buchanan.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:46] Pierce was an anti abolitionist, northern Democrat, and a lot of his decisions were basically like throwing lighter fluid on the political fire that eventually became the Civil War, including undoing the Missouri compromise by letting the [00:15:00] newly formed territories of Kansas and Nebraska decide by popular vote if they would allow enslavement. The resulting political conflict in Kansas was so violent that it came to be called Bleeding Kansas.

Brady Carlson: [00:15:12] He sought the nomination. He wanted to get a second term and they said thanks, but no thanks.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:17] Buchanan did eventually go on to win the election, but usually if an incumbent decides to run for reelection, their chances of getting the nomination are pretty good.

Brady Carlson: [00:15:27] So it's actually fairly common in U.S. history [00:15:30] for incumbent presidents to face strong primary challenges. The incumbents usually win against those challenges. A great example of that was in 1976. That was when Gerald Ford was running for a full term, and he faced a very serious challenge in the Republican primary from former California Governor Ronald Reagan. They were separated by just a handful of delegates. Reagan very much could have won that nomination. But Ford was able to hold on.

Archival: [00:16:00] Let [00:16:00] me say this from the bottom of my heart. After the scrimmages of the past few months, it really feels good to have Ron Reagan on the same side of the line.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:24] If Franklin Pierce was the exception to the norm, and incumbents who want to run for reelection usually [00:16:30] get nominated, why do we so often see those challengers from the same party? And I'm thinking of 2020 when there were three other challengers to President Donald Trump and the primary. Now, none of them did. Well, sure, but they still ran.

Brady Carlson: [00:16:45] Because in politics, the usual rules for things don't always apply. In some ways, you can actually win by losing. An example of that was in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush was running for a second term and he faced a primary challenge from conservative commentator Pat [00:17:00] Buchanan. Now, Pat Buchanan wasn't going to win that race. He wasn't in a position to take the nomination away from a sitting president, but he was able to put up a strong enough showing, especially in the New Hampshire primary, that he was able to change the course of the Republican platform.

Archival: [00:17:16] With some polls showing him slipping and real concern about Tuesday's turnout. George Bush pulled out all the stops today.

Archival: [00:17:23] So let me introduce you, a supporter and a great friend of mine, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Archival: [00:17:29] To the message [00:17:30] to Pat Buchanan.

Archival: [00:17:31] Hasta la vista, baby.

Archival: [00:17:32] Thank you.

Brady Carlson: [00:17:35] He really wanted to have more socially conservative language in that platform and was able to get some of that into the party platform for the year.

Archival: [00:17:44] Mr. Bush refuses to utter Buchanan's name, but claims outrage over his negative tactics, having apparently forgotten how helpful his own slashing ads were in winning here four years ago.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:56] Essentially, Pat Buchanan criticized President Bush for not being conservative [00:18:00] enough in some of his policies. For example, he called out the president for a proposed tax hike that was in direct opposition to Bush's famous read my lips, no new taxes line. Buchanan's success in the New Hampshire primary and then his popularity elsewhere in the country meant that when President Bush was eventually renominated as the Republican candidate, the platform he was running on and the promises he was making were more conservative.

Brady Carlson: [00:18:26] Another example of that was in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson [00:18:30] was looking to win another term. But Vietnam was a very controversial issue at the time, and some anti-war Democrats ran against him in the New Hampshire primary and actually did well enough that they convinced Johnson he couldn't win another term. So he actually got out of the race, which is kind of what they were aiming for.

Archival: [00:18:47] By any political measure, President Johnson has suffered a major psychological setback in New Hampshire. Accordingly, I shall not seek and [00:19:00] I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

Brady Carlson: [00:19:07] All of that said, though, once an incumbent gets into the general election, assuming that they do fend off all those primary challengers, they tend to do very well. So incumbency is not a universal thing, but it is a very powerful thing. Incumbents have a better shot than, say, a schlep like me.

Nick Capodice: [00:19:31] Well, [00:19:30] that is a lot on running for president here on Civics 101. Today's episode was written and produced by Christina Phillips with help from Hannah McCarthy. Our staff includes Jacqui Fulton and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by OTE, Jahzzar, Silver Maple, Mr. Smith, Ketsa, MindMe, Lucas Pittman, Chris Shards, Superintendent McCupcakes and Bomull. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio. [00:20:00]

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:02] And Austrian born Arnold Schwarzenegger. And Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger Oh, how can I say Schwarzenegger? Schwarzenegger. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.

Nick Capodice: [00:20:23] Just say Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:25] Arnold Schwarzenegger. What do I say?

Nick Capodice: [00:20:28] Schwarzenegger. It's Schwartz, Schwarzenegger. [00:20:30]

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:31] Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.

Nick Capodice: [00:20:33] One more time.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:34] Oh, my God.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Propaganda

Propaganda is a piece of information designed to make you think or do something specific. So how does it work?

Today on Civics 101, John Maxwell Hamilton (professor and author of Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda) and Jennifer Mercieca (professor and author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump) take us through the Federalist Papers, the Committee on Public Intelligence, the Four Minute Men, amygdala highjacking, and the myriad ways propagandists  take advantage of our best intentions to achieve a result. 

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Transcript

Nick Capodice: [00:00:04] What did you say your favorite card was again?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:06] Six of diamonds.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:08] Thought you said the Jack of Hearts

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:09] No I didn't say the Jack of Hearts.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:13] All right, I'm gonna do a, um. A magic trick. Do me a favor. Uh, cut that deck anywhere you want.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:18] Okay.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:18] Now, I'm going to, um, just leave these here until the end of the recording. I'm not going to touch them. All right. Okay. This, by the way, is one of the first tricks I ever learned. And for anybody out there listening, I'm a terrible, [00:00:30] terrible magician. But this is a technique called a force.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:34] What's a force.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:35] A force is when someone, like, takes a card believing that they had a choice, but they don't. I told you to cut the deck randomly and you take the card you cut to, but I'm forcing you to take the card I want. Choice is an illusion here, Hannah. And it doesn't just happen with cards.

[00:00:54]

Archival: [00:00:55] Interesting stories about dead people voting. Wow. Amazing. What free and [00:01:00] fair elections we all have confidence in.

Archival: [00:01:01] Sharing of.

Archival: [00:01:02] Biased.

Archival: [00:01:03] And false news.

Archival: [00:01:04] Has become all too common on social media.

Archival: [00:01:06] I think it was one of the coldest Julys we've had in. So while while I don't know if that's going to really fly with climate change...

Nick Capodice: [00:01:22] you're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:28] I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:28] And today we are talking [00:01:30] about propaganda.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:01:32] Propaganda is compliance gaining. It's a kind of force.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:01:36] Essentially propaganda is the an effort by someone to get you to think what they want you to think. Every time a king put on a robe, an ermine robe, it was an act of propaganda.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:01:49] It's persuasion without consent. It denies people their free will. It denies people their ability to consent or choose to believe [00:02:00] what you have compelled them to believe. And it's anti-democratic and it's a lot easier than persuasion.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:02:06] My name is John Maxwell Hamilton. I'm a professor at Louisiana State University and a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:02:14] My name is Jennifer Mercieca, and I'm a professor at Texas A&M University. I teach classes in political communication, propaganda and the dark arts of communication.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:28] Hold on. Jennifer's class is called The [00:02:30] Dark Arts of Communication.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:31] It is it explores propaganda, demagoguery and how our brains process information and how those natural processes lead to cognitive weaknesses that are exploited by dark arts techniques. And yes, that includes compliance gaining, which is forcing someone to act in a particular way.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:50] All right. I got to learn all about that. But first, can we just get a textbook definition of propaganda?

Nick Capodice: [00:02:56] Absolutely. Propaganda is a piece of information [00:03:00] designed to get people to think or act in a certain way. But John's got a better definition than that.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:03:06] There's a wonderful definition that was done at the end of World War One. The Encyclopedia Britannica had no definition for propaganda in 1911. At the end of the war they had a very long one. And the reason for that was that they had not anticipated putting out a new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica for some years. But the war changed everything. And one of the things that [00:03:30] changed was propaganda. And they had a British author who had been a propagandist write a wonderful essay on propaganda. And I read it to you because it's a superb definition. Those engaged in propaganda may genuinely believe the success will be an advantage to those who they address, but the stimulus to their action is their own cause. The diferencia of propaganda is that it is self [00:04:00] seeking, whether the object be worthy or unworthy intrinsically or in the minds of its promoters.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:06] Let me try to say that another way so I can make sure that I understand it. People who make propaganda may feel they're doing something good for everyone, but what makes it propaganda is that it has a goal to fulfill regardless of whether the person creating it thinks it's good or bad. I think the closest thing in my mind is advertising, right? Like your [00:04:30] goal is to sell toothpaste. So you make commercials saying this toothpaste is amazing, right?

Nick Capodice: [00:04:36] And it can be amazing toothpaste, but that is irrelevant. You may think it tastes like chalk, but if you're hired to make an ad for it, you're not going to put that in it. And I want to be clear. Propaganda is not the same thing as just persuading somebody of something.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:04:52] Persuasion is an invitation. You invite someone else to think like you do to value the same values that [00:05:00] you value in the same way to remember or forget history. And you acknowledge that that person has free will. They have a mind of their own, and they may choose to change their mind and agree with you. But then again, they may not. Persuasion is really hard. It's very difficult to get someone to change their mind. We know that if people are invested in a topic, if they're knowledgeable about a topic, then they're very resistant to changing their [00:05:30] opinions.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:31] But as Jennifer said, compliance gaining is different.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:34] It is. And it's a lot easier to do than persuading someone to change their mind. We're going to touch on other kinds of propaganda, but today I really want to focus on governmental propaganda. Not toothpaste, but policy.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:48] When I think of propaganda in America, the first thing that comes to mind are like World War posters, right? Uncle Sam saying, "I want you" depictions of the U.S. and our allies [00:06:00] being these heroic figures versus the grotesque, often racist interpretations of various enemies as beasts. But are there any examples of it from earlier in US history?

Nick Capodice: [00:06:11] Oh, absolutely. Jennifer said that a document near and dear to our hearts could be viewed as propaganda.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:19] Which one?

Jennifer Merceica: [00:06:20] Perhaps the most important example of propaganda in that sense in the founding generation, the founding era is [00:06:30] the Federalist Papers.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:32] Oh, yeah, I can see that. It's 85 essays selling people our proposed constitution.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:06:37] The Federalist Papers were written with one purpose, which was to get the citizens of the state of New York to agree to adopt the Constitution. And there was a lot of anti federalist sentiment in New York. And so they wrote the Federalist Papers as a joint project, but also as a propaganda [00:07:00] campaign.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:01] They, by the way, refers to James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and sort of John Jay, who didn't even use their real names on these papers. They wrote them under the pseudonym Publius.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:07:12] And they even talked about it during the Constitutional Convention, when they talked about how they would get the Constitution ratified and the method by which they would ratify the Constitution. They said very explicitly, if you understood how to read what they were saying, that [00:07:30] experience will dictate public opinion, that we will lead., We will lead the others to adopt this thing. And so they wanted it to have the approval of the public because they thought that was necessary for the legitimacy of the new government. But they also wanted to make sure that they led the public to approve it. And so the whole ratification of the Constitution is a fascinating propaganda campaign.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:59] And [00:08:00] we think of these essays, the Federalist Papers, as their own thing. But the Federalists, the ones who are pushing the new Constitution, had lots of tools at their disposal to make that happen.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:08:11] It's part of this whole public relations propaganda campaign that was run by the Federalists. So counties and in some states they elected people and they gave them binding instructions. So we will elect you to the state ratifying convention as long as you agree to vote [00:08:30] no. And then they voted yes. Or newspaper editors refusing to publish anti-federalist news articles or opinions. And if they did publish one anti Federalist one, they would publish five responses to it. Or the people who control the Postal Service were federalists. And so they would disappear letters that urged anti-federalist sentiment.

Nick Capodice: [00:08:58] And there are more examples of possible early [00:09:00] American propagandists, including Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams, selling the revolution itself. Sam Adams produced an event every year called the Boston Massacre Oration, reminding everybody what happened on that day. This guy pushed that war.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:17] Wow.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:09:18] Some people even think that he stood behind a tree in the Battle of Lexington and fired the first shot to get like the war going as an agent provocateur.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:30] Look, [00:09:30] last quick thing about Sam Adams. He wrote Pro Revolution articles under no fewer than 25 different pseudonyms. And Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet Common Sense to persuade people to support the revolution. There were plays, op eds, public orations, catchy slogans.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:49] Like No Taxation without Representation.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:51] Yeah, or liberty or death. It was an onslaught. However, providing information is just one side of propaganda. [00:10:00]

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:10:00] The other side of propaganda that we have to keep in mind is that propaganda is also the suppression of information. You want to get people to think things by telling them what to think, and you want to keep them from thinking about things that get in the way of your message. So John Adams is president passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which put some journalists out of business as an effort to suppress information that he didn't like. So, sure, we have lots of examples historically.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:27] So propaganda has been a part of this country pretty [00:10:30] much since the founding, Right. But we didn't use that word until much later. I mean, when did propaganda become propaganda?

Nick Capodice: [00:10:40] Well, I'll tell you about that. And the posters and the movies and the fascinating story of the four Minutemen right after this quick break.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:48] But first, if you want a little something that may or may not be full of propaganda at any one moment, yeah, then you want our newsletter. It's where we put everything that doesn't make it into these episodes. It's actually just very [00:11:00] fun. It's one of the few enjoyable things you can find in your inbox every other Thursday, and we're not trying to sell you anything You can subscribe at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:14] We're back here on civics 101, and we are talking about propaganda. Nick, was there sort of a defining era that established the new American propaganda?

Nick Capodice: [00:11:25] Yeah. Here is John Maxwell Hamilton again. He is the author of Manipulating the Masses, [00:11:30] Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:11:33] What Changes with World War One is a recognition of the importance of public opinion, the rise of mass literacy and the rise of mass publications, which meant people began to be able to more readily come to their own conclusions based on third party writing and thinking. And a third party not being your neighbor, but being someone who was a punitive expert. The reaction of the government had to be, Then how do we control that? [00:12:00] When the war came in April of 1917, even before the law was passed for conscription, Wilson a week later created something called the Committee on Public Information.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:15] The Committee on Public Information. The CPI.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:19] A committee?

Nick Capodice: [00:12:20] Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:21] What branch was it under?

Nick Capodice: [00:12:22] It was under the executive branch. And it's an independent agency.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:25] So like the EPA or the FCC, the Fed, etc.. [00:12:30] Right. It's still around?

Nick Capodice: [00:12:32] Nope. It only lasted until 1919, but it had a massive effect in those two years.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:39] What was the CPI doing?

Nick Capodice: [00:12:42] Well, their initial goal was to censor information that they thought could pose a risk to national security. But bills giving them that power to censor never passed in Congress.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:12:52] But it had all kinds of referred authorities to censor because it worked with some censoring organizations like the post Office.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:58] The post office censored [00:13:00] the mail?

Nick Capodice: [00:13:00] Oh, they did. You could be fined for sending anti government anti war or even anti liberty bonds mail. And while the CPI didn't explicitly censor, they took a different tack.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:13:12] It became very aggressive about providing information and it did it with every means of communication possible. Posters, ads, a news service. The list goes on. Movies. And so they they were providing messages to the public continuously.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:27] They made their own movies?

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:13:29] Yeah, they [00:13:30] produced their own movies. They also vetted movies. Now, they couldn't censor movies in the United States per se, but movie theaters were very worried about being shut down because there were lots of savings programs in the war. For example, you don't want to heat certain facilities because you want to save coal. So the movie theaters saw themselves being very vulnerable. So they would they would allow the CPI to opine on movies they were showing because they wanted to be on the right side of the government. This is an [00:14:00] example of the referred authority they had. They also wanted to be able to export movies because that's how they made money. This is the beginning of the United States having a very strong influence on foreign movie production. That's why our movies tend to go abroad.

Nick Capodice: [00:14:13] The head of the CPI was a man named George Creel, who referred to their work as, quote, the world's greatest adventure in advertising. And they advertised the heck out of the war. Ad executives, journalists, actors, directors, [00:14:30] artists, famous artists like N.C. Wyeth. All of them worked in the committee to sell the war to the American people. But the biggest, possibly most effective arm of the CPI was a group of 75,000 volunteers called the Four Minute men.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:48] All right, Who were the Four Minute Men?

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:14:50] The Four Minute Men was a brilliant idea, which was that during the changing of movie theater, films, reels, leading citizens in whatever community you happen to be in would [00:15:00] stand up and say something that they wanted the audience to think or do. In the case of doing, for example, they would get up and say, You need to donate binoculars to the Navy. The Navy didn't have enough binoculars, so and thousands of binoculars were donated. Another case of doing would be to buy Liberty Bonds to support the war.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:20] They were everywhere, Hannah. They weren't just at the movies. You'd take your kids to a Boy Scout meeting, or you'd go to a church and somebody you know, a member of your community [00:15:30] stands up and says, Before we start today, I just want to thank all the folks out there who mailed a candy bar to their boys on the front last week. You go to a county fair and there's a guy dressed up like Uncle Sam, and he's telling you to buy war bonds. There's a mandatory all staff meeting at work where someone just stands up and waxes poetic on the pride he felt registering for the draft. You can't go about your day without being told how important you are to the war effort.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:58] So were these people [00:16:00] government employees?

Nick Capodice: [00:16:01] No, no. I mean, they worked for the government, but they were volunteers. They were not paid.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:04] That is fascinating, right, that you have these people who you trust in your circle, in your community, giving these four minute speeches. On behalf of the government.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:15] Yeah, And not just people in your community. Also famous people like Charlie Chaplin or Douglas Fairbanks Jr. These four minute men were everywhere. And to your point about, you know, it's in your community, there were four minute men who gave speeches in Yiddish, Sioux, [00:16:30] Dutch, a dozen other languages, and they sounded inspired. They sounded improvisational.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:16:37] They appeared to be local and they appeared to be spontaneous. But in fact, they were highly scripted by Washington. They had themes every week. They were given instructions of what they were supposed to say. They could improvise, but they were given a they were given a very clear mandate and they were monitored.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:53] There were people secretly monitoring your seemingly improvised speech.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:58] Got to make sure you stay on message, McCarthy [00:17:00]. And the four minute men got instructions every week, like this week's theme is buy war bonds. And don't say phrases like We all have to do our part that's hackneyed and doesn't have meaning anymore. And at the same time, members of the CPI were always looking out for journalists and activists who got in the way of their messaging.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:17:22] And maybe this is a lesson for people who care about democracy. Political leaders like to find ways to [00:17:30] fence back information that they don't like. In the case of Trump, the phrase that he used was fake news.

Archival: [00:17:36] Because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:17:41] In the case of the CPI, they had a phrase called enemy talk. And they actually ran a syndicated column called Enemy Talk. And the idea was these are things that you shouldn't believe in, the things that enemy wants you to believe. And then if you hear somebody saying this kind of thing and they have real examples, [00:18:00] that's because the enemy planted it.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:02] So earlier, Jen said that compliance gaming is easier than persuasion. And this, I think, is a pretty clear example. If someone says something you don't like, it is not hard to counter with. Yeah, well, that sounds like enemy talk.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:17] Yeah. Get that guy.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:18:21] Well, I think the lesson for all of us needs to be and it's a bipartisan lesson when we hear people telling us that something shouldn't be talked about or thought [00:18:30] about or a blanket phrase that tries to negate a classification of information, our antenna should go up. Because it's a shortcut to appeal to our emotions.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:41] World War One ended on November 11th, 1918. The committee was disestablished a year later. But before we make the jump to modern day propaganda, John told me that his intent in studying the CPI was not to demonize the people who worked in it.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:19:00] So, [00:19:00] you know, the story of the CPI really is a story of good people doing bad things. But the people who were in the CPI were largely reformers. In fact, they were all reformers. They were progressives who wanted a better country and had been using their talents to make improvements. But the seductive nature of propaganda being what it is, they started taking shortcuts in our democratic procedures and decided it was better to get people to believe the right thing [00:19:30] than to promote debate.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:31] So, Nick, the four Minute men approach is not, as far as I know, happening today. Nobody is standing up right before a Marvel movie to expound on inflation or student loan forgiveness.

Nick Capodice: [00:19:44] Yeah. And also, we're not going places. We don't gather in sort of public venues as much as we used to even before COVID. But it's still happening to us whether we like it or not. Both John and Jennifer said that one character trait of propaganda is that it is [00:20:00] non-consensual and it's not necessarily the government trying to sell us on a war. It's political parties selling us policy, it's companies selling us their product, you name it. And now that we live in a digital world alongside our analog world, we are very, very vulnerable. Here's Jennifer Merceica again, author of Demagogue for President The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump. And she's going to lay out three vulnerabilities that propagandists exploit.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:20:29] Propagandists [00:20:30] are really, really good at exploiting vulnerabilities, whether it's vulnerabilities and information or vulnerabilities in terms of how our cognitive processes work. So most of our information that our brain receives is processed cognitively without us knowing.

Nick Capodice: [00:20:49] Our brain processes things in different ways. So there's like the quick instinctive reaction, and then there's the more plodding, deliberative consideration. And Jen said to be aware, when [00:21:00] you're receiving information that appeals to first impressions, that that makes you respond immediately.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:21:06] There are strategies that applications use and platforms. There are people on the Internet who talk really fast, and there's a reason why they do that. There's a reason why memes are so successful. It's very difficult to get people to think about what you want them to think about. You know, it's cognitively taxing and we are cognitive misers. And so the [00:21:30] peripheral route to persuasion is that system. One approach which says, you know, people will use heuristic cues to decide things and they won't even be aware that they're deciding something.

Nick Capodice: [00:21:46] A second technique that Jennifer pointed out is called amygdala hijacking, taking advantage of how our brains process fear.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:21:56] If you were watching the news during the George Floyd protests, [00:22:00] you might have seen images of looting or burning cars or destruction or whatever.

Archival: [00:22:06] Chaos in America, violent clashes erupting across the country. One person shot and killed at a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:22:16] And those images would be playing continuously any time they talked about those protests, whether or not any of those images were relevant to that protest or that day's news. And so [00:22:30] what we know is that most and I mean a great majority, 93 to 94% of those protests were peaceful. No violence at all. But the perception that people have is that they were incredibly violent. And that's because of the way that the media cultivate reality. They're going to show the most dramatic footage they have of the protest they're going to show, especially if they're against the protests. They're going to show what looks violent, what looks scary, that's going to draw people's attention. [00:23:00] And your brain isn't analyzing the information critically as you're watching the news, Right? You are influenced by scary, stressful music. You are you are influenced by the stressful tone of voice. Your amygdala gets hijacked by conspiracy theory and by threats, by scary pictures that are run continuously on a loop. And that is all processed pretty cognitively. So you might not even realize [00:23:30] that your heart is racing and why, but you have a really bad perception of what those protests are like.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:39] How do you counter amygdala hijacking?

Nick Capodice: [00:23:42] Jennifer says, Just notice it. Notice how your body is feeling when you watch certain news pieces and if your heart is racing, you can stop if you want to. But even that can be kind of hard.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:23:57] It's in a way even addicting [00:24:00] because you're like, What should I be afraid of? I got to turn on that TV channel to find out. And then it keeps you there on the edge of your seat. And it, and you stay through the commercials, right? I gotta and see what's going to happen. What's the scary thing?

Nick Capodice: [00:24:15] And the third vulnerability that propagandaists capitalize upon goes back to what we were saying about sort of the public sphere, our need for social connections.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:24:25] Human beings absolutely have to be around and connected to [00:24:30] other people. Fundamentally, we will go mad if we are not you know, we we have right now a a crisis of loneliness where people claim that they don't have any friends, they don't they don't feel connected to society. All of that creates distrust. The less social interaction we have with others, the less we trust others. It's a social glue, right? It's a social lubricant. [00:25:00] It allows for the government to remain trusted and stable. We have a crisis in distrust in government right now, and so our connections are absolutely necessary. They're crucial to us as human beings, and they're crucial to society, but they're also very, very easily exploited. Right. Our need to connect makes us polarized, right? Because you create this sort of in-group versus this outgroup and you say, I'm going to do [00:25:30] whatever I can to protect the group. Our connections online make us targets. They make us nodes in the propaganda game.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:38] Something that is particularly nefarious about propaganda is that it appeals to positive character traits.

Nick Capodice: [00:25:45] What? What do you mean?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:46] Like our love of country or our desire to make the world a better place? Or most often it seems the need for things to be fair. And just. Now those are good feelings and [00:26:00] propaganda sort of touches our hard wiring. It can take good intentions and turn them into bad actions. So how do we change it? I get Jennifer's point that we have to first know when we are being exploited and then turn it off. But isn't there a better solution? Are people in power in this supposed beacon of democracy, the United States capable of doing anything to stop propaganda?

Nick Capodice: [00:26:28] John says, As of right [00:26:30] now, not really.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:26:32] We need better laws and we need better enforcement and better supervision, and we don't have it. And so as a result, the power of the White House grows and grows because the number of tools they have, social media tools, for example, are now growing exponentially, while the number of journalists who actually cover government legitimate journalists is decreasing. And so the balance of power is changing. And that's a problem. [00:27:00] It's a big problem.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:02] I mean, this makes me think of the fact that more and more often, most of us are not getting our news directly from the news outlet, but it's being pushed to us on social media like things that are suggested. Hey, you might like this on Instagram, right?

Nick Capodice: [00:27:15] Or YouTube or Twitter.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:16] Or Facebook or TikTok.

Nick Capodice: [00:27:17] Always Tick tock.

Jennifer Merceica: [00:27:19] Tick Tock is so good at figuring out who you are and what you believe and what you want to be exposed to, that it's essentially a confirmation bias [00:27:30] machine. Everything about that algorithm is designed to feed you information that you already agree with and not to feed you any information that you don't agree with. So that's a problem.

John Maxwell Hamilton: [00:27:48] And and in a world where the government has so much information, power, propaganda, power, we have to be prepared to think critically about the people we like because of the [00:28:00] potential of bias and not let ourselves be led down a path simply because it sounds good or appeals to something that we actually already believe but maybe needs more scrutiny.

Nick Capodice: [00:28:12] All right, Hannah. Look at your card. Ns How did I do it?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:21] Nine of diamonds! It was on top of the stack.

Nick Capodice: [00:28:23] You got it. Well, you know what?

Nick Capodice: [00:28:23]  Today [00:28:30] on Civics one on one. This episode is made by me Nick Capodice with you, Hannah McCarthy. Thank you.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:37] Thank you. Our staff includes Jacqui Fulton. Christina Phillips is our senior producer and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer.

Nick Capodice: [00:28:43] Music in this episode by Francis Wells, Czar Donic, The New Fools, Luella Gren, Arc de Soleil, Emily Sprague, Poddington Bear, Scott Holmes, Cooper Canell, Chris Zabriskie, the Grand Affair, and George M. Cohan

Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:55] Civics one One is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Post-Presidency Perks: What do former presidents get when they leave office?

What does a person get after the U.S. presidency’s over and done with? We answer a question from listener Patrick, who asks if former presidents get anything special. Do they ever, and we lay out the perks of having once held the highest office in the land.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:02] You know, I once read that the cast of Ocean's 11 would check into hotels with the last name president. So if they got a wake up call or whatever it would be for Mr. President.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:12] Table for 11 for Mr. President.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:14] Although, frankly, I feel like a table for Mr. Clooney and Mr. Damon would probably get you further. This is civics one on one. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:00:27] I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:28] And today we are looking into [00:00:30] what exactly it means to carry that honorary president around. But you know, for real, like, what do you get being Mr. President, even after you leave the White House in your rear view? But credit where credit is due. This question did not come from us.

