tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/al-gore-11229/articlesAl Gore – The Conversation2023-08-08T19:07:18Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104442023-08-08T19:07:18Z2023-08-08T19:07:18ZKamala Harris has tied the record for the most tie-breaking votes in Senate history – a brief overview of what vice presidents do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540877/original/file-20230802-6332-61kj04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C21%2C4690%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to cast a tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-kamala-harris-arrives-at-the-senate-chamber-news-photo/1500382345">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, 2021, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-kamala-harris-joe-bidens-pick-for-vice-president-144122">Kamala Harris</a> became the <a href="https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-represents-an-opportunity-for-coalition-building-between-blacks-and-asian-americans-144547">first African American, the first person of South Asian descent</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/before-kamala-harris-became-bidens-running-mate-shirley-chisholm-and-other-black-women-aimed-for-the-white-house-143655">first</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/call-in-the-women-chrystia-freeland-and-kamala-harriss-new-roles-respond-to-the-times-144896">woman</a> to serve as vice president of the United States.</p>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-tiebreaker-vote-db39d642bc423f4984b0ad7b32139ecb">she made history again</a> by casting her 31st tie-breaking vote in the Senate, matching only one other vice president’s record for such votes. <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/07/12/harris-ties-calhouns-191-year-old-record-for-breaking-senate-ties/">John C. Calhoun</a>, who was vice president from 1825 to 1832, needed all eight years of his term to reach that number. In contrast, Harris has only been in office for two and a half years.</p>
<p>If her tie-breaking continues, Harris could end up as one of the most <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3689844-why-kamala-harris-is-already-among-the-most-consequential-vice-presidents-in-history/">consequential</a> vice presidents in history, casting the deciding votes on several laws, <a href="https://theconversation.com/states-pick-judges-very-differently-from-us-supreme-court-appointments-160142">judicial nominations</a> and spending plans. However, this distinction says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.</p>
<h2>The ‘most insignificant’ office?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Adams" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, called the job ‘the most insignificant Office.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Stuart,_John_Adams,_c._1800-1815,_NGA_42933.jpg">Gilbert Stuart, National Gallery of Art via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The role of vice president is only mentioned in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">U.S. Constitution</a> a handful of times.</p>
<p>Article I, Section 3 says that the vice president “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-3-">shall be President of the Senate but shall have no Vote</a>” except in the event of a tie. Historically, ties have been rare. Since 1789, only <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/TieVotes.htm">299 tie-breaking votes</a> have been cast, and 12 vice presidents, including current President Joe Biden, <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/VPTies.pdf">never cast a single one</a>.</p>
<p>The beginning of Article II, Section 1 explains how vice presidents are elected, which was later revised by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a>. The end of that section states that presidential power “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-1--2">shall devolve on the Vice President</a>” in the event of the president’s “Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/section-1/clause-6/succession-clause-for-the-presidency">As written, it is unclear</a> whether this meant that a vice president became the new president or was simply serving in an acting capacity. This was later clarified with the passage of the 25th Amendment, which states that “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv">the Vice President shall become President</a>.” The 25th Amendment also outlines how to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency, and it provides a mechanism for the vice president to serve temporarily as president if a president becomes “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-25th-amendment-says-about-presidents-who-are-unable-to-serve-102825">unable to discharge the powers and duties</a> of his office.”</p>
<p>Finally, Article II, Section 4 states that vice presidents, like presidents, can be “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-4--2">removed from Office</a> on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” </p>
<p>So, other than <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">staying out of trouble</a> to avoid impeachment and waiting around to <a href="https://tbsnews.net/world/what-happens-when-us-president-dies-or-incapacitated-141037">serve as</a> – or replace – the president, vice presidents are really only obligated to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-pence-casts-tie-breaking-vote-confirm-betsy-devos-education-n717836">occasionally cast a tiebreaking vote</a> in the Senate. This means that the great majority of the time, vice presidents have no real job to do.</p>
<p>John Adams, the first U.S. vice president, once complained to his wife that the vice presidency was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0278">the most insignificant Office</a> that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” </p>
<p>However, not all have been upset about such inactivity. Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-thomas-marshall/">quipped after he retired</a>: “I don’t want to work … [but] I wouldn’t mind being Vice President again.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Will Hays with Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warren Harding, center, wanted his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, at right, to play an active role in governing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chairman-of-the-republican-national-committee-will-h-hays-news-photo/501167655">FPG/Keystone View Company/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The ‘last voice in the room’</h2>
<p>Wilson’s successor as president, Warren Harding, had unconventional views about the importance of the role of the vice president. He thought that “the vice president should be <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">more than a mere substitute in waiting</a>,” and he wished for his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, “to be a helpful part” of his administration. Coolidge later became the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Calvin_Coolidge.htm">first vice president</a> in history to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis. </p>
<p>In 1923, Harding died, likely of a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/after-90-years-president-warren-hardings-death-still-unsettled">heart attack</a>, and Coolidge succeeded him as president. “My experience in the Cabinet,” <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">Coolidge later recalled</a>, “was of supreme value to me when I became President.”</p>
<p>After Harding and Coolidge, many later presidents reverted back to the tradition of keeping vice presidents an arm’s length away, even on key matters. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project">kept the atomic bomb a secret</a> from Vice President Harry S. Truman, who <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/harry-truman">didn’t find out</a> about it until Roosevelt’s death.</p>
<p>For the 1960 presidential election, two-term Vice President Richard Nixon faced off against Sen. John F. Kennedy. At one point during the campaign, reporters asked then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Can you think of a major contribution that Nixon has made to your administration?” Eisenhower replied: “<a href="https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/how-many-u-s-vice-presidents-can-you-name/">Well, if you give me a week I might think of one</a>.” Nixon lost that election.</p>
<p>In 1976, Jimmy Carter picked Sen. Walter Mondale as his running mate. In a memo sent to Carter after winning the election, Mondale argued that “[t]he <a href="http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697/pdf/Mondale-CarterMemo.pdf">biggest single problem of our recent administrations</a> has been the failure of the President to be exposed to independent analysis not conditioned by what it is thought he wants to hear or often what others want him to hear.” </p>
<p>Mondale’s vision for the role of vice president was “to offer impartial advice” so that Carter wouldn’t be “shielded from points of view that [he] should hear.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/20/how-the-vice-president-became-a-powerful-and-influential-white-house-player/">Carter agreed</a> and subsequently made Mondale an integral part of his inner circle.</p>
<p>Biden served 36 years in the Senate before leaving to become Barack Obama’s vice president. When he agreed to be Obama’s running mate, Biden said he wanted to be the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-09-06-sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bidenbre8850xj-20120906-story.html">last man in the room</a>” whenever important decisions were being made so he could give Obama his unfiltered opinion. When Biden picked Harris as his running mate, he said he “asked Kamala to be the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-harris-make-appearance-historic-democratic-ticket/story?id=72327968">last voice in the room</a>,” to “[c]hallenge [his] assumptions if she disagrees,” and to “[a]sk the hard questions.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President Walter Mondale, right, was an active part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CarterMondale/160e66151d984d9fb00f4da936a7252f/photo">AP Photo/Harvey Georges</a></span>
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<h2>An ally in an increasingly divided Senate</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm">Under the rules of the U.S. Senate</a>, if just one lawmaker doesn’t want a bill to advance, they can attempt to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HJuaQL3KRI">delay</a> its passage indefinitely via <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-us-states-dont-have-a-filibuster-nor-do-many-democratic-countries-156093">the filibuster</a>. A supermajority of three-fifths of the senators, or 60 of the 100, is required <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-senate-filibuster-explained-and-why-it-should-be-allowed-to-die-123551">to stop the filibuster</a> – or signal that one would not succeed – and proceed to a vote.</p>
<p>Over the years, the Senate has made <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13709518/budget-reconciliation-explained">various procedural</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/nuclear-option-what-it-why-it-matters-n742076">changes</a> to the filibuster, limiting when it can be used.</p>
<p>The end result of <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/filibuster-reform-short-guide">these reforms</a> is that the Senate is now empowered to do more with just a simple majority. In addition, in recent years, the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm">Senate has become increasingly divided</a>. Together, this has created the conditions that have empowered Harris to cast so many tie-breaking votes so quickly, solidifying both her place in history and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-biden-might-drop-his-vice-president-and-reasons-why-he-shouldnt-199655">her place alongside Biden in the 2024 election</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-vice-president-do-152467">article</a> initially published Jan. 19, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kamala Harris is on track to be one of the most influential vice presidents in history. This says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949082023-01-24T13:23:01Z2023-01-24T13:23:01ZGrassroots AIDS activists fought for and won affordable HIV treatments around the world – but PEPFAR didn’t change governments and pharma<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505231/original/file-20230118-18-a5un95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">AIDS activists have used protests to demand access to treatment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-from-africa-action-mark-world-aids-day-with-a-rally-news-photo/78178017">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-u-s-presidents-emergency-plan-for-aids-relief-pepfar/">President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR</a>, has revolutionized the fight against global AIDS over the last 20 years. <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/PEPFAR-Latest-Global-Results.pdf">In that time</a>, the U.S. program has brought antiretroviral treatment to nearly 19 million people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS; prevented mother-to-child transmission of HIV for 2.8 million babies; and brought HIV testing and prevention services to millions of others. </p>
<p>But this program would not be so successful – and might not even exist – without the work of grassroots AIDS activists around the world.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pTaBXaIAAAAJ&hl=en">historian of social movements</a>, I spent years interviewing AIDS activists, digging through their papers and scanning old websites, group email lists and message boards. These sources showed that, over the course of more than a decade, these activists challenged the status quo to demand – and deliver – HIV treatment to millions of poor people around the world.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Treatment Action Campaign activists in South Africa put pressure on drugmakers and governments for access to HIV medication.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>AIDS drugs for Africa</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext_012803.html">2003 State of the Union address</a>, then-U.S. President George W. Bush announced the creation of PEPFAR when he called for an astounding US$15 billion in funding over five years for the fight against AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean.</p>
<p>His announcement did not come out of nowhere. By that point, AIDS activists had spent years fighting to bring treatments for HIV to low- and middle-income countries hardest hit by the epidemic. My book, “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469661339/to-make-the-wounded-whole">To Make the Wounded Whole</a>,” describes how members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) Philadelphia linked their own struggles for affordable, quality health care for poor people with AIDS in the U.S. to similar struggles around the world.</p>
<p>This fight began in earnest in the late 1990s when highly effective antiretrovirals to treat HIV became available, giving a new lease on life to those who could access them. But the new drugs were expensive, and activists saw that their high cost would <a href="https://actupny.org/Vancouver/sawyerspeech.html">put them out of reach for most who needed them</a>.</p>
<p>Some low- and middle-income countries took their own steps to make life-saving antiretrovirals available. In 1997, South Africa, in the midst of a rapidly growing HIV epidemic, passed the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24115724">Medicines and Related Substances Act</a>, allowing the government to produce or acquire less-expensive generic versions of the drugs. Meanwhile, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(02)11775-2">domestically produced generics</a> were a cornerstone of Brazil’s program to provide access to free antiretrovirals for people living with HIV/AIDS in the country.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20000524182434/http://www.aegis.com:80/news/ct/1999/ct990404.html">Pharmaceutical companies opposed these efforts</a>, with a representative of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) claiming that countries that produced generics committed “a form of patent piracy.” So, too, did the Clinton administration, claiming that South Africa and Brazil violated intellectual property agreements under the World Trade Organization. In particular, former Vice President Al Gore, acting as chair of the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission, and Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. Trade Representative, <a href="http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/sa/stdept-feb51999.html">pressured their South African counterparts</a> to change the law in 1999.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Activists marching with signs reading 'Europe! Hands off our medicine'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505233/original/file-20230118-15-abvp33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">AIDS activists in Nairobi, Kenya, protested against a free trade agreement between the European Union and India that would have phased out generic AIDS drugs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/KenyaAIDS/a45c66d0b20044878765422e1f099f09">Khalil Senosi/AP Photo</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Activists fought back against both the pharmaceutical industry and the policymakers who put intellectual property rules, and the corporate profits they protected, ahead of saving people’s lives. Members of ACT UP Philadelphia, along with others, <a href="https://actupny.org/actions/gorezaps.html">hounded Gore on the presidential campaign trail</a>, chanting, “Gore is killing Africans – AIDS drugs now,” and <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/1999/11/19/act_up_activists_storm_office_of">occupied Barshefsky’s office in Washington</a>. They also participated in a massive demonstration at the 2000 International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, with thousands of marchers from around the world crying “<a href="https://actupny.org/reports/durban-march.html">Phansi, Pfizer, phansi!</a>” (“phansi” is Zulu for “down”) to demand a reduction in the drug company’s AIDS treatment prices.</p>