Mary Ellen Wessels: [00:00:48] Hi, I'm Mary Ellen Wessels. I teach middle school civics at Gate City Charter School for the Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire. One of my students, Patrick, asked me a great question that I really didn't know the answer to. [00:01:00]

Patrick: [00:01:01] Does a former President have any special privileges like bodyguards or free stuff, Things like that?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:09] It turns out, Patrick, that there is a whole act of Congress that takes care of this entire question. But first, I have to get something out of the way. Once a president, always a president is a president president for life.

Nick Capodice: [00:01:26] Well, it's like pretty specifically not [00:01:30] how it works.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:31] And yet.

Archival: [00:01:32] Well, Mr. President, what do you think of that fellow compared to the politicians you see these days? Well, that's one of the first times I've ever seen myself on television, as I was telling you before the show began. I simply have a phobia about that.

Archival: [00:01:44] But President Carter, Mrs. Carter, it is so wonderful to see both of you. Thank you for talking with us. 75 years of marriage.

Archival: [00:01:53] And you will hear President Clinton, one of only two presidents in U.S. history, to face impeachment, tell how he considers [00:02:00] that a badge of honor. Please welcome President George W Bush.

Archival: [00:02:05] Hello, Mr. President. Thank you.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:10] This is the first thing I want to get to, Nick. Does the president keep their title when they leave office?

Nick Capodice: [00:02:17] I think they do, don't they? Like you always see it in the news. President Carter. President Nixon. It's never just removed. They don't just say Barack Obama.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:25] So here's the story, because it's not only former presidents who [00:02:30] are addressed and referred to as their former job, it's also former senators as Mr. or Madam Senator, former Cabinet secretaries as Mr. or Madame Secretary. However, Nick, there is no federally mandated in writing rule that a former president continues to be addressed as such or formally retains their title. This is a tradition slash propriety thing. It is simply a show of respect.

Nick Capodice: [00:02:59] But in [00:03:00] terms of what these individuals are called on a daily basis, I feel like most people default to the traditional way of doing things.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:07] They do indeed. However, I wanted a little bit more of a hard and fast answer. So allow me to introduce you, Nick, to the Protocol School of Washington.

Archival: [00:03:18] You will learn programs such as how to succeed in the international arena, dine like a diplomat, and outclass the competition. These programs give you the tools to teach international.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:29] I want to learn [00:03:30] how to dine like a diplomat. What is the protocol School of Washington? I feel like I need to go there.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:36] It's a place that teaches people basically super high level business and government etiquette and also just regular.

Nick Capodice: [00:03:45] Etiquette like which spoon to use walking around with a book on your head, that sort of thing.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:49] I think probably that is a part of it, but also how to not horribly insult that particular shah during tea. But the protocol school's take on [00:04:00] it is that for jobs that are only held by one person at a time like the governor of a particular state or, you know, the president of the United States of America, it is not respectful to the current officeholder to address the former office holder with the same title, but with jobs that more than one person holds, like senator, Admiral, etc. that person should be addressed by [00:04:30] their former title.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:31] That is some very specific protocol.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:33] But actually it does make sense. The idea is partially a respect thing and partially that a president, unlike, say, a general or a doctor, has not achieved some kind of lasting rank. After Eisenhower left office, he was General Eisenhower again.

Nick Capodice: [00:04:54] What are we actually supposed to call the former president?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:57] Yeah. So both according to the protocol [00:05:00] school in Washington and I found another set of guidelines by the US Embassy in the United Kingdom, The answer is the honorable.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:10] The honorable, like the honorable Ronald Reagan, the honorable Martin Van Buren.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:18] Which actually sounds closer to royalty than the alternative, don't you think? Yeah, which would probably not thrilled George Washington, who specifically wanted a title that could have a mr. [00:05:30] before it to avoid any comparison at all to a monarch.

Nick Capodice: [00:05:34] Hey, Mr..

Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:35] Anyway, such is the strange world of etiquette, and people are going to keep calling the former president, President So-and-so. But I have said my piece. So let's get to that post-presidency life. And I want to start with money. I'm going to talk about what the government legally owes a former president. But that isn't the sum total [00:06:00] of what a former president typically gets. If you become Nick, one of the most famous people on the planet, you tend to stay pretty famous even after you leave the job that skyrocketed you. And that means a lot of people want to hear what you have to say.

Nick Capodice: [00:06:21] Yeah. So as a quick side note, George H.W. Bush was my commencement speaker in high school in 1997.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:28] That will forever be amazing [00:06:30] to me.

Nick Capodice: [00:06:30] And it's kind of strange because George H.W. did not actually attend the school that I went to. So what the heck was he doing speaking at my graduation?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:40] Well, that's actually quite the easy answer. A former president as a commencement speaker, they do it all the time. And it's not just commencements. They speak to private businesses at corporate events. They speak at charity events. And why do they do this, Nick? Because they can make you pay.

Archival: [00:07:00] You [00:07:00] want me to talk about leadership? I can't even get on the stage. I felt very relieved when I told them that I was going to give this speech on the gold standard and the international balance of payments. It only takes about 50 minutes. Hello, Stanford. They all send me. It is great for me and my appreciation. All of you here in this room for your warm welcome. And [00:07:30] those outside have made me feel very much at home.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:38] How much are we talking?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:39] Well, Bill Clinton is the speech maker to end all speech makers. He is said to charge between a quarter and a half a million dollars per speaking engagement.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:48] Holy cow.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:49] He speaks a lot.

Nick Capodice: [00:07:51] My gosh.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:52] Barack Obama reportedly keeps it at 400 grand as his nominal fee for speaking engagement. Ronald Reagan [00:08:00] reportedly accepted $1 million once for a speaking engagement in Japan. That got him into a lot of trouble at the time because U.S. relations with Japan were not doing so hot. Jimmy Carter does not accept many fees. Every once in a while, Jimmy Carter will go for it, because that's not really his M.O. if you know Carter. Right. And when he does accept a fee, he tends to donate it.

Nick Capodice: [00:08:22] Oh, but overall, the point you're making is you can easily become a millionaire if you're not already by just talking to people [00:08:30] who have money to burn.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:32] It is that simple, though. You are probably going to get heat for that burn. People were not very happy that Obama accepted some of those $400,000 fees from Wall Street firms, for example. There is a pretty big ethical question around all of this. Fortunately, you have another option. You can write one or several books and make millions of dollars on sales, which former presidents pretty much always do. Jimmy Carter has written 30, [00:09:00] 30 books.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:01] 30. And it's unfortunate that our book did not result in earning millions of dollars as well. Maybe you and I should write 29 more.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:09] Maybe we should.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:10] Write. Let's say a former president doesn't do any of that. What do they get without even trying without going out and giving speeches?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:17] You mean aside from the trying they did to become and be president?

Nick Capodice: [00:09:21] Yeah, aside from that little thing.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:25] Well, we've got a little something called the former Presidents Act.

Nick Capodice: [00:09:29] Okay. Now we're getting to [00:09:30] the point.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:30] Yeah, it was passed in 1958. It's a federal law originally with the subtitle to provide retirement, clerical assistance and free mailing privileges to former presidents of the United States and for other purposes, free mailing privileges. Heck, this is called franked mail. Franked mail. This is something that has been around in the US federal government for a long time, and it basically means that you can just sign a piece of mail instead of putting a stamp on it. [00:10:00] But apparently it was widely abused for quite a while because it's not just for former presidents and for a long time it wasn't. But Congress members had it and they would loan their friends and family their franking privileges. There's a legend that one senator franked his horse's bridle and sent the animal home on the government's dime. And that is why the franking privileges disappeared for a while. But they came back eventually with some restrictions.

Nick Capodice: [00:10:29] All right. I have a lot of questions [00:10:30] about franking, but I'm going to stick to the topic at hand. The president didn't get franking privileges until 1958.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:37] Frankly, Nick? No, reportedly and I do mean reportedly, because, Nick, do I have a bombshell coming for you? Harry Truman could not afford to pay for his deluge of correspondences when he left the presidential office. The former president's act was passed five years later than that whole time Truman had spent bemoaning how [00:11:00] broke he was post-presidency. Truman's public complaints about being so broke are reportedly part of the reason why Congress finally passed the FPA.

Nick Capodice: [00:11:10] And as the bombshell that Truman was broke.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:13] Oh, no.

Nick Capodice: [00:11:14] All right. I'm going to accept the thrill of anticipation in the meantime. But I'd like to know, was Truman the first president to be like, hey, I haven't a penny to my name. And it's all because I devoted myself to this country for years on end. [00:11:30]

Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:30] He may have been the first to make such a big thing about it. Truman insisted he would not leverage his name or his influence for money, while also noting that he had to take a loan to pay his bills after he left office. There simply was no pension for presidents prior to 1958, and there are a handful of stories of presidents leaving the White House only to have to move in with family because they were in such dire straits. Thomas Jefferson spent pretty much his entire adulthood in debt, and that did not change when he left office. Though [00:12:00] he lived a comfortable life facilitated by enslaved people at Monticello and reportedly died feeling just fine about himself. Ulysses S Grant, on the other hand, just barely managed to sell his memoirs before his death with the help of Mark Twain, actually to ensure that his family would not be saddled with his poverty when he died.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:20] But some presidents were real rich, though, right?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:23] Oh, yeah. George Washington. Andrew Jackson. Theodore Roosevelt. Really? Super [00:12:30] duper loaded.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:31] Yeah, loaded. But eventually Congress said, okay, enough's enough. Let's make sure former presidents don't die utterly broke.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:39] That's right. So in addition to the mail franking, the 1958 Act provided an annual pension equal to the pay received by an executive cabinet secretary. Today, that is $219,000.

Nick Capodice: [00:12:54] It's not too bad. In other words, barring extenuating circumstances, former [00:13:00] presidents should be totally fine, financially speaking.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:04] Yeah, exactly. One provision, however, in the ACT, former presidents will not be provided that pension if they take an appointed or elected role in the federal government or Washington DC that pays a true salary.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:18] Which former presidents don't really do. As far as I.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:20] Know, they really don't. I mean, once you reach the top, you know.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:23] And you said this act provides for clerical assistance, what does that mean?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:29] All right. So [00:13:30] just because you leave the highest office in the land, that does not mean that you stop needing a staff. There's a lot to do. You need to establish a library. You need to write about what it was like to be president. You have to deal with tons of mail. Thank goodness it's franked. You have to attend events. You are a public person for the rest of your life.

Nick Capodice: [00:13:53] I've always wondered what it would be like to be the kind of person who could say, you know, my people will be in touch.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:58] Yeah, This act pretty much [00:14:00] guarantees that the president has taxpayer funded people forever or person, depending on how much you choose to pay them. The act provides $96,000 a year for staff who, quote, shall be responsible only to him, him being the president.

Nick Capodice: [00:14:16] So following the Constitution rules here, the president is a quote. Him. Yep.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:23] And there's more where that came from. Also, when it comes to paying for staff members for the first 30 months after a president leaves office, [00:14:30] they get way more than that 96 grand. They get 150,000 total to pay for staff.

Nick Capodice: [00:14:36] And I guess the idea behind that is you have a lot more responsibilities that are really intense immediately after you leave office before you become comfortably a former president resting on your laurels, painting self portraits in the bathtub.

Archival: [00:14:49] From what I read, sir, it sounds as though you were ready to dismiss the idea of W as an artist, but you changed your mind.

Archival: [00:14:56] I was sure I would hate them, but there was something kind of innocent, sincere [00:15:00] also that was so strange to see a man who had seen the entire world paint himself alone in a bathroom in the bathtub naked.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:11] You know, those George W Bush self portraits were actually leaked after an email hack. He did not intend for us all to see those.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:18] I did not. I did not know that I actually quite enjoyed his work.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:21] Too, honestly. Now, one thing about the staff pay we're talking about there are caps on what any one presidential staff member can make [00:15:30] based on the executive branch pay schedule. So I was like, What's that? I looked up the executive branch pay schedule currently from level one to level five NEC, nobody is making less than 165,000 a year.

Nick Capodice: [00:15:45] So basically, Hannah, we should hang up our headphones and start looking at a career in civil service.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:49] If either of us is going to be Secretary of Defense, we've got to get working on it now. But why not dream Also weird provision in this pay thing? The act specifically says that the pay cap does not apply [00:16:00] to independent contractors who help with record transfers to the National Archives or to the presidential libraries.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:08] Now, we won't go down this rabbit hole in this particular episode, but I think concern about the management of records for our most recent former president tells us just how important and valuable the federal government considers them. So that checks out.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:23] Actually, I think so, too. There's a reason why they they're willing to put so much money towards record management, right?

Nick Capodice: [00:16:29] Yeah. [00:16:30]

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:30] All right. Moving on. We've got the pension, the clerical staff. What else does a former president get? Quote, suitable office space, appropriately furnished and equipped.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:40] What's the budget for suitable office space?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:42] Well, apparently, sky's the limit because the act does not even attempt to set a cap on the cost of a physical office.

Nick Capodice: [00:16:48] But tell me you looked into it.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:49] Oh, I looked into it because, by the way, Nick, a lot of this is made public by the General Services Administration because it's our taxpayer money that's being spent here. So they don't break it down by individual [00:17:00] president. I found some other research that tried to do just that. Bill Clinton's New York office, the rent was reportedly 429,000 a year in 2021. That same year, George W Bush's Texas office was 434,000 a year.

Nick Capodice: [00:17:16] The rent to these places have pools.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:19] To be fair, Nick, neither one of us, to my knowledge, has attempted to rent office space in a major metropolitan area, so I have no idea if this is reasonable or [00:17:30] not. But it is not like a former president can say, Well, I'll be taking over the entirety of the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan for my office space. I mean, I suppose they can try, but the administrator of General Services gets to decide what's appropriate. There's no cap on how much can be spent. But there is a person saying $4 million a year is a little outrageous. All right. Other costs, we pay their office phone and utility bills. [00:18:00]

Nick Capodice: [00:18:00] Former president, you can't even cover your own phone bill.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:03] The total requested budget for 2022 from all of the former presidents together for communications and utilities was $216,000. Now, there is also a budget line item for transportation of things, of things which was appropriated for reasons I will probably never know, eight grand in 2021 to move things. And [00:18:30] yet nobody requested a thing. Transportation budget for 2022.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:34] I'm already way over budget on thing transportation that. Sierra. Hannah Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:38] It's pretty much your one vice.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:39] All right, I have to ask you something here.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:41] All right?

Nick Capodice: [00:18:42] Because I feel I have waited long enough.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:44] Sure.

Nick Capodice: [00:18:45] You hinted and you've been hinting before we even track this episode, Hannah, that you have some big old Harry Truman bombshells.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:53] Yes. Okay. Right. So, very importantly, Congress found Harry Truman's supposed [00:19:00] financial straits convincing enough to finally pass what they'd been chewing over for a while. The former president's act. Poor Harry. Right, Right. Wrong.

Nick Capodice: [00:19:12] Wrong.

Archival: [00:19:13] Do you think it's appropriate for a former president to have to go about raising funds in order to house his official favor? Well, no. And I'll give you my viewpoint on the subject. And if you've got the time for it and the reason why it had to be done.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:28] There's this law professor and journalist [00:19:30] named Paul Campos, who did a bunch of research at none other than the Harry Truman Presidential Library. Read Truman's own account of his finances and found that the same guy who went on TV and told the American public that former executives are, quote, allowed to starve was worth about $650,000 at the end of his presidency.

Nick Capodice: [00:19:54] That's amazing. 650 [00:20:00] grand. Okay. I know you hate to do this, but can we just talk about, like, adjusting for inflation, how much that would be?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:08] Yes. Even though it's kind of meaningless. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $6.6 million today.

Nick Capodice: [00:20:15] That's not really starving money.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:17] In the five years between leaving office and the 1958 act. Harry Truman's net worth crested a million a million in the fifties.

Nick Capodice: [00:20:27] But didn't Harry Truman have, like this hat shop [00:20:30] that sunk him financially?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:31] So this is the interesting thing about Truman. Yes. Truman Co ran a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1919 to 1922 when a recession sank the store. It took him a decade to pay down that loss. Harry Truman spent most of his career completely broke. He was also the first president to have a no questions asked, $50,000 a year untaxed expense account. That account became [00:21:00] taxable during Truman's own presidency, but he did not report it. Mr. Paul Campos His best guess is that Truman pocketed most of that cash.

Nick Capodice: [00:21:11] There's always money in the hamburger stand. There's always money in the bowler's stand. There's always money in the pork pie. Stetson stand. What? What's the funnier hat? Because let's see. What. What do you call the trilby? There's always money in the trilby stand.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:23] What's a trilby?

Nick Capodice: [00:21:25] It's like, I don't know. In my mind, they all kind of look like bowlers. [00:21:30] I'm going to stop saying hat names. This whole story kind of really has turned Truman in my mind to sort of a man of mystery.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:37] Whatever the reason for misleading Congress, he did secure pensions for all former presidents, including himself, although he was the only living former president at the time. And I'm going to tell you what else he secured after this quick break.

Nick Capodice: [00:21:52] But before the break, if you do want to help our book, sell a million copies, it's called A User's Guide to Democracy How America Works. It's Fun. It's illustrated [00:22:00] by New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro. And you can find it wherever your books are sold.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:09] We're back. You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: [00:22:11] I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:12] And today we are answering a question from listener Patrick, who asks,

[00:22:17] Does a former president have any special privileges like bodyguards or free stuff, things like that?

Nick Capodice: [00:22:25] And we answer.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:27] And we answer. So I covered the pension, the staff, [00:22:30] the office expenses, the strange case of Harry Truman's big lie. Next comes the widow O.

Nick Capodice: [00:22:36] Once again, Hannah, I feel like the language is going to have to be changed at some point.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:41] It's the 21st century lawmakers. We sent William Shatner to actual space. You know, maybe not a man might be president one day. Just saying. Widows of former presidents get $20,000 a year until they die, unless they remarry before they turn 60, which I think is tied to the fact [00:23:00] that widows in the US don't receive survivor Social Security benefits if they remarry before 60. The same goes for the survivors of fallen military spouses, and there are a lot of lawmakers out there who think that this whole remarrying penalty is outdated and totally unreasonable. But I digress. They actually have the same provision about not getting pension if they hold federal office or Washington, D.C. office. Now, moving on, the act next and this is important defines, [00:23:30] Nick, what a former president is and what a former president is, is someone who, number one, was president of the United States.

Nick Capodice: [00:23:39] Got it.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:40] Number two, was not removed from office via impeachment.

Nick Capodice: [00:23:44] Okay. I'm glad you clarified that. I was going to ask.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:46] Now, you know, and number three does not currently hold the office of president.

Nick Capodice: [00:23:51] Right. Because former.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:53] Precisely. All right. Almost done here. Final thing.

Nick Capodice: [00:23:57] Secret Service. I've been waiting for this.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:59] Patrick asked about [00:24:00] bodyguards. Here they come. There's a pretty interesting provision in the former Presidents Act itself. But first, Nick, we need to take a look at the US Code, aka the compendium of general and Permanent federal Law.

Nick Capodice: [00:24:13] Just when you think you've gotten away with not making an episode about it, the US code shows up and reminds you it's got something to say.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:22] And what it says about Secret Service is that a former president and their spouse are authorized to have Secret Service protection for their lifetime. [00:24:30] Unless and here's that language about remarrying again. If that spouse remarries, they don't get Secret Service protection anymore, which, you know, kind of gives me pause because you don't stop being a prominent public figure and a former civil servant when you remarry. Right. You're still that person. It's just interesting to me. The Secret Service is also authorized to protect the children of the former president while they're under the age of 16.

Nick Capodice: [00:24:57] Okay. Well, I would I would like to ask you keep saying is authorized [00:25:00] to. So that doesn't mean that they have to.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:05] And that's where we come back to the former president's act, because that lifetime protection is something you can opt into or out of. If for some reason the former president and their spouse turns down that Secret Service protection, or if for some reason that US code provision expires like Congress doesn't renew it or something, the former president's act will provide up to $1,000,000 a year for that [00:25:30] former president and up to half a million dollars a year for that spouse, for security and travel related.

Nick Capodice: [00:25:36] Expenses and travel related.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:39] Expenses. That is what it says. And no, it does not specify what those are.

Nick Capodice: [00:25:44] To me, this is the most interesting provision because, you know, do you opt to go with this agency that has a long track record of protecting presidents, or do you gamble on doing it yourself with a million and a half or fewer bucks?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:58] Apparently, Nixon declined Secret [00:26:00] Service protection after being out of office for 11 years, saying that he wanted to save the taxpayers money. And I'm just not sure if he got any supplementary funds for protection after that. And by the way, the lifetime part of Secret Service protection was put on hold for about a decade in 1994 to save money. Congress was thinking like, after you've been out of office for ten years, you don't need Secret Service protection anymore. But in 2013, Obama signed the lifetime part back into law. The thinking there was like post-9-11. [00:26:30] The world is very different, you know.

Nick Capodice: [00:26:33] And also the former presidents are helping, you know, up and coming presidents campaign a lot. So they're always in the political sphere. Now, I'd like to ask how much Hannah and total former presidents cost us, the taxpayers?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:48] Well, that Secret Service cost aside, because that's a separate budget. A 2020 estimate put the total for all the former presidents at around $4 Million a year.

Nick Capodice: [00:27:00] You [00:27:00] know, that's not nothing.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:02] It's not nothing. But I think the question is less what it costs the taxpayer and more. Does the former president need all of this money, all of these provisions, when you can rake in $400,000 for an hour of speaking at a business retreat? Does the federal government need to pay for your office space?

Nick Capodice: [00:27:36] It's [00:27:30] tricky, right? Because you don't have to make 400 grand for talking. You just can if the people want it enough.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:45] Right. And an important unofficial role that former presidents also play is that of diplomat. It goes hand in hand with remaining famous and in-demand. Former presidents advocate for policy. They meet with important people. And [00:28:00] you don't want them doing that without a decent office. The presidency comes with perks even after it's over. That's just the way we do it.

Nick Capodice: [00:28:09] One last question before we go. To be president is to know information. Right? Like pretty much the biggest, sometimes most secret information that there is. Do former presidents ever get kind of newly released big information also?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:29] Do they ever. [00:28:30] I'm glad you asked. Providing a former president with intelligence briefings is a tradition that has a little bit to do with courtesy. You know, looping a former leader in on what's going on now and a little to do with current presidents seeking advice from someone who had the job before them and came to understand how the country and the world works. And that makes sense. You know, Jimmy Carter gets them, Bill Clinton gets them, George W Bush gets them, Barack Obama gets them.

Nick Capodice: [00:28:57] So that's all living former presidents except for one. [00:29:00]

Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:00] Yeah. The current president gets to determine if a former president receives these briefings. And President Joe Biden determined that there was no need to provide them for former President Donald Trump.

Nick Capodice: [00:29:11] Which I guess is a good reminder of why we should technically call only one person President so-and-so. There is only one person in charge at a time.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:20] Only one person with access to the White House bees.

Nick Capodice: [00:29:22] Beads?!

Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:25] Under Obama the White House carpenter installed a beehive and now there's White House honey bees. [00:29:30]

Nick Capodice: [00:29:31] Well, I feel like all that honey is going to the former presidents. There's always been White House honey.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:42] Okay, Patrick, I hope that answers your question. If you, dear listener, have questions of your own, do as Patrick did. Ask us to send a voice memo or email to Civics 101 at npr.org. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with help from Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. [00:30:00] Jacqui Fulton is our producer, and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer.

Nick Capodice: [00:30:03] Music In this episode by Duke Harrington, Sven Linde, Val Flying, Xavier Roussin, Spring Gang, Pro Reese, Mary Riddle and Daniel Friedell.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:11] And if you just can't get enough of that civics one on one goodness in your life, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter. Extra Credit. You can do that at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Nick Capodice: [00:30:20] Civics 101 is the production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:29] They're [00:30:30] willing to put so much money towards records management. Towards records, man. Towards records management. Whoa. Wow.

Nick Capodice: [00:30:37] You trying to make a gag reel for the credits?

Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:39] Stop it. There's a reason that they put so much money towards record management, right?

Nick Capodice: [00:30:44] Yeah.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The White House Press Corps & The Press Secretary

The White House Press Corps  wasn't always such an organized bunch. In this episode, we'll dive into the history and evolution of reporters in the White House. Plus, the how the role of Press Secretary was created, how it's evolved, and how the relationship between POTUS and the press has shifted over the centuries. 

Guests:

NPR's Scott Horsely and Mara Liasson

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Transcript:

Archive: There will be a new secretary of agriculture by the end of the year. I don't know that it'll be tomorrow. It may happen next week as he makes a decision.

Archive: I once I say that you guys will put something in a newspaper. I hate that. Unlike today. Unlike today, where there was nothing in there, it's very tough to down. Well, no, I think he's expected to take quite a bit of it down. But what was the question?

Archive: And my question, can you deny, Dana, that the White House was astounded by this when only 11 years ago Senator Kerry declared Clinton's an unusually good liar? Unusually good?

Archive: I'm not going to comment.

Archive: No comment.

Archive: What's your second one.

Hannah McCarthy: Nick? There's a select group of journalists whose whole job is to cover one of the highest offices in the land and what's going on behind its closed doors. They're called the White House press corps. And they are among America's most important free press guardians, ensuring citizens have access to information about their government.

Archive: My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment they stepped into the White House, from your cabinet, former cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth. What was your real reason? You have said it was the oil price for oil. It hasn't been Israel or anything else. What was it?

Hannah McCarthy: And the White House needs the press corps to get the executive branch issues and proposals in front of the public. But the relationship between those select journalists and the White House can be combative.

Archive: Yeah, I think your premise, and I'll do respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist, that, you know, I didn't want war to assume I wanted war is just is just flat wrong, Helen. And I'll do respect. Hold on a second, please. Excuse me. Excuse me.

Hannah McCarthy: Because it's the job of the press corps to hold the executive branch accountable to the people. So how do they get the job done? This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: And today we are talking about the history and role of journalists in the White House, including the media's unique relationship with the executive branch and what it's like to report on the highest authority in the land. We're also going to take a look at the role of the White House press secretary, who often has to act as a gatekeeper between the president and the media.

Scott Horsley: The founders were very much aware of the importance of a free press and the watchdog function that we play.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Scott Horsley. He is a former senior White House reporter for National Public Radio. Scott covered the White House for ten years during both the Obama and the Trump administrations. He spoke with Civics 101 back in 2017.

Scott Horsley: And we see our role as being the eyes and the ears of the American people who can't physically be there and don't have the time to be there in a watchdog role for themselves. So we're there watching for all the people who want to know what the president and his team are up to.

Hannah McCarthy: A free press is so integral to a functioning government that you can think of it as a kind of fourth branch.

Nick Capodice: Now, of course, there isn't actually a fourth branch of the government, but calling the press the fourth branch illustrates that the press is, or at least at its best, can be a powerful check on authority. It's also sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate.

Hannah McCarthy: Do you know where that term comes from? The Fourth Estate?

Nick Capodice: No.

Hannah McCarthy: So back in the 18th century, you had these three sort of societal categories that were called estates rights. You had nobility, the people in power, clergy people also kind of in power. And then you had the people, you had the commoners. And this essayist at the time describes the press, this increasingly powerful entity that was writing about these other three estates as the fourth estate. Isn't that interesting?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. And when we hear that term today, it's generally referring to the news media as a watchdog. So the media helps hold the executive office accountable for their actions. But I want to know, has the White House always been accessible to journalists? Could a reporter walk into John Adams's office and speak to him and his officials?