<p>All of this agitation worked. Clinton <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Poor-Nations-Given-Hope-on-AIDS-Drugs-New-2892857.php">curbed his administration’s pressure campaign</a> against South Africa. Thanks in part to the wider availability of generics, the average cost of antiretrovirals <a href="https://www.msf.org/patents-prices-patients-example-hivaids">fell dramatically</a>. And the <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_trips_e.htm">2001 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar</a>, affirmed that public health and “access to medicines for all” would be paramount in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other epidemics.</p>
<p>Having succeeded in making antiretrovirals more affordable, activists pressed for an international program to purchase and distribute them. According to journalist Emily Bass, <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/emily-bass/to-end-a-plague/9781541762459/">external pressure from grassroots activists</a> gave global health advocates within the Bush administration, including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director and chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci, the opportunity to push forward their proposal for a massive effort by the U.S. to treat AIDS in Africa. That proposal quickly evolved into PEPFAR.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">John Robert Engole was the first patient to receive HIV treatment under PEPFAR.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Activists continued to shape PEPFAR as the program came together. They advocated for people with AIDS to be treated with generic antiretrovirals, which allowed more people to be treated than would otherwise be possible with patented drugs. And when it came time to renew PEPFAR in 2008, they <a href="https://healthgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bird-dogging-101.pdf">extracted promises from presidential candidates</a> to <a href="https://fpif.org/how_to_stop_aids_now/">reauthorize the program at $50 billion</a>, over three times Bush’s initial pledge.</p>
<p>Today, PEPFAR <a href="https://www.state.gov/where-we-work-pepfar/">works in over 50 countries</a>, including in Central and South America, Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. Since 2003, the program has injected <a href="https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-u-s-presidents-emergency-plan-for-aids-relief-pepfar/">over $100 billion</a> into the fight against global AIDS, although <a href="https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-u-s-presidents-emergency-plan-for-aids-relief-pepfar/#endnote_link_559116-23">annual funding levels have been flat for most of that time</a>. Yet despite stagnant funds, PEPFAR has brought treatment to an increasing number of people in need. That it has done so is in no small part thanks to the AIDS activists who fought to make generic antiretrovirals available, allowing the program to treat many more people than would otherwise be possible.</p>
<h2>Lessons unlearned</h2>
<p>To be sure, the Bush administration had its own reasons to address AIDS in Africa. National security experts at the U.S. State Department had <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807872116/infectious-ideas/">long worried that AIDS would destabilize the continent</a>, as historian Jennifer Brier has shown, and PEPFAR burnished the president’s commitment to “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/86075/compassionate-conservative-hiv-pepfar-bush-gop-budget">compassionate conservatism” and faith-based social programs</a>. </p>
<p>But by the time of Bush’s announcement, grassroots activists had already spent years arguing in public that treating AIDS in Africa was not only possible but imperative. And their advocacy for low-cost generic antiretrovirals paved the way for global AIDS treatment on a scale that had once been thought impossible.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protestors holding a black coffin, wearing paper skull masks and signs reading 'I died on an ADAP waiting list' and 'Gilead gouges gov' AIDS dollars'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505646/original/file-20230120-4485-zn9j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">AIDS protestors called upon pharmaceutical companies to lower drug pricing to affordable levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AIDSHealthcareFoundationProtestatGileadSciences/3937be37fe0b45339e1518d5ad3c48b2">Alison Yin/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation</a></span>
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<p>Unfortunately, U.S. responses to recent viral epidemics have not shown evidence that the nation has learned from the PEPFAR example. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03529-3">hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines</a> by the U.S. and other wealthy nations shows the same persistent disregard for human life that was evident in attempts to block generic medicines from reaching people who needed them. At the same time, millions of doses of a highly effective vaccine against mpox in the U.S. national vaccine stockpile were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/nyregion/monkeypox-vaccine-jynneos-us.html">allowed to expire</a> while outbreaks of the virus <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01686-z">raged in West and Central Africa</a> in 2022. And early 2023 announcements that Pfizer and Moderna may both price their COVID-19 vaccines at <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/moderna-may-match-pfizers-400-price-hike-on-covid-vaccines-report-says/">well over $100 per dose</a> in the U.S. recalls the exorbitant drug prices that aroused activist fury in the fight against AIDS.</p>
<p>PEPFAR has saved millions of lives, in no small part because activists thought big and fought hard for justice in the U.S. response to global AIDS. Although the program is far from perfect, it serves as a reminder of what is possible when solidarity guides responses to humanity’s biggest challenges, and the power of grassroots organizing in turning principles into policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Royles has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Park Service. He is affiliated with the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. </span></em></p>The US PEPFAR initiative has brought HIV medication to millions of people globally. Behind this progress are the activists that pressured politicians and companies to put patients over patents.Dan Royles, Associate Professor of History, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853252022-06-17T17:58:53Z2022-06-17T17:58:53ZMike Pence’s actions on Jan. 6 were wholly unremarkable – until they saved the nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469524/original/file-20220617-25-a88bqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C29%2C4979%2C3289&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Mike Pence returned to the House chamber to finish the process of counting the electoral votes in the early morning of Jan. 7, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolRiotInvestigation/1c4d719ec839475a973e770a1b30a274/photo">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New revelations from the congressional committee investigating the events on and leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol show the crucial role then-Vice President Mike Pence played in thwarting the insurrection – and reveal the principles behind his actions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-12/">12th Amendment</a> to the U.S. Constitution reads “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” Under the Constitution, the vice president also serves as <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S3-C4-1/ALDE_00001111/">president of the Senate</a>. </p>
<p>At the June 16 hearing, Judge J. Michael Luttig, a <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3525468-who-is-michael-luttig-who-testifies-thursday-before-the-jan-6-panel/">conservative political icon</a>, and Greg Jacob, Pence’s counsel, asserted that the Constitution grants the vice president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/us/politics/pence-jan-6-election-trump.html">no authority to overturn</a> or reject the electoral votes. </p>
<p>Pence himself has said “<a href="https://www.witf.org/2022/06/17/jan-6-committee-leaders-say-trump-broke-the-law-by-trying-to-pressure-pence/">there is almost no idea more un-American</a> than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.” Every single vice president in U.S. history agreed. <a href="https://garamondagency.com/work/an-honest-man-2/">I</a> am a <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674986480">historian of the U.S. presidency</a>. No vice president has ever rejected officially certified electors, refused to count the votes or paused the official ceremony – not even when their own personal interests were at stake. </p>
<p>Indeed, in 2001, Vice President Al Gore <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-16/how-to-judge-mike-pence-and-other-takeaways-from-the-jan-6-hearing">proclaimed</a>, “The choice between one’s own disappointment in your personal career and upholding the noble traditions of American democracy is an easy choice.” He then oversaw the process of counting electoral votes that delivered defeat to him in his campaign to win the presidency and victory to his opponent, George W. Bush.</p>
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<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Al Gore declares himself the loser, and George W. Bush the winner, of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. (C-SPAN)</span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Under pressure, and threat</h2>
<p>And yet as the committee’s evidence has shown, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-pressure-pence-key-details-missed-thursdays-jan/story?id=85442808">Trump insisted Pence overturn</a> the election. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/donald-trump-capitol-mob/index.html">Trump fueled the rage</a> of the mob marching toward the Capitol and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-ethan-nordean-egged-on-donald-trump-defense_n_6021dbadc5b6173dd2f8da88">he egged them on</a>, even after he knew violence was possible. When the rioters chanted “hang Mike Pence,” Trump reportedly said Pence “<a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/world/jan-6-hearing-how-did-trump-respond-when-mob-chanted-hang-mike-pence">deserves it</a>.”</p>
<p>Pence barely escaped the mob’s wrath. New testimony shows that the rioters were just <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/proud-boys-jan-6-pence-vp-b2102995.html">40 feet</a> from the vice president. But as rioters called for his execution and erected gallows outside the Capitol building, Pence <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/pence-refused-to-leave-capitol-during-riot-eyewitness-recounts/3737804/">refused to leave</a> the Capitol complex. He didn’t want anyone to see the vice president <a href="https://thehill.com/news/house/3463198-raskin-responds-to-chilling-report-pence-refused-to-leave-capitol-on-jan-6/">fleeing the Capitol</a>. That symbol would be too hard to forget.</p>
<p>We still don’t have all the evidence, but it appears Pence also <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/06/10/pence-not-trump-asked-guard-troops-to-help-defend-capitol-on-jan-6-panel-says/">coordinated city and federal responses</a> to the riot from the secure underground location where he took refuge. And once the mob had been driven out of the Capitol, Pence insisted on <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/954234902/congress-certifies-biden-victory-after-pro-trump-rioters-storm-the-capitol">completing the ceremony</a> in the early morning hours of Jan. 7.</p>
<h2>A loyal lieutenant</h2>
<p>Until December 2020, Pence had been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/20/look-vice-president-pences-first-year-office-key-takeaways/1048778001/">unfailingly loyal</a>. He had never publicly disagreed with Trump, regardless of the embarrassment or <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mike-pence-loyal-lieutenant-or-donald-trump-s-scheming-sidekick-jcq5lfpbc">implications for his own future career</a>. </p>
<p>Why did Pence draw such a visible line over the certification of the election? There appear to be two reasons: a clear sense of legality and a deep conviction about his place in history.</p>
<p>The certification of the election appears to have been the first time Trump explicitly asked Pence to break the law. Pence previously defended controversial Trump administration policies like <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pence-doubles-down-border-wall-donald-trump-will-not-be-deterred-1293499">the border wall</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/28/mike-pence-once-called-trumps-muslim-ban-unconstitutional-he-just-applauded-the-order/">the so-called “Muslim ban</a>,” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/02/15/vice-president-pences-claim-that-u-s-spy-agencies-found-no-impact-from-russian-meddling/">excused Russian meddling</a> in the 2016 election, but they were just words. Pence could make an argument that appealed to the Republican base, even if what he was talking about didn’t comport with U.S. law or tradition. He didn’t have to take action.</p>
<p>The certification of the electoral votes was different. Trump didn’t demand that Pence make a statement at a public event. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/january-6-committee-third-hearing-pence-pressure-campaign-rcna32993">Trump demanded</a> that the vice president overturn a free and fair election – the very bedrock of American democracy. Notably, Pence didn’t speak out about the plans afoot in the White House to overturn the election, which the hearings on Jan. 6 have detailed. But actually participating in the effort appears to have been one step too far for Pence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection examined Pence’s refusal to leave the U.S. Capitol.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A sense of history</h2>
<p>Additionally, Pence had a keen sense of his place in history. The former vice president’s chief counsel told Congress that Pence said he <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/us-elections-government/ny-jan-6-vp-mike-pence-founding-fathers-heaven-20220616-sbw5v6w2sva4jayoxktospubgq-story.html">looked forward to meeting the framers</a> of the U.S. Constitution in heaven. That is not the statement of someone with short-term vision.</p>
<p>Furthermore, all of Pence’s advisors, from Luttig to former Vice President Dan Quayle, confirmed that history offered resounding guidance. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-june-16/h_2aaf0a0091f0b71b4cfe8458136c41e5">The rule of law is the foundation, the profound truth of the United States</a>. The vice president had no legal authority to overturn the election and nothing in the historical record suggested otherwise.</p>
<p>In February 1801, Vice President Thomas Jefferson <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Author%3A%22Adams%2C%20Abigail%22%20Dates-From%3A1801-01-01&s=1111311111&r=10&sr=">opened the electoral returns</a> from the states and discovered that he and his vice-presidential candidate, Aaron Burr, had tied for first place – which was possible under the Constitution at the time. President John Adams had come in third. While the House of Representatives cast ballot after ballot, attempting to resolve the election, Jefferson and Adams <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Dates-From%3A1801-01-12&s=1111311113&r=43">met</a>. They <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Dates-From%3A1801-01-19&s=1111311113&r=21">pledged</a> to each other that they would not meddle in the election. On the <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Author%3A%22Adams%2C%20Abigail%22%20Dates-From%3A1801-01-01&s=1111311111&r=10&sr=">36th ballot</a>, Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States. Adams and Jefferson didn’t just refrain from taking action; they intentionally upheld the sanctity of the electoral process. That is the historical precedent Pence followed.</p>
<p>Since then, no vice president has seriously considered overturning the results of the election. It should be a non-issue. It should be a relatively boring day for the vice president. It should not require courage.</p>