Hannah McCarthy: No, no. For a long time, the press could not go into the West Wing unless they were invited. During most of the 1800s, reporters weren't anywhere close to a fixture at the White House. There was no designated time and place for reporters to ask questions of the president or of other White House officials. During Abraham Lincoln's administration, for example, it was said that reporters would assemble on the lawn below the windows of Lincoln's second-floor White House office to try to get a scoop.

Nick Capodice: What kind of scoop?

Hannah McCarthy: Anything worth reporting on, like the Civil War, the death of Lincoln's young son, Willy or, you know, just the politics of the day.

Nick Capodice: They would just hang out there on the lawn with notepads, just hoping to catch some juicy bit of news?

Hannah McCarthy: It was their only option. They had no designated space inside the White House.

Nick Capodice: So how did they communicate with anyone? Did they just try to flag people down who are going in and out of the White House.

Hannah McCarthy: That is exactly what they would do. They would wave down visitors to try to find out what went on during their meetings with the president. And this is how things went basically from Lincoln all the way to William McKinley. And then Nick, during President Grover Cleveland's second term in office in 1896, a reporter for the Washington Evening Star named William Price started a column called At The White House. Price interviewed people about their business as they were going in and coming out of the White House at the North Portico. And his column was a big hit. Now, because of Price's columns' popularity, other news outlets decided to do the same thing, to station their reporters in the same place and to get the same news. So eventually you had this crowd. Now, Ida Tarbell, who was a pioneer in American journalism, wrote that the waiting spot became known as Newspapers Row. She said, quote, "Here they gather by the score on exciting days and in the shadow of great white pillars, watch for opportunities to waylay important officials as they come and go."

Nick Capodice: Ida Tarbell, the famous Muckraker, which is a term, by the way, from the Progressive era to describe investigative corruption, revealing reporters. When did journalists finally get inside the executive mansion?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, there's probably an apocryphal story that Theodore Roosevelt showed mercy on a group of wet, soggy reporters who were huddled together on the lawn during a rainstorm. He invited them in to dry off, and then he just couldn't get rid of them after that.

Nick Capodice: Well, this sounds like Roosevelt was maybe interested in making the press like him.

Hannah McCarthy: Well, this is an important point. And again, this is Teddy Roosevelt. It was kind of his M.O. to use the press to his advantage. And he was not the only president to figure that out. But we'll get to that later. And contrary to that fun Teddy Roosevelt story, by the way, it was actually the President McKinley administration that first let reporters into the White House at the beginning of his first term in office. Mckinley provided reporters a table outside of his private secretary's office because there was an increased presence of reporters waylaying White House visitors outside. But it was Teddy Roosevelt who created the first dedicated office space for the press. It was a small area. It had a telegraph and a telephone room. And for the reporters, this was a welcome change compared to having to physically sprint or, you know, if they're lucky, ride on a bicycle across town to their editor's office with stories for the day.

Nick Capodice: God, he had to be in good shape to be a reporter back then. But why did Teddy Roosevelt do this? Why did he give reporters an office and all these amenities?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, one reason is that the newspaper business in the US at the time was growing really rapidly. And all of these papers are competing for readers, Right? So they're investing more and more in covering the news. Basically, it was a newspaper boom.

Nick Capodice: Which, by the way, is not something you hear a lot these days.

Hannah McCarthy: No, it is not. But back then, you had a hunger for more news. And luckily, upgrades to printing press technology meant that newspapers could print more pages. So the White House became this steady source of stories, and that helped improve circulation. Some of the more popular papers even put out more than one edition daily, so they constantly needed fresh quotes. And Nick, as the newspaper industry grew, so did its power and influence. And President Teddy Roosevelt was a savvy PR guy. He knew how to bolster his public image.

Archive: Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

Hannah McCarthy: And he took advantage of the media's influence. And one significant development during the Teddy Roosevelt administration was that the president would personally meet with reporters and let them interview him. This was a precursor to the presidential press conference, and it was very informal. These meetings came to be known as seances.

Nick Capodice: Seances. Like summoning ghosts. Seances.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, but they did not actually try to summon the dead. However, what did occur in these so called séances was pretty bizarre.

Nick Capodice: What kind of bizarre?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, picture this: right at 1 p.m. almost every day, Roosevelt would have a handful of reporters brought into a reception room. A Treasury Department messenger who doubled as a barber would lather the president up and give him his mid-day shave.

Nick Capodice: While he was talking to reporters. It's like something out of the Untouchables. It's like a power move.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, exactly. And the president actually did a lot of entertaining during these meetings. He would give the reporters gossip and tell them anecdotes.

Nick Capodice: Right. So this is less like hard-hitting journalism and more like chummy schmoozing.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And Roosevelt knew reporters by their first names. He would ask about their families. He would invite them as his guests to parties. And eventually, Roosevelt would let the reporters ask him whatever questions they had. But he was really calculating. He would only invite reporters into the so-called seances if he thought they would write good things about him and if he didn't like a reporter's line of questions, that reporter, Nick, would be permanently banished from the White House.

Nick Capodice: Banishment is not conducive to a free and fair press.

Hannah McCarthy: Indeed, it is not. These seances controlled the press narrative about Roosevelt completely. Virtually no news came out of the White House unless the president approved it. So even though the press now had their toe in the White House door, holding the executive branch accountable was another story entirely.

Nick Capodice: It sounds like Teddy Roosevelt was using the press corps to his advantage instead of the other way around, like he was the one holding the strings.

Hannah McCarthy: Reporters were essentially subject to his whims. And then the next president, William Howard Taft, did not want to spend his time talking to the press, so he just refused to meet them.

Nick Capodice: So when did this shift - when did press access become more formalized?

Hannah McCarthy: That would be during the Wilson administration. When Woodrow Wilson ran for office, he and the other leading candidates were working closely with the press because that was an expedient way to get their platforms out to voters. So when Wilson came into office, the press expected that close relationship with him to continue, and Wilson set up a talk with reporters. He thought it would be a little meet and greet to get to know the D.C. press. But 125 journalists showed up in his office expecting a little bit more than a chat.

Nick Capodice: Wow.

Hannah McCarthy: And the next week, when Wilson held a second meeting with reporters, the administration was more prepared. They had everyone assemble in the East Wing. And to the dismay of the press, Wilson shared his vision for their meetings. He said, quote, Please do not tell the country what Washington's thinking for that does not make any difference. Tell Washington what the country is thinking.

Nick Capodice: Well, so he was saying he did not want the press to report what was happening at all in the executive mansion.

Hannah McCarthy: Not unlike Roosevelt. Wilson very much wanted to control what the media was reporting. But things actually started to go off the rails rather quickly. Only four months after they started, President Wilson vowed to end these meetings with reporters altogether, in large part because he was offended that tabloids had printed stories about his daughters. He called them, quote, contemptible spies, the newspapermen, contemptible spies.

Nick Capodice: What sort of stories about his daughters?

Hannah McCarthy: They were writing stories about their dating lives and their plans for marriage.

Nick Capodice: Well, I can see how that would be infuriating for a father and a president. So what did he do?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, he called a meeting of the press and he said he was going to speak to them as Woodrow Wilson and not as the president. He is quoted as saying, "On the next offense, I shall do what any other indignant father would do. I will punch the man who prints it in the nose."

Nick Capodice: Holy cats.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I know. And then the final straw came when the New York Sun printed some remarks about Mexico that were supposed to be off the record. And once again, Wilson was like, I am ending these meetings altogether. And this left reporters in a difficult position. They obviously did not want to be locked out of the White House again, scrounging for secondhand information.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, shivering in the rain.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Speaking of shivering in the rain, remember that columnist William Price?

Nick Capodice: Yeah. This is the guy who would waylay White House visitors in newspapers row.

Hannah McCarthy: That's the guy he worked for The Washington Evening Star in response to Wilson's threat to shut out the press, William Price and ten other reporters banded together in 1914 and established the White House Correspondents Association or the WHCA.

Nick Capodice: Okay, okay. I know what the White House Correspondents Association, they host the fancy White House Correspondents Dinner where everybody dresses up like they're going to the Oscars and the US president gets to do a comedy bit.

Archive: I won't lie about it. Look, this is a tough transition. It's hard. Key staff are now starting to leave the White House. Even reporters have left me. Savannah Guthrie, she's left the White House press corps to host the Today Show. Norah O'Donnell left the briefing room to host CBS this morning. Jake tapper left journalism to join CNN.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. That dinner is actually a big fundraiser for the association. The WHCA's first order of business when it was established was to put pressure on Wilson to continue his relationship with the press and ensure credentialed reporters could access the White House without impediment.

Nick Capodice: And that word credentialed. What does it mean to be a credentialed reporter?

Hannah McCarthy: It's a good question. To be credentialed is to have a press pass. It's a form of identification that journalists use to get into restricted areas like the briefing room. And today, more than 100 years later, journalists still have to acquire credentials to be able to access the White House. They usually apply for press credentials with the White House press office. And there are actually different kinds of press credentials.

Nick Capodice: Like with varying levels of access and such.

Hannah McCarthy: Sort of. Reporters can apply for a day pass, which can be a hassle. If you are reporting on the White House. The next step up is a six-month pass. And then finally, there's the so-called hard pass, which is a long-term press credential. But getting a hard pass is no easy feat. It can take several months because of the stringent requirements and thorough background investigations by the Secret Service.

Nick Capodice: Why all this stringency for getting access?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, the idea when this all started was that requiring credentials would help prevent tabloids from making their way into the White House and printing sensitive information.

Nick Capodice: Tabloids like the stuff I see at the grocery store, flying dog hit me in the head, that sort of thing?

Hannah McCarthy: No, this is the precursor to that kind of tabloid. I'm talking about sensational newspapers. These papers printed what was known as yellow journalism. Some scholars call this the original fake news. A pretty infamous example of this involves the coverage of the sinking of the USS Maine, which was a battleship. Have you heard of this?

Nick Capodice: The SS Maine blew up while it was docked outside of Havana, Cuba, in 1898. And to this day it is debated as to why it blew up.

Hannah McCarthy: Well, these tabloids, and that includes papers like the New York Journal, owned by William Randolph Hearst, as in the famous newspaper baron. They rushed to print saying that the ship, the USS Maine, was destroyed by Spain. And some say this actually contributed to sparking the Spanish-American War.

Nick Capodice: I can now see why requiring credentials was the first thing the White House did.

Hannah McCarthy: And having credentials also help to keep things somewhat collegial in this high-pressure atmosphere.

Nick Capodice: So you're referring to decorum?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, basically common courtesy. You know, don't talk over other reporters in the middle of a question. You get one question and a follow-up question, not unlimited questions, that kind of thing.

Nick Capodice: And when reporters aren't collegial, does the WHCA kick them out?

Hannah McCarthy: No, the WHCA doesn't kick anyone out for having bad manners. That is actually up to the Secret Service. But the WHCA does strongly advise members to be respectful.

Nick Capodice: I guess it's not as much of a free for all as it could be, but I will say it feels like it can get pretty intense in those briefings and conferences. But I want to get back to President Wilson. How did forming the WHCA go over with him?

Hannah McCarthy: He wasn't terribly keen on the press afterward, but Wilson did ultimately realize the power of the press. He said, quote, "The public man who fights the daily press won't be a public man very long." So the meetings with the press continued. But they were off the record unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Nick Capodice: What about Wilson's successor? Did Warren G. Harding continue communicating with the media in the same way he did?

Hannah McCarthy: He did. President Harding actually hired a speechwriter to help him polish up his twice-weekly press meetings. And this job, Nick, that speechwriting position that eventually evolved into the modern-day White House press secretary. And we're going to talk about that right after the break.

Nick Capodice: But before the break, quick. Wait, don't go. We have a new thing at Civics 101, that we love dearly. Two things, really, Civics 101 trivia and a wordle. You can answer eight questions related to our most recent episode at Civics 101 or try our civic-themed wordle at Civics 101 wordle dot com.

Nick Capodice: We're back. We're talking about the relationship between the press and the president and hand. I believe you were just about to tell me about the White House press secretary. What is their job? What do they do?

Hannah McCarthy: The press secretary is a part of the communications team that handles messaging for the executive branch. Now, this is an excellent time to bring in our next guest.

Mara Liasson: The job of the press secretary is to communicate the president's agenda, to answer questions from the press. And beyond that, every press secretary has defined the job a little bit differently.

Hannah McCarthy: This is Mara Liasson, the national political correspondent for NPR. We spoke to her in 2018.

Nick Capodice: It was such a pleasure talking to Mara. She has covered five administrations from Bill Clinton all the way up to Joe Biden.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And in that time, she has gone through plenty of press secretaries.

Mara Liasson: Mike McCurry, who was Bill Clinton's press secretary, was famous for saying his job was to be as truthful as possible and as helpful as possible to the press, while also trying to communicate his boss's agenda and put it in the best possible light.

Nick Capodice: So the press secretary is the administration's spokesperson.

Hannah McCarthy: Essentially, but the press secretary also serves as the liaison between the White House and the media. They facilitate access to information and resources, and this is usually accompanied by the daily press briefing.

Archive: Looking ahead, the president will visit Mississippi on Saturday, where they are celebrating the state's bicentennial 200 years of statehood. To mark the occasion, the president will participate in the grand openings of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

Mara Liasson: That's Sarah Sanders standing in the briefing room. We've had many different press secretaries use the briefing in different ways in past administrations. They stood there until all the questions were finished. Sometimes it could be as long as an hour. Sometimes she eats up a lot of time at the top by reading from prepared remarks, making some announcements.

Hannah McCarthy: There was famously a great deal of turnover during Trump's presidency. The dynamics between the press corps and Trump's press secretaries were often volatile, and each press secretary coped with the jobs challenges differently. Sarah Sanders once baked a chocolate pecan pie for April Ryan, a correspondent she had a contentious professional relationship with. But not all press secretaries try to sweeten the pot that way. Mara said some actually embrace an antagonistic role.

Mara Liasson: Other press secretaries have seen their job as more as a combatant, as pushing back against the press, demonizing the press, kind of using the press as a foil. And the communication part, the explaining the administration's agenda has been secondary to those press secretaries. So it just depends on the president and the administration.

Archive: I literally stand at this podium and opened a briefing a couple of days ago about the president expressing his condolences. I literally opened the briefing about it. So for you to sit there and say, I know. So why are you asking why he didn't do it when I literally stood here and did it? Statement. I don't understand what your clients comment were about that the president doesn't have time to tweet about everything, right? He's tweeting about this, right? He's not tweeting about something else. I came out here and actually spoke about it and said the president spoke this time. What are you you're equating me addressing the nation here in a tweet? I don't I mean, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. This is silly. Thank you. You've asked your question.

Hannah McCarthy: I asked Mara, what does it take to do this job? What are the unwritten qualifications of a good White House press secretary?

Mara Liasson: An iron stomach and a thick skin, somebody who's unflappable, generally, someone who has a pretty even demeanor.

Nick Capodice: But has it always been this way, though? Like have the press secretary and the media always walked this line between courtesy and contentiousness?

Hannah McCarthy: Not always. There wasn't always the kind of posturing you see now, because the press and the administration didn't have anything to gain by being snippy with each other. Then in 1955, the press secretary for President Eisenhower, James Hagerty, made an announcement that dramatically changed this dynamic.

Archive: We want to bring the president and his words and deeds as closely as we can to the people in the home and the people in the theaters. So what we are planning at the present time and we will work out the details later, is to have a press conference or an informal talk by President Eisenhower at least once a month for the newsreels. And that way, the message the president is going to give the news of his administration will be brought directly to the people in the theaters and in the homes throughout this country.

Nick Capodice: Is Hagerty talking about the presidential press conference or the daily briefing?

Hannah McCarthy: At this time, he was talking about the presidential press conference. But you do bring up a good point. I'll let Mara take this one.

Mara Liasson: There's many different ways that the president and the press secretary communicate with the press. The most famous is a presidential press conference where it's formal. The president stands there and takes questions from reporters. Most presidents did a lot of those.

Hannah McCarthy: Mara told us that unlike most presidents, President Trump was not a fan of the formal press conferences. She described how he would answer questions and what they call pool sprays.

Nick Capodice: Pool sprays.

Mara Liasson: Where a small group of reporters is ushered into the Cabinet Room or the Oval Office. And he's meeting with someone or he's signing something and he answers a few questions on the fly or he's going out to the helicopter or he's coming out of Air Force One. So he interacts with the press that way. Then there's the Foreign Leader press conference, which under Trump, has become what's known as two and two. Each leader takes two questions from their own press corps. So the president answers two questions from American reporters. And then the foreign leader calls on two of the traveling press corps that has come with him from his country. Then there's the press briefing, which happens every day.

Hannah McCarthy: And that brings me back to Dwight Eisenhower's press secretary, James Hagerty. Hagerty was unfiltered about his reason for wanting to get the president on the screen. He wrote in his diary, quote, To hell with slanted reporters. We'll go directly to the people who can hear exactly what the president said without reading warped and slanted stories. So the purpose of filming news conferences was for the president to reach the people directly without the filter of newspapers or editorializing where the media can pick all of their comments apart. And this was a massive shift. And there was another big shift in 1995, when President Clinton's press secretary, Mike McCurry, decided to open up another press event to a nationwide audience.

Mara Liasson: I guess the biggest sea change for me was when the daily press briefing was televised. There are many press secretaries who have come to regret that because it does lead to grandstanding by some reporters and it's less useful and more of a confrontation.

Archive: Terry, you said this morning the president did not have an improper relationship with his former intern. What do you mean by an improper relationship?

Archive: I'm not going to parse the statement. You all got the statement I made earlier and it speaks for itself. No relationship, proper relationship. I'm not going to parse the statement. You've got the statement I made earlier, and it speaks for itself.

Archive: Its definition of what an improper relationship means.

Archive: I'm not going to...

Speaker7: That statement is where we are. And that's what I'm saying. That's what I said. Claire, I'm just not going to parse the statement for you. It speaks for itself. Mike, Wolf BLITZER.

Hannah McCarthy: Scott Horsley said that once they put it on camera for all the gains in transparency and civic education, it turned the daily briefing into less of an exchange of information and more of a kind of performance art. Because the press secretary isn't just the spokesperson, they're also kind of the hype person.

Nick Capodice: Hype person. Like, what do you mean?

Hannah McCarthy: Sort of the head of spin for the administration? They talk up the president and try to show the administration in the best light possible. Keep in mind, the press secretary is just one role in the White House's huge communications office, but they are the most public-facing person. They often highlight positive developments and downplay negative news. They also often work with other government officials and agencies to coordinate messaging and ensure that the administration presents a unified front to the public. And while this PR spin might be intended to color the reporting of the press corps, journalists have a job to do, and they are not stenographers. They fact-check. They follow up.

Scott Horsley: Our role is not simply to write down what the president or his spokespeople say and then pass it along unfiltered or uncritically. It is to probe and to examine and to also hold it up to other pieces of evidence. You know, if Sean Spicer comes out and says this is the largest crowd to ever witness a presidential inauguration in history, period.

Archive: This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period.

Scott Horsley: It's our duty to say, well, here are some other pieces of information that contradict that in this case, flatly disprove what the press secretary said.

Hannah McCarthy: By the way, after resigning from the Trump administration, Sean Spicer admitted that he had been lying about the crowd size at the inauguration.

Archive: There were times where I screwed up. There's no question about it. I've said this before. I mean, the inauguration, you brought it up. I would say that's first and foremost.

Scott Horsley: There are lots of cases that are not as black and white as that, where, you know, the administration will argue that X, Y, Z has happened in the economy. And, you know, you might say, well, that is either because of or in spite of or partly because of and partly in spite of some action that the administration has taken. So it is part of our role is to certainly listen to what they have to say, hear them out, but also challenge, probe and introduce other information. Try to provide context, try to provide meaning.

Hannah McCarthy: We asked Mara Liasson if members of the White House ever withhold information from the press secretary. So the press secretary doesn't have to conceal information or share disinformation or even lie during a briefing. And Mara said that kind of concealment happens all the time. That's what you call plausible deniability.

Mara Liasson: Better to be out of the loop than to be saying something that turns out to be false. You know, there's so much discussion now, the truth doesn't matter anymore. Objective facts don't matter.

Hannah McCarthy: But credibility does matter. When the president, for example, asks Americans to sacrifice because of something that they have decided is important to do, they have to have credibility for that. Or, you know, when the president is asking U.S. allies to follow the United States in some kind of endeavor or military action, credibility is important. And if you're cavalier with the facts, there might come a time when nobody believes you.

Nick Capodice: It's like crying wolf, right?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.

Nick Capodice: Well, to that end, how often does the press push back on the press secretary? Do they ever stand up and say, oh, actually, secretary, that is incorrect.

Hannah McCarthy: It does happen on occasion.

Mara Liasson: She'll generally say something like, well, this is what he believes. She'll find some kind of safe lily pad to a light on where she can say something that's technically accurate because no press secretary wants to flat out lie to the press.

Archive: What led you in the White House to believe that he had lost the confidence of the rank and file of the FBI? When the acting director says it's exactly the opposite?

Archive: Well, I can speak to my own personal experience. I've heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the president's decision. And I think that, you know, we may have to agree to disagree. I'm sure that there are some people that are disappointed, but I've certainly heard from a large number of individuals, and that's just myself. And I don't even know that many people in the FBI.

Nick Capodice: So the press secretary wants to be diplomatic and have plausible deniability with the press. And I assume that the press wants to have a relationship that will keep the press secretary calling on them to ask questions in the briefing room. But what kind of relationship does the White House press corps want to have with the commander-in-chief directly? Because I remember things got pretty heated when Donald Trump was in charge, like the rather famous repeated sparring between he and Jim Acosta from CNN.

Archive: Since you're attacking us, can you give us a question? Since you're Mr. President-elect, go ahead, Mr. President-elect. Since you are attacking our news organization now, can you give us a chance? You're organization. You are attacking our news organization.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, that relationship was tense. It came to a head. During a press conference when Acosta attempted to ask Trump a question about the president's alleged ties to Russia.

Archive: Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings. Let me ask you if I may ask the question, Mr. President, if I may ask one question. Are you worried That's enough. That's enough. President That's enough to ask one of the other folks. That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am. I'm Mr. President. That's enough. Just sit down, please.

Hannah McCarthy: The White House then revoked Acosta's press pass after he attempted to confront Trump about the administration's controversial migrant policy. Cnn filed a lawsuit over that revocation and then later dropped it after a judge ordered the White House to temporarily restore Acosta's press pass. And Acosta agreed to abide by the new rules. Just asking one question at a time. Here's Scott Horlsey again.

Scott Horsley: We're not supposed to just be tools of the White House, but on the other hand, it doesn't have to be ugly. It doesn't have to be hostile. It can be businesslike.

Hannah McCarthy: And, you know, the Trump administration was famously outspoken in its media criticism, but every administration has had tricky interactions with the press corps.

Scott Horsley: We certainly had adversarial relations at times with the Obama administration. I spent part of that time serving on the Correspondents Association, which is sort of the liaison between the working press and the White House. And we certainly had complaints about usually restrictions on, you know, what press access might be to the president or his aides or, you know, the terms under which information was distributed.

Hannah McCarthy: Pushing for more access kind of goes hand in hand with journalism. And at the same time, the White House staff is carefully trying to control their message.

Nick Capodice: All right. Back to the journalist's side. What's a typical day like for a typical White House press reporter?

Scott Horsley: Well, there's no such thing as a typical day. Every day is different. And certainly the opening days of any administration are particularly interesting and volatile. And at some point, that kind of opening frenzy will, we hope, settle down just a little bit. And then it's you know, there's a rhythm of the president doing kind of public events where he's making a statement, meeting with people on camera, sort of trying to make a point through his persona.

Hannah McCarthy: In today's 24/7 news cycle, covering the White House for a major news outlet is not a one-person job.

Scott Horsley: During the Obama administration, we had three of us who covered the White House. We've upped that a little bit to have four of us covering the White House. So not all of us show up every day. Maybe one of us will be there physically at the White House. Another one might be out in the country somewhere talking to voters. One of us might be back at headquarters monitoring executive orders that the president's put out. So there's a lot to keep an eye on, but one of us is certainly there.

Mara Liasson: I used to say that the exciting part of the job starts when you walk in the gates off of Pennsylvania Avenue and the and it ends when you walk in the door to the White House, because a lot of times the life of a White House correspondent is like an animal in the zoo. You're in a cage and you can't really go anywhere you want or walk around. And occasionally they open the door and they throw in a piece of red meat, a little bit of news. They shut the door and then they run like the zookeeper.

Hannah McCarthy: And journalists aren't always confined to the White House. They need to be available at the drop of a hat to go anywhere the commander-in-chief is. And they frequently travel with the president.

Archive: Everybody, everything good press conference, good. I think it was great.

Nick Capodice: Really good. Sounds kind of fun and exciting.

Hannah McCarthy: It's not always glamorous. There's a lot of waiting around for the president and conference rooms and airplanes and then kind of strange things happen. Like when a plane carrying journalists to cover President Biden's first trip abroad was grounded by a swarm of cicadas.

Archive: Cicadas. Last night, the AP's Jonathan Lemire tweeted, quote, The White House press charter flying from Dulles to Europe ahead of President Biden has been delayed for hours due to mechanical issues caused by cicadas.

Hannah McCarthy: Eventually, White House aides found another plane for reporters to make it overseas. But in the meantime, to keep the press corps comfortable, the White House ordered pizza and booked rooms at the airport hotel where journalists tweeted about the incident from the bar.

Nick Capodice: That actually doesn't sound too bad.

Hannah McCarthy: Last thing, Nick. You know how we talked about introducing television cameras into the White House press briefings and how that kicked off a whole new era of presidential news coverage?

Nick Capodice: Yes, I do.

Hannah McCarthy: Both the media and the government have continuously adapted to technological advances like televised press conferences and the advent of social media. Nick is no different. Technology changes how a president can interact with citizens.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, I've seen different White House administrations turning to social media to convey their messaging. So when did that whole thing take off?

Hannah McCarthy: It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but there certainly is a memorable one that took place on May 18th of 2015.

Archive: The president did not have his own official Twitter account. So now tweets from at parties will come directly from President Obama himself. A huge hit, as you can imagine. It was trending as soon as he sent out this tweet. "Guys. Hello, Twitter. It's Barack." Really? Six years in and they're finally giving me my own account.

Nick Capodice: So how does the president of the United States being able to tweet affect press coverage of the White House?

Hannah McCarthy: When the president tweets something, they're essentially circumventing the media, making statements and potentially shaping public opinion without having to answer questions about that statement. And it's fair to say this diminishes the press corps power to hold the administration accountable for statements of all kinds, including important policy decisions. But whether or not this is a new phenomenon is not something everyone agrees on.

Scott Horsley: That's not absolutely new. You could say that Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats were a way to reach out directly to the American people on the radio without having to go through the newspaper reporters who dominated the press corps at that time.

Archive: My friend, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking, the talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking.

Nick Capodice: So in the beginning of the episode, Hannah, you said that the White House needs the press corps to get its message in front of the people. But we have seen instances throughout history where that's not always the case. There were those fireside chats from FDR on the radio. Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden are on Twitter and they tweet a lot. And I just saw that Joe Biden is on Instagram. So how does the press corps stay relevant when presidents can just go around them? Or as was the case during long stretches of the Trump administration, just stop holding press briefings altogether?