<p>But on January 6, 2021, it required all of Mike Pence’s fortitude. Reflecting on Pence’s actions that day, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, said in the beginning of the third hearing, “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105683634/transcript-jan-6-committee">Mike Pence and I agree on very little</a>,” but we agreed that “there is no idea more un-American that the notion that one person can choose the president.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/16/jan-6-committee-reveals-new-details-about-pences-terrifying-day/">At 3:50 a.m. on Jan. 7</a>, after the congressional session had concluded, the vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/takeaways-day-3-jan-6-hearings-lawyer-eastman-told-trump-election-plot-rcna34034">texted Pence a Bible verse</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%204:7-8&version=NIV">2 Timothy 4:7-8</a>, which reads, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”</p>
<p>Under the terms of the U.S. Constitution, Pence should not have had to fight, nor do very much to finish the race. But when confronted with the unimaginable, he kept the faith. He kept his oath.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Chervinsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vice president has said he looks forward to meeting the framers of the Constitution in heaven. That is not the mindset of someone with short-term vision.Lindsay Chervinsky, Senior Fellow, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713852021-11-08T05:03:59Z2021-11-08T05:03:59ZBurning is the slickest film about climate change since An Inconvenient Truth – and that’s its problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430673/original/file-20211108-10429-o1o7ob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3840%2C2144&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon Prime</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Burning, directed by Eva Orner.</em></p>
<p>The word “crisis” comes from the Greek <em>krinein</em>, which means to decide. You’re stuck in the middle of a burning fire: you need to decide whether you are going to stay and perish; whether you are going to fight to put it out; or whether you are going to leave and let it burn.</p>
<p>Burning, Eva Orner’s new documentary, is about the climate crisis, and the Australian government’s decision to (metaphorically) let the fires burn. </p>
<p>It is quite explicit in its claims, and this makes it effective as a kind of cinematic essay. It carefully presents – via the words of interviewee <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/former-fire-chief-greg-mullins-faces-the-firestorm-again-20210918-p58stw.html">Greg Mullins</a>, former New South Wales fire commissioner – the history of bushfires in Australia.</p>
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<p>While acknowledging, as the refrain goes, there have always been fires in Australia, the film presents evidence and analysis showing fires have massively worsened in recent years in frequency and severity in line with the forecasts of climate scientists regarding global warming. </p>
<p>Burning goes on to argue the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” bushfires, its ostensible subject, could have been headed off by a well-conceived response to global warming.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-staggering-1-8-million-hectares-burned-in-high-severity-fires-during-australias-black-summer-157883">A staggering 1.8 million hectares burned in 'high-severity' fires during Australia's Black Summer</a>
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<h2>Past and present</h2>
<p>Through a series of talking head interviews, Burning convincingly argues the severity of the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires is largely the fault of the Morrison government (and preceding conservative governments) in refusing to recognise climate change is real, and to enact policies addressing this. </p>
<p>Mullins’ commentary is joined by, among others, scientist <a href="https://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/recipients/tim-flannery/110/">Tim Flannery</a>, young activist <a href="https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/teenage-climatechange-campaigner-daisy-jeffrey-on-what-its-really-like-to-be-a-young-activist/news-story/4b7442757e6e066df7d3ce31f07410cd">Daisy Jeffrey</a>, writer <a href="https://www.magabala.com/collections/bruce-pascoe">Bruce Pascoe</a> and residents affected by the bushfires who talk about the devastation their communities faced.</p>
<p>Through meticulously curated and assembled archival footage, we also hear from a list of the usual suspects: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Roberts, Barnaby Joyce, Alan Jones, and of course, Prime Minister Scott Morrison. </p>
<p>The film is careful to tie this back to much earlier conservative discourse, with an interview with Alexander Downer in which he contests the reality of global warming.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A charred landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430676/original/file-20211108-16752-1s9xxhz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burning argues the Black Summer bushfires could have been averted if climate action had been taken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon Prime</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also – again, convincingly – demonstrates the role of the Murdoch media in propagating climate change denialism, with snippets from Sky News as recent as 2020 casting doubt on the reality of global warming. </p>
<p>The film is at pains to point out this is not only historical, but current – we see Morrison recently bagging out electric cars (“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/10/scott-morrison-walks-back-end-the-weekend-rhetoric-on-electrical-vehicles">It’s not gonna tow your trailer</a>. It’s not going to tow your boat. It’s not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot with your family.”) and proselytising about the future role of gas in Australia’s economy.</p>
<h2>Too polished</h2>
<p>It’s a very well-made documentary, full of stunning images of Australian geography and flora and fauna – beautiful <a href="https://www.videomaker.com/article/c6/17127-bokeh-and-depth-of-field">bokeh</a>, slow tracking shots around leaves, etc – interspersed with dramatic meteorological charts, and some shocking footage of the bushfires burning across the country. </p>
<p>It is, I would suggest, the slickest film about climate change since An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and, like that film, its polish plays against it as a documentary film experience. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-how-al-gores-an-inconvenient-truth-made-its-mark-59387">Ten years on: how Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth made its mark</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is the annoying thing about the film: it’s so right at the level of content, but formally it falls short. Apart from a few select moments – harrowing images of charred animals, a koala trying to escape a fire, and a devastating interview with a young mother whose baby was born prematurely with a dying placenta because of smoke inhalation – the actual material centred on the bushfires is peculiarly uninvolving. </p>
<p>We watch interviews with Cobargo residents that, given the subject, seem surprisingly run of the mill. </p>
<p>It’s like the film mentions the smoke, but doesn’t capture its eerie apocalyptic quality. It mentions the intense heartbreak and brutality of the fires for towns like Cobargo, but doesn’t put us in the middle of it. It tells us things more than it makes us feel things, and this is seldom beneficial in the medium. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fires-review-new-abc-drama-helps-teach-important-lessons-about-the-realities-of-bushfires-in-australia-168191">Fires review: new ABC drama helps teach important lessons about the realities of bushfires in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Even much of the footage captured by residents seems strangely contained by the film, with what surely was a surreal, infernal nightmare presented instead in a thoroughly digestible, middlebrow fashion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A firefighter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430675/original/file-20211108-9989-1k54s2x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burning gets so much right in regards to its content, but is let down by its form.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon Prime</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Burning clearly examines climate change as a political weapon in Australia – and leaves no doubt about the connections between global warming and the recent bushfires. The message of the film is spot on, the logic of its argument faultless.</p>
<p>There are striking moments – footage of dead animals; listening to Daisy Jeffrey; Bruce Pascoe’s closing words about the stewardship of the land. And yet it doesn’t work as well as it could as a piece of cinema. It lacks the edge of eco docos like <a href="https://theconversation.com/film-review-wild-things-packs-passionate-climate-activism-into-an-overly-polite-documentary-154374">Wild Things</a> (2020) partly because it’s too slick.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/film-review-wild-things-packs-passionate-climate-activism-into-an-overly-polite-documentary-154374">Film review: Wild Things packs passionate climate activism into an overly polite documentary</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We want a hot and sweaty, intense film from within the belly of the bushfires and the horrors of Australian climate policy – instead we get a polished and well-mannered one. </p>
<p>It is a really good, well-made doco essay – primed for streaming (produced for Amazon, this is probably its primary intended medium, so it’s no surprise it isn’t very cinematic). </p>
<p>Its material is compelling - it certainly stokes our indignation - but it is unlikely to teach a climate change believer anything they don’t already know, and a sceptic won’t watch or listen to it anyway. </p>
<p><em>Burning is at Sydney Film Festival until Monday November 8 and will be streaming on Amazon Prime from November 26.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The message of Eva Orner’s new documentary is spot on, the logic of its argument faultless. But it tells us things more than it makes us feel things, and this is seldom beneficial in the medium.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1524672021-01-19T17:07:18Z2021-01-19T17:07:18ZWhat does the vice president do?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377391/original/file-20210106-17-lpwkss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5991%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's a top government job, but what does being vice president mean?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakHarris/56ef84b8246447418d250b158f225185/photo">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/harris-makes-history-first-female-black-south-asian-american-vp-n1246916">Kamala Harris</a> will become vice president of the United States – the first woman, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-represents-an-opportunity-for-coalition-building-between-blacks-and-asian-americans-144547">first person of South Asian descent, and the first African American</a> to do so. Harris will also become the <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kamala-harris-on-being-a-graduate-from-a-historically-black-college-this-is-what-these-institutions-were-really-built-for-they-were-built-for-this-moment-11597258044">first</a> vice president to have graduated from a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/historically-black-colleges-and-universities">historically black college or university</a>.</p>
<p>Each of these achievements is significant in its own right. However, the vice presidency itself has traditionally been a relatively insignificant position, though the office has become more influential in recent years.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Adams" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, called the job ‘the most insignificant Office.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Stuart,_John_Adams,_c._1800-1815,_NGA_42933.jpg">Gilbert Stuart, National Gallery of Art via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘most insignificant’ office?</h2>
<p>The role of vice president is only mentioned in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">U.S. Constitution</a> a handful of times. Article I, Section 3 says that the vice president “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-3-">shall be President of the Senate but shall have no Vote</a>” except in the event of a tie. Normally, ties are rare, but the vice president’s power to break them will likely become relevant to Harris as Democrats, and independents who caucus with Democrats, are expected to control only 50 of the 100 Senate seats.</p>
<p>The beginning of Article II, Section 1 explains how vice presidents are elected, which was later revised by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a>. The end of that section states that presidential power “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-1--2">shall devolve on the Vice President</a>” in the event of the president’s “Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.” Finally, Article II, Section 4 states that vice presidents – like presidents – can be “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-4--2">removed from Office</a> on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”</p>
<p>So, other than <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">staying out of trouble</a> to avoid impeachment and waiting around for the president to <a href="https://tbsnews.net/world/what-happens-when-us-president-dies-or-incapacitated-141037">need a replacement</a>, vice presidents are really obligated only to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-pence-casts-tie-breaking-vote-confirm-betsy-devos-education-n717836">occasionally cast a tie-breaking vote</a>. This means that the great majority of the time, vice presidents have no real job to do.</p>
<p>John Adams, the first U.S. vice president, once complained to his wife that the vice presidency was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0278">the most insignificant Office</a> that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” However, not all have been upset about such inactivity. Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-thomas-marshall/">quipped after he retired</a>: “I don’t want to work … [but] I wouldn’t mind being Vice President again.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Will Hays with Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warren Harding, center, wanted his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, at right, to play an active role in governing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chairman-of-the-republican-national-committee-will-h-hays-news-photo/501167655">FPG/Keystone View Company/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The evolution of the vice presidency</h2>
<p>Wilson’s successor as president, Warren Harding, had unconventional views about the importance of the role of the vice president. He thought that “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">the vice president should be more than a mere substitute in waiting</a>,” and he wished for his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, “to be a helpful part” of his administration. Coolidge later became the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Calvin_Coolidge.htm">first vice president</a> in history to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis. </p>
<p>In 1923, Harding died of a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/after-90-years-president-warren-hardings-death-still-unsettled">likely heart attack</a>, and Coolidge succeeded him as president. “My experience in the Cabinet,” <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">Coolidge later recalled</a>, “was of supreme value to me when I became President.”</p>
<p>After Harding and Coolidge, many later presidents reverted back to the tradition of keeping vice presidents an arm’s length away, even on key matters. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, kept <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project">the atomic bomb</a> a secret from Vice President Harry S. Truman, who <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/harry-truman">didn’t find out</a> about it until Roosevelt’s death.</p>
<p>For the 1960 presidential election, two-term Vice President Richard Nixon faced off against John F. Kennedy. At one point during the campaign, reporters asked then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Can you think of a major contribution that Nixon has made to your administration?” Eisenhower replied: “<a href="https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/how-many-u-s-vice-presidents-can-you-name/">Well, if you give me a week I might think of one</a>.” Nixon lost that election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President Walter Mondale, right, was an active part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CarterMondale/160e66151d984d9fb00f4da936a7252f/photo">AP Photo/Harvey Georges</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1976, Jimmy Carter picked Walter Mondale as his running mate. In a memo sent to Carter after winning the election, Mondale argued that “[t]he <a href="http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697/pdf/Mondale-CarterMemo.pdf">biggest single problem of our recent administrations</a> has been the failure of the President to be exposed to independent analysis not conditioned by what it is thought he wants to hear or often what others want him to hear.” Mondale’s vision for the role of vice president was “to offer impartial advice” so that Carter wouldn’t be “shielded from points of view that [he] should hear.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/20/how-the-vice-president-became-a-powerful-and-influential-white-house-player/">Carter agreed</a> and subsequently made Mondale an integral part of his inner circle.</p>