Hannah McCarthy: Well, I think that even as the White House finds new ways to communicate, the media finds new ways to hold power to account, think about how things like data, tools, social media platforms and encrypted communication apps have been game changers when it comes to journalism pertaining to the most powerful people in this country. But it's also important to remember that while it's the press's job to interrogate the White House and push back on its spin, they can ultimately only do so much because at the end of the day, you can have the best reporters in the world covering the president, but the people are still going to make up their own minds when they read about it. That does it for this episode. It was produced by Jacquie Fulton with executive producer Rebecca Lavoie. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: We're the co-hosts of the show. Christina Phillips is our senior producer.

Nick Capodice: Music In this episode by Lenon Hutton, 91 Nova, Paddington Bear, Hedgehog. Wallace Peerless. Cirque La Nouvelle CALLISON, Jules, Gaia, Tigran Viken, El Flaco Collective, Jerry Lacy and EP Hartman.

Hannah McCarthy: If you liked this episode, there's a lot more where this came from. You can find our entire archive at civics101podcast.org. And while you're there, ask us a question. There's a really good chance we will make an episode to answer it for you.

Nick Capodice: Civics 101 is the production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

Are We A Democracy? Or A Republic?

There's a complaint we get pretty often around here, that our tagline contains the word "democracy," but the United States is *actually* a republic. So...do we need to make a change? We dig into that question and a whole lot more on this episode.

Guests:

Juliet Hooker: Royce Professor, Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University

Paul Frymer: Professor of Politics, Princeton University

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Transcript:

Washington Journal Archive: And that's New Hampshire Public Radio's Civic 101 podcast. And these are its co-hosts and producers, Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. Thank you so much for being with us here this morning.

Hannah McCarthy: It's a pleasure to be here, Jesse. Thank you.

Nick Capodice: You remember this?

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yeah, I remember this.

Nick Capodice: You want to just tell everyone real quick what it was?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, sure. In November of 2021, Nick and I were on Washington Journal on C-SPAN, talking about our show. And I remember very clearly, Nick, when they opened the phone lines.

Washington Journal Archive: Let's talk to James, who's calling from Port Angeles, Washington. James, good morning.

Washington Journal Archive: Good morning, Jesse. Are you guys there?

Washington Journal Archive: We're here. Go ahead, James.

Washington Journal Archive: Yeah. Being bipartisan, you guys from New Hampshire. How do you keep your own opinions to yourselves on your show? I know you're just working on..

Nick Capodice: And I want to play one caller's specific beef with us, and he's not alone.

Washington Journal Archive: Let's talk to Murph, who's calling from Germantown, Tennessee. Murph, good morning.

Washington Journal Archive: Thank you for taking this call. I have a bone to pick with your two guests. I taught American government and civics for 22 years in an American public school classroom in Tennessee. The United States of America is not a democracy. It never has been. Never will be. It is a republic. And we pass laws and govern ourselves through our elected representatives and a rule of law. Do you want to investigate a democracy? I suggest you look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the former Soviet Union who allowed people to vote, but they only had one choice. I find your efforts outstanding because of the ignorance of the average American citizen and truly wish you well in this endeavor. But I challenge you to scour the Federalist Papers. Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, to find the word democracy anywhere. Thank you so very much. And you too. Take care. Have a great Thanksgiving and a merry Christmas.

Washington Journal Archive: Who wants to take that on?

Nick Capodice: If you're listening to Civics 101 I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice: And today in our podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works, we're interrogating those exact words. Are we wrong to refer to the US as a democracy? What did the framers of our Constitution intend for us to be? And while we're at it, how democratic are we anyways?

Juliet Hooker: You know, the word democracy, of course, goes back to ancient Greece and to the city states that, you know, that first pioneered this form of politics.

Nick Capodice: This is Juliet Hooker.

Juliet Hooker: I'm the Royce professor, teaching excellence in political science at Brown University.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, when Juliet is talking about ancient Greece, is she referring to Athens, to Athenian democracy?

Nick Capodice: Yes, she is. This is the very first known democracy in human history.

Juliet Hooker: In political theory and political science, we understand democracy as a form of government in which the people have the authority to rule, to deliberate and make decisions about policy, and they can do so directly. This is called direct democracy, right? In the Athenian city states, they were small enough that it was direct.

Nick Capodice: The word democracy comes from demos, meaning people and kratos, meaning power men who had undergone mandatory military training were obliged to participate in the assembly in Athens, where elected officials proposed laws and everybody voted by a show of hands.

Hannah McCarthy: Obliged, as in they had to vote.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, they had to. If they didn't, they could be fined and sometimes marked with red paint. And there was a whole set of rules about who could be one of those elected officials who propose all the laws in the first place, which is fascinating, but I can't get into it all here. I do need to throw in some quick fun etymology, though, when they would vote on whether or not to expel someone who is dangerous to the country, they'd use broken pieces of pottery called ostrakon to cast their ballot. And that is where we get the word ostracize.

Hannah McCarthy: They actually knew that, Believe it or not.

Nick Capodice: I had a feeling you would.

Hannah McCarthy: All right. So I do want to get to America and its founding, but there is a bit of a problem here in Athens. We think about this being an example of pure democracy, direct democracy. But it was only men who could vote.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. Absolutely. We are not including women when we talk about this democracy, we are not including enslaved Greeks. Roughly, only about 30% of the Athenian population could participate in the democratic process. So that's our starting point. And about 2000 years later, 55 men were debating how to design the system we use in the US today.

Juliet Hooker: Certainly at the time of the founding, I think there has become something that people bat about in contemporary debates. The word that people often use was republic, because at that time the issue was gaining independence. The idea was to be not to be part of this monarchical empire anymore, but to be a republic. But it is also the case, I think there's certainly a question about that. Scholars of American political development have thought about whether the extent to which, for example, the founders were committed to a vision of, let's say, equal democracy.

Nick Capodice: And like in Athens, we weren't a truly inclusive democracy.

Juliet Hooker: It was restricted, right? It didn't apply to everyone, primarily in terms of who could participate fully as a citizen to propertied white men. So women were excluded, certainly until after the Civil War and emancipation and the amendments granting citizenship to black men.

Hannah McCarthy: Black people were excluded.

Juliet Hooker: Indigenous people also as a matter of law. Up until the 1960s, the US was not a full democracy because it was not really possible for African Americans to participate in the South. So even just as a matter of just the basic functioning of democracy up to then, what is it now? 60 years ago, the US was not a full democracy.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, this is very important. There's sort of a sliding scale of democracy in America. We've constantly shifted. Who is allowed to participate in the political process?

Nick Capodice: Yes, as Juliet said, until 1790 it was only white men who owned property who could vote. And we think about the big laws or amendments that changed then like the 15th and the 19th Amendment or the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But throughout history, there were myriad laws that states passed with racial, religious, or gender restrictions explicitly prohibiting groups of Americans from voting.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, we have talked about the history of the word democracy. Let's talk about the other one that Juliet mentioned, the Republic.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. So we're swapping out Hermes for Mercury and Poseidon for Neptune because we're going from Greece to Rome.

Hannah McCarthy: Is that your go-to Roman music bed? Yep. It's Roman all over the place.

Nick Capodice: Race publica a system for the public. Now, at first blush, Hannah, the Roman Republic looks a lot like us. There's a Democratic forum and there's a Senate and officials representing the people, not the people themselves, make all the decisions. But the senators who wrote and passed all the laws were not elected. They were from the richest, most aristocratic families in Rome. And at the very top were two consuls, which the Senate elected.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, if the Senate and the councils did all of the law passing, what was the purpose of the forum?

Nick Capodice: Well, the forum didn't have a lot of power. It was a place for speeches and elections of lower-level offices. But honestly, the appointed Senate, they ran the whole thing.

Hannah McCarthy: So the forum was a placation?

Juliet Hooker: Yeah. It's like go talk about it in the forum. And we the Senate who weren't even elected, we'll think about it real hard.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, So we in America are a little like the Athenian democracy and a little like the Roman Republic. Nick which of those words, democracy or republic represents us better?

Nick Capodice: I will let you know the answer to this, Hannah in my opinion, but more importantly, the opinion of the framers and of our guests on the show right after this break. But first, if you want to know more about consuls, censors, preachers, patricians and plebeians, that's the stuff that we put in our biweekly newsletter, Extra Credit. Check it out at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy: We're back. We're challenging our show's tagline today on Civics 101, where we refer to ourselves as a democracy. Now, Nick, at the top of the show, you played a clip from a former civics teacher who asked us to scour the texts of the framers to find the word democracy. Did you do that?

Nick Capodice: I did, and I did. First off, though, you know that famous exchange that may or may not have happened between Elizabeth Powell and Benjamin Franklin?

Hannah McCarthy: Is this the one where she said, well, doctor, what have we got? Or a republic or a monarchy?

Archive: Greetings from Philadelphia. My name is Franklin, Benjamin Franklin. As I was coming out of the building one day, a woman said to me, Sir, what have you given us?

Archive: And I looked at her and I said, Madam, we have.

Archive: Given you a republic if you can keep it.

Nick Capodice: And it's likely that he said that or something to that effect, because it appears in the notes of James McHenry from the Constitutional Convention. However, another quote attributed to him is, quote, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch." There is no evidence whatsoever that Franklin said that or anything like that. The first use of that quote that I could find was from 1990. And also, by the way, people didn't use the word "lunch" until the 19th century. But back to the main point, did early political minds refer to democracy? If I do scour the founding documents for that word, will I find it? Yes. Yes, Hannah, They most certainly did.

Hannah McCarthy: Who did?

Nick Capodice: Well, here we go. In Federalist 14, James Madison used the word democracy five times just in that essay alone. Now, to be fair, he was using the word to explain how the Democratic Republic is different from a, quote unquote, pure democracy. He said that while direct democracy, the people making all the decisions can be used in a small area. It cannot be used for a whole nation. John Adams used the expression representative democracy to describe our system. So too did Thomas Jefferson in 1815. And then we have two early, early Supreme Court justices. First, James Wilson, who helped write the Constitution. He said that there are three forms of government, quote, monarchical aristocratic rule and democratic rule, end quote. And later, Judge John Marshall.

Hannah McCarthy: The John Marshall.

Nick Capodice: The man himself, Justice Marshall, expounded on the maxims of democracy without ever even using the qualifier of representative before it. And I've been talking a lot about the Constitution here, Hannah, but we also have to mention that when we were getting started as a nation before the Constitutional Convention, we were even a little bit more democratic.

Juliet Hooker: You know, it is thought that the Articles of Confederation were more "small d" democracy.

Nick Capodice: This is Paul Frymer. He's a professor of politics at Princeton University.

Paul Frymer: It was focused a little more populist, rooted in local governments. The 1780s were seen as a disaster, you know, and the various ways in which farmers and other groups avoided paying back debts and the like. It was thought to be generally chaotic. The government felt it needed more stability. And when you read something like Federalist Ten by James Madison, the tyranny of the majority and the belief that we need checks and balances, that was all to check democracy, to check broader populism, to put governance more in the hands of elites. That's pretty clear. They aren't all in agreement on that. But certainly the overall tone of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, skews in that direction.

Hannah McCarthy: Just a fast refresher here. The Articles of Confederation was the name of our first governing document. It basically outlined 13 different countries, a.k.a. the colonies, with a very loose bond, binding them together.

Nick Capodice: Right. A firm league of friendship, almost no federal government, no chief executive, and Hannah, they were a disaster. Rewriting the articles was the initial goal of the Constitutional Convention.

Hannah McCarthy: And this goes back to the notion of a sliding scale of democracy, doesn't it? We started a little more democratic, and then we reined in the will of the people a little bit when we ratified the Constitution. Does Paul think that right now we can refer to America as a democracy?

Paul Frymer: Yeah, I think we aspire to be a democracy. That's important. We have enough procedures that require a certain form of democracy. Electoral College aside, the presidential election is largely a majority vote that's meaningful. Most of our elections are majority elections. And we have procedures, you know, civil liberties, due process. These are all important rights of democracy and due process that are really critical. One, that you can't just be thrown in jail without without trial or some cause. Again, you can we have political prisoners. We have huge incarceration rates. We can raise qualifications on all this. But there's an aspiration to a democracy. And I think there's enough procedures that we qualify to be a democracy.

Hannah McCarthy: I just want to pivot here. I'm so curious. How do we appear in the eyes of others, like people from other countries? Do others refer to the United States as a democracy?

Nick Capodice: They do indeed. We are on the list.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, I know that list.

Nick Capodice: Yeah. No discussion of democratic principles would be possible without it. The Democracy Index. This is courtesy of the Economist Intelligence Unit. This index comes out every year. What it does is it ranks every country in the world on its democracy. It uses 60 indicators to measure where a country stands on the scale from full democracy all the way down to authoritarian regime. Paul told me that these indices aren't perfect. They came out after the Cold War. They are quite capitalist-driven, but people pay attention to them. And the most recent index at the time of this recording is from 2021.

Hannah McCarthy: How well did we do on that most recent one?

Nick Capodice: Not that well. The US ranked 26th in the world when it comes to democracy and we are in the category of, quote, flawed democracy. 31% of the world's countries are in that group.

Hannah McCarthy: Who is number one?

Nick Capodice: Norway, New Zealand and Finland. It was a three-way tie with a perfect ten.

Hannah McCarthy: And then last place.

Nick Capodice: Afghanistan.

Hannah McCarthy: Now 26th place for a country that regularly champions itself as being the ultimate democracy. Right. That's kind of shabby. I mean, have we done better in the past?

Nick Capodice: We have. We are at a 7.85 out of ten now. In 2006, we were at 8.6, six out of ten. And this brings me to something Paul mentioned, a recent trend of people saying that we are becoming less democratic now than we were hundreds of years ago.

Paul Frymer: I am often annoyed by some of the current discourse that the United States is less of a democracy today than we were. I don't know. I think since they first started doing these index tests, going back to the 1840s, and my response to that is that that's completely nonsense. What do we mean by a democracy? Obviously, we had slavery, we had Jim Crow, we had allowance of racial discrimination, legal, racial, racial discrimination until 1964 with the Civil Rights Act, our political party. So separating from that, our political parties are hardly as democratic as they are today. 19th, early 20th century, you had party ballots where you received the ballot. It wasn't private. You had to vote for that party. A lot of times the people stared at you when you requested a ballot. Parties were corrupt. We talk about elections, the election outcomes. We have in history lots of examples of corruption. That's not to say we're a great democracy now, but we really want to inquire what we mean. When have we ever really been a democracy? Maybe that would be the question I'd ask.

Nick Capodice: If we're talking about democracy now in America, one of the factors we've got to take into account is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed voting laws and practices that discriminated against voters, Black voters in particular, was frankly gutted in 2013 and the Supreme Court decision and Shelby v Holder.

Archive: And at least for now, Jake, the bottom line is that these southern states, largely southern states that had these special requirements that the federal government imposed in that 1965 Voting Rights Act, they are no longer going to have to deal with that, at least for the time being, unless Congress takes special action. And as I said, I don't anticipate that special.

Nick Capodice: This was the Supreme Court ruling that places with a history of discrimination no longer need clearance from the federal government to change voting laws. And if you want to know more about it, we did a whole episode on the current state of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes.

Hannah McCarthy: All right, Nick. So where does that leave us? How does our tagline fair? Are we a democracy?

Nick Capodice: Well, this answer is a two-parter. And in the first part, I want to say that I feel that it is fair to refer to the United States as a republic, and not because it was written into the Pledge of Allegiance over 100 years after the Constitution was ratified that somebody put in there and to the republic for which it stands. But I think it's fair because the U.S. is a republic. We elect people to write and pass laws. We don't do it ourselves all the time. And part two, it is absolutely fair to refer to the United States as a democracy. It's a representative democracy. We vote. We choose those officials, unlike ancient Rome, and we even have vestiges of that pure democracy we talked about earlier. Lots of states have initiatives, ballot measures where the people can propose laws and vote on them. And from a very personal standpoint, I think that this "don't call us a democracy" rhetoric is nonsensical. It's meaningless. I read a quote about this the other day where someone said it's like they're toddlers screaming, "the ball isn't green, it's round." We are a republic. We are a democracy. We've done better and we've done worse. But what's most important to me is something Juliet Hooker said when I asked her what to do when we feel that democracy is under threat.

Juliet Hooker: I think maybe it's this is not to minimize the current threats to democracy, which are very grave, but to say maybe it would be helpful if we recognize that democracy has always been under threat because democracy isn't this thing that you achieve and then you're perfectly democratic and there's no work left to do. It's an ideal you're always trying to put into practice. It's a way of living in concert with others. Also moving beyond a notion that there are only two sides to any issue and recognizing that there are multiple perspectives. And how do we reframe political and policy debate so that that is recognized and thinking about why people have been disillusioned with democracy and why some people are also invested in it. So what are the sources of democratic faith? And also why are the thinkers, movements, activists who also can test democracy? What are the things that it hasn't done well that lead people to despair?

Nick Capodice: That is it for today on Civics 101, the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. Murph, I hope you hear this. Write us with your thoughts. This episode is created by me. Nick Capodice with you. Hannah McCarthy.

Hannah McCarthy: Thank you. Thank you. Our staff includes Jackie Fulton. Christina Phillips is our senior producer and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer.

Nick Capodice: Music In this episode by Asura The Grand Affair. Ryan Kilkenny. Gabriel Lewis Vanilla. Howard Harper. Barnes IO, Blue Bluedot Sessions, Divided, Cushy Max Hansen, and the inimitable Chris Zabriskie.

Hannah McCarthy: Civics 101 is a production of NHPR - New Hampshire Public Radio.

Nick Capodice: OUTTAKE: He said that there are three forms of government, quote, monarchical. Monarchical, monarchical, aristocratic, aristocratic all. Quote monarchical, aristocratic and democratically.

American Myths Part Two: Progress

There are three American myths that define "Americanness." The frontier, the melting pot and the "self-made man." They're concepts that define how we are to think about transformation, progress and possibility in America. They also rarely hold up. Heike Paul, author of The Myths That Made America, is our guide to the stories we tell about how it is in this country (even when it isn't.)

American Myths Part 2.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

American Myths Part 2.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix This transcript may contain errors.

Hannah McCarthy:
You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

Nick Capodice:
I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy:
And this, my friends, is part two of a two-parter on American Myths. You can listen to it all by its lonesome, of course, but I strongly recommend you go back and give part one a listen. Get to know our desperately clung to origin stories. In this episode, we're going to talk about three myths for America's future, for progress, for transformation, all of which are laid out so very beautifully in a book called The Myths That Made America by Heike Paul, a professor of American studies at Friedrich Alexander University in Bavaria. So quickly, what are we about to learn today? That would be the frontier myth, the melting pot myth and the myth of the self-made man. Myth number one.

Archival:
Lovely Lady Liberty with her book of recipes. And find this one she's got.

He's the great American melting pot. American melting pot. The great American melting pot.

Heike Paul:
We have various versions of the melting pot today. When we think melting pot. We find it often a faulty model because it means that we get rid of difference. And we've been cultivating difference and we've been respecting difference. And we think melting means. Erasure means getting rid of or it means pretending that differences do not exist. So in this in this dominant logic, melting pot has become equated with a kind of a more oppressive idea of Americanness of American identity.

Nick Capodice:
Just for those of you out there who haven't heard the term the melting pot of America, this is the concept that in the United States, all these varied cultures and traditions come together and assimilate into one slurry, one mono culture, one homogenous America. And this expression has come under a lot of scrutiny, specifically in the last 40 years. Some Americans see it as a core to who we are, and others, you know, see it as a kind of a violent idea, the elimination of others essence in order to be one harmonious America and to bring up Henry Ford here because he used to have all his new employees at the Henry Ford plant where all of their, quote unquote, like, you know, ethnic clothing and doing the dances and playing the music and they would get into an actual melting pot. Henry Ford had a giant pot and you would kind of climb in behind it and had steam coming out of it. And you would come out in a Ford uniform. You had assimilated into being an American.

Hannah McCarthy:
But what I didn't know, Nick, is that when the term was in its heyday in the early 20th century, in part because there was a play by a Jewish immigrant Zionist called The Melting Pot, that this term melting pot was actually kind of between two comparatively radical ideas. One of those ideas was cultural pluralism.

Nick Capodice:
What is cultural pluralism?

Hannah McCarthy:
That's very basically just the coexistence of multiple cultures in one place, like multiple perspectives and practices.

Nick Capodice:
What's interesting to me is that sort of a modern day notion of the melting pot is not how everybody is smashed together and becomes this one homogenous thing, but all these people sort of spice the soup of the pot like we as Americans become better because different cultures are added to the stew or salad or whatever, you know, analogy you prefer.

Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, and we'll get to a version of that in just a second here. But that idea of cultural pluralism, right, of all of these cultures existing, while you could say a lot of people ostensibly understand that and are kind of with it today and it pretty much rejects the melting pot as a melter, it was a little too advanced in the 19th century. It was too radical. People couldn't quite agree on that. But then there was another extreme, and these were people who in the 19th century rejected the idea of the melting pot, but not for the reasons that a lot of people reject it today.

Heike Paul:
Voices that went into saying that we cannot have immigration at all or we should not have difference in this country, we should not cultivate it, and we should not get rid of it by melting, but we should get rid of it by, you know, things like eugenics, even, you know, we should be very selective whom we let into the country. And then we need to make sure that our white stock of white majority does not diminish or does not disappear.

Hannah McCarthy:
Heike pointed out, by the way, that this particular point of view did not entirely go away, and in fact, it has experienced a renaissance.

Heike Paul:
So the anxieties around that time in the early 20th century are very current as well. I guess, you know, so the revival of ethno nationalism and all of that, I think that comes straight out of the playbook of the eugenicists at the beginning of the 20th century.

Hannah McCarthy:
But then Heike talked about another concept that can be found in the melting pot. I hadn't heard this one, and I think it's a lot closer to what you were describing, Nick.

Heike Paul:
This idea of trying to to move towards each other, trying to have a melting of the minds or having have kind of a meaningful exchange, you know, can do without it. Of course, you know, at the level when it becomes existential, we may want to reject it.

Hannah McCarthy:
In other words, overcoming the distance between us without destroying the differences between us. But it's kind of a high minded concept and not exactly easy to nation build on that idea. So instead, we have the more direct idea of the melting pot. In her book, Heike talks about the fact that E Pluribus unum, out of many, one has effectively become the tagline of the melting pot. This idea that in America you shed your old skin, you climb into foreheads, melting pot, you take off the clothes of your homeland and you have a new homeland. Your various backgrounds assimilate into a single new American race.

Nick Capodice:
Basically turning the United States from a country of immigrants into a country of one type of people.

Hannah McCarthy:
Which is what makes it one of those transformation future blueprint myths. Another blueprint myth that we sketched out. That's the frontier myth.

Heike Paul:
So the frontier myth, I think, is one of the most well known myth of of American in American history. I think for some people, it is the super myth of the one that transcends all the others because it connects so well to certain historical figures. You know, Columbus, the cowboy, the settler. You know, so the frontier myth really is kind of a very, very much kind of an overarching story, which had Slotkin is one person who says that this is the master myth of America. This is this is all we need to know. It's the frontier. And then we can explain pretty much everything about about Americans.

Nick Capodice:
What's interesting about the frontier myth, and I'm just postulating here, it's kind of like a catchall for all the other ones we've talked about so far. The promised land, the harmonious land grab, the birth of a new nation, transforming everything that's different or quote unquote, unsettled into capital a America.

Heike Paul:
Of course, it is a myth rooted in the late 19th century that is using an idea of geographical determinism, namely the settling of America from the East to the West, mostly by Europeans, and the transformative processes they undergo in that kind of very idealized setting that this is Americanness is produced by certain kinds of encounters that happened happen when you're moving westward. Right. And so this is the idea of the frontier, as this line, Turner calls it, the thin line between civilization and savagery. And of course, both of these terms, civilization and savagery, are completely overdetermined, highly loaded, highly charged.

Hannah McCarthy:
Now, the West, as this important foundational, mythic idea, was really formally set in stone by this guy named Frederick Jackson Turner. He was an historian in the early 20th century.

Heike Paul:
In Turner's version, there is this idea of this experience of being alone on the frontier, having to secure your own survival, having to adopt certain skills to survive, showing off your individual expertise and aptitudes in the process. You know, that's all what what goes into the Americanness that Turner then constructs now. And he's very worried at the end of the 19th century because he says, you know, we've reached the West, we are now at the Pacific from sea to shining sea. So what will happen to us as Americans when we no longer have the frontier experience? And there is some anxiety in his wording about the end or the closing of the frontier. And of course, that many more recent scholars have pointed out that this is the beginning of sort of the empire abroad US influence US interventions outside of the North American continent.

Hannah McCarthy:
Late 19th century. That is when we started messing around in Latin America, in part to prevent European powers from sneaking in and benefiting financially so that we could sneak in and benefit financially. And that is a whole episode. But the timing is pretty interesting, isn't it? Because it was so important to us that we had this perceived unsettled west, this land that would satisfy Manifest Destiny, that we had somewhere to go and spread what we are.

Nick Capodice:
And here comes the Promised Land myth again, right? I mean, literally, it's like the Puritan. We are ordained by God to take all this and impose ourselves on it for the benefit of everyone.

Hannah McCarthy:
Right? And so once the West was one, we set our sights on spreading the West. This concept further out. It's the bedrock for justifying bringing Americanness to any nation that's on momentarily unsteady footing, or that we see ourselves as more powerful than okay. Next, we've got one last myth coming up. But first, we're going to take a quick break.

Nick Capodice:
But before we do, Hannah, we must remind our listeners that we have a newsletter. It's fun. It comes out every week. It's called Extra Credit, and it's full of the stuff that didn't make it into our episodes. And it gives Hannah and I an excuse to kind of goof around a little, you.

Hannah McCarthy:
Know, which is all we really want to.

Nick Capodice:
Do. Oh, we want to do in the first place. You can sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy:
Okay, We're back. And you're listening to part two of a two parter on American Myths from Civics 101. We're speaking with Heike Paul, author of The Myths That Made America. And myth number three, The Final Future Myth.

Archival:
Yes, sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir. You're a self-made man.

Heike Paul:
The self-made man is about social mobility. Upward mobility. Right. Vertical rather than horizontal. And in this process, he usually is depicted as somebody deserving. He earns what he gets, and he becomes a successful entrepreneur. And the shorthand, of course, is the from rags to riches narrative that you can start at the bottom of the social ladder and work your way up to become at least middle class, but mostly upper middle class or even kind of upper class successful individual in America. And so the idea I think that is connected to this particular myth is to say that the US is a classless society.

Hannah McCarthy:
And Heike also explained that this contrasts to Europe, right? Because Europe is based on a feudal system with an aristocracy. And then you have the indentured servants or the farmers or the clerks. And the US wants to caste itself in a very different light. You can own land and property and make your own way. And your future is not decided by your birth or situation.

Nick Capodice:
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Mccarthy.

Hannah McCarthy:
The thing that really gets me about the self-made man myth is that everyone uses it. You hear the kind of jokey like, Oh, she was born on third base, but she thinks she had a triple, right? The idea they are being like someone is born into wealth and privilege, but they think their wealth and privilege is because of what they did right. They worked so hard for it. And then what that does is that it totally erases the socioeconomic context that a person is born into.

Nick Capodice:
It also tells this lie that everybody's responsible for their own success, right? That that money, location, whiteness, family history, community, none of that is the reason for achieving the American dream. It's all because of you. What you all by yourself do.

Heike Paul:
Emphasizing individuality as the myth of the self-made man does also leads to the idea that there is a fair chance for everyone, and you just need to take that chance and make something out of your life. It also, in doing so, it places very little emphasis on the idea that you are part of a collective, where you share solidarity, where you care for each other, and where you help and support each other.