<p>Many vice presidents since Mondale have often offered points of view that didn’t align with that of the president. Bill Clinton and Al Gore, for instance, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/11/clinton200711">disagreed</a> over the amount of power and influence entrusted to first lady Hillary Clinton; they also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/20/us/once-close-to-clinton-gore-keeps-a-distance.html">disagreed</a> over the handling of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/11/03/131035736/bush-considered-dropping-cheney-from-ticket-in-04">disagreed</a>, at times, over Iraq, as well as the use and nonuse of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/23/dick-cheney-george-bush-libby-pardon">presidential pardons</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, Mike Pence has proved to be a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2020/0826/Last-man-standing-How-Pence-s-loyalty-helped-him-survive">loyal ally</a> to a president who has a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/">track record</a> of being unwilling to listen to dissent.</p>
<p>In the wake of the Jan. 6 <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-it-a-coup-no-but-siege-on-us-capitol-was-the-election-violence-of-a-fragile-democracy-152803">insurrection</a>, Democrats <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533112-first-gop-lawmaker-calls-for-invoking-25th-amendment-to-remove-trump">and even a few Republicans</a> called on Pence to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-25th-amendment-work-and-can-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office-after-us-capitol-attack-152869">remove Trump from office</a> by invoking the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv">25th Amendment</a>. Pence ultimately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/pence-opposes-invoking-25th-amendment.html">avoided</a> taking <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/politics/trump-pence-25th-amendment/index.html">such action</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Vice President Mike Pence presides over the joint session of Congress reviewing Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One key job of the vice president involves presiding over the process of counting Electoral College votes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-mike-pence-presides-over-a-joint-session-of-news-photo/1230451359">Saul Loeb/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘last voice in the room’</h2>
<p>Following Mondale’s model, when Joe Biden agreed to be Barack Obama’s running mate, he said that he wanted to be the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-09-06-sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bidenbre8850xj-20120906-story.html">last man in the room</a>” whenever important decisions where being made so he could give Obama his unfiltered opinion. </p>
<p>When Biden picked Harris as his running mate, he said he “asked Kamala to be the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-harris-make-appearance-historic-democratic-ticket/story?id=72327968">last voice in the room</a>,” to “[c]hallenge [his] assumptions if she disagrees,” and to “[a]sk the hard questions.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As Harris begins her trailblazing term as a vice president of many firsts, she has an opportunity to either follow the past as a vice president who is largely ignored, to follow Pence as a deferential foot soldier, or to pick up Mondale’s mantle by making sure that the president isn’t shielded from points of view that he should hear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vice president may be second in line for the most powerful job in the nation, but there isn’t necessarily a lot to do besides wait – unless the president wants another adviser.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522172021-01-17T13:49:16Z2021-01-17T13:49:16ZAs Joe Biden becomes president, here’s an easy proposal for Electoral College reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379065/original/file-20210115-21-49dtkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4982%2C3318&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President-elect Joe Biden speaks about the COVID-19 pandemic in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 14, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been a rocky ride, but a new U.S. president is about to be inaugurated.</p>
<p>Many are thrilled to be moving on from the Donald Trump era, especially <a href="https://theconversation.com/by-inciting-capitol-mob-trump-pushes-u-s-closer-to-a-banana-republic-152850">after the raid on the U.S. Capitol by angry Trump supporters</a>. But before that happens, it might be worthwhile to reflect on one of the causes of anxiety during the 2020 presidential election campaign: The way votes are allocated in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college">Electoral College</a>, which is essentially the process by which state electors determine who won the presidential election.</p>
<p>Predominantly liberal commentators argue every four years that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/its-time-to-abolish-the-electoral-college/">it’s profoundly unfair that votes in sparsely inhabited states count for more than those in densely populated ones.</a></p>
<p>The debate tends to pit those who think the president should be chosen on the basis of the popular vote against those who argue that the Electoral College is necessary to balance the interests of small and large states. But what if there were a third way?</p>
<h2>Aimed at compromise</h2>
<p>As provided in the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College serves the necessary purpose of compromising between the divergent interests of various kinds of states (urban versus rural, coastal versus interior, more or less populous). </p>
<p>The problem is not the Electoral College as such, but the “winner-takes-all” principle that most states use to apportion their electoral votes. Sound arguments can be made — <a href="https://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-constitution-amendments/the-constitutional-convention/#:%7E:text=The%20Constitutional%20Convention%20took%20place,delegates%20had%20much%20bigger%20plans.">and were made during the Constitutional Convention in 1787</a> — for why, in a federal system, it is fair for tiny Delaware to have a per capita greater impact in presidential elections than populous New York. It’s the same compromise that established equal representation of states in the Senate and their proportional representation based on population in the House of Representatives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An oil painting of the Constitutional Convention." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379074/original/file-20210115-17-mwtbcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting depicting the Constitutional Convention of 1787.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library of Congress)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is clearly less fair is for a state to apportion all its electors to a candidate who may not have won even half that state’s popular vote. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/14/iowa-republicans-grassley-ernst-acknowledge-joe-biden-electoral-college-victory/6549680002/">I know for Iowans it’s disappointing</a>,” Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said when she acknowledged Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. But in truth, it was disappointing only for the 53 per cent of Iowans who voted for Trump. Nearly half the state’s population was relieved. </p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be fairer for states to split their votes to reflect the split in their voters’ opinions?</p>
<h2>Another way</h2>
<p>This is not a reference to <a href="https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine-and-nebraska/">the method Maine and Nebraska use</a> — to assign two electors, winner-takes-all, on the basis of the statewide popular vote and one elector based on the vote in each congressional district. Rather, why not eliminate winner-takes-all completely, and simply allocate each state’s electors proportionally to the popular vote in that state?</p>
<p>If this were nationwide practice, Biden would still have won in 2020, Barack Obama would still have won in 2008 and 2012, and George W. Bush would still have won in 2004. But things get more interesting in the two recent presidential elections in which the Electoral College victor did not win the popular vote. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bush and Gore in a townhall in October 2000." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379068/original/file-20210115-17-19mozja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bush and Gore in a Missouri townhall in October 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reflections-on-the-2000-u-s-presidential-election/">In 2000</a>, Florida would have split its votes 12-12 between Bush and Al Gore without any court needing to intervene, and assigned a 25th elector to Ralph Nader. Bush would have beaten Gore 263 to 262 in the Electoral College, with 13 electors for Nader. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.270towin.com/2016_Election/">In 2016</a>, Trump and Hillary Clinton would have been tied at 261 electors each, with 14 for Gary Johnson and one each for Evan McMullin and Jill Stein. </p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution of course provides for the event of a tie in the Electoral College. But if states allowed third-party electors to cast their votes for one of the two leading candidates, according the decision of those electors or their state party organizations, the 2000 and 2016 elections could have produced results more closely aligned with the national popular vote while still maintaining equity between small and large states.</p>
<h2>All states benefit</h2>
<p>The fairness would work both ways. Republicans in California and New York would get a voice, alongside Democrats in Iowa and Arkansas. Votes for third-party candidates would not necessarily be wasted, at least in states with enough electors for small percentages to matter. Most votes would count more, none would count less. </p>
<p>Occasionally, one elector more or less for a given candidate could still hinge on a small number of votes, making recounts necessary, but the stakes would be lower — a single elector, not an entire state’s slate.</p>
<p>Proposals to abolish the Electoral College are ultimately impractical. It’s simply not in the interest of enough states to ever vote for the necessary constitutional amendment. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931891674/as-presidency-hinges-on-a-handful-of-states-some-have-made-a-popular-vote-pact">National Popular Vote Compact</a> — by which signatory states would assign all their electors to the winner of the national popular vote — faces the same impossible hurdle.</p>
<p>But who can argue against the principle that every vote should count?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Krapfl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The debate about the U.S. Electoral College pits those who think the president should be chosen via popular vote versus those who believe the interests of small and large states must be balanced.James Krapfl, Associate Professor of History, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1510872020-11-30T20:01:32Z2020-11-30T20:01:32ZJames Baker’s masterful legal strategies won George W. Bush a contested election – unlike Rudy Giuliani’s string of losses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371853/original/file-20201129-16-cdl9s2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C14%2C3174%2C2109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President George W. Bush, left, with James A. Baker III at the 2018 funeral of George H.W. Bush.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GeorgeHWBush/df5fffb5c65144529fee1e8d8fffff3f/photo?Query=James%20A.%20Baker&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1197&currentItemNo=42">AP Pool</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With Rudy Giuliani <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-overturn/2020/11/28/34f45226-2f47-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html">flailing through a series of failed election challenges for the Trump campaign</a>, a superb new political biography provides fresh evidence of just how stark the contrast is between the head of Trump’s legal team and George W. Bush’s hyperprepared, efficient and savvy commander-in-chief for the 2000 election political and legal fight, James A. Baker III. </p>
<p>The biography “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253135/the-man-who-ran-washington-by-peter-baker-and-susan-glasser/">The Man Who Ran Washington</a>,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, provides at least three new major revelations, even for those of <a href="https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.biography&personid=20200">us election law experts</a> steeped in that 2000 saga, which culminated in the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision</a> and Bush’s consequent victory.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/james-baker-iii/">James Baker</a> had headed two Cabinet departments – Treasury and State – had been White House chief of staff to two presidents and had run four successful presidential campaigns. </p>
<p>But after being strong-armed to relinquish being secretary of state and take over <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/essays/baker-1989-secretary-of-state">George H.W. Bush’s floundering 1992 reelection campaign</a>, Baker failed. That failure, some claim, created a rift in one of the most important political friendships of the late 20th century. </p>
<p>So when Baker got the call the morning after the 2000 election to take command of George W. Bush’s effort to gain the White House, Baker saw it as an opportunity to redeem himself with the Bush family.</p>
<h2>Seeing around corners</h2>
<p>The book’s first revelation comes immediately: 45 minutes after being briefed on the situation that morning of Nov. 8, when Bush’s lead in Florida stood at 1,784 votes out of nearly 3 million cast – and before even a machine recount had taken place that would cut that lead by two-thirds – Baker told others: “We’re heading to the Supreme Court.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A series of Florida newspapers with headlines saying it wasn't clear who won the 2000 election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Baker had a sophisticated understanding of what would happen in the contested 2000 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NightmareCampaignScenarios/ad3af412a178440c83007bc8fe459e44/photo?Query=Bush%20Gore%20Supreme%20Court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=0">Peter Cosgrove/AP Photos</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When they expressed surprise, Baker followed up by saying: “It’s the only way this can end.”</p>
<p>Baker’s acumen here was stunning. At this stage, and even later in the saga, a large majority even of election law and Supreme Court experts were highly skeptical that the court would get involved at all. </p>
<p>The widely shared view was that the process of recounts would be resolved completely under Florida law and through Florida’s administrative processes and courts. That’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-of-biden-versus-trump-or-how-a-judge-could-decide-the-presidential-election-146367">how election challenges, even in federal elections, had always been handled</a>. Baker’s first choice to lead the litigation effort, former Senator John Danforth of Missouri, reflected this common view. </p>
<p>Danforth told Baker, “I just can’t conceive that a federal court’s going to take jurisdiction over a matter relating to state election law … I just can’t believe that.” </p>
<p>Danforth nevertheless agreed to take on the role. But Baker decided Danforth didn’t believe enough in the cause, cut him loose and turned instead to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/17/the-two-theodore-olsons/f774f20e-be19-496e-9ff6-310e0c88dc9c/">a former Reagan administration high-level attorney, Ted Olson</a>, who ultimately won in Bush v. Gore. Baker’s immediate judgment that the Supreme Court would become the ultimate decision-maker structured everything he did.</p>
<h2>Breach of judicial confidentiality</h2>
<p>The second revelation in the book is highly disturbing, if accurate. </p>
<p>Litigating the outcome of the 2000 election began with the Gore campaign filing requests under Florida law for manual recounts in four counties. Two weeks after Election Day, the litigation made <a href="https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/News-Media/Presidential-Election-2000">its first appearance before the Florida Supreme Court</a>. Just before the argument was about to begin, Baker was reportedly handed a note from an intermediary who somehow knew that the Florida justices had already decided among themselves that they were going to rule against Bush and had written a draft opinion to that effect. </p>
<p>Given the time urgency to resolve the election, it is neither surprising nor troubling that the court would have moved this quickly and already drafted a decision. But for a party to a case to be told that, and how the court was going to rule, is a remarkable breach in the confidentiality of a court’s internal deliberations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Florida Supreme Court spokesman announces the ruling in the contested presidential election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Nov. 21, 2000, Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters announces the court’s 7-0 ruling, on the Capitol steps in Tallahassee, Fla., that amended votes tallies must be accepted in the state contested presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NightmareCampaignScenarios/757ea0304efb4098b6d2df54946d9ad5/photo?Query=Supreme%20Court%20%22George%20W.%20Bush%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=5">Pete Cosgrove/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once they got this note, Bush’s lawyer for the argument, Michael Carvin, asserts they decided “to lose and lose big,” in order to bait the Florida Supreme Court into a broad decision that would make U.S. Supreme Court intervention more likely. </p>
<p>Whether Carvin’s self-serving strategic claim is accurate or not, that’s exactly what happened. The Florida Supreme Court approved a manual recount and <a href="https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/News-Media/Presidential-Election-2000">ordered the deadline for certifying the outcome extended by 12 days</a>. The U.S. Supreme Court – to the surprise of many – <a href="https://guides.law.stanford.edu/c.php?g=991108&p=7170216">agreed to hear the case</a>. When it did so, the Supreme Court then unanimously vacated the Florida court’s decision, in the first of the United States Supreme Court’s two decisions concerning the 2000 election. </p>
<h2>Threat of legislative action</h2>
<p>The third revelation involves an issue that has swirled around the current election: <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-a-few-state-legislatures-choose-the-next-president-146950">the possible role of state legislatures in directly appointing presidential electors</a>, rather than permitting the will of the voters to determine who has won the presidential election – and hence the electors – in that state. </p>
<p>Federal law permits a state legislature to appoint electors if the election has “failed” in that state – <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-theres-so-much-legal-uncertainty-about-resolving-a-disputed-presidential-election-146960">a term whose meaning the law does not clarify</a>. </p>
<p>No legislature has invoked this “failed” election provision since at least the Civil War, but there was a great deal of <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/state-legislatures-cant-ignore-popular-vote-appointing-electors">concern in 2020 that the Trump campaign’s strategy</a> was to get Republican legislatures in battleground states to do so. </p>
<p>The closest the U.S. has ever come to that happening is Florida in 2000. After the Florida Supreme Court decision that the Bush campaign lost, Baker asserted to the press that the Florida court had changed the rules after the election, by approving a manual recount and extending the deadline for certifying the election by 12 days.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/us/counting-the-vote-baker-s-response-to-ruling.html">Then Baker threatened</a>: “So one should not now be surprised if the Florida legislature seeks to affirm the original rules.” </p>
<p>And indeed, in early December, the Florida legislature <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/06/fla.legislature/index.html">announced</a> it would convene a special session to discuss appointing Florida’s electors itself. </p>
<p>That much is a matter of public record. But what the new biography reveals is that, while Baker wanted this to be seen as a threat, he did not want Florida’s legislature to go through with it. </p>
<p>Baker presumably wanted the shadow of imminent legislative action to spur the courts to bring closure to the recount process, given that Bush was ahead in the count. </p>
<p>Throughout the process, Baker was just as focused on public perceptions as on the courtroom battles. He believed that, if Florida’s legislature appointed the electors in favor of Bush, it would cripple Bush’s presidency from the start by undermining the legitimacy of his election. </p>
<p>Those most involved in the 2000 election contest believe that the looming <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-nov-29-mn-58820-story.html">specter of Florida legislative involvement</a> effectively shaped the overall environment in the way Baker aimed to do. Six days after the Florida legislature’s action, the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">5-4 Supreme Court final decision in Bush v. Gore</a> ended the recount, without any further action from the Florida legislature – the path to Bush’s victory that Baker had envisioned from the start.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in Times Square watch Vice President Al Gore concede the race for president to George W. Bush December 13, 2000 on a giant video screen in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People in Times Square watch Vice President Al Gore concede the race for president to George W. Bush on Dec. 13, 2000, on a giant video screen in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-in-times-square-watch-vice-president-al-gore-concede-news-photo/1318806?adppopup=true">Chris Hondros/Newsmakers</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Giuliani versus Baker</h2>
<p>In contrast to the Trump campaign’s litigation this year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/17/trump-keeps-losing-court-he-keeps-losing-his-lawyers-too/">with lawyers filing claims, then withdrawing from cases</a>, and new teams of lawyers swooping in at the last minute, Baker’s firm hand at knowing how to structure effective organizations also played a prominent role in Florida in 2000. </p>
<p>Not only did he quickly assemble <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/10/02/amy-coney-barrett-would-be-third-justice-who-touched-bush-v-gore-litigation/?slreturn=20201030075009">the most talented conservative lawyers in the country</a>, but, as one example, he assigned different teams of attorneys to state and federal court, to enable greater specialization.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<p>Some Democrats will never forgive Baker, nor the Supreme Court, for their roles in ending the recount before all the ballots were counted – though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/us/examining-vote-overview-study-disputed-florida-ballots-finds-justices-did-not.html">a consortium of major newspapers later determined</a> that if the recount had been completed, Bush would have won under 21 of 24 possible standards for what constituted a valid vote. </p>
<p>But Democrats involved in the litigation battles knew the other side had the more effective leader. Indeed, the new Baker biography claims that when Baker was put in charge of the Florida contest, his “reputation was so formidable that Democrats knew they would lose the moment they heard of his selection.”</p>
<p>I can confidently say that thought did not cross the mind of any Democrat when Rudy Giuliani was put in charge this time around.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Pildes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>James Baker, the high-powered lawyer chosen by George W. Bush to lead his fight over the contested 2000 election, delivered victory. A new book reveals three crucial reasons why.Richard Pildes, Professor of Constitutional Law, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1495032020-11-04T17:17:16Z2020-11-04T17:17:16ZHistory tells us that a contested election won’t destroy American democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367541/original/file-20201104-13-2rvzgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C67%2C4479%2C2593&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump falsely declaring a win in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the US election, as ballot counting continued in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-flanked-by-karen-pence-us-vice-news-photo/1229450008?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the outcome of the 2020 presidential election still <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/03/us/trump-biden-election">hanging on the uncounted votes in a handful of battleground states</a>, President Donald Trump has already prematurely declared <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/us/elections/trump-attacking-the-democratic-process-falsely-says-he-won.html">victory and said he will take the election fight to the Supreme Court</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/us/elections/trump-attacking-the-democratic-process-falsely-says-he-won.html">Joe Biden said that</a> “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has won this election,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s the decision of the American people.”</p>
<p>This situation compounded the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/10/18535212/trump-2020-pelosi-lose-leave-office">worry felt by some even before the election</a> that a contested election would severely undermine faith in American democracy.</p>
<p>Yet the United States has a long history of such contested elections. With one exception, they have not badly damaged the American political system.</p>
<p>That contested 1860 election – which sparked the Civil War – happened in a unique context. As a political scientist who studies elections, I believe that, should President Trump – or less likely, Joe Biden – contest the results of the November election, American democracy will survive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Biden speaking at a lectern next to his wife, who wears a face mask" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367543/original/file-20201104-17-9mzxs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Biden projected confidence but urged patience in a speech late on election night, Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 4, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-presidential-nominee-joe-biden-speaks-at-a-drive-news-photo/1283808822?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Legitimacy and peaceful transitions</h2>
<p>Most contested presidential elections have not posed <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3234268?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">threats to the legitimacy</a> of government. </p>
<p>Legitimacy, or the collective acknowledgment that government has a right to rule, is essential to a democracy. In a legitimate system, unpopular policies are largely accepted because citizens believe that government has the right to make them. For example, a citizen may despise taxes but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209338797">still admit that they are lawful</a>. Illegitimate systems, which are not supported by citizens, can collapse or descend into revolution. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.006">In democracies, elections</a> generate legitimacy because citizens contribute to the selection of leadership.</p>
<p>In the past, contested elections have not badly damaged the fabric of democracy because the rules for handling such disputes exist and have been followed. While politicians and citizens alike have howled about the unfairness of loss, they accepted these losses. </p>
<h2>Contested elections and continuity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.270towin.com/1800_Election/">In 1800</a>, both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of votes in the Electoral College. Because no candidate won a clear majority of Electoral votes, the House of Representatives <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-ii">followed the Constitution</a> and convened a special session to resolve the impasse by a vote. It took 36 ballots to give Jefferson the victory, which was widely accepted. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.270towin.com/1824_Election/">In 1824</a>, Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote against John Quincy Adams and two other candidates, but failed to win the necessary majority in the Electoral College. The House, again following the procedure set in the Constitution, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-elections-open-wounds-that-may-never-heal-128613">selected Adams as the winner over Jackson</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.117.2.387">The 1876</a> election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden was contested because several Southern states failed to clearly certify a winner. This was resolved through inter-party negotiation conducted by an Electoral Commission established by Congress. While Hayes would become president, concessions were given to the South that effectively ended Reconstruction.</p>
<p>The contest between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-drama-behind-president-kennedys-1960-election-win/">was rife with allegations of voter fraud</a>, and Nixon supporters pressed for aggressive recounts in many states. In the end, Nixon begrudgingly accepted the decision rather than drag the country through civil discord during the intense U.S.-Soviet tensions of the <a href="https://www.toledoblade.com/Print-Furniture/2000/11/10/Nixon-said-no-to-recount-in-1960-outcome/stories/200011100020">Cold War</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, in 2000, GOP candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore tangled over disputed ballots in Florida. The Supreme Court terminated a recount effort and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq5YdkYSyEE">Gore publicly conceded</a>, recognizing the legitimacy of Bush’s victory by saying, “While I strongly disagree with the Court’s decision, I accept it.”</p>
<p>In each case, the losing side was unhappy with the result of the election. But in each case, the loser accepted the legally derived result, and the American democratic political system persisted. </p>
<h2>The system collapses</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1860_Election/">election of 1860</a> was a different story. </p>
<p>After Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates, Southern states simply refused to accept the results. They viewed the selection of a president who would not protect slavery as illegitimate and ignored the election’s results. </p>
<p>It was only through the profoundly bloody Civil War that the United States remained intact. The dispute over the legitimacy of this election, based in fundamental differences between the North and South, cost <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html">600,000 American lives</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dead Confederate soldiers lying on the ground in Gettysburg." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The contested 1860 presidential election led to the Civil War, where 600,000 died, including these Confederate soldiers at in Gettysburg’s ‘the devil’s den,’ June or July 1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cwp.4a39439/">Alexander Gardner, photographer/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is the difference between the political collapse of 1860 and the continuity of other contested elections? In all cases, citizens were politically divided and elections were hotly contested. </p>
<p>What makes 1860 stand out so clearly is that the country <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/150/">was divided over the moral question of slavery</a>, and this division followed geographic lines that enabled a revolution to form. Further, the Confederacy was reasonably unified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html">across class lines</a>. </p>
<p>While the America of today is certainly divided, the distribution of political beliefs is far more <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1625.html">dispersed and complex</a> than the ideological cohesion of the Confederacy. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Rule of law</h2>
<p>History suggests, then, that even if Trump or Biden contest the election, the results would not be catastrophic. </p>
<p>The Constitution is clear on what would happen: First, the president cannot simply declare an election invalid. Second, voting irregularities could be investigated by the states, who are responsible for managing the integrity of their <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/750">electoral processes</a>. This seems unlikely to change any reported results, as voter fraud is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-vote-by-mail-explainer/explainer-fraud-is-rare-in-us-mail-in-voting-here-are-the-methods-that-prevent-it-idUSKBN2482SA">extraordinarily rare</a>. </p>
<p>The next step could be an appeal to the Supreme Court or suits against the states. To overturn any state’s initial selection, evidence of a miscount or voter fraud would have to be strongly established. </p>
<p>If these attempts to contest the election fail, on <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/inaugurationconstit.html">Inauguration Day</a>, the elected president would lawfully assume the office. Any remaining ongoing contestation would be moot after this point, as the president would have full legal authority to exercise the powers of his office, and could not be removed short of impeachment. </p>