Archival:
Well, I think that every day we are benefiting from someone helping us. That's why I said earlier, there is no such thing as a self-made man. I mean, when you think about it, you're born and you need your parents to raise you. You need your teachers to teach you. You need your coaches to do sports.

Heike Paul:
In the dominant version of the myth of the self-made man, we have a strong sort of subtext of social Darwinism that means that you don't try hard enough if you don't become successful or you are in some other way deficient or unwilling. And that hampers your success and your achievement. The idea of the self-made man. I think we can trace it back to Benjamin Franklin, who makes a very interesting connection. He says, If we all strive, we strive for our individual success and we also contribute to the public good. There is no contradiction for Benjamin Franklin in his worldview. If you succeed on your own, then you can also help make the community strong. Of course, in more recent variations we've seen that this is not really how it works, that in in a context where there is individual striving, there is competition. Not everyone is working towards the same common good, but there will be winners and there will be losers.

Hannah McCarthy:
And of course, there's one really glaring problem with all of this, with the discomfort of the winners and the losers, and that is that we live in a capitalist country and world. You must have winners and losers. That's part of it.

Nick Capodice:
You know, for our whole history, a lot of people in America have been really uncomfortable with the concept of losing.

Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, And if people have lost so their fault, right? It's like, God, you really you really you didn't take this opportunity. You blew out. You blew.

Nick Capodice:
It. Really blew it. You had your shot and you blew.

Hannah McCarthy:
It.

Nick Capodice:
Right? For years, you've been carrying around that pistol and you waste your shot. He didn't waste it. That was my Orlando Bloom. So between part one and part two, we've got our seven myths.

Hannah McCarthy:
We've got our seven myths. Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, Puritans, Pilgrims and the Promised Land. The Founding Fathers, the frontier, the melting pot, and the self-made man.

Nick Capodice:
Can I ask the unanswerable question?

Hannah McCarthy:
That is my favorite kind.

Nick Capodice:
As Heike was sort of ticking through these the holes and the falsehoods and the imaginary fairy tale of all of them. It's so clear when she says it. And yet, Hannah. Even if we intellectually understand that. These myths are still part of our culture today. So basically, my question is. Why?

Heike Paul:
I think this myth are persistent because we encountered them in various ways, in various forms and through various senses, and we encounter them through narratives that can be very powerful narratives. We encountered them in visual iconography, also very powerful, and we encounter them through cultural practices. So like holidays also these would be cultural practices. They also are emotionally charged for us. So I think the emotional dimension, the visual dimension, the narrative, the practical cultural practice, these are all dimensions that are tied together and it is very difficult to unlearn these kinds of things.

Hannah McCarthy:
I mean, be honest, Nick, listening to all of these myths, was there any part of you that feels an attachment to any part of them?

Nick Capodice:
Absolutely. I mean, I would joke about it all the time. 1776 is one of my favorite movies ever, but it is a big ole myth and there's some comfort in these myths, you know, and I know you're not busting these myths today, Hannah, but it sort of feels like something's kind of taken away when you're just told, Well, this is why we do things this way.

Hannah McCarthy:
Well, Heike has got a pretty interesting take. That to me. Almost sounds like new mythmaking for us to find a way to attach ourselves emotionally through holiday celebration, for example, to practices and beliefs that are better for our culture, that are better for our Americanness, maybe based more in truth, even if that truth is not the kind that warms the cockles of your heart.

Heike Paul:
I think we need to unlearn some of the ways that we react to the narratives. We need to learn to maybe cultivate different kinds of cultural practices, and we also need to be more critical of the iconography. The hardest part, though, I think, is unlearning to be emotionally attached. I think that's something that is more difficult to to achieve this kind of disengagement. Unlearning, yeah. Distancing yourself from certain kinds of effects that can be nostalgic, you know, can be childhood memories of an Independence Day parade. It can be the smell of a certain kind of food. It's very difficult to disavow that or even ask people to disavow it. So I think this is why the perseverance is so phenomenal, even though we can see all of the cognitive dissonance with those myths. What helps, I think, is to have at least kind of some sort of reflexive. Um, detour. You know, like you said, this is a holiday so and so, and, you know, I see whatever, you know, is implied by these kinds of facilities and maybe, you know, let's try to change the narrative or let's, you know, do this, tell it differently.

Hannah McCarthy:
I think it's important to acknowledge that emotional connection because that's part of the point, isn't it? Nick, you brought up your feelings about the founding fathers who know we're not this perfectly harmonious, homogenous group, but at the same time, casting them in a glimmering light does give us something to rally around to be patriotic about. And that is important. You can see how that builds a nation. But to hike his point, What if we had other things? We need our stories. We need our myths. But what if we changed the stories we tell? That does it for part two of this two parter. Oh, yes, it's in two parts. And if you haven't listened to part one on the Origin Myths of America, I warmly recommend you do so right now. This episode was produced by me and McCarthy with Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer, and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by Chris Zabriskie, Simon Matthewson, Young Karts, Stucco, Gray, Jakarta Riddim, Fabian Tel Dylan sits and spring game. You can check out our entire catalog at our website, civics101podcast.org. And while you're there, ask us your questions about America, be it the truth of the matter or the myth. Submit your question and we might just make an episode to answer it. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.

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American Myths Part One: Origins

We take a closer look at four well-worn stories: that of Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, the Pilgrims and Puritans and the Founding Fathers and ask what is actually true. They're our foundational origin myths, but why? And since when? Author Heike Paul, author of The Myths That Made America, is our guide.

American Myths Part 1.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

American Myths Part 1.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix This transcript may contain errors.

Hannah McCarthy:
Hi, Nick.

Nick Capoodice:
Hey, Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy:
And hello listener. You're listening to Civics 101 and its story time. And actually, this is going to be an episode in two parts Part one America's Origin Stories. More specifically, America's origin myths.

Nick Capoodice:
Do we have myths?

Hannah McCarthy:
Oh, Nick, we are myths.

Nick Capoodice:
Okay. I'm very excited for this, in part because my older son right now is absolutely obsessed with Greek myths. And it's Greek above all else. Like other myths don't even come close to cutting it. He sees Greek myth as the truest myth.

Hannah McCarthy:
Okay, this is very interesting because, Nick, what's a true myth like truth is not the point of myth. The point of myth is to create morals and principles and power dynamics and cultural practices, which is not necessarily to say that myths are about lying. They're just about finding the strongest story to build a world around. And mind you, myths are important. We do need them. But sometimes the question is how long do we need them for?

Heike Paul:
Let's start with this idea of a myth. You know, when you look at what is a myth, a myth is something that tries to create kind of a larger framework, a larger meaning, maybe kind of a spiritual dimension even. And you do this by mythic narratives. Of course, those myths that I discuss are modern myths, if you will. They are not classical myths. They don't go back to antiquity. So these are modern myths that provide ontological security and that eliminate contingency.

Hannah McCarthy:
This is Heike Paul. Anyone who reads our newsletter knows that I recently discovered her wonderful book, The Myths That Made America. And I devoured it. And Heike, as you may guess, is not herself American. She's a professor of American studies at Friedrich Alexander University in Bavaria.

Heike Paul:
I think there's always this fascination with the US as this very strong. At least we used to think that way. Very strong, imagined community that likes to display the flag all over the place, you know, that is into civil religion, the Pledge of Allegiance. I mean, these are things that, for a German, are very strange.

Hannah McCarthy:
And before we dig into this American strangeness, I have to say that, like his book is nuanced and it's deep and it's really good. And, Nick, I'm not going to do a justice. I can't There is so much more going on. And if you read it, I believe that you will get a complete picture. And also it's open source on JSTOR store. So if you can, I encourage you to indeed dig deeper. But what we're going to do today is take a look at the seven myths that she lays out and why on earth they exist and why they matter and how we've used them. So the big why.

Heike Paul:
When I speak to my students about this idea of an imagined community, I always tells them, you know, when you have a romantic relationship with somebody, then you constitute a collectivity. This collectivity needs to be nourished. You know, this is why you always tell each other stories about when you met the first time, what was it that got you interested in this other person? You have an anniversary. You know, you had you do things that that binds you together to eliminate contingency and to make you, you know, convinced that it could be no other person that you're with. No one else would take all the boxes. Right. So any collectivity needs to create this kind of meaning. Right. And so, like, if you are a couple, of course you know each other. If you're your family that gets larger. And a nation, any modern nation state also needs to do that.

Nick Capoodice:
Eliminate contingency.

Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah. In other words, if you have a shared agreed upon collection of stories and beliefs, then you're less likely to have to plan for potential issues in the future, like you're already agreeing. So a partnership needs that and the nation needs that. And these myths that we're about to talk about, they really start to emerge as the country is hitting a fever pitch of immigration in the 19th century.

Heike Paul:
And I think here with the emergence of the modern nation state in the 19th century, we also see the emergence of these kinds of modern myths that are connected to the nation or the nation state and that stabilize the nation state as an entity that is not questioned every other day within Europe. And you think of the emergence of the modern nation states in France or Germany or wherever. Of course, there was this reach back to one's own history, right? You would go back to the Middle Ages or maybe even antiquity. But there was a sense that, you know, something has happened in that place that you could feed into this national mythology. In the US, of course, we all know there were communities living in North America and the Americas at large, but the native perspectives were not the ones that were fed into the foundational mythology. For for a long time, I would say quite the contrary, sort of the native presence is really an exception.

Nick Capoodice:
Okay, so we needed some collective history, but we didn't want it to have anything to do with the people who were here already, who had a long history.

Hannah McCarthy:
With one notable exception, and we will get to that. But yeah.

Heike Paul:
There was a more conscious process, I would say conscious selection process also by a kind of an intellectual elite at the time of the founding. And it was kind of a balance that needed to be created between, on the one hand, borrowing from highly considered European tradition and sources, but on the other hand making sure this is not who we are, we are not Europeans. We are Americans. And so this is maybe a second dimension of why this is so interesting in the United States. You know, this balancing out of foreign influences with kind of a making it new aspect energy, but at the same time really obscuring the indigenous roots.

Hannah McCarthy:
So in her book, Heike covers seven myths in total. But like I said, this is an episode in two parts. So part one, we're going to talk about the four origin myths. Part two we will take on the three myths that laid the groundwork for America's future. So the origins we've got the stories of Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, the Pilgrims, Puritans, and the Founding Fathers. Heike calls these:

Heike Paul:
The VIPs of American beginning.

Hannah McCarthy:
Speaking of the VIPS of American beginnings.

Heike Paul:
Yeah, with Columbus, the one thing that we need to be aware, I think, and that's also very funny, is that for being like the first great national hero of the United States, he was somebody who had never set foot on the territory that now is the United States, right? He only got as far as the Caribbean, never even made it to the south of Florida. And so that's kind of a paradox, of course, that you have here. This guy, he's Italian. He sails for the Spanish crown, he visits the Americas. He doesn't know where he is. You know, he doesn't even think that he is in the Americas. He thinks he's on the back side of India, also dies, not finding out that he's not in India, but he's not even touching US American territory. And so many scholars have pointed that out. Of course, I was not the first to point that out. When you have just to see the way that not Columbus discovered America, but that, in fact, I think this is Claudia Bushman, who says America discovered Columbus at some point to make him out sort of a larger than life national hero at a time when they needed one. Right. And so why did they need one? Okay. So it was in the late 18th century.

Nick Capoodice:
Late 18th century America, a.k.a the time of the Constitutional Convention. We finally are our own thing.

Heike Paul:
There was not a tradition to hearken back to in the United States, not the kind in any case that was desired. There was this strong conflict, of course, with the British War, Revolutionary War, War of Independence. You didn't want to really take recourse to the fact that there was a lot of Britishness in the new world. So you had to pick somebody who was not British, and so you picked Columbus.

Nick Capoodice:
So these revolutionaries were desperate for something, anything historical to cling to, and it couldn't have anything to do with the millennia of existing human history that was already here in this country. So they pick someone who technically has nothing to do with what was about to be the United States.

Hannah McCarthy:
Oh, Nick, you mean with what was about to be Columbia?

Nick Capoodice:
All right. Right. We talked about this in another episode. We didn't call ourselves America. We were Columbia back in the day. That's because of Christopher Columbus. And then, of course, we have Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia and towns called Columbus everywhere. Wait, hold on. Columbia University.

Hannah McCarthy:
As in formerly Kings College. Oh, yeah. That's all. Christopher Columbus, or I should say Cristoforo Colombo, because Christopher Columbus is not an Italian name. Right. But he is an Italian man in the US. The man, Christopher Columbus, was revered. But then the idea that he came to represent just became this like, separate, glorious thing. You see these portrayals of America as this sort of goddess woman Columbia, you know what I'm talking about, Like in the painting of Manifest Destiny. Right, right, right, right. With the woman laying out the power lines like that's Columbia. Yeah.

Nick Capoodice:
She was our pre Uncle Sam.

Hannah McCarthy:
Uncle Sam. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So why the man, Christopher Columbus? To begin with.

Heike Paul:
Columbus was not only not British and therefore made a good national hero for Americans, he was also somebody who was a little bit troubled by the fact that he had to sail for a queen who was not forever grateful to him. Quite the contrary. He was incarcerated. You know, he, you know, became this kind of tragic figure in canonical accounts in any case. And so here you had like this larger than life adventurer and explorer who then also became the victim of a monarch was not appreciated. And so, yes, let's take Columbus. And you could at this point, you could use him to to engage with this idea of conquest crossing the continent westward. You could just be those who would successfully continue Columbus Quest to India, you know, one step further. And that would then also nicely tie in with. The frontier narratives with Manifest Destiny, you know, everything kind of could be sensibly connected to the worship of Christopher Columbus.

Nick Capoodice:
And in the soon to be independent United States, I assume the whole conquest thing was really useful when it came to sanctifying our tendency to oppress and enslave.

Heike Paul:
When you see early visual representations, you will always see that there is this immense hierarchy between a figure like Columbus and his his cross, you know, superior religiosity closed, fully closed, ornamental. And then there's always not really individual people that he meets upon arrival. They always the groups of natives, you know, they're not individualized. And there are usually naked. They're depicted as much smaller than Columbus in the images. And they also depicted as being in or being oppressed, frightened, but obviously accepting this figure of this authority of the white explorer.

Hannah McCarthy:
And then, Nick, and this is really important not just to this American myth, but to all of the myths that Heike talks about in her book, The shifting populace of the United States shifted the myth itself.

Heike Paul:
For all the reasons that he was so practical as a hero for early America. I think in the 19th century we can see that there were also some who felt that maybe he was not the right kind of guy to represent the American nation, for one thing, because it was discovered or people remember that after all, he was Catholic.

Nick Capoodice:
Why is that a problem?

Hannah McCarthy:
Well, Catholic immigrants in the 19th century experienced a good deal of stigmatization and discrimination as immigrants from Ireland and Italy streamed in, Protestant America in particular became suspicious of Catholics. So Columbus is a Catholic, just like these immigrants. They don't love that. But what ended up happening is that some Irish and many Italian immigrants in particular began to think of Columbus as a kind of founding father. He was Italian. He was credited with being the first one here in America, etc., etc..

Nick Capoodice:
So when was the turnaround Like? What point did people finally take a look at the whole picture and start talking about how Christopher Columbus was in fact a murderer and an enslaver and he might not be the best choice as the representative of a country who is trying to wrestle with its own past atrocities.

Heike Paul:
With the 20th century major revisionism taking place around the 1992 anniversary, quote unquote, of the quote unquote discovery. So what do you do? 500 years after Columbus landed in the Caribbean, what is there to celebrate?

Hannah McCarthy:
It was actually during this quincentennial that states started sheepishly backing away from the nationwide devotion to an unsavory historical figure who never actually came here to begin with. That's when you started to hear about Indigenous People's day being celebrated in place of Columbus Day.

Nick Capoodice:
I think the first time I started to hear about this was when I read this book Lies My teacher told me, But what you've been telling me is is true. Like he wasn't here, he was a bad guy. And yet there is so much resistance to that shift away from Columbus.

Archival:
It is Columbus Day, if you didn't know. But several cities across the country will celebrate Indigenous Indigenous Peoples Day instead. Indigenous. Some far left groups like Antifa are...

Hannah McCarthy:
Calling for violence yet. Well, Christopher Columbus was actually taken in by the Irish and especially the Italians who were predominantly Catholic.

Nick Capoodice:
Absolutely. I think we had a Columbus bust in our house growing up.

Hannah McCarthy:
Oh, wow. Okay. Because that was the connection that these immigrants had to America's founding. Their legitimacy and their patriotism all wrapped up with a nice, neat little bow in one historical figure and in part two of civics one and one on American myths. I'm going to come back to that point, Nick, of why it's so seriously hard to let go of all of these myths. But for now, origin myth number two, Pocahontas.

Heike Paul:
Even though we still see her as this wonderful woman, enticing, attractive, exotic as the object of a romantic affair, of romantic desire. We know now, of course, you could have done all along that. Of course, she was not romantically infatuated with John Smith because she was, I don't know, seven, nine, 11. I don't know. She was she was a child and he was in his mid to late thirties.

Hannah McCarthy:
Also, Pocahontas, not her formal name. Her formal name was Amonute. Pocahontas was a nickname. So a major part of the Pocahontas story is the part about her being a quote unquote, "Indian princess." She's the daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Algonquin Nation, and the leader of a very strong coalition of tribes. When Captain John Smith and others came from England to Jamestown, Virginia.

Heike Paul:
And so there is an encounter. Pocahontas is a little girl. John Smith is a man in his thirties. They meet I guess we know that they met the Smith falls out of favor or not? I mean, it goes back and forth, but then he feels like he's being captured by Powhatan and he is supposedly about to be executed. And in his own retelling of what happened, it is Pocahontas who falls, jumps into the arms of Powhatan to say, No, please, I love him, don't kill him. That is the official version. And then John Smith says, You know, she saved my life because she is madly in love with me as women all over the world. Because we know from his trip to Turkey and the other places that always women fell in love with him and saved him. And that's his that's his story all along.

Nick Capoodice:
John Smith is like, Women are obsessed with me everywhere I go.

Hannah McCarthy:
It's in his journals, man. Oh, by the way, here's another major part of the Pocahontas story. We don't have anything that she wrote. It's all just accounts from other people in her life. So John Smith writes that he's about to be executed and Pocahontas saves him. You may have seen the fairly well known drawing. It's from the 1600s. It shows Pocahontas throwing her body over John Smith to prevent the executioner's blow. Alternatively, you may have seen the 1995 Disney classic animated film Pocahontas, in which the exact same scene happens.

Nick Capoodice:
Still haven't seen it.

Heike Paul:
But I was writing the book actually. I still had students young enough to have been in the Disney craze when the film came out. And then then we had one session where everyone brought their Pocahontas Barbies.

Hannah McCarthy:
Full disclosure, I had the Pocahontas Barbie.

Nick Capoodice:
You didn't.

Hannah McCarthy:
I did.

Nick Capoodice:
Where is it?

Hannah McCarthy:
I don't know where it is now, man. Anyway, back to the supposed rescue.

Heike Paul:
Now, in light of ethnographic and anthropological scholarship, we now tend to read the rescue scene. Not as a rescue scene at all. We tend to read it as a scene of adoption. There are a number of scholars who are quite established who have convincingly argued that what is happening here is that Smith is adopted into the tribe of the Algonquin and that Pocahontas is given the role of being kind of the special mediator, of being kind of a special relation to him, but not in a romantic way at all.

Nick Capoodice:
All right. So not only was Pocahontas a child who most certainly was not madly in love with Captain John Smith, she also never dramatically saved his life.

Hannah McCarthy:
No, it was more like an elaborate ceremony to improve interrelations that John Smith totally misinterpreted.

Heike Paul:
He's wounded. He goes back to England. Pocahontas thinks he's actually dead. You know, she nobody tells her that he has left. You know, she thinks he has died within the conflict between the natives and the English. She's taken captive. She's held in captivity by the English. And then she's basically forced, coerced or whatever to marry John Rolfe to settle interracial relations in the colony. And she does that. She marries son. She has a son with him. They go to England to promote the colony. This is a big promotion thing, you know, And I want to get more resources. They need more people. So they go to London. Saw her off as lady Rebecca, as is most famous. Famous portrays when she looks like she's, in fact not Indian at all or not native. And as Lady Rebecca, she is having an audience at the court. She catches the virus, after all, she's sick and then she dies and is now buried in Gravesend in south of England. She never makes it back on the ship to go home.

Hannah McCarthy:
And Heike pointed out that when you see etchings or images of Pocahontas, of humanity post marriage to John Rolfe, she's portrayed as someone who appears a lot closer to a white woman than anything else. I mean, they called her Lady Rebecca.

Nick Capoodice:
Hmm.

Hannah McCarthy:
She was this figure used to represent unity, cohesion, defense of the white colonizer. Harmony.

Heike Paul:
So Pocahontas is made out to be this exceptional figure because she, again, in the colonial mindset, was the first one to see how important the English were and how attractive and.

Hannah McCarthy:
How.

Heike Paul:
How much of the future was the English in America. And so in the 19th century, again, there is this concoction of this romantic plot between her and John Smith. Sometimes it's just like really one author who writes about it, and then it is carried over by other authors. And it's, you know, it becomes this tradition. But then when you go back to the source, you see what nonsense this actually is. But it has given us volumes and volumes of trashy romance novels.

Nick Capoodice:
So basically there's this completely false alternative narrative about things somehow being good. Some love story at the center of important relationships between the Jamestown settlers and the Poulton, Even though it didn't happen.

Heike Paul:
Since this could not take place, this utopian scenario did not evolve. That also then gave white settlers a reason or legitimacy or justification just to have it any other way.

Hannah McCarthy:
In other words, because Pocahontas represented both settler and trans-Atlantic romance and unification, which she did not. This kind of takes care of the problem of the displacement and worse of indigenous people. And we have two more origin myths coming your way. But first, we're going to take a quick break.

Nick Capoodice:
But before we go, Hannah, I'm willing to bet whatever newsletter comes after this episode will be essentially what would happen if anyone out there asked you a question about this book?

Hannah McCarthy:
In other words, 3 hours of slightly free form stream of consciousness gushing about American myths?

Nick Capoodice:
Yes, my current one I'm typing up now is about black licorice. So but all the stuff that Hannah and I write is compacted to fit in our newsletter, which you really should subscribe to. It's just good stuff and we don't try to sell you anything.

Hannah McCarthy:
And I will tell you about the early days of American History scholarship and how it defined basically everything we learned for like well over 100 years.

Nick Capoodice:
You can subscribe to that newsletter, Extra credit at our website, civics101podcast.org.

Hannah McCarthy:
We're back. You're listening to Civics 101. And in part one of this two parter on American Myths, I'm speaking with Heike Paul about her book, The Myths That Made America. We're talking about the origin stories held so near and dear and sometimes less near and dear. Moving on to the third origin myth that Heike covers the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Promised Land.

Heike Paul:
Here we have, I think, a myth that is clearly steeped in kind of a religious experience or that is using religious experience to talk about a secular dimension or secular development. So the Promised Land, of course, is a a topos that we take from the Old Testament. It's the narrative of the exodus. So actually quite early in the Old Testament and the Exodus story is about the Israelites escaping bondage and slavery in Egypt, crossing the wilderness, crossing the Red Sea, and then finding their utopia or their home or their own sort of territorial sovereignty. And so in the midst of the promised land, the exodus part is always the nice part to tell. Everyone likes to tell that part. It's about the Mayflower. It's about escaping British oppression, it's about religious toleration, and it is about finding freedom for religious practice elsewhere in the United States and Massachusetts Bay. Of course, from the beginning there is conflict in the colony. And then, of course, there's also conflict with those who are already there living there, namely the Native Americans. The idea of the promised land is giving a religious dimension to the narrative of settler colonialism. Again, it makes it less contingent. It makes it justifiable. It makes it legitimate because it's been ordained by God himself. It is a contract, as it is often called. A covenant between God and the worshipers. And God is rewarding the worshipers with the land that He brings them to. So that would be the straightforward narrative of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. This has gone down the centuries also as a narrative of a land grab, as a narrative of extermination, as a narrative of being extremely narrow minded, in fact, talking about religious toleration. Right.

Hannah McCarthy:
See religion and God, not unlike the exact way they had been used by the monarchy of England for forever ordained and justified Puritan takeover and condemnation of everything that wasn't Puritan and all under the guise of liberty, right? Religious liberty. And you might say, well, how is that tied to modern America?

Heike Paul:
Well, Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy:
Yes, Nick.

Nick Capoodice:
How is that tied to modern America?

Heike Paul:
I think this whole idea of civil religion is linked to the to the Puritans.

Nick Capoodice:
What does she mean by civil religion here?

Hannah McCarthy:
This is the concept that even though America doesn't have an actual sectarian national religion, we do have collective beliefs and rituals and iconography. So that is what we refer to as civil religion.

Heike Paul:
Of course, we have other elements of religious connotations that we find in civil religion. God bless America and God we trust. I mean, these are things that are also quite striking for a secular nation state. And when you have an outside perspective, this may be puzzling, you know, because Americans always find it strange that, you know, in Bavaria we have lots of religious holidays in the calendar and we're a secular nation. Why do you have religious holidays? You know, and then, you know, I point out, yeah, but you have in God, we trust on every corner.

Hannah McCarthy:
So moving forward in time, you can tie God to this idea of America as utopia, as a biblical promised land. And then that becomes a useful myth to, for example, empower people who were brought here against their will, who were enslaved. Post emancipation. This idea could, you know, reinforce what the formerly enslaved were owed here in the promised Land and then jump ahead again. Look at the immigrants whose transition to America was an exodus to the city on the Hill.

Nick Capoodice:
Real quick, out of curiosity, I understand that this idea of the promised Land is this really powerful image. And God has always, always been a useful justification for all sorts of power moves. But why the Puritans and why this like why this Massachusetts centric creation story about what America is? Why is it these folks in hats with buckles on their shoes shooting turkeys? Why is it that the Puritans get the first Americans ever prize?

Hannah McCarthy:
Apparently, Nick, a big part of it is that they just wrote prodigiously, like talk about not having any of Pocahontas writings. We have gobs of Puritan writing.

Heike Paul:
Just by the sheer amount of text production they did. They made sure that they had a lasting grip on whoever came after them.

Hannah McCarthy:
All right. Fourth and last origin myth. You know who's coming, Nick?

Nick Capoodice:
Who?

Heike Paul:
So we move on to the Founding Fathers.

Archival:
For God's sake, listen.

Hannah McCarthy:
To one big, happy, harmonious group of dads.

Heike Paul:
No matter where you make the cuts and who's in and who's out, there's always this idea, you know, Thomas Jefferson, Madison and, of course, Washington representing Virginia or the South at the founding moment. And then there are people like Franklin or John Adams or who are more representing the North. And then we can see that it's really hard to make them out as a group because they were so different from each other and they were not really kind of a harmonious group to to steer those colonies and to make them into one homogenous nation. Right? So from the beginning, the closer you look at them, the more you will see that they had lots of issues with each other. I mean, I think Adams and Jefferson probably hated each other.

Hannah McCarthy:
I did want to point out that the conversation about the Founding Fathers, those revered and utmost principled men who bestowed upon us the greatest government foundation known to man, has thankfully shifted in part to an acknowledgment of their flaws, failings and contributions to and participation in enslavement.

Heike Paul:
And I think that the myth of the Founding Fathers has evolved because of these debates, has evolved a lot, you know, So I think that's very important to see them not no longer as these figures of progress, enlightenment, independence and so forth, but to see them really as representatives of all of the cognitive dissonances of the time that they were living in still.

Nick Capoodice:
Hannah there is an almost worshipful reverence for these men who penned the precious documents at the center of American life.

Heike Paul:
I think that with regard to the foundational documents and the so called authors of that documents, there is a lot of mythologizing. Right. Pauline Mayer. She refers to the foundational documents as American scripture, as kind of the Bible of Americans. And when you go look at them at the archives, National Archives, that is the sense that you get. I remember that the first time I went there, I, I was asked to get rid of my chewing gum. I was asked to stand straight in a row. And I was really disciplined. Right. Disciplined not only for security reasons before I could enter this hall, you know, dimly lit and bow in front of the shrine that held the Declaration of Independence. And to me, this was really strange, you know, But I remember the chewing gum thing. So, yeah, I was disciplined into kind of a right kind of person to be able to visit this document. So it's a document, but of course, it's also the people it's about they were self-consciously stylizing themselves and each other with regard to the foundational role that they played in the creation of the United States.

Hannah McCarthy:
The founding Fathers, or importantly, framers, as you'll often hear us refer to them on this show, because to make his point, the father thing is part of the myth. Our personifications of American patriotism, of the establishment of an independent nation and rebirth through revolution of a homogenous group coming together to foster and facilitate a new world in the new world to perform a near miracle. Of course, they were in actuality, statesmen, politicians who disagreed, who enslaved people who represented the cultural and economic elite, who in this part, Nick, I had honestly never considered, but of course, who lucked into a fortunate confluence of events.

Heike Paul:
When we think of a miracle, then I think it really the miracle is really the coincidence of so many different things that happened that made this possible. Maybe, yeah, this is really retroactively inventing a position of power and authority to speak and to utter performatively we the people right at the moment, they utter it. They are not authorized. But then with the sort of retroactively installing themselves at the seat of power, it kind of makes sense.

Hannah McCarthy:
By the way, do you know when the term Founding fathers was first used?

Nick Capoodice:
I don't. Do you?

Hannah McCarthy:
I do. It was used by at the time, Senator Warren G. Harding at the 1916 Republican National Convention in a speech of his.

Nick Capoodice:
Wow. So, like, right before our involvement in World War One.

Heike Paul:
Mm hmm.

Hannah McCarthy:
So, Nick, that takes care of, like, a for origin myths for America. And there are three more where that came from. In part two, America's Progress and Future Myths, which I warmly recommend you listen to right now. This episode of Civics one two, one was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by Lobo Loco 91Nova, Casa, Kick Osamayo, Marxist. Howard Harper Barnes, Chris Zabriskie, Tigran Viken, Gregor Quendell, Timothy Infinite and Sara the Illstrumentalist. You can check out everything we've ever made at our website, civics101podcast.org. And while you're there, if you like what you hear, consider making a donation. We are, after all, public. Very public radio. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Transcript

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Host v Host: A Battle of Wits

Senior Producer Christina Phillips puts Nick and Hannah to the test in this trivia face off! Play along as our co-hosts prove their mettle (and also don't) and learn a little something while you're at it. Featuring Nick as Christopher Walken... with apologies to Mr. Walken.

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Transcript

Christina Phillips: I remember the first time I tracked with you, Nick, I just would like. Like, can you back away from the microphone? I was like, Why are you.

Nick Capodice: Are you in a cemetery? Here's a fun piece of trivia.

Hannah McCarthy: Are you in a...Oh, this is a piece of trivia I know.

Nick Capodice: This is for our listeners. Christina, do you know how to. To make sure you spell cemetery properly?

Christina Phillips: No, but I would love to know.

Nick Capodice: They're so scary. You go "eeee" all the way through it.

Christina Phillips: It's not "tary?"

Nope.

Hannah McCarthy: No, [00:00:30] it's an e.

Nick Capodice: You go "ee" all the way through. All the way through.

Hannah McCarthy: You want to hear something really embarrassing? You know what else is e all the way through? Competent. You know who has to check her spelling on competent every time she writes it? This incompetent, This person right here.

Nick Capodice: Incompetent co-host

Christina Phillips: Oh, I feel like I. My spelling is so bad now, and it's just.

Hannah McCarthy: Hello. Hello, everyone. You are listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. [00:01:00]

Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.

Hannah McCarthy: And this is another installment of the thing where our senior producer Christina, betrays what we do not know about American government and history.

Nick Capodice: In other words, it's time for Civics 101 trivia. I'd actually say that's one of the great privileges of being the host of civics one. On one hand, we can readily admit to not knowing anything.

Hannah McCarthy: And not knowing things. We we do. Do not know. We do not know a lot of things. Time to find out which of those our whole audience will learn the dark [00:01:30] truth of today Nick.

Nick Capodice: So without further ado, senior producer Christina Phillips takes it away and makes us squirm because actually the other secret is that we wish we knew everything.

Hannah McCarthy: Let's do this.

Christina Phillips: So our first question is about the Reconstruction era, which, to give you a little background to begin in the 1860s, during and after the Civil War, and from 1861 to 1875, Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. Lincoln's assassination in 1865 [00:02:00] made his Democratic VP, Andrew Johnson, the president, and at the time the Republican Party was the party of Reconstruction, while the Democratic Party, especially Southern Democrats, were opposed to most any kind of civil rights legislation for people who are formerly enslaved. So this first question is for you, Hannah. Oh, boy, it is multiple choice. Johnson vetoed 23 bills. And from our episode on vetoes, we know that Congress can override a president's [00:02:30] veto only if two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate vote to override it. How many of these vetoes did Congress override? Five. Ten. 15 or 20.

Hannah McCarthy: Just because it was like an entirely radical Republican Congress at the time.

Hannah McCarthy: The White House page for Andrew Johnson. I'll never [00:03:00] forget this because the White House has a page for every president and for Andrew Johnson. They call him unfortunate. Like he was apparently actually like competent politician, but his presidency was unfortunate. But I'm going to venture that they overrode 20.

Christina Phillips: You are close. 20, I think would be sort of incredible because the override rate is so low.

Nick Capodice: Is it ten?

Christina Phillips: It is 15.

Nick Capodice: So [00:03:30] that's still a lot.

Hannah McCarthy: It is a lot.

Christina Phillips: It's a lot, especially considering that there's so few veto overrides. Yeah. Two thirds of the House and the Senate is a really hard thing to achieve. They really did not like Johnson. Oh, they did not. Here's some of the things that Congress ended up doing when they overruled Johnson's vetoes. They include passing legislation that reduced Johnson's control of the Army, ordering a military to call the elections in the South and reasserting Congress's control of reconstruction. [00:04:00] Basically legislation that said, no, no, we are in charge of reconstruction, not you. The president, and prohibited Johnson's power to remove Cabinet officers without the Senate's consent. Nick. This question is for you.

Nick Capodice: I'm ready for it.

Christina Phillips: Of these bills that Congress passed that Johnson had tried to veto and failed to veto, there was one that he chose to completely disregard and he did it anyway, and that ended up getting him impeached. So which [00:04:30] one was it? Was it the bill that reduced his control over the Army? The bill that ordered the military to call elections in the South? The bill that reasserted Congress's control of reconstruction? Or the bill that prohibited Johnson from removing Cabinet officials without the Senate's consent.

Nick Capodice: Hoo. I think it's the first one of the last one. And I'm going to go with the first one about whether or not he could remove people in the Army.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. So that one was reducing his control over [00:05:00] the army.

Nick Capodice: Right. That's the one.

Hannah McCarthy: Which no president. Well.

Christina Phillips: That's very true.

Nick Capodice: That's my guess.

Christina Phillips: It's a good guess. It is not the correct guess. Yes. So Congress had passed legislation saying that for Johnson's term he could not remove members of his own cabinet without Senate's consent, and he did not like that. So he eventually fired his secretary of war, who refused to step down because he was like, no, Congress has to approve this. Right. [00:05:30] And so Congress voted to impeach him. Ultimately, the impeachment was unsuccessful, but not without many, many, many angry speeches by Republicans and some Democrats about Johnson's failure to lead. So Johnson takes the record for the president to have the most vetoes overridden by Congress. But there are two presidents who each had 12 vetoes that were overridden by Congress. Hannah First, I'm going to give you some clues. You tell me. The President. All right.

Hannah McCarthy: I'll try my best.

Christina Phillips: This president owned a haberdashery, [00:06:00] was responsible for the secret establishment of the NSA and has haunted nearly every topic I've covered on the show.

Hannah McCarthy: Well, I was going to say LBJ.

Christina Phillips: No, it was not LBJ.

Nick Capodice: Is it Eisenhower?

Christina Phillips: No, it's Truman.

Nick Capodice: Oh, Truman. And I knew it was Truman.

Christina Phillips: Truman. Man of the Truman Doctrine. He delighted in using his emergency powers, helped establish NATO.

Hannah McCarthy: Of course. Truman.

Christina Phillips: Yes, that is Truman. Next question. [00:06:30] This is for Nick. This president ascended from Congress rather quickly, all the way up to the presidency. He was responsible for a cabinet reorganization known as the Halloween massacre. And he played football in college. He started in Congress. He ended up as the president.

Nick Capodice: I'm trying to think of the really handsome one who played football in college, which I think might have been Eisenhower. No, but this but this question about how they weren't. They were they didn't win the Electoral College. So.

Christina Phillips: Yeah, [00:07:00] he never had to He was never nominated for vice president or president before he became president.

Nick Capodice: So is this someone who became president because somebody else died?

Christina Phillips: He didn't die.

Nick Capodice: Uh huh. Who resigned.

Christina Phillips: Hmm.

Nick Capodice: Nixon resigned.

Christina Phillips: Nixon did resign.

Archival: To leave office before my term is completed as abhorrent to every instinct in my body.

Christina Phillips: And it's not Spiro Agnew.

Nick Capodice: Gerald Ford.

Yes. Okay. [00:07:30] Gerald Ford. Gerald. He played football in college. Yeah, he did.

Nick Capodice: I think a couple of them played football.

Archival: My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution.

Hannah McCarthy: not feeling so hot after that one Nick.

Nick Capodice: Nick, I believe the score.

Hannah McCarthy: You know, we know the score

Nick Capodice: unless I am wrong and I am never wrong.

Hannah McCarthy: You know, you were you were wrong with that Johnson question.

Nick Capodice: The score is 1 to 0 me in the lead.

Hannah McCarthy: Tides can shift, my [00:08:00] friend.

Nick Capodice: Round two. Here we go.

Christina Phillips: We're going to talk about voter turnout and voting requirements. The first question is for you, Hannah. It is multiple choice.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay.

Christina Phillips: So this state takes the title for the highest voter turnout in the 2018 midterm election, with 65% of eligible voters casting ballots. It is also called the land of 10,000 Lakes, claims milk as its state drink and ice hockey as [00:08:30] its state sport.

Hannah McCarthy: Do we have state drinks?

Christina Phillips: We do. I have a whole thing about this, so. Is it Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota or Missouri?

Hannah McCarthy: The land of 10,000 lakes. Minnesota.

Christina Phillips: Yes. It is. So Minnesota was one of the earliest adopters of same day voter registration. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

Nick Capodice: I was thinking it [00:09:00] would probably be a state with a smaller population than some of those bigger states because it's easier to get a higher percentage with fewer people. Right.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. And I will say the Midwest is in general, there's higher turnout in the Midwest from what I could see. They also have been promoting for a long time absentee voting in early voting. So Minnesota has a lot of really easy ways to show up and vote. Other states that had high turnout in 2018 included Colorado, Montana, Wisconsin and Oregon. And by the way, Minnesota has over 11,000 lakes. So [00:09:30] it's sort of a misnomer. And 22 states claim milk as their state drink. So that was a trick clue.

Hannah McCarthy: I wonder if big milk is behind that.

Christina Phillips: Hmm, that's a good question. Some states don't have a state drink at all, but some are are very much in the milk camp.

Hannah McCarthy: We're the only animal that drinks another animal's milk. You ever think about that?

Christina Phillips: Is that true? It's pretty.

Hannah McCarthy: Flippin strange.

Nick Capodice: Cats drink cow's milk.

Christina Phillips: Well.

Hannah McCarthy: Not naturally. You know, we give them you give a cat a thing, a cow's milk. [00:10:00] But it's not like cats were seeking out domestic cows.

Nick Capodice: Just surreptitiously under cover of darkness, assaulting their udders in the dead of night.

Hannah McCarthy: Although I suppose naturally is a is not a what uses that adjective.

Nick Capodice: Because we are natural.

Hannah McCarthy: Right? Nothing we do, right?

Nick Capodice: Nothing we do is unnatural because we are nature.

Christina Phillips: Moving on. Next question. This is for you, Nick.

Nick Capodice: Ready for the dance.

Christina Phillips: It's also multiple choice. The state has the lowest voter turnout in the 2018 [00:10:30] midterm election at just 39.3%. It's the only state that is completely free of rabies, and it has more endangered species than any other state. Is it New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska or Hawaii?

Nick Capodice: If it's completely free of rabies. That lends me to think of Hawaii. And there's lots of endangered animals in Hawaii, but mostly [00:11:00] birds, I'd imagine, because it probably split apart from Pangea so early, it doesn't have a lot of land mammals.

Hannah McCarthy: I would encourage you to think about the fact that birds aren't doing so hot.

Nick Capodice: That's true. I'm going to go with Hawaii.

Christina Phillips: You are correct, Hawaii. So in 2020, Hawaii sent out mail in ballots to every registered voter. And the voter turnout for the 2020 election was much higher. It was around 57% as opposed to 2016, where it was only 43%. So one thing that we do [00:11:30] know from Hawaii is that that mail in ballot initiative in 2020 really did boost turnout by a lot more than it did on a national average, which nationally voter turnout increased seven percentage points between the two presidential elections.

Nick Capodice: Good on you, Hawaii.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. Speaking of mail in ballots and absentee voting, we know 2020 was a record year for voter participation and a record year for the number of people who voted absentee. [00:12:00] So the average in 2020 absentee ballot rejection rate was 0.79%. So not very high under 1%. Only three states rejected greater than two and one half percent of ballots. I'm going to give you four states. I want you to tell me the state that did not reject that many. And this question is for you, Hanna. Okay.

Hannah McCarthy: So you're going to list four states. Three of them are going to be higher objectors, and one of them is going to be a low register. Yes. Okay.

Christina Phillips: Arkansas. [00:12:30] Georgia. New Mexico. New York.

Hannah McCarthy: Och, I'm going to say New York.

Christina Phillips: It's not New York.

Christina Phillips: So, again, this is the reason I wanted to ask this question is because there's not a lot of obvious reasons. There's not a really good like federal way to track how absentee ballots are going. So the states that had the highest rejection rates were Arkansas, New Mexico and New York. They were the only three states [00:13:00] that had more than two and a half percent of absentee ballots rejected. The vast majority of states had under 1%. States are not required to report why their absentee ballots are rejected, and every state has its individual regulations for election officials. So it is hard to know why absentee ballots are getting rejected. And also in several of these states, it was one county or two counties that had really high rejection rates. Other parts of the state were much lower.

Hannah McCarthy: Was it like Manhattan [00:13:30] people writing in like Batman and whatever?

Christina Phillips: I don't know. I did not look at the actual breakdown in the map. But the this study that I'm talking about is from MIT. They did come up with a few reasons that your ballot may be rejected, some of the most common reasons. So, Nick, this question is for you. It's multiple choice. In 2020, what was the most likely reason an absentee ballot was thrown out? Was it Sharpie bleed through a [00:14:00] mismatch signature, meaning the signature on your ballot did not match the signature the state had on file, a missing signature, meaning you didn't sign the ballot or didn't sign it in the right place, or you had the incorrect date.

Nick Capodice: You had to put the date down? Let me think.

Christina Phillips: I'm not saying anything.

Nick Capodice: My signature has changed so much since I got my first checkbook at the ripe age of nine.

Hannah McCarthy: I basically try out a new signature every time I have to sign my name [00:14:30] this morning. And I was like, How's that? That's a good one, right?

Nick Capodice: I know I used to put a little smiley face and the number two under my name as a little trick. If someone tried to forge my checkbook from my Paper Boy account. Anyway, I'm going to guess mismatched signatures.

Christina Phillips: You are correct. It is mismatched signatures.

Nick Capodice: I'm gettin all the easy ones McCarthy.

Christina Phillips: Here's the thing. Mismatched signatures comparing the signature that you submit on your ballot with the signature that the election officials have on file. So the signature that you [00:15:00] gave when you register to vote, for example, this could be when you registered on like over mail or it could be when you registered a year ago. So the way that they evaluate if your signature matches or not, it's depends on the election official. It depends on the state, it depends on the county. But that is the most common reason some states do have laws on the books that require them to notify people if their absentee ballot has been rejected and give them the opportunity to correct [00:15:30] it. Other states do not. So in many of these states, when an absentee ballot is initially rejected, they're able to correct it because they reach out to the person and say, hey, you know, we had an issue either come vote in person or we're going to figure out a system for you. Not every state requires that. So if you vote absentee, be aware of that and check to see if your what your state's local laws are about absentee ballots, what kind of pen to use, what kind of pen not to use. If you can track your ballot and [00:16:00] if your state will contact you if it doesn't end up going through. So that's that. The score now, I believe, is two Nick, zero Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy: No, I have one. One. Yes.

Hannah McCarthy: I've one point.

Nick Capodice: I actually have 3 points.

Christina Phillips: I don't know.

Nick Capodice: I have Hawaii.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh yeah. And Nick has three.

Nick Capodice: So that's 3 to 1.

Hannah McCarthy: Slow [00:16:30] and steady wins the race, man.

Nick Capodice: You remember how the other day you were talking about how much you learned to be a good loser to that friend of ours?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, well, my ability to lose well is surpassed only by my ability to selectively forget things.

Nick Capodice: All right, Hannah. Round three coming in hot.

Hannah McCarthy: Wait

Nick Capodice: One cannot delay the inevitable.

Hannah McCarthy: Unless it is to remind everybody of our very wonderful, very bright and interesting and never spammy newsletter called Extra Credit.

Nick Capodice: It's a good point. We can [00:17:00] always throw that in.

Hannah McCarthy: I've got like three newsletters that I subscribe to that I ever bother to click on in my inbox. And let me tell you something, this is one of them. The Civics 101 Extra Credit newsletter is one of them, and I already know most of the content.

Nick Capodice: Because you wrote it. Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy: Well, I do like to read my own writing. It's one of my my worst ego things, but it's also just good stuff that we put in the newsletter, right? It's civic stuff that Nick and I discover over the course of a week or a month, or just like one [00:17:30] strange night clicking wildly through Reddit. And it is always worth a read. You can subscribe at our website, civics101podcast.org. Now we can take a break.

Nick Capodice: We're back. We're playing Civics 101 trivia. And I am kind of trouncing Hannah at this point.

Hannah McCarthy: for now.

Nick Capodice: But there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. No more dawdling. Let's get back to it.

Hannah McCarthy: Round three, here we come. [00:18:00]

Christina Phillips: So the next category is campaign slogans. The good, the bad and the fake. Are you ready for this?

Nick Capodice: I'm ready.

Christina Phillips: Do you guys have favorite campaign slogans over the years?

Nick Capodice: I like Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.

Hannah McCarthy: I like Ike. Oh, it's one of my favorites.

Nick Capodice: Do you ever hear the song for I Like Ike for that ad, It's like, I like you like I like you like like I like like everybody likes Ike for president.

Christina Phillips: I think there is a song for the Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, as well.

Hannah McCarthy: There is.

Archival: ...Tippecanoe [00:18:30] and Tyler, too. For Tippecanoe and Tyler too. And with them will be little Van Van, Van is a used up man.

Christina Phillips: So I ended up on a very, very deep rabbit hole. I have no idea why I don't remember what episode I was working on, where I ended up in this rabbit hole, but I ended up in a rabbit hole reading about all these campaign slogans over the years. And the takeaway I had was that there was seemed to be no rules about this. So some of them could be about policy, like Abraham Lincoln's. The union [00:19:00] must and shall be preserved. That was one of his campaign slogans. Very literal. That's a long slogan. Yeah. It's not the longest that we're going to talk about. They can be about the person. So Gerald Ford's. He's making us again. I think that might capital us.

Nick Capodice: He's like, making us us again. Making the US again.

Christina Phillips: Well, now I need to look it up because I think it is.

Nick Capodice: It's Gerald Ford again.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah he's making us. Us would Yeah that would make.

Nick Capodice: He's making us us again.

Christina Phillips: He's making us proud [00:19:30] again. I just didn't left out proud. So Gerald Ford, he's making us proud again. Again, again. There's other ones that are sort of vaguely inspirational, like McCain's 2008 slogan, Reform, prosperity and peace. Right. So there's the whole gamut of campaign slogans. So for the next round of questions, I'm going to give you the year. And the slogan, And I want you to tell me if it's a Republican candidate, a Democratic [00:20:00] candidate, or if it's fake. Okay. So the first one to you, Nick, 2012, the slogan is middle class first.

Nick Capodice: Wow.

Christina Phillips: Republican, Democrat or fake?

Nick Capodice: I can't believe somebody would actually put that on their middle class first. If it was, I'm assuming it would be.

Hannah McCarthy: From what I've learned of the great American myth, it's that most Americans classify themselves as the middle class.

Nick Capodice: I saw a chart about that yesterday. Hannah. Yeah, it was like everybody thinks they're middle class from $5,000 [00:20:30] a year to 125,000 a year. Anyhow, I'm going to guess fake Christina.

Christina Phillips: It is not. It is Democrat. It's Barack Obama.

Nick Capodice: Oh, my God. I can't believe I screwed that up.

Christina Phillips: And I should say that all of these are slogans that for actual candidates, not primary candidates. Yeah, whatever. That word is.

Nick Capodice: Cool. I'm ashamed that I got that one wrong.

Christina Phillips: Yeah, that one stood out to me because he had so many other great ones. This is, you know, hope and there's just so many great Barack Obama ones. This is middle class first. [00:21:00] That's it. So that is a no Nick. Hannah? Yes. 2004. Okay. A safer world and a more hopeful America. Republican, Democrat or fake?

Hannah McCarthy: 2004. I'm going to say it's. I must say it's real.

Christina Phillips: Mm hmm.

Hannah McCarthy: And I'm going to say Republican.

Christina Phillips: Yes. This is George W Bush's reelection [00:21:30] slogan, A Safer World and a more hopeful America, which I have never seen on a sign, I imagine it had to be kind of squished. All right, Nick. Things are going to get a little harder. 1932.

Nick Capodice: Okay.

Christina Phillips: We are turning a corner. Republican, Democrat or fake.

Nick Capodice: You're turning a corner.

Nick Capodice: 1932 I'm thinking about it. It's depression [00:22:00] related. And I'm going to say Democrat.

Christina Phillips: No, those as a Republican, it was Hoover, running for reelection. All right, Hannah, 1936. New Deal. Try No deal. Republican, Democrat or fake.

Hannah McCarthy: You could have come up with this.

Nick Capodice: Oh, it.

Hannah McCarthy: Would be rather clever if you did. I'm [00:22:30] going to say fake.

Christina Phillips: It is fake.

Nick Capodice: I was like, Why isn't she saying Republican? Why isn't she? And then she was right. You were right.

Christina Phillips: I will say it's better than what existed. So Roosevelt's Republican challenger, Alfred Landon. This was his slogan, Defeat the New Deal and its reckless spending. So I'm sorry, but New Deal or No deal is much better, in my opinion.

Hannah McCarthy: People were depressed enough as it is. [00:23:00] I mean, come on.

Christina Phillips: It just feels like a.. Defeat The New Deal. And it's reckless spending. All right, Nick.

Nick Capodice: Yo, yo.

Christina Phillips: Next question for you. Yo, yo, yo. 1980. Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Nick Capodice: Oh, yeah. This is a famous one.

Christina Phillips: Republican. Democrat.

Nick Capodice: Let me just I'm trying to think of the specifics of it. Are you better off than you were four years ago? It's 1980. Jimmy Carter, Somebody [00:23:30] who opposed Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter didn't say, Are you better off than you were four years ago? Jimmy Carter was a Democrat. I'm going to say Republican.

Christina Phillips: Correct. Sorry. The long and winding road, great powers of deduction. So that was a Ronald Reagan.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, that was That was one of his first ones, right?

Christina Phillips: Yep. Yep. And he beat Jimmy Carter.

Nick Capodice: Sure did.

Christina Phillips: Are you better off than you were four years ago? It's an it's a loaded question, Hanna. 1948. Move toward a new world order. [00:24:00] Republican, Democrat or fake.

Hannah McCarthy: Democrat?

That's fake. This is a line from Eminem song Lose Yourself.

Hannah McCarthy: In my defense, I wasn't cool enough to listen to Eminem. So how would I know that?

Christina Phillips: I only know all the lyrics to Eminem's Lose Yourself because in typing class in seventh grade, we had to type out all the lyrics, which is an interesting choice for a seventh grade class.

Hannah McCarthy: Shocking choice.

Nick Capodice: better than Mario teaches typing.

Christina Phillips: Yeah, it was. I mean, I. [00:24:30]

Hannah McCarthy: Stand by Mavis Beacon.

Nick Capodice: I also stand by Mavis Beacon

Christina Phillips: I stand by Eminem's lyrics.

Hannah McCarthy: So that's very funny Christina.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. So here's an actual slogan for Democratic candidate Harry Truman. I'm just wild about Harry.

Nick Capodice: There's something about Harry.

Christina Phillips: All right Nick. 1992. Don't change the team in the middle of the stream.

Nick Capodice: I forgot who it was. Well, if it's don't change [00:25:00] the team in the middle of the stream, then it's got to be who won in 90.

Christina Phillips: 92.

Nick Capodice: 92. But if you don't want to change the team, you have to keep with the one dance with the one that brung ya. 1988. Hold on a second. George Herbert Walker Bush.

Christina Phillips: George H.W. Bush.

Nick Capodice: Don't change the team in the middle of the stream. Not really known as sort of the best, the best stringer together of fun phrases. George Senior wasn't.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. Yeah. [00:25:30]

Hannah McCarthy: I believe that puts me at a whopping three pointeroos

Nick Capodice: I believe that puts me at 5, 5 pointeroos

Hannah McCarthy: Did you know that until I finally went to England, where the signs all over the subway system, the the tube, the metro [00:26:00] say mind the gap. They mean like the gap between the train and the platform up until that point. And I was like 12. I thought that mind the gap, which you sometimes see on like T-shirts, was just a really cool band.

Nick Capodice: Isn't it?

Hannah McCarthy: What is that band? It must be like a band from the nineties. Yeah, I'm sure it is a band name, you know.

Nick Capodice: But what are we on Hannah, round four?

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, we're on round foyr 5 to 3. Nicholas Capodice

Christina Phillips: 5 to 3.

Hannah McCarthy: Doing a little [00:26:30] better. That's my campaign slogan.

Nick Capodice: Doin' a little better. McCarthy for President. Paid for by the Irish-Americans for Irish Irish-American Foundation.

Hannah McCarthy: I never promised you a rose garden. McCarthy For president.

Nick Capodice: Deal with it. I would love to come up with a campaign slogan for you. It ain't all bad.

Christina Phillips: She'll do it on time.

Nick Capodice: You should see the other guy. Hannah McCarthy for president.

Christina Phillips: All [00:27:00] right. So the final scores right now, Nick has five. Hannah, you have three. Last round, this or that.

Hannah McCarthy: You can get with this or you can get with that

Nick Capodice: You can get with that.

Hannah McCarthy: Sorry.

Christina Phillips: That's fine.

Hannah McCarthy: It's such a fun music video. Do your Christopher Walken.

Nick Capodice: He does. He he was in that.