<p>While the result of the 2020 election is sure to make many citizens unhappy, I believe rule of law will endure. The powerful historical, social and geographic forces that produced the total failure of 1860 simply are not present.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-trump-refuses-to-accept-defeat-in-november-the-republic-will-survive-intact-as-it-has-5-out-of-6-times-in-the-past-144843">of a story originally published</a> on September 1, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Five of the six disputed presidential elections in US history were resolved and the country moved on – but one ended in civil war. What will happen if the 2020 election is contested?Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1494142020-11-03T19:42:14Z2020-11-03T19:42:14ZA history of contested presidential elections, from Samuel Tilden to Al Gore<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367302/original/file-20201103-13-1qlvkx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C351%2C2346%2C1857&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sen. John F. Kennedy speaks to supporters at Chicago Stadium four days before the 1960 election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SENJOHNFKENNEDY/e4994f4a9de5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=JFK%20AND%20shriver&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=31&currentItemNo=30">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As states continue to count their ballots in the 2020 election, it seems possible that Democrats and Republicans will end up in court over whether President Trump will win a second term in the White House.</p>
<p>President Trump has said he’s going to contest the election results – going so far as to say that he believes <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-court-election/trump-hedges-on-transferring-power-says-election-will-end-up-at-supreme-court-idUSKCN26F06C">the election will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court</a>. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-biden-campaign-lawyers-ready-election-legal-battle">has a team of lawyers lined up for a legal battle</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_absentee/mail-in_voting_procedures_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020">Unprecedented changes</a> in voting procedures due to the coronavirus pandemic have created openings for candidates to cry foul. Republicans argued earlier this year that extending deadlines to receive and count ballots <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts-voting-fraud-claims-republicans/2020/09/28/ceff1184-fda2-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html">will lead to confusion and fraud</a>, while Democrats believe Republicans <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/01/930052598/republicans-seek-to-toss-out-127-000-ballots-in-democratic-leaning-texas-county">are actively working to disenfranchise voters</a>. </p>
<p>Should either Trump or Biden refuse to concede, it wouldn’t be the first time turmoil and claims of fraud dominated the days and weeks after the elections.</p>
<p>The elections of 1876, 1888, 1960 and 2000 were among the most contentious in American history. In each case, the losing candidate and party dealt with the disputed results differently.</p>
<h2>1876: A compromise that came at a price</h2>
<p>By 1876 – 11 years after the end of the Civil War – all the Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and Reconstruction was in full swing. The Republicans were strongest in the pro-Union areas of the North and African-American regions of the South, while Democratic support coalesced around southern whites and northern areas that had been less supportive of the Civil War. That year, Republicans nominated Ohio Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes, and Democrats chose New York Gov. Samuel Tilden.</p>
<p>But on Election Day, there was <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877">widespread voter intimidation</a> against African-American Republican voters throughout the South. Three of those Southern states – Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina – had Republican-dominated election boards. In those three states, some initial results seemed to indicate Tilden victories. But due to widespread allegations of intimidation and fraud, the election boards <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/biography/hayes-campaigns-and-elections">invalidated</a> enough votes to give the states – and their electoral votes – to Hayes. With the electoral votes from all three states, Hayes would win a 185-184 majority in the Electoral College.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144082/original/image-20161101-18435-1tsw7rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A certificate of Louisiana’s electoral vote for Rutherford B. Hayes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1876#/media/File:A_certificate_for_the_electoral_vote_for_Rutherford_B._Hayes_and_William_A._Wheeler_for_the_State_of_Louisiana_dated_1876_part_6.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Competing sets of election returns and electoral votes were sent to Congress to be counted in January 1877, so Congress voted to create a <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/biography/hayes-campaigns-and-elections">bipartisan commission</a> of 15 members of Congress and Supreme Court justices to determine how to allocate the electors from the three disputed states. Seven commissioners were to be Republican, seven were to be Democrats, and there would be one independent, Justice David Davis of Illinois. </p>
<p>But in a <a href="http://elections.harpweek.com/09Ver2Controversy/Cartoon-Medium.asp?UniqueID=12&Year=1876">political scheme that backfired</a>, Davis was chosen by Democrats in the Illinois state legislature to serve in the U.S. Senate. (Senators weren’t chosen by voters until 1913.) They’d hoped to win his support on the electoral commission. Instead, Davis resigned from the commission and was replaced by Republican Justice Joseph Bradley, who proceeded to join an 8-7 Republican majority that awarded all the disputed electoral votes to Hayes.</p>
<p>Democrats decided not to argue with that final result due to the “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reunion-Reaction-Compromise-1877-Reconstruction/dp/0195064232/">Compromise of 1877</a>,” in which Republicans, in return for getting Hayes in the White House, agreed to an end to Reconstruction and military occupation of the South. </p>
<p>Hayes had an ineffective, one-term presidency, while the compromise ended up destroying any semblance of African-American political clout in the South. For the next century, southern legislatures, free from northern supervision, would implement laws discriminating against blacks and restricting their ability to vote.</p>
<h2>1888: Bribing blocks of five</h2>
<p>In 1888, Democratic President Grover Cleveland of New York ran for reelection against former Indiana U.S. Sen. Benjamin Harrison. </p>
<p>Back then, election ballots in most states were printed, distributed by political parties and cast publicly. Certain voters, known as “<a href="https://campaignrhetoric.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/1888-voter-tickets-ryan-castle/">floaters</a>,” were known to sell their votes to willing buyers. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144094/original/image-20161101-27102-1sr6ov5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Harrison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Harrison#/media/File:Pach_Brothers_-_Benjamin_Harrison.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Harrison had appointed an Indiana lawyer, William Wade Dudley, as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. Shortly before the election, Dudley sent a letter to Republican local leaders in Indiana with promised funds and instructions for how to divide receptive voters into “<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vote-that-failed-159427766/?no-ist=">blocks of five</a>” to receive bribes in exchange for voting the Republican ticket. The instructions outlined how each Republican activist would be responsible for five of these “floaters.”</p>
<p>Democrats got a copy of the letter and publicized it widely in the days leading up to the election. Harrison ended up winning Indiana by only about 2,000 votes but still would have won in the Electoral College without the state. </p>
<p>Cleveland actually won the <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1888">national popular vote</a> by almost 100,000 votes. But he lost his home state, New York, by about 1 percent of the vote, putting Harrison over the top in the Electoral College. Cleveland’s loss in New York may have also been related to <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vote-that-failed-159427766/">vote-buying schemes</a>.</p>
<p>Cleveland did not contest the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Minority-Victory-Politics-Presidential-Elections/dp/0700615962">Electoral College outcome</a> and won a rematch against Harrison four years later, becoming the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms of office. Meanwhile, the blocks-of-five scandal led to the nationwide adoption of secret ballots for voting.</p>
<h2>1960: Did the Daley machine deliver?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-v-Nixon-Presidential-Election/dp/0813041538">1960 election</a> pitted Republican Vice President Richard Nixon against Democratic U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy. </p>
<p>The popular vote was the closest of the 20th century, with Kennedy defeating Nixon <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1960">by only about 100,000 votes</a> – a less than 0.2 percent difference. </p>
<p>Because of that national spread – and because Kennedy officially defeated Nixon by less than 1 percent in five states (Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico) and less than 2 percent in Texas – many Republicans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/11/17/another-race-to-the-finish/c810a41c-7da9-461a-927b-9da6d36a65dc/">cried foul</a>. They fixated on two places in particular – southern Texas and Chicago, where a political machine led by Mayor Richard Daley allegedly churned out just enough votes to give Kennedy the state of Illinois. If Nixon had won Texas and Illinois, he would have had an Electoral College majority.</p>
<p>While Republican-leaning newspapers proceeded to investigate and conclude that voter fraud had occurred in both states, <a href="http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/11/the-drama-behind-president-kennedys-1960-election-win/">Nixon did not contest the results</a>. Following the example of Cleveland in 1892, Nixon ran for president again in 1968 and won.</p>
<h2>2000: The hanging chads</h2>
<p>In 2000, many states were still using the punch card ballot, a voting system created in the 1960s. Even though these ballots had a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/19/us/counting-the-vote-the-machine-new-focus-on-punch-card-system.html">long history</a> of machine malfunctions and missed votes, no one seemed to know or care – until all Americans suddenly realized that the outdated technology had created a problem in Florida.</p>
<p>Then, on Election Day, the national media discovered that a “<a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-11-21/news/0011210189_1_palm-beach-beach-county-west-palm">butterfly ballot</a>,” a punch card ballot with a design that violated Florida state law, had confused thousands of voters in Palm Beach County. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143974/original/image-20161031-15779-1vc3ujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Florida butterfly ballot confused a number of voters, who ended up voting for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan thinking they had voted for Democratic candidate Al Gore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_large.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many who had thought they were voting for Gore unknowingly voted for another candidate or voted for two candidates. (For example, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/palmbeach.recount/">received about 3,000 votes</a> from voters who had probably intended to vote for Gore.) Gore ended up losing the state to Bush by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/us/examining-the-vote-how-bush-took-florida-mining-the-overseas-absentee-vote.html">537 votes</a> – and, in losing Florida, lost the election.</p>
<p>But ultimately, the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Too-Close-Call-Thirty-Six-Day-Election/dp/0375761071">month-long process</a> to determine the winner of the presidential election came down to an issue of “hanging chads.” </p>
<p><a href="http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,91428,00.html">Over 60,000 ballots</a> in Florida, most of them on punch cards, had registered no vote for president on the punch card readers. But on many of the punch cards, the little pieces of paper that get punched out when someone votes – known as chads – were still hanging by one, two or three corners and had gone uncounted. Gore went to court to have those ballots counted by hand to try to determine voter intent, as allowed by state law. Bush fought Gore’s request in court. While Gore won in the Florida State Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html">ruled</a> at 10 p.m. on Dec. 12 that Congress had set a deadline of that date for states to choose electors, so there was no more time to count votes. </p>
<p>Gore <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/al-gore-concedes-presidential-election">conceded</a> the next day.</p>
<p>The national drama and trauma that followed Election Day in 1876 and 2000 could be repeated this year. Of course, a lot will depend on the margins and how the candidates react. </p>
<p>Most eyes will be on Trump, who hasn’t said whether or not he’ll accept the result if he loses. On election night, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsI3jcgiIhA">he announced he had won</a> before all the votes had been counted in a number of battleground states. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-rigged-vote-four-us-presidential-elections-with-contested-results-67824">an article</a> originally published on Nov. 1, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Speel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The elections of 1876, 1888, 1960 and 2000 were among the most contentious in American history.Robert Speel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Erie campus, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1488582020-10-30T17:15:51Z2020-10-30T17:15:51ZWhat it’s like to lose a presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366880/original/file-20201101-14-1bjlyky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C2%2C1911%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of these men will walk away from the 2020 race a loser. But who?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-presidential-candidate-joe-biden-boards-a-plane-news-photo/1228645826?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty, Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The American public may not find out who wins the presidential election on Nov. 3 or Nov. 4 or even Nov. 5. But, at some point, we will learn whether Republican Donald Trump is elected to a second term or if Democrat Joe Biden will be the next president.</p>
<p>For the winner of the election, the moment of victory brings unbridled joy and acclamation, applause, laughter, hugs and champagne to <a href="https://greensboro.com/past-losers-talk-about-life-after-election/article_d50546f1-5bdc-534d-aa71-7f07b50988ef.html">celebrate the biggest prize in politics</a>.</p>
<p>This isn’t so for the loser, who must ultimately accept the responsibility for the defeat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The winner is ecstatic – the loser isn’t.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/North-Korea-Kims-Travels-Train-Photo-Gallery/d3691a777ae44eda825ae735e989207d/1/0">AP Photo/Byron Rollins</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my book, “<a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/the-art-of-the-political-putdown">The Art of the Political Putdown</a>,” I tell the story of Thomas Dewey, the Republican presidential candidate in 1948, who was heavily favored to win the election – only to lose to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent.</p>
<p>On election night, according to one story, Dewey, the governor of New York, asked his wife, “How will it feel to sleep with the president of the United States?”</p>
<p>“A high honor,” his wife replied, “and quite frankly, darling, I’m looking forward to it.”</p>
<p>But Truman won the election. The next day at breakfast, as the story goes, Dewey’s wife said, “Tell me, Tom, am I going to the White House or is <a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dewey-355">Harry coming here tonight</a>?”</p>
<h2>A disappointing letdown</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election to incumbent President Richard Nixon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GeorgeStanleyMcGovern.jpg">Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Losing the presidency is a crushing defeat. The incalculable hours of giving speeches, campaigning and fundraising came to naught. The candidate feels like they have disappointed the millions of people who believed in them, who contributed to the campaign, who voted for them and who thought they were going to win.</p>