Hannah McCarthy: He's in the music video for that. Well, it's in the Weapon of Choice music video by Fatboy Slim, who samples the fairly famous black sheep song they were referencing here. But whatever. I'm [00:27:30] just free associating.

Nick Capodice: What do you want him to say?

Hannah McCarthy: I want him to answer this next trivia question. Nick, is it Nick or is it me

Christina Phillips: Starting with Hannah.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, You can. After that, you have to do a Christopher Walken.

Nick Capodice: All right, I'll do my best.

Christina Phillips: Okay, So earlier this year, Nick, you did a whole show on committees.

Nick Capodice: I did.

Christina Phillips: Yeah. Do you want to tell us just briefly, what's your favorite thing about committees?

Nick Capodice: My favorite thing about committees is that they are the most maybe the most important thing. When I did this episode, I went away being like, everyone, [00:28:00] forget everything about anything. Forget parties, forget platforms, Forget the Supreme Court. None of it matters. Committees are the only thing that matters. And I really kind of I mean, I think the rest does matter. But committees are super important and they determine people's what they determine what our elected representatives do. So I think everybody should go listen to that episode.

Christina Phillips: Yes, they definitely should. We're going to talk about a much less important thing that is committee adjacent and that is caucuses.

Hannah McCarthy: Oh, [00:28:30] caucuses. Oh, yes.

Christina Phillips: So caucuses are a group of like minded legislators who work together to educate their peers about things that are important to them. And I when I was looking at caucuses, I saw a lot of things where the description of the caucus was educate fellow legislators. So now I imagine that there's just slideshows happening all the time that, you know, I'm going to teach you about this thing today, and I can't even predict what the attendance is for those. But anyway, while there is a limit to [00:29:00] how many committees someone can serve on, there seems to be no such limit on caucuses.

Hannah McCarthy: Because they're made up.

Christina Phillips: Yeah, I came across one representative who is on could you not? 41 caucuses.

Nick Capodice: Wow.

Christina Phillips: The list just kept going and going and going. I don't even think I talk to 41 people in a month. I can't imagine being on 41 different caucuses. But that being said, for this round of this or that, I am going to give you a word. That [00:29:30] word is either the name of a caucus that currently exists in our House of Representatives or an official jelly belly jelly bean flavor.

Nick Capodice: Great.

Hannah McCarthy: Okay, I can do this. Ready? Yeah.

Christina Phillips: All right, Hannah, the first one is for you. Is this the name of a House caucus or a jelly belly jelly bean flavor? Maple.

Hannah McCarthy: Caucus?

Christina Phillips: Yes,

Nick Capodice: Well done.

Christina Phillips: There are three people on this caucus. They are from New York, [00:30:00] New Hampshire and Vermont. So Maple caucus. I could find no information about this caucus. But I can guess being from New Hampshire, I.

Nick Capodice: Think that caucus just has pancakes once a year.

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.

Christina Phillips: All right, Nick. Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: Who's who? Who are you, sir? Oh.

Christina Phillips: Nick, as requested answer this as Christopher Walken. Name of a House caucus or a jelly belly jelly bean flavor? Wine.

Nick Capodice: I would think that the creators of jelly bellies [00:30:30]...to sell. The children wouldn't have an alcoholic drink. But then again, I'm going to say caucus.

Christina Phillips: It is a caucus, but there is an entire cocktail line of jelly bellies.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm not surprised tall.

Nick Capodice: pina colada, probably.

Christina Phillips: There is a pina colada. There's a gin and tonic and a moscow mule, I think. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. So this caucus was, [00:31:00] according to the website, founded with the idea that members of Congress could benefit from learning more about the challenges of growing grapes and making wine.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, we all could benefit from learning more about that.

Christina Phillips: Okay, Next question. Hannah? Yes. How is caucus or jelly Belly jelly bean flavor. Sausage? Hmm.

Hannah McCarthy: Jelly belly.

Christina Phillips: Correct? Yes. [00:31:30]

Nick Capodice: There is no sausage flavor.

Christina Phillips: There is a sausage.

Hannah McCarthy: There are other there are flavors that really shouldn't be flavors.

Christina Phillips: Mm hmm.

Nick Capodice: And these aren't even, like, rip off Bernie bodies.

Christina Phillips: No, this is from the Jelly Belly website. I went. I was fully official.

Hannah McCarthy: Jelly Belly made those Harry Potter jelly beans.

Christina Phillips: Oh, yes. Which I'm going to stop you there because I cannot confirm or deny if there are more from that list. So. Nick Yeah. House caucus or jelly belly jelly bean flavor. Cut flower F-L-O-W-E-R [00:32:00]

Nick Capodice: I'd much rather have a wad of dough in my mouth as a jelly belly. Let me guess. Cut flower. If it was a caucus, it would be sort of this fun rose society. And if it was a flavor, it would be for the sort of the erudite, Turkish delight loving person. So I'm going to say it's a jelly belly flavor.

Christina Phillips: It's a caucus.

Nick Capodice: Do they like flowers?

Christina Phillips: The congressional cut flower [00:32:30] or flower caucus? I saw it said both ways, was created to help address, support and represent the economic interests and opportunities facing America's flower farmers.

Nick Capodice: Oh, well.

Christina Phillips: All right. Next question is for you. Hannah House Caucus are Jelly Belly jelly bean flavor. Dirt.

Hannah McCarthy: Jelly Belly.

Christina Phillips: It is Jelly Belly in line with those other weird ones like sausage. There is a soil caucus, though. [00:33:00]

Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.

Christina Phillips: Yeah, but.

Nick Capodice: If you mix them together like a dirt sausage, one on the left cheek, one on the right.

Hannah McCarthy: The most upsetting thing about Jelly Belly is how chillingly accurate a lot of their flavors are.

Christina Phillips: Mm hmm. All right, Nick. Next one is for you. House caucus are Jelly Belly jelly bean flavor. Chicken.

Nick Capodice: Oh, that's a good one. That is good. We've already had sausage, and I'm going to go with caucus. I feel like the chicken caucus [00:33:30] is people who care about big chicken.

Christina Phillips: You are correct. It is the caucus that cares about baked chicken.

Nick Capodice: Oh, good.

Christina Phillips: All right.

Hannah McCarthy: Hannah. Yes?

Christina Phillips: House caucus are jelly bean flavor. Bourbon.

Hannah McCarthy: I'm going to say caucus.

Christina Phillips: You are correct. It's done. Yes, it is Kentucky.

Nick Capodice: I'd like to pay tribute to the spirit of Kentucky, literally. Bourbon whiskey. That was an actual.

Hannah McCarthy: Here's hoping thats a Kentucky accent somewhere.

Christina Phillips: Exactly what I was [00:34:00] thinking.

Nick Capodice: Bourbon. Whiskey. Bourbon. Bourbon. Whiskey.

Christina Phillips: And do they bring free samples to their presentations? I must know.

Hannah McCarthy: Hundo percent

Christina Phillips: if has a caucus presentation they want to send me please to. I am very invested.

Nick Capodice: What is also a rye caucus? I'd hope there would be.

Christina Phillips: I don't remember seeing one.

Hannah McCarthy: But it spelled w r y.

Nick Capodice: Wry comment.

Christina Phillips: Ok last one Nick House [00:34:30] caucus are jelly belly jelly bean flavor. Dead fish.

Nick Capodice: I feel like if there is a truly gross jelly belly, then it would be the dead fish and it'd be like a birdie body. Buffy Harry Potter growling Whatever her name is thing I'm going to say Jelly Belly for fun.

Christina Phillips: It is a jelly belly.

Nick Capodice: Is it one of those Bernie bots, birdie.

Christina Phillips: Bots, every flavor of beans and.

Nick Capodice: They mean every flavor.

Christina Phillips: It is a jelly belly flavor from [00:35:00] birdie bots. Every flavor of Bean's collection, which also includes soiled or dirty bandage. I can't remember booger vomit. And there's one that's I think banana belongs there.

Nick Capodice: I think.

Christina Phillips: See, I like the weird flavors. I like banana.

Hannah McCarthy: Have you ever tried vomit? I've always been too afraid.

Christina Phillips: No, I have not. Have you? No, no, no.

Nick Capodice: Keep that off. That's true.

Christina Phillips: I have tried the grass flavor.

Hannah McCarthy: Grass is fine. I actually kind of like.

Nick Capodice: I ate grass [00:35:30] all the time.

Christina Phillips: The jelly bean or the.

Nick Capodice: Actual substance.

Hannah McCarthy: Jelly bean.

Nick Capodice: As a child, I used to eat grass a lot?

Christina Phillips: Did you have digestive issues?

Nick Capodice: No. No. It just runs in the family.

Hannah McCarthy: Like you're pica.

Christina Phillips: It's because dogs eat grass when their stomachs are upset.

Hannah McCarthy: You probably have pica is usually a sign of nutritional deficiency.

Christina Phillips: You know, Or anemia. Yeah. Well, what is your flavorite? favorite flavor?

Nick Capodice: We can run for office on that campaign.

Hannah McCarthy: I know what Nick's favorite flavor is.

Christina Phillips: What [00:36:00] is it?

Hannah McCarthy: Black licorice. I bought him a whole thing of those were Jelly Belly brand, by the way.

Nick Capodice: Yeah, they were. They were also gone in about 5 minutes.

Hannah McCarthy: I can't. I've never seen anyone consume anything so quickly as Nick eating black licorice.

Nick Capodice: Oh, so horrible.

Christina Phillips: Which brings our score up to 8 to 7. [00:36:30] Nick, you have won. That's very, very convoluted.

Hannah McCarthy: I learned a lot. I learned.

Nick Capodice: A lot. A lot. Christina, thank you for this. This is a lot. A lot of fun. Yes.

Hannah McCarthy: Thank you.

Christina Phillips: Well, thank you for doing it with me.

Hannah McCarthy: And thank you for being here also. Mr. Walken.

Nick Capodice: It's my pleasure talking a lot about confectioneries and caucuses. That's kind of a B-level Walken. But, you know, you got to be in the right frame of mind. You can't just walk in and do it. Oh. [00:37:00]

Hannah McCarthy: Well, everybody, I guess now you know that I know a lot about jelly beans, so you're in really good hands. Also, I looked into it and I was only kind of correct about the milk thing. Apparently some birds will actively go after another animal's milk. And on Ysleta Guadalupe in Mexico, cats skim milk off elephant seals, which is just amazing. [00:37:30] Also, from what I have seen on the Internet, this is a big debate that gets some people really, you know, riled up. So I am sorry for hitting that hot milk button. This episode was written by Christina Phillips ever keeping us on our toes and produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with help from Nick Capodice Who won by one point just one. Jacqui Fulton is our producer. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music In this episode by Liz Dilating Times, Derek Stevens, Alexander [00:38:00] Kaufmann Ross, who wrote Tippecanoe and Tyler too in 1840. And get this, Irving Berlin as in White Christmas and God Bless America. Irving Berlin, who wrote I Like Ike. It was originally called They Like Ike and Berlin followed it up with I still like Ike and Ike for four more years. This is just a trivia packed episode, but we are more than a trivia show, everybody. And if this is your first civics one on one episode, I urge [00:38:30] you run. Do not walk to Civics101podcast.org to hear what we usually do. You can listen to our whole gigantic episode list there as well as find great teacher resources and you can contact us with your questions about American democracy. Civics 101 is brought to you by NPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Civics 101 Presents: Future Hindsight on the Asian American Vote

This is a featured conversation from Future Hindsight, a podcast with a simple premise: civic participation is essential to a functioning democracy. So how do we do it? In this episode, host Mila Atmos speaks with Sung Yeon Choimorrow,  the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, about Asian American stereotypes, changing the narrative about who Asian-Americans are, and activating Asian communities to take civic action.

You can find so many more conversations that span the civic world at futurehindsight.com.

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Transcript

Check back soon.

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Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Nina Totenberg Live On Stage

In September 2022, Hannah McCarthy sat down with NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent for a show called Writers on a New England Stage. This is an excerpt from their conversation. Nina discusses her new book, Dinners with Ruth, focusing on her career as a journalist and her relationship with late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You can catch the whole conversation at nhpr.org.

NinaTotenberg.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

NinaTotenberg.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix This transcript may contain errors.

Hannah McCarthy:
In September of 2022 for a program called Writers on a New England Stage, a partnership between New Hampshire Public Radio and the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I got to step on stage with National Public Radio's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Nina had just written a book about her experiences as a journalist, especially covering the Supreme Court and perhaps most importantly, forming a lifelong friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That book is called Dinners with Ruth. I want to share a part of that conversation with the civics one on one audience, because, come on, how often do you get this close to someone who gets that close to the Supreme Court? So here I am with Nina Totenberg at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for writers on a New England stage. Thank you. And Nina, thank you so much for being here with us tonight.

Nina Totenberg:
It's really my pleasure. And I hope everybody gives to their local public radio station.

Hannah McCarthy:
Now, I know that when you first started covering the Supreme Court, it was not considered important enough to be your full time job.

Nina Totenberg:
Well, when I first was assigned to cover the Supreme Court in my earlier days, I had many other jobs in print first. And then when NPR hired me, we had only one news program, and it was an hour and a half. It was all things considered in the evening and started at five, not four. And my beat was the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Any major legal scandal that broke or and live hearings that covered those kinds of things. Confirmation hearings, of course, and the intelligence community. Oh, and I covered presidential and vice presidential campaigns a little bit also.

Hannah McCarthy:
Yet you made the conscious decision to carve out a space for yourself covering the Supreme Court. Can you talk about what that was like? You're especially as a young journalist, a woman, a non-lawyer. How did you approach covering the Supreme Court?

Nina Totenberg:
Well, when I first got assigned to cover the court, I worked for the the late Great National Observer, which was a weekly publication published by Dow Jones, which at the time also owned The Wall Street Journal. And it was a weekly. And that made it much, again, much easier in the sense that I had time to do research and I would call anybody any time, anywhere to ask any question. There's one good thing about being young as a reporter. You're you understand that if you're going to do anything, you just have to be willing to ask any question at all. And if it's a stupid question, so be it.

Hannah McCarthy:
Speaking of questions, it's 1971. You were covering a case called Reed V Reed, and you discover that someone named Ruth Bader Ginsburg had written a brief for the ACLU for this case that was supposed to go before the Supreme Court. And you see that this woman's number is right under her name at Rutgers University. And you call this professor up. She's a law professor at Rutgers. And that conversation is one that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would look back on and say, you know, that was our first conversation and we have been dear friends ever since. What about that conversation? Compelled Ruth to look back and say that was the beginning of that dear friendship?

Nina Totenberg:
Well, certainly it was the beginning, but we weren't dear friends yet. She probably thought this this girl is asking me dumb questions, but she never treated any of my questions as dumb. And that day I really didn't understand the the point she was making in the brief that women were covered by the 14th Amendment guarantee to equal protection of the law, because, after all, women didn't even have the vote when the 14th Amendment was enacted. And she spent an hour answering my questions and explaining to me what I needed to know, which basically boiled down to the 14th Amendment covers all persons and women are persons.

Hannah McCarthy:
And you were compelled to continue to call her back over and over again. I know. Well, anybody.

Nina Totenberg:
Who would spend that kind of time with me, somebody was completely new on the beat. And it was just the beginning of what became her battle and the the architecture that she wrought to build the fight for women's rights in the courts. So I understood that this was somebody I should be in touch with and talk to regularly. And eventually we met. We met at a very boring conference. And it was so boring that we left and went shopping. And I don't remember anything about the shopping, but I do remember a lot about that afternoon. So it was a friendship that grew slowly. I mean, she lived in New York then, so I didn't see her very often, but eventually she moved to Washington when she was appointed to the Court of Appeals. And we became closer and closer friends over the years, until the last couple of years of her life, we were incredibly close because she needed me at that point. There were earlier times when I needed her in my personal life, and she always stepped right up to the to the plate. And so my husband and I stepped up to the plate for the last part of her life.

Hannah McCarthy:
I'd love to talk a little bit about that. You've described Ruth as being consistently stoic and internal and in utmost control, and that it took you a very long time to find that you had, in fact, become intimate friends, friends who needed one another. What was it that led you to see that? When did you truly know how close you had become?

Nina Totenberg:
It's a really good question, and I'm not sure I can answer it fully. I do remember that when she turned 50, her husband made a book of. Letters that he asked her friends to write to her and. I was quite surprised. He asked me because I didn't realize I was that. Not much of a friend to her. And so when I was writing the book, I didn't have a copy of the letter. And my impression always was that it was a really pretty stupid letter. But I called up her daughter and asked her if she had that book. And she did. And she sent me the letter. And to my really great surprise, it was a pretty good letter. But I did sign the letter for some unknown reason. To me, maybe I thought she knew more than one. Nina. I signed it.

Hannah McCarthy:
Nina Totenberg And there's one piece of advice that Ruth passes on to you that I believe she received from her father in law, which was, as she is considering becoming a lawyer herself. He says to her, essentially, if you can do it, you'll do it. And if you can't, you can't. And and she from there on out would always ask herself, well, is this worth it? And if I answer yes, I will proceed and do it. And I wonder if you have applied that same piece of advice to your life.

Nina Totenberg:
I think so. You know, you do things that you have to in a in a job. Some things you're thrilled to be able to do and other things just go with the territory. And I don't think it it's that different for a Supreme Court justice even, and that it's a very good piece of advice her father in law gave her her mother in law gave her even better advice, I think, on the day of their wedding. Her mother in law sat her down. By then, Ruth's mother was had died quite a few years earlier, and she sat her down and she said, Ruth, I want to give you the secret to a happy marriage and successful marriage. And Ruth said, What's that? And she said, It always pays to be a little deaf. And Ruth always said that that was true on the court as well.

Hannah McCarthy:
I love that one of your takes of the relationships on the Supreme Court is that it's a little bit like a marriage that's not doing so well, that if you decide to stay inside of it, you find a way to communicate, even if you disagree.

Nina Totenberg:
Yes, I think that's that's right. I don't know how well they're doing at the moment, but and my sense is they're doing less well than usual. And that goes not just because just liberals versus conservatives. I think the conservatives are not getting along all that well either because they have different ideas about how to interpret the Constitution, how to interpret statutes. They they don't always agree about that. And what they, of course, would like is a lot of they would like a place in the sun, each of them. And that means that things don't always go. Smoothly, I guess you would say.

Hannah McCarthy:
Now, I want to sort of pivoting back to your career a little bit. You've got a lot of good journalism stories throughout this book, including one in which you end up with a retaliatory FBI file because of a profile on Hoover. But, you know, after telling what is a great anecdote and admittedly funny you say, you know, now this is funny to think back on, but I, I worked really hard in journalism. I worked really hard in my career. And I wonder in particular how that hard work ethic applied to reporting on a court, which to so many people is obscure, is, as you call it, the Marble Palace. How did keeping your nose to the grindstone push your way through those doors?

Nina Totenberg:
Well, first of all, it was fascinating to me. I was never I've never been bored covering the Supreme Court. I'm occasionally bored reading legal briefs because they go on and on and on and on. But the cases are not boring. And in fact, I sometimes have to say to myself, All right, you're going to have to skip that one. It's interesting to you, but it will not be interesting to most people, at least in the argument stage may be when it's decided. So you have to sort of triage what you're capable of writing about and what people are willing to pay attention to. Even when I was younger, I was you know, I was almost always until I went to work at NPR, the only woman every place I worked, or one of two women. And even when I was covering the court for NPR, there were when I first started covering the court, there was one other woman. Eventually then she retired and there was, you know, Linda Greenhouse was the, you know, covered the court quite a bit later than I started covering the court. But I was thrilled when she was there. Now, there are just as many women covering the court as there are men, but that was not true for a very long time. And it was and I wasn't a lawyer, so all I could do was work really hard to make sure I didn't embarrass myself and that I could earn something of a reputation for doing good work.

Hannah McCarthy:
And now this book is peppered with dinners. Dinners with Ruth. Yes, but also dinners with your friends and dinners with justices.

Nina Totenberg:
And where are my friends other times? Who are.

Hannah McCarthy:
Your friends? Absolutely. But here's what I mean to say. What what compelled you? What gave you the confidence the first time you ever invited a Supreme Court justice over for dinner? As a young reporter.

Nina Totenberg:
I have no idea. When I when I went back and I thought about it and I thought, who was the first justice I ever invited for dinner? And it was Lewis Powell, who was a very distinguished Southern gentleman in his sixties, maybe even a little older. But when I invited him to dinner, probably his sixties and his wife, Joe, probably it was because Joe had been so nice to me and had treated me like a. As they say in Guys and Dolls. A poison. And. And so for some ungodly reason, I called up Justice Powell, and I asked if he and Joe would come for dinner. I was single. I was in my twenties. I. I had a little house I bought that was 13 feet wide. I had another invited another couple. And I can't remember who they who it was. I made the dinner and served the dinner. And I don't I mean, I'm amazed that they said yes, they came. And you would have thought that I was dining. You know, they were dining at Buckingham Palace. The way they treated me, it was incredibly gracious of them. He he was always very generous with his time. He, like other members of the court, were happy to eat lunch or dinner with me and. Not to talk about what they were doing at the time, but how they did it, how they ran their chambers, how they thought about things, how they approached them. I mean, I remember a lunch I had with Justice Scalia when he was first on the Supreme Court.

Nina Totenberg:
I had known him for a good ten years before that. And I said, So what's different? He'd been on the Court of Appeals. I said, So what's different from the Court of Appeals? And and it was very interesting. What he said was different. He said, well, there are a whole bunch of subjects that I have not given any thought to that don't come before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. I've never I've never even thought about the 11th Amendment. Death penalty cases, by and large, don't come to the to the court. And there were several other things. And I just had never even thought about that. And and he said, So I really have to think about them and think what I think for the first time. Of course, after a while, justices sort of know what they think about how to interpret this or that or the other thing. But situations change. In the early days when I covered the court, most of the cases were about civil rights and and about the draft. Actually, there were a lot of big cases about the draft. Those cases don't those kinds of cases don't come up. They're different civil rights cases now. And there are all kinds of cases about now about that people are just starting to think about in a different way, about the First Amendment and technology and social media and the protections under the statutes, subjects that the court deals with change over time, not just the personnel.

Hannah McCarthy:
You're listening to an edited version of my conversation with Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent and close friend of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll get right back to it after this break. But first, there is so very much that does not make it into the average Civics 101 episode. Luckily, you don't have to miss any of it because our team puts it all together in the civics one on one newsletter. Extra Credit. You can subscribe at our website, civics101podcast.org. It's where all of the fun and or wildly tangential stuff goes that our executive producer, Rebecca Lovejoy, rightfully makes us cut from our episodes. Again, don't miss it. It's really good stuff. It's one of my favorite parts of our job Civics101podcast.org and subscribe to extra credit. We're back and you're listening to a special episode of Civics one on one. I'm sharing part of my conversation with NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina TOTENBERG. Recorded for a live event called Writers on a New England stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And I asked Nina, essentially, what were conversations like with members of the court when she was not operating as a journalist?

Nina Totenberg:
I think that most of the members of the court lead. Relatively, relatively isolated lives. They don't call it, you know, the ivory tower for nothing. And some more than others, like social interaction and not just to talk about. Law, but to have friends and to talk about. Music and theater and maybe what's going on in in sports, I mean, all kinds of things like that. I guarantee you, Justice Ginsburg did not want to talk about sports, however.

Hannah McCarthy:
Even though she was quite a sporting woman.

Nina Totenberg:
Oh, yeah. She was very she was quite the athlete. She was, you know, she golfed. She even went skydiving once. And Scalia said, I think it was in Italy someplace. And he said he saw her up there, this little bit of a thing, and he wondered how she was ever going to get down.

Hannah McCarthy:
I had no idea. I'm utterly terrified of skydiving, so.

Nina Totenberg:
I would not even. It wasn't. It wasn't not skydiving. It was parasailing. It was worse. Okay.

Hannah McCarthy:
I want to pivot for just a moment to an audience question here. In the early years at NPR. What was it like for you, for Cokie, for Susan, and for Linda working in a male dominated newsroom?

Nina Totenberg:
It wasn't a male dominated newsroom. It was a female dominated newsroom. And I have and I have often said that the reason was that it was it was so different from any other place I'd ever worked. And the reason was that they paid so little. No man would take most of those jobs. And, you know, there was a there came a time when we were so. Relatively powerful within the structure of NPR, within the news structure that some of the guys referred. Cokie, Linda and I sat in a corner and we managed to commission a really old couch from somewhere else and put it in there so that other women would come and we would talk if there was an issue. And they were. And some of the men in the newsroom referred to it as the fallopian jungle. I always thought it was something of a compliment.

Hannah McCarthy:
So despite your dominance as women of this newsroom, you you still regularly benefited from the the support and the promotion of this sisterhood in the same way that Ruth Bader Ginsburg did from Justice O'Connor. Can you describe a bit what it was like to support one another, especially when sexism and misogyny were main stage in the workplace?

Nina Totenberg:
I never thought of it as misogyny. It was, but I never thought of it that way. I mean, because misogyny suggests you don't like women. Most of the men I knew liked women. They just didn't think that we should compete with them on an equal platform. And most of the men I encountered in the early years of my life in Washington did not consider me or any other woman that I knew as a person to be reckoned with. They. And they did that at their peril because they said very stupid things. And we quoted them. But also, you know, I mean, you just had to deal with the fact that the sexism was, by today's standards, insane. I mean, nobody would dare, for the most part, do what members of Congress did, and you had to figure out a way to deal with it. So I would get catcalled in the speaker's lobby when I would walk through and I would just ignore it. Or if sometime I had a very good source, a senator, who really was very helpful to me. And then one day I realized that he was pretty soon going to make a pass at me, and I had to figure out a way to deal with it. And I said to him, Oh, Senator, you remind me so much of my father.

Hannah McCarthy:
I read that, I thought I have to take a page out of this book.

Nina Totenberg:
Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy:
And. And can you just can you describe how how you and Cokie and Linda really did support one another, how you made sure that any attempt to keep women down was skirted by your efforts?

Nina Totenberg:
I remember at some point Mara LIASSON was off on a fellowship. And, you know, she came to NPR and she was in the beginning, she was a newscaster. And then I think she had just begun a little bit to cover Congress. And I can't remember the chronology of this, but she goes off on this fellowship and she's in Europe and they post a White House correspondents job. And I knew she would apply for that job if she were there, but I didn't know where she was. And I spent the better part of a day tracking her down in Germany. And I said, they've just posted this job. They'll undoubtedly close it because you're gone for a couple of months. They'll close it before you come back. You fax me because this was the still the day you fax me your application. And I will take it to the vice president for news, who was, of course, a man. And that way they couldn't just ignore her.

Hannah McCarthy:
I know this is a question you have been asked many times. Many people prior to my conversation with you said, Are you going to ask this question? How can you balance a close friendship with a Supreme Court justice of which you had a handful and fair and even reporting on the Supreme Court? I don't want to know the answer to that question. I want to know, is it possible to do the kind of reporting that you did without close intimate relationships with the individuals?

Nina Totenberg:
I'm not sure. I think my reporting was overwhelmingly enriched by knowing a large number of Supreme Court justices and knowing them more than that person sitting up on the bench. And I've always I get this. You know, Justice Ginsburg was definitely my closest friend and my longest friend. I, I knew her actually longer than Cokie and Linda, but I had other friends on the court who I knew for for a long time before they were on the court. Some more and more closer friends like Scalia and others were lesser. So like justice then Chief Justice Rehnquist, who I knew in the Nixon administration. So I had lots of friends on the court. And I'm always interested that people ask me about my. Liberal friend. Justice Ginsburg And they don't ask me, How could you be friends with Scalia? I could be friends with both of them because they were both, frankly, rather lovable people on a personal basis. And knowing them as a reporter enriched what I did for a living and knowing them on a personal level enriched my personal self.