<p>The pain associated with losing the presidential election remains for a long time. A dozen years after George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to Richard Nixon, he was asked how long it had taken for him to recover. “<a href="https://greensboro.com/past-losers-talk-about-life-after-election/article_d50546f1-5bdc-534d-aa71-7f07b50988ef.html">I’ll let you know when I get there</a>,” McGovern said.</p>
<p>After losing the 2008 presidential election, John McCain said he slept like a baby: “<a href="https://ew.com/article/2015/10/06/stephen-colbert-john-mccain/">Sleep two hours, wake up and cry</a>,” he said, adding, “sleep two hours, wake up and cry.” </p>
<p>In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton woke up on Election Day ahead in most of the polls and thought she would become the first woman president. By the time the day was over, those hopes had faded, and by early the next morning, when she called her opponent Donald Trump to concede, those hopes had disappeared entirely.</p>
<p>“This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for,” Clinton told her supporters. “I know how disappointed you feel because I feel it, too … <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/hillary-clinton-concedes-election-donald-trump-speech">This is painful</a>, and it will be for a long time.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Kerry concedes in 2004" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Kerry conceded the election to George W. Bush in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/john-kerrys-concession-speech-at-faneuil-hall-in-boston-news-photo/589139790">Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Concessions are difficult</h2>
<p>When a person has committed so much to running for the president for so long, it’s not easy to let go. In the early morning hours of election night 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore conceded in a call to his Republican opponent, George W. Bush, then <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/07/election.president/">retracted the concession</a> in another call <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001108/aponline180633_000.htm">when the results</a> in the decisive state of Florida appeared uncertain. Thirty-six days passed before Bush’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/13/gore-concedes-presidential-election-to-bush-dec-13-2000-287285">victory was confirmed</a> by the U.S. Supreme Court. </p>
<p>In her 2017 book, entitled “What Happened,” the title itself a statement of disbelief, Hillary Clinton remembered calling Donald Trump to concede the election. She said she offered to help him in any way she could. “It was all perfectly nice and weirdly ordinary, like calling a neighbor to say you can’t make it to his barbecue,” she wrote. “It was mercifully brief … <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/06/hillary-clinton-what-happened-book-excerpts-242372">I was numb</a>. It was all so shocking.”</p>
<p>The 1960 presidential election between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the Republican vice president, remains one of the closest in history. Nixon said that he was advised by President Dwight Eisenhower to challenge the results because of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/10/was-nixon-robbed.html">cheating by the Democrats</a> but refused, he said, because it would cause a “constitutional crisis” and “tear the country apart.” This, he added, would result in him being called a “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/10/was-nixon-robbed.html">sore loser</a>” and jeopardize any chance of him running for president again. </p>
<p>When Nixon ran for the presidency in 1968, he was elected and then reelected in 1972, before resigning in disgrace in 1974. Nixon was the last person who won his party’s nomination after previously losing a presidential election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Al Gore receives the Nobel Peace Prize" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al Gore lost the presidency, but shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work to combat climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NorwayNobelPeacePrize/b25627ffca9f42ec849b69e057eb5a02/photo">AP Photo/John McConnico</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>After the loss</h2>
<p>But if there’s little hope of a fresh attempt at the presidency, losing candidates have found second acts in American politics. </p>
<p>President Jimmy Carter, who was defeated by Ronald Reagan when he sought reelection in 1980, became an <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/carter/life-after-the-presidency">international human rights activist</a> and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Gore became an environmentalist and <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize</a> and a 2007 Academy Award for best documentary for a pioneering examination of climate change.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">The Conversation’s most important election and politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush in 2004, became <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">secretary of state</a> in the Barack Obama administration. John McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008, <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">stayed in the U.S. Senate</a>. Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in 2012, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/819de4649f23447aa35b1cfb811d26e6">now serves in the U.S. Senate</a>. </p>
<h2>The transfer of power</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="George H.W. Bush greets Bill Clinton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Jan. 20, 1993, George H.W. Bush greeted the man he lost to, Bill Clinton, at the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-bush-greets-president-elect-bill-clinton-news-photo/158741485">Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Losing is hard, but losing as the incumbent, as Carter and George H.W. Bush did, is probably harder. But Carter and Bush understood the importance of the peaceful transition of power.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump repeatedly has cast doubt on whether he will accept the results of the election and peacefully hand over power if he loses to Biden. This could well result in the constitutional crisis to which Nixon referred. </p>
<p>In early 2020, when the Democratic primaries were still going on, Trump again expressed his unwillingness to vacate the White House – which drew a retort from Pete Buttigieg, who ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to Biden. Buttigieg said he had an idea for handling Trump, joking “If he won’t leave, I guess if he’s willing to do chores, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/buttigieg-trump-white-house-november-election-a9341746.html">we can work something out</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the winner, it’s the achievement of a lifetime. For the loser, not so much.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469592020-10-14T12:29:13Z2020-10-14T12:29:13ZEpic miscalls and landslides unforeseen: The exceptional catalog of polling failure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362805/original/file-20201011-21-tx638h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=57%2C57%2C4713%2C3650&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wrong.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-harry-truman-holds-up-a-copy-of-the-chicago-daily-news-photo/143128720?adppopup=true">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The question looms in nearly every U.S. presidential election, even in this year’s race: <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/108242/us-election-is-it-possible-polls-are-wrong">Could the polls be wrong</a>? If they are, they likely will err in unique fashion. The history of election polling says as much.</p>
<p>That history tells of no greater polling surprise than what happened in 1948, when President Harry <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/509107-when-youre-leading-dont-talk-the-hazards-of-glide-path-campaigning">Truman defied the polls</a>, the pundits and the press to defeat Thomas E. Dewey, his heavily favored Republican foe.</p>
<p>Pollsters were certain Truman had no chance. One of them, Elmo Roper, was so confident of Dewey’s victory that he announced two months before the election he would release no further survey data unless a political miracle intervened. </p>
<p>Rival pollsters George Gallup and Archibald Crossley largely completed their poll-taking by mid-October – and missed a decisive shift in support to Truman in the campaign’s closing days.</p>
<p>As I point out in my latest book, “<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/california/view/title/592278">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>,” the <a href="https://www.deseret.com/1998/5/18/19380713/pollsters-still-learning-from-1948-debacle">misfire of 1948 was exceptional</a>. And that describes most polling failures in presidential elections: They tend to be exceptional, unlike previous polling errors. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Candidates Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey in a cartoon featuring many predictions of Dewey's win." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cartoon published two weeks before the 1948 election, in which Dewey was projected to win by a large margin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/306150">Clifford Kennedy Berryman, Artist/National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate, 1789 - 2015</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No pattern</h2>
<p>When the polls go wrong, they almost always do so in some unanticipated way. Errors spring from no single template.</p>
<p>This variety helps explain why polling failure is so unpredictable and so jarring. The epic miscall of 1948 has never been duplicated in U.S. presidential elections – although the shock of Truman’s victory may have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/trump-repeats-truman-not-quite">rivaled by the profound surprise</a> that accompanied Donald Trump’s win in 2016.</p>
<p>Trump’s victory represented polling failure of another kind: Polls in 2016 were not so much in error nationally as they were in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/upshot/a-2016-review-why-key-state-polls-were-wrong-about-trump.html">states</a> such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. </p>
<p>If Hillary Clinton had carried those states, as polls had indicated, she would have won the electoral votes to become president. But errors in state-level polls upset national expectations, in part because those polls tended to include too few <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/21/trump-white-voters-support-418420">white voters without college degrees, a key Trump constituency</a> in 2016 and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/us/politics/trump-white-base-pennsylvania.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">this year</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hillary Clinton on election night 2016." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362806/original/file-20201011-17-qn2ala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016 was unexpected and reflected that polls in 2016 were not so much in error nationally as they were in key states.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-democratic-us-presidential-candidate-hillary-clinton-news-photo/621959828?adppopup=true">Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Voters changing or making up their minds late in the campaign led in 1980 to another type of polling failure – the unforeseen landslide. Polls that year mostly signaled a close race between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. At campaign’s end, the race seemed <a href="https://swampland.time.com/2012/10/31/remembering-1980-are-the-polls-missing-something/">too close to call</a>. </p>
<p>Reagan won by nearly 10 percentage points. </p>
<h2>Failure has different faces</h2>
<p>Election polling is vulnerable to last-minute developments. </p>
<p>For logistical reasons, poll-taking may not be able to catch up with late-breaking revelations that disrupt the public’s perception of a campaign’s dynamic, such as the disclosures before the 2000 election about George W. Bush’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/us/2000-campaign-driving-offense-bush-acknowledges-arrest-for-drunken-driving-1976.html">drunken-driving conviction</a>. </p>
<p>In 1976, Bush was arrested in Maine and pleaded guilty to a DUI violation that he had never publicly revealed. A young television reporter in Maine pursued a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/11/13/ride.html">tip</a> in 2000 and reported the details five days before the election. </p>
<p>As the 2000 campaign closed, most polls signaled Bush was ahead by a few percentage points. </p>
<p>In the end, Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-2000">but lost the Electoral College</a> in the disputed outcome of voting in Florida. Disclosures about Bush’s DUI conviction may have been enough to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/23/bush-gore-electoral-polls/">cost him a popular-vote victory</a>.</p>
<p>The 2000 outcome represented another variety of polling failure – pointing to the wrong winner in a close race. </p>
<p>It’s a class of failure that emerged 40 years earlier, in the election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/01/archives/elmo-roper-pollster-is-dead-predicted-36-roosevelt-victory-adapted.html">Roper’s</a> final pre-election poll suggested a two-point win for Nixon. </p>
<p>As I note in “Lost in a Gallup,” after Kennedy’s razor-thin victory had become clear, Roper’s son and business partner, Burns, sent a memorandum to the company’s staff, declaring: “I’m not about to take any malarkey about having ‘picked the wrong man.’”</p>
<p>But that’s what the Roper poll had done. It pointed to the wrong winner.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in a televised debate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362807/original/file-20201011-15-9girdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the 1960 presidential race, pollster Elmo Roper estimated that Richard Nixon, left, would win narrowly over John F. Kennedy. He was wrong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-vice-president-richard-nixon-and-democratic-news-photo/3231919?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recalling the 1936 debacle</h2>
<p>Another type of polling failure is that of the venerable pollster who is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history/article/president-landon-and-the-1936-literary-digest-poll/E360C38884D77AA8D71555E7AB6B822C">singularly and astonishingly in error</a> – as was the Literary Digest in its infamous mail-in survey of 1936. </p>
<p>The Digest was a weekly magazine whose massive mail-in polls had identified the winner in each of the three presidential elections since 1924. Some newspapers acclaimed the Digest’s mass-polling technique for its “uncanny” accuracy.</p>
<p>In 1936, the Digest employed the same methodology that had served it so well. After sending 10 million postcard ballots and tabulating the 2.3 million returned from around the country, the Digest reported that Republican Alf <a href="https://apnews.com/article/61180650de91bba046babcd198c0449f">Landon</a> was bound for a comfortable victory over President Franklin D. Roosevelt. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Landon ended up carrying two states – Maine and Vermont – and lost the popular vote by 24 percentage points. Roosevelt’s victory was one of the most lopsided in presidential election history. </p>
<p>That also was the year <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pioneers-polling/george-gallup">Gallup</a>, Crossley and Elmo Roper initiated their election polls, which relied on smaller samples than the Digest. With varying degrees of accuracy, all three newcomers in 1936 signaled Roosevelt’s victory.</p>
<p>The Digest’s debacle offers an enduring reminder that the roots of polling failure run deep. The stunning miscall occurred at the dawn of modern survey research and introduced a nagging sense about polling’s potential to mislead. </p>
<p>After all, if the great election oracle of its time could err so spectacularly, why would other polls be immune to failure?</p>
<p>The answer: They weren’t, and aren’t, immune.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Presidential pollsters in the US have had some embarrassing failures. Here’s a catalog of those miscalls, from the scholar who literally wrote the book on them.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1448432020-09-01T12:28:19Z2020-09-01T12:28:19ZIf Trump refuses to accept defeat in November, the republic will survive intact, as it has 5 out of 6 times in the past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355378/original/file-20200828-16-18t7cmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C20%2C2773%2C2036&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump has refused to say he will accept the outcome of the upcoming election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-speaks-during-a-news-conference-in-news-photo/1262801830?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/debate-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-230003">refused to promise</a> to accept the results of the election. Likewise, in 2020, his continued assault on the reliability and legitimacy of mail-in voting has laid the groundwork for <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-cant-delay-the-election-but-he-can-try-to-delegitimise-it-143747">challenging a loss</a> on the basis of voter fraud. He has also refused to promise to observe the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-foreshadows-that-he-could-refuse-to-accept-the-results-of-the-2020-election-if-he-loses/ar-BB16VTrO**">2020 results</a>.</p>