Hannah McCarthy:
Now, I know you ask the question in your book. Could a a Ruth Nino, as he's affectionately called, relationship happen today? Could a relationship between Scalia and yourself happen today? And what does the answer to that question tell us. What is your answer to that question?

Nina Totenberg:
I don't actually 100% know. I do have conservative friends who who are judges and a couple who are now or in the past have been justices. But. I never have expected that I could be 100% objective. I don't think anybody can be objective. We all have personal opinions, but what we do is a trade. I mean, I know people would like say, oh, journalism to profession. It's also a trade and a craft. And part of that trade is to be fair. And if you write a piece, you really want to get all the basic viewpoints in. And if you don't do that, you're shortchanging your readers and listeners and you're shortchanging yourself as a professional.

Hannah McCarthy:
Now, an audience member asks if you know of any current cross ideology friendships on the Supreme Court, anything like Ginsburg's and Scalia's?

Nina Totenberg:
No, I don't. But. This is a pretty overall new court. And I know that, for example, Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor actually have gone out of their way to try to build some sort of a personal bridge. They do that through they both work on Justice O'Connor's. It's called I civics, which is to promote civic education. And I'm not sure how successful they've been beyond that. But you got to start somewhere. And this is a court that is certainly the most conservative court that I've ever covered. But it's also remarkable in a different way. It's it's probably the most conservative court in 90 years, but it is totally different from any court I've ever covered because it has no center. There always were one, two or three justices who from time to time moved to one side or another in ideological battles. And that is no longer true, by and large. The chief justice very occasionally does. Not side with the other five conservatives to the extent that he doesn't want to go as far as they do. But beyond that, there is no center, and that makes this a very different court.

Hannah McCarthy:
And I wonder with a court where you have justices whose homes are patrolled for fear of violence against their families, who are issuing decisions behind barricades, are relationships like those that you have had with members of the court possible today between journalists and Supreme Court justices?

Nina Totenberg:
I guess we'll find out. I mean, I do have some. Some members of the court who I think of as friends, they're not as close friends as I. The relationships are not as close as my relationship with Justice Ginsburg or Justice Scalia or Justice Powell or Justice Brennan, for that matter. But. They haven't been there that long. When Justice Stevens retired, I remembered covering his confirmation hearing. So I have been there a very long time. So give me a little time.

Hannah McCarthy:
I do want to ask about a moment with Ruth. She had been in the hospital and she hadn't explained to you much about why she was there, what she was ill with. And when she came out, she said, Well, Nina, I didn't want you to feel trapped between your your commitment to your your job as a journalist and your friendship with her. And then you tell us that in the last 18 months of her life, you chose friendship. What did that mean practically for you?

Nina Totenberg:
What it meant was that my husband, David, was Justice Ginsburg's medical confidante, and I knew that they had confidential conversations, and I knew that I didn't actually even want to know what they were because I would be obligated to report them if I knew. But for 18 months. I knew that her health was precarious. I for a long time thought she might. As she had so often before be able to. Conquer cancer and live as long as she wanted to live, which was definitely past the 2020 election. And I guess in the last couple of months I came to realize that was. Unlikely, although you could never be sure. I mean, we've all known people who we thought were going to die very soon and they didn't. And the one thing I could see with my own eyes was that her brain power was the same. She was often frail, but her brain was not.

Hannah McCarthy:
You describe a court greatly changed over the past ten years and especially recently. And yet you affirm that, like Ruth, you were optimistic. I wonder, do you feel that way today? Do you feel optimistic about the court, about the work that you'll be able to do reporting on it?

Nina Totenberg:
Well, I'll be able to do reporting on it unless I get deathly ill or somebody poisons me. But for a time anyway. But I don't actually know what's going to happen to the court. I think it's a very perilous time for the court and it has, at least for now, lost a good deal of the faith that people had in it, due in large part to the abortion decision. And one decision is not going to end things for the court's cachet, so to speak. But even a decision is important as the Dobbs case. But as I said, this is a court that is more conservative than any other court, I think probably in 90 years. And that runs the gamut from social issues to technology issues to issues of. Some people say weaponizing even the First Amendment to issues involving regulation and all kinds of other things that we don't have time to talk about tonight. And I think that the justices, as I said earlier, don't exactly love each other at the moment and that it's a very perilous time for the group of them as a court. And I don't know where it's going.

Hannah McCarthy:
This has been an excerpt from my conversation with Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent for NPR, longtime Supreme Court reporter and friend of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in part inspired Totenberg's 2022 book Dinners with Ruth. This conversation was recorded live before an audience at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for writers on the New England stage. A longer version of this conversation will be available at nhpr.org. And a big thank you to everyone who helped put that show together. The musical executive director, Tina Sawtelle, New Hampshire Public Radio president and CEO Jim Schachter, New Hampshire public radio producer Sara Plourde, the Music Hall production manager, Zhana Morris, The Music Hall Live Sound and recording engineer, Ian Martin, musical director and band Bob Lord and Dreadnaught and the Music Hall literary producer Brittany Wasson. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy. Nick Capodice is my co-host. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jacqui Fulton is our producer, and Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer, producer, designer and all around great things person. Sara Plourde helped produce the show at the Music Hall. Music in this episode by the writers on a New England stage is produced in partnership with the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and New Hampshire Public Radio, the production house of none other than Civics 101.

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Transcript

Hannah McCarthy: This is Civics 101, I’m Hannah McCarthy. In September of 2022 for a program called Writers on a New England Stage, a partnership between New Hampshire Public Radio and the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I got to step on stage with National Public Radio's legal affairs correspondent Nina TOTENBERG. Nina had just written a book about her experiences as a journalist, [00:00:30] especially covering the Supreme Court and perhaps most importantly, forming a lifelong friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That book is called Dinners with Ruth. I want to share a part of that conversation with the civics one on one audience, because, come on, how often do you get this close to someone who gets that close to the Supreme Court? So here I am with Nina Totenberg for writers on a New England stage. Thank [00:01:00] you. And Nina, thank you so much for being here with us tonight.

Nina Totenberg: It's really my pleasure. And I hope everybody gives to their local public radio station.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, I know that when you first started covering the Supreme Court, it was not considered important enough to be your full time job.

Nina Totenberg: Well, when I first was assigned to cover the Supreme Court in my earlier days, I had many other jobs [00:01:30] in print first. And then when NPR hired me, we had only one news program, and it was an hour and a half. It was all things considered in the evening and started at five, not four. And my beat was the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Any major legal scandal that broke or and live hearings that covered those kinds of things. Confirmation hearings, of course, and the intelligence community. [00:02:00] Oh, and I covered presidential and vice presidential campaigns a little bit also.

Hannah McCarthy: Yet you made the conscious decision to carve out a space for yourself covering the Supreme Court. Can you talk about what that was like? You're especially as a young journalist, a woman, a non-lawyer. How did you approach covering the Supreme Court?

Nina Totenberg: Well, when I first got assigned to cover the court, I worked for the the late Great National Observer, [00:02:30] which was a weekly publication published by Dow Jones, which at the time also owned The Wall Street Journal. And it was a weekly. And that made it much, again, much easier in the sense that I had time to do research and I would call anybody any time, anywhere to ask any question. There's one good thing about being young as a reporter. You're you understand that if you're going to do anything, [00:03:00] you just have to be willing to ask any question at all. And if it's a stupid question, so be it.

Hannah McCarthy: Speaking of questions, it's 1971. You were covering a case called Reed V Reed, and you discover that someone named Ruth Bader Ginsburg had written a brief for the ACLU for this case that was supposed to go before the Supreme Court. And you see that this woman's number is right under her name at Rutgers University. And you call this professor up. She's a law [00:03:30] professor at Rutgers. And that conversation is one that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would look back on and say, you know, that was our first conversation and we have been dear friends ever since. What about that conversation? Compelled Ruth to look back and say that was the beginning of that dear friendship?

Nina Totenberg: Well, certainly it was the beginning, but we weren't dear friends yet. She probably thought this this girl is asking me dumb questions, but she never [00:04:00] treated any of my questions as dumb. And that day I really didn't understand the the point she was making in the brief that women were covered by the 14th Amendment guarantee to equal protection of the law, because, after all, women didn't even have the vote when the 14th Amendment was enacted. And she spent an hour answering my questions and explaining to me what I needed to know, which basically boiled down to the 14th Amendment covers all persons and women are persons.

Hannah McCarthy: And [00:04:30] you were compelled to continue to call her back over and over again. I know. Well, anybody.

Nina Totenberg: Who would spend that kind of time with me, somebody was completely new on the beat. And it was just the beginning of what became her battle and the the architecture that she wrought to build the fight for women's rights in the courts. [00:05:00] So I understood that this was somebody I should be in touch with and talk to regularly. And eventually we met. We met at a very boring conference. And it was so boring that we left and went shopping. And I don't remember anything about the shopping, but I do remember a lot about that afternoon. So it was a friendship that grew slowly. I mean, she lived in New York then, so I didn't [00:05:30] see her very often, but eventually she moved to Washington when she was appointed to the Court of Appeals. And we became closer and closer friends over the years, until the last couple of years of her life, we were incredibly close because she needed me at that point. There were earlier times when I needed her in my personal life, and she always stepped right up to the to the plate. And so my husband and I stepped up to the plate for the [00:06:00] last part of her life.

Hannah McCarthy: I'd love to talk a little bit about that. You've described Ruth as being consistently stoic and internal and in utmost control, and that it took you a very long time to find that you had, in fact, become intimate friends, friends who needed one another. What was it that led you to see that? When did you truly know how close you had become?

Nina Totenberg: It's a really good question, [00:06:30] and I'm not sure I can answer it fully. I do remember that when she turned 50, her husband made a book of. Letters that he asked her friends to write to her and. I was quite surprised. He asked me because I didn't realize I was that. Not much of a friend to her. And so when I was writing the book, [00:07:00] I didn't have a copy of the letter. And my impression always was that it was a really pretty stupid letter. But I called up her daughter and asked her if she had that book. And she did. And she sent me the letter. And to my really great surprise, it was a pretty good letter. But I did sign the letter for some unknown reason. To me, maybe I thought she knew more than one. Nina. I signed it.

Hannah McCarthy: Nina TOTENBERG And [00:07:30] there's one piece of advice that Ruth passes on to you that I believe she received from her father in law, which was, as she is considering becoming a lawyer herself. He says to her, essentially, if you can do it, you'll do it. And if you can't, you can't. And and she from there on out would always ask herself, well, is this worth it? And if I answer yes, I will proceed and do it. And I wonder if you have applied that same [00:08:00] piece of advice to your life.

Nina Totenberg: I think so. You know, you do things that you have to in a in a job. Some things you're thrilled to be able to do and other things just go with the territory. And I don't think it it's that different for a Supreme Court justice even, and that it's a very good piece of advice her father in law gave her her mother in law gave [00:08:30] her even better advice, I think, on the day of their wedding. Her mother in law sat her down. By then, Ruth's mother was had died quite a few years earlier, and she sat her down and she said, Ruth, I want to give you the secret to a happy marriage and successful marriage. And Ruth said, What's that? And she said, It always pays to be a little deaf. And Ruth always said that that [00:09:00] was true on the court as well.

Hannah McCarthy: I love that one of your takes of the relationships on the Supreme Court is that it's a little bit like a marriage that's not doing so well, that if you decide to stay inside of it, you find a way to communicate, even if you disagree.

Nina Totenberg: Yes, I think that's that's right. I don't know how well they're doing at the moment, but and my sense is they're doing less well than usual. And [00:09:30] that goes not just because just liberals versus conservatives. I think the conservatives are not getting along all that well either because they have different ideas about how to interpret the Constitution, how to interpret statutes. They they don't always agree about that. And what they, of course, would like is a lot of they would like a place in the sun, each of them. And that means that things don't always go. Smoothly, [00:10:00] I guess you would say.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, I want to sort of pivoting back to your career a little bit. You've got a lot of good journalism stories throughout this book, including one in which you end up with a retaliatory FBI file because of a profile on Hoover. But, you know, after telling what is a great anecdote and admittedly funny you say, you know, now this is funny to think back on, but I, I worked really hard in journalism. I worked really hard in my career. [00:10:30] And I wonder in particular how that hard work ethic applied to reporting on a court, which to so many people is obscure, is, as you call it, the Marble Palace. How did keeping your nose to the grindstone push your way through those doors?

Nina Totenberg: Well, first of all, it was fascinating to me. I was never I've never been bored covering the Supreme Court. I'm occasionally bored reading legal briefs because they go on [00:11:00] and on and on and on. But the cases are not boring. And in fact, I sometimes have to say to myself, All right, you're going to have to skip that one. It's interesting to you, but it will not be interesting to most people, at least in the argument stage may be when it's decided. So you have to sort of triage what you're capable of writing about and what people are willing to pay attention to. Even when I was younger, I [00:11:30] was you know, I was almost always until I went to work at NPR, the only woman every place I worked, or one of two women. And even when I was covering the court for NPR, there were when I first started covering the court, there was one other woman. Eventually then she retired and there was, you know, Linda Greenhouse was [00:12:00] the, you know, covered the court quite a bit later than I started covering the court. But I was thrilled when she was there. Now, there are just as many women covering the court as there are men, but that was not true for a very long time. And it was and I wasn't a lawyer, so all I could do was work really hard to make sure I didn't embarrass myself and that I could earn something of a reputation for doing good work. [00:12:30]

Hannah McCarthy: And now this book is peppered with dinners. Dinners with Ruth. Yes, but also dinners with your friends and dinners with justices.

Nina Totenberg: And where are my friends other times? Who are.

Hannah McCarthy: Your friends? Absolutely. But here's what I mean to say. What what compelled you? What gave you the confidence the first time you ever invited a Supreme Court justice over for dinner? As a young reporter.

Nina Totenberg: I have no idea. [00:13:00] When I when I went back and I thought about it and I thought, who was the first justice I ever invited for dinner? And it was Lewis Powell, who was a very distinguished Southern gentleman in his sixties, maybe even a little older. But when I invited him to dinner, probably his sixties and his wife, Joe, probably it was because Joe had been so nice to me and had treated me [00:13:30] like a. As they say in Guys and Dolls. A poison. And. And so for some ungodly reason, I called up Justice Powell, and I asked if he and Joe would come for dinner. I was single. I was in my twenties. I. I had a little house I bought that was 13 feet wide. I [00:14:00] had another invited another couple. And I can't remember who they who it was. I made the dinner and served the dinner. And I don't I mean, I'm amazed that they said yes, they came. And you would have thought that I was dining. You know, they were dining at Buckingham Palace. The way they treated me, it was incredibly gracious of them. He he was always very generous with his time. He, like other members of the court, were [00:14:30] happy to eat lunch or dinner with me and. Not to talk about what they were doing at the time, but how they did it, how they ran their chambers, how they thought about things, how they approached them. I mean, I remember a lunch I had with Justice Scalia when he was first on the Supreme Court.

Nina Totenberg: I had known him for a good ten years before that. And [00:15:00] I said, So what's different? He'd been on the Court of Appeals. I said, So what's different from the Court of Appeals? And and it was very interesting. What he said was different. He said, well, there are a whole bunch of subjects that I have not given any thought to that don't come before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. I've never I've never even thought about the 11th Amendment. Death penalty cases, by and large, don't come to the to the court. [00:15:30] And there were several other things. And I just had never even thought about that. And and he said, So I really have to think about them and think what I think for the first time. Of course, after a while, justices sort of know what they think about how to interpret this or that or the other thing. But situations change. In the early days when I covered the court, most of the cases were about civil [00:16:00] rights and and about the draft. Actually, there were a lot of big cases about the draft. Those cases don't those kinds of cases don't come up. They're different civil rights cases now. And there are all kinds of cases about now about that people are just starting to think about in a different way, about the First Amendment and technology and social media and the protections under the statutes, [00:16:30] subjects that the court deals with change over time, not just the personnel.

Hannah McCarthy: You're listening to an edited version of my conversation with Nina TOTENBERG, NPR legal affairs correspondent and close friend of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll get right back to it after this break. But first, there is so very much that does not make it into the average Civics 101 episode. Luckily, [00:17:00] you don't have to miss any of it because our team puts it all together in the civics one on one newsletter. Extra Credit. You can subscribe at our website, civics101podcast.org. It's where all of the fun and or wildly tangential stuff goes that our executive producer, Rebecca Lovejoy, rightfully makes us cut from our episodes. Again, don't miss it. It's really good stuff. It's one of my favorite parts of our job Civics101podcast.org and subscribe to extra credit. We're [00:17:30] back and you're listening to a special episode of Civics one on one. I'm sharing part of my conversation with NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina TOTENBERG. Recorded for a live event called Writers on a New England stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And I asked Nina, essentially, what were conversations like with members of the court when she was not operating as a journalist?

Nina Totenberg: I think that most of [00:18:00] the members of the court lead. Relatively, relatively isolated lives. They don't call it, you know, the ivory tower for nothing. And some more than others, like social interaction and not just to talk about. Law, but to have friends and to talk about. Music and theater and maybe what's going on in in [00:18:30] sports, I mean, all kinds of things like that. I guarantee you, Justice Ginsburg did not want to talk about sports, however.

Hannah McCarthy: Even though she was quite a sporting woman.

Nina Totenberg: Oh, yeah. She was very she was quite the athlete. She was, you know, she golfed. She even went skydiving once. And Scalia said, I think it was in Italy someplace. And he said he saw her up there, this little bit of a thing, and he wondered how she was ever going to get down.

Hannah McCarthy: I [00:19:00] had no idea. I'm utterly terrified of skydiving, so.

Nina Totenberg: I would not even. It wasn't. It wasn't not skydiving. It was parasailing. It was worse. Okay.

Hannah McCarthy: I want to pivot for just a moment to an audience question here. In the early years at NPR. What was it like for you, for Cokie, for Susan, and for Linda working in a male dominated newsroom?

Nina Totenberg: It wasn't a male dominated [00:19:30] newsroom. It was a female dominated newsroom. And I have and I have often said that the reason was that it was it was so different from any other place I'd ever worked. And the reason was that they paid so little. No man would take most of those jobs. And, you know, there was a there came a time when we were so. Relatively powerful within [00:20:00] the structure of NPR, within the news structure that some of the guys referred. Cokie, Linda and I sat in a corner and we managed to commission a really old couch from somewhere else and put it in there so that other women would come and we would talk if there was an issue. And they were. And some of the men in the newsroom referred to it as the fallopian jungle. I always thought it was something of a compliment.

Hannah McCarthy: So [00:20:30] despite your dominance as women of this newsroom, you you still regularly benefited from the the support and the promotion of this sisterhood in the same way that Ruth Bader Ginsburg did from Justice O'Connor. Can you describe a bit what it was like to support one another, especially when sexism and misogyny were main stage in the workplace?

Nina Totenberg: I [00:21:00] never thought of it as misogyny. It was, but I never thought of it that way. I mean, because misogyny suggests you don't like women. Most of the men I knew liked women. They just didn't think that we should compete with them on an equal platform. And most of the men I encountered in the early years of my life in Washington did not consider me or any other woman that I knew as a person to be reckoned [00:21:30] with. They. And they did that at their peril because they said very stupid things. And we quoted them. But also, you know, I mean, you just had to deal with the fact that the sexism was, by today's standards, insane. I mean, nobody would dare, for the most part, do what members of Congress did, and you had to figure out a way to deal with it. So I would get catcalled [00:22:00] in the speaker's lobby when I would walk through and I would just ignore it. Or if sometime I had a very good source, a senator, who really was very helpful to me. And then one day I realized that he was pretty soon going to make a pass at me, and I had to figure out a way to deal with it. And I said to him, Oh, Senator, you remind me so much of my father.

Hannah McCarthy: I [00:22:30] read that, I thought I have to take a page out of this book.

Nina Totenberg: Yeah.

Hannah McCarthy: And. And can you just can you describe how how you and Cokie and Linda really did support one another, how you made sure that any attempt to keep women down was skirted by your efforts?

Nina Totenberg: I remember at some point Mara LIASSON was off on a fellowship. And, you know, she came to NPR and she was [00:23:00] in the beginning, she was a newscaster. And then I think she had just begun a little bit to cover Congress. And I can't remember the chronology of this, but she goes off on this fellowship and she's in Europe and they post a White House correspondents job. And I knew she would apply for that job if she were there, but I didn't know where she was. And I spent the better part of a day tracking her down in Germany. And I [00:23:30] said, they've just posted this job. They'll undoubtedly close it because you're gone for a couple of months. They'll close it before you come back. You fax me because this was the still the day you fax me your application. And I will take it to the vice president for news, who was, of course, a man. And that way they couldn't just ignore her.

Hannah McCarthy: I know this is a question you have been asked many times. Many people prior to my conversation with you said, Are you going [00:24:00] to ask this question? How can you balance a close friendship with a Supreme Court justice of which you had a handful and fair and even reporting on the Supreme Court? I don't want to know the answer to that question. I want to know, is it possible to do the kind of reporting that you did without close intimate relationships with the individuals?

Nina Totenberg: I'm not sure. I think my reporting was overwhelmingly enriched by knowing a [00:24:30] large number of Supreme Court justices and knowing them more than that person sitting up on the bench. And I've always I get this. You know, Justice Ginsburg was definitely my closest friend and my longest friend. I, I knew her actually longer than Cokie and Linda, but I had other friends on the court who I knew for for a long time before they were on the court. Some more [00:25:00] and more closer friends like Scalia and others were lesser. So like justice then Chief Justice Rehnquist, who I knew in the Nixon administration. So I had lots of friends on the court. And I'm always interested that people ask me about my. Liberal friend. Justice Ginsburg And they don't ask me, How could you be friends with Scalia? I could [00:25:30] be friends with both of them because they were both, frankly, rather lovable people on a personal basis. And knowing them as a reporter enriched what I did for a living and knowing them on a personal level enriched my personal self.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, I know you ask the question in your book. Could a a Ruth Nino, as he's affectionately called, relationship happen [00:26:00] today? Could a relationship between Scalia and yourself happen today? And what does the answer to that question tell us. What is your answer to that question?

Nina Totenberg: I don't actually 100% know. I do have conservative friends who who are judges and a couple who are now or in the past have been justices. But. I [00:26:30] never have expected that I could be 100% objective. I don't think anybody can be objective. We all have personal opinions, but what we do is a trade. I mean, I know people would like say, oh, journalism to profession. It's also a trade and a craft. And part of that trade is to be fair. And if you write a piece, you really want to get all the basic [00:27:00] viewpoints in. And if you don't do that, you're shortchanging your readers and listeners and you're shortchanging yourself as a professional.

Hannah McCarthy: Now, an audience member asks if you know of any current cross ideology friendships on the Supreme Court, anything like Ginsburg's and Scalia's?

Nina Totenberg: No, I don't. But. This is a pretty overall new court. [00:27:30] And I know that, for example, Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor actually have gone out of their way to try to build some sort of a personal bridge. They do that through they both work on Justice O'Connor's. It's called I civics, which is to promote civic education. And I'm not sure how successful they've been beyond that. But you got to start somewhere. [00:28:00] And this is a court that is certainly the most conservative court that I've ever covered. But it's also remarkable in a different way. It's it's probably the most conservative court in 90 years, but it is totally different from any court I've ever covered because it has no center. There always were one, two or three justices who from time to time moved [00:28:30] to one side or another in ideological battles. And that is no longer true, by and large. The chief justice very occasionally does. Not side with the other five conservatives to the extent that he doesn't want to go as far as they do. But beyond that, there is no center, and that makes this a very different court.

Hannah McCarthy: And I wonder with a court where you have justices whose [00:29:00] homes are patrolled for fear of violence against their families, who are issuing decisions behind barricades, are relationships like those that you have had with members of the court possible today between journalists and Supreme Court justices?

Nina Totenberg: I guess we'll find out. I mean, I do have some. Some members of the court who I think of as friends, they're [00:29:30] not as close friends as I. The relationships are not as close as my relationship with Justice Ginsburg or Justice Scalia or Justice Powell or Justice Brennan, for that matter. But. They haven't been there that long. When Justice Stevens retired, I remembered covering his confirmation hearing. So I have been there a very [00:30:00] long time. So give me a little time.

Hannah McCarthy: I do want to ask about a moment with Ruth. She had been in the hospital and she hadn't explained to you much about why she was there, what she was ill with. And when she came out, she said, Well, Nina, I didn't want you to feel trapped between [00:30:30] your your commitment to your your job as a journalist and your friendship with her. And then you tell us that in the last 18 months of her life, you chose friendship. What did that mean practically for you?

Nina Totenberg: What it meant was that my husband, David, was Justice Ginsburg's medical confidante, and I knew that they had confidential conversations, and I knew that I [00:31:00] didn't actually even want to know what they were because I would be obligated to report them if I knew. But for 18 months. I knew that her health was precarious. I for a long time thought she might. As she had so often before be able to. Conquer cancer and live as long as she wanted to live, [00:31:30] which was definitely past the 2020 election. And I guess in the last couple of months I came to realize that was. Unlikely, although you could never be sure. I mean, we've all known people who we thought were going to die very soon and they didn't. And the one thing I could see with my own eyes was that her brain power was the same. She [00:32:00] was often frail, but her brain was not.

Hannah McCarthy: You describe a court greatly changed over the past ten years and especially recently. And yet you affirm that, like Ruth, you were optimistic. I wonder, do you feel that way today? Do you feel optimistic about the court, about the work that you'll be able to do reporting on it?

Nina Totenberg: Well, I'll be able to do reporting on it unless I get deathly ill or somebody [00:32:30] poisons me. But for a time anyway. But I don't actually know what's going to happen to the court. I think it's a very perilous time for the court and it has, at least for now, lost a good deal of the faith that people had in it, due in large part to the abortion decision. And one decision [00:33:00] is not going to end things for the court's cachet, so to speak. But even a decision is important as the Dobbs case. But as I said, this is a court that is more conservative than any other court, I think probably in 90 years. And that runs the gamut from social issues to technology issues to issues [00:33:30] of. Some people say weaponizing even the First Amendment to issues involving regulation and all kinds of other things that we don't have time to talk about tonight. And I think that the justices, as I said earlier, don't exactly love each other at the moment and that it's a very perilous time for [00:34:00] the group of them as a court. And I don't know where it's going.

Hannah McCarthy: This has been an excerpt from my conversation with Nina TOTENBERG, legal affairs correspondent for NPR, [00:34:30] longtime Supreme Court reporter and friend of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in part inspired Totenberg's 2022 book Dinners with Ruth. This conversation was recorded live before an audience at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for writers on the New England stage. A longer version of this conversation will be available at npr.org. And a big thank you to everyone who helped put that show together. The musical executive director, Tina Satel, New Hampshire Public Radio president and CEO Jim [00:35:00] Schachter, New Hampshire public radio producer Sara Plourde, the Music Hall production manager. Gina morris The Music Hall Live Sound and recording engineer. Ian Martin, musical director and band Bob Lord and Dreadnought and the Music Hall literary producer Brittany Wasson. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy. Nick Capodice is my co-host. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Jackie Fulton is our producer, and Rebecca Lovejoy is our executive producer, producer, designer and all around great things person. Sara Plourde [00:35:30] helped produce the show at the Music Hall. Music in this episode by the writers on a New England stage is produced in partnership with the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and New Hampshire Public Radio, the production house of none other than Civics. One, two, one.

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