<p>This has led <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/10/18535212/trump-2020-pelosi-lose-leave-office">some to worry</a> that a contested election would severely undermine faith in American democracy.</p>
<p>Yet the United States has a long history of such contested elections. With one exception, they have not badly damaged the American political system.</p>
<p>That contested 1860 election – which sparked the Civil War – happened in a unique context. As a political scientist who studies elections, I believe that, should President Trump – or less likely, Joe Biden – contest the results of the November election, American democracy will survive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355379/original/file-20200828-16-1nbcsgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-vice-president-and-democratic-presidential-nominee-news-photo/1228133355?adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legitimacy and peaceful transitions</h2>
<p>Most contested presidential elections have not posed threats to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3234268?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">legitimacy</a> of government. </p>
<p>Legitimacy, or the collective acknowledgment that government has a right to rule, is essential to a democracy. In a legitimate system, unpopular policies are largely accepted because citizens believe that government has the right to make them. For example, a citizen may despise taxes but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209338797">still admit that they are lawful</a>. Illegitimate systems, which are not supported by citizens, can collapse or descend into revolution. </p>
<p>In democracies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.006">elections</a> generate legitimacy because citizens contribute to the selection of leadership.</p>
<p>In the past, contested elections have not badly damaged the fabric of democracy because the rules for handling such disputes exist and have been followed. While politicians and citizens alike have howled about the unfairness of loss, they accepted these losses. </p>
<h2>Contested elections and continuity</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1800_Election/">1800</a>, both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of votes in the Electoral College. Because no candidate won a clear majority of Electoral votes, the House of Representatives <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-ii">followed the Constitution</a> and convened a special session to resolve the impasse by a vote. It took 36 ballots to give Jefferson the victory, which was widely accepted. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1824_Election/">1824</a>, Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote against John Quincy Adams and two other candidates, but failed to win the necessary majority in the Electoral College. The House, again following the procedure set in the Constitution, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-elections-open-wounds-that-may-never-heal-128613">selected Adams as the winner over Jackson</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.117.2.387">1876</a> election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden was contested because several Southern states failed to clearly certify a winner. This was resolved through inter-party negotiation conducted by an Electoral Commission established by Congress. While Hayes would become president, concessions were given to the South that effectively ended Reconstruction.</p>
<p>The contest between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-drama-behind-president-kennedys-1960-election-win/">was rife with allegations of voter fraud</a>, and Nixon supporters pressed for aggressive recounts in many states. In the end, Nixon begrudgingly accepted the decision rather than drag the country through civil discord during the intense U.S.-Soviet tensions of the <a href="https://www.toledoblade.com/Print-Furniture/2000/11/10/Nixon-said-no-to-recount-in-1960-outcome/stories/200011100020">Cold War</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, in 2000, GOP candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore tangled over disputed ballots in Florida. The Supreme Court terminated a recount effort and Gore publicly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq5YdkYSyEE">conceded</a>, recognizing the legitimacy of Bush’s victory by saying, “While I strongly disagree with the Court’s decision, I accept it.”</p>
<p>In each case, the losing side was unhappy with the result of the election. But in each case, the loser accepted the legally derived result, and the American democratic political system persisted. </p>
<h2>The system collapses</h2>
<p>The election of <a href="https://www.270towin.com/1860_Election/">1860</a> was a different story. </p>
<p>After Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates, Southern states simply refused to accept the results. They viewed the selection of a president who would not protect slavery as illegitimate and ignored the election’s results. </p>
<p>It was only through the profoundly bloody Civil War that the United States remained intact. The dispute over the legitimacy of this election, based in fundamental differences between the North and South, cost <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html">600,000 American lives</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dead Confederate soldiers lying on the ground in Gettysburg." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355383/original/file-20200828-19-1r15eeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The contested 1860 presidential election led to the Civil War, where 600,000 died, including these Confederate soldiers at in Gettysburg’s ‘the devil’s den,’ June or July 1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cwp.4a39439/">Alexander Gardner, photographer/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is the difference between the political collapse of 1860 and the continuity of other contested elections? In all cases, citizens were politically divided and elections were hotly contested. </p>
<p>What makes 1860 stand out so clearly is that the country <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/150/">was divided over the moral question of slavery</a>, and this division followed geographic lines that enabled a revolution to form. Further, the Confederacy was reasonably unified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html">across class lines</a>. </p>
<p>While the America of today is certainly divided, the distribution of political beliefs is far more <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1625.html">dispersed and complex</a> than the ideological cohesion of the Confederacy. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Rule of law</h2>
<p>History suggests, then, that even if Trump or Biden contest the election, the results would not be catastrophic. </p>
<p>The Constitution is clear on what would happen: First, the president cannot simply declare an election invalid. Second, voting irregularities could be investigated by the states, who are responsible for managing the integrity of their electoral <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/750">processes</a>. This seems unlikely to change any reported results, as voter fraud is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-vote-by-mail-explainer/explainer-fraud-is-rare-in-us-mail-in-voting-here-are-the-methods-that-prevent-it-idUSKBN2482SA">extraordinarily rare</a>. </p>
<p>The next step could be an appeal to the Supreme Court or suits against the states. To overturn any state’s initial selection, evidence of a miscount or voter fraud would have to be strongly established. </p>
<p>If these attempts to contest the election fail, on <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/inaugurationconstit.html">Inauguration Day</a>, the elected president would lawfully assume the office. Any remaining ongoing contestation would be moot after this point, as the president would have full legal authority to exercise the powers of his office, and could not be removed short of impeachment. </p>
<p>While the result of the 2020 election is sure to make many citizens unhappy, I believe rule of law will endure. The powerful historical, social, and geographic forces that produced the total failure of 1860 simply are not present.</p>
<p><em>Correction: This story has been corrected to give the proper date for the contested election between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. It was in 1800.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Five of the six contested presidential elections in U.S. history were resolved and the country moved on – one ended in civil war. What will happen if the upcoming election is contested?Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1286132020-02-11T13:53:14Z2020-02-11T13:53:14Z‘Stolen’ elections open wounds that may never heal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314480/original/file-20200210-109887-a5z11o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C19%2C4243%2C2824&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Election fraud is not usually as obvious as this.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/election-fraud-vote-rigging-concept-thief-1057742687">Victor Moussa/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Allegations are flying <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/12/07/team-trump-wants-to-steal-another-election-impeachment-is-how-to-beat-them/">left</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/2bc10ed20dbf4041935b37bec9542c53">right</a> about potential – or actual – efforts to unfairly and secretly influence the outcome of the 2020 election. It’s a time when political scientists and constitutional scholars like to look back on other times when the electoral process was, you might say, helped along by practices that either were or appeared to be underhanded. </p>
<p>There are not many examples of so-called “stolen elections” in U.S. history, but the ones that had irregularities and were controversial, in 1824 and 2000, had an oversized impact on the decades that followed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314242/original/file-20200207-27569-4e7sno.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The candidates in the 1824 presidential election: from left, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and William Crawford.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation collage, from images on Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘corrupt bargain’</h2>
<p>Looking back to the first allegedly stolen election is a good reminder that U.S. elections used to be much more complicated than today. Yet there are still strong parallels.</p>
<p>There were four candidates running for president in 1824: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Quincy-Adams">John Quincy Adams</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Clay">Henry Clay</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Jackson">Andrew Jackson</a> and <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Featured_Bio_CrawfordWilliam.htm">William H. Crawford</a>.</p>
<p>After the War of 1812, the United States entered a period historians now call “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-was-time-briefly-and-200-years-ago-when-american-politics-was-full-good-feelings-180964074/">the Era of Good Feelings</a>.” Among the public and politicians alike, there was a strong desire for national unity, and rare moment of declining partisanship. </p>
<p>To show his support for unity, President James Monroe, a Democratic-Republican who served from 1817 to 1825, asked Adams and Crawford to serve in his Cabinet, despite their rivalry within the Democratic-Republican Party. At the time, Clay, also a Democratic-Republican, was the speaker of the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>The fourth candidate was a comparative outsider. Jackson had made a name for himself as a <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/andrew-jackson">military commander</a>, both in the War of 1812 and afterward, fighting Native Americans in the southeastern U.S., before being elected as a Democratic-Republican senator from Tennessee in 1822. In his presidential campaign, he played up his Tennessee connections and <a href="https://thehermitage.com/learn/andrew-jackson/president/candidacy/">styled himself</a> as a man of the people and a political outsider. He claiming he would get rid of the “corrupt” aristocrats running the country.</p>
<p>The controversy began with the vote results. None of the four candidates got a majority of electoral or popular votes, though 41% of voters cast their ballots for Jackson, giving him the largest share of the votes and the clearest path to victory. Without an <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-come-donald-trump-won-if-hillary-clinton-got-more-votes-126658">Electoral College win</a> however, the decision came to the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a> limited the House’s runoff decision to the top three candidates, eliminating Clay, who famously hated Jackson. Crawford had gotten even less of the popular vote, and had no way to win in the House. </p>
<p>There was, however, a directive put forth by the Kentucky legislature to Clay, their native son, to give all of their delegation’s votes to Jackson. Clay ignored this and persuaded the Kentucky delegates and many others in the House to vote for Adams. Jackson was shocked by the result and claimed that Clay had struck a bargain with Adams. Soon thereafter, Clay became the secretary of state for the Adams administration. </p>
<p><iframe id="R5Nal" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/R5Nal/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>After the election, Jackson attacked Adams and the Washington insider for what he called their “<a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/campaigns-and-elections">corrupt bargain</a>.” He and his allies left the Democratic-Republican Party and formed the party that is now the modern-day Democratic Party.</p>
<p>In 1828, Jackson ran as the Democratic candidate for president, and won, convincing a majority of voters that they needed someone like him to clean up the capital and help the common man. When he took office, he emphasized the capacity of the people to come to the right conclusions, shunning the idea that they needed to be controlled by elites. He wanted judges to stand for election and advocated for the abolition of the Electoral College. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The polls aren’t always right – 1948 was an early example, but not the last.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/North-Korea-Kims-Travels-Train-Photo-Gallery/d3691a777ae44eda825ae735e989207d/1/0">AP Photo/Byron Rollins</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Remember the hanging chad?</h2>
<p>Much like <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-defeats-dewey">Harry Truman’s surprise victory</a> over Thomas Dewey in 1948, in the 2000 election Americans learned not to trust the polls. Many news organizations <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting">relied on exit polling to call Florida for Al Gore</a> prior to the close of polling in several Republican-leaning districts.</p>
<p>Florida had 25 electoral college votes at the time. From all the other states, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/scores2.html">George W. Bush had 246 and Al Gore had 266, respectively</a>. Florida, therefore, would be the state that decided the election, one way or the other. In a rare example of individual votes swaying the election, the decision about who would be the president of the United States <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting">came down to just 537 votes</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314243/original/file-20200207-27538-1rbjwkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al Gore, right, gestures during a presidential debate against George W. Bush in October 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Campaign-2016-Debate-Town-Hall/a50fba73796943f4b71a809a269a3f26/21/0">AP Photo/Ron Edmonds</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lawyers from both parties soon flooded into the Sunshine State as the whole country waited for the results. Gore’s team wanted to force a recount, saying some counties’ ballots were hard for voters to understand, and had led some people, who thought they were voting for Gore, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/09/us/2000-elections-palm-beach-ballot-florida-democrats-say-ballot-s-design-hurt-gore.html">accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan</a>, a religiously conservative third-party candidate.</p>
<p>There were also problems with the physical structure of some ballots, which required voters to punch a hole to mark the candidate they supported. Some people did not punch a clean hole, leaving bits of paper hanging on – which became known as “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting">hanging chads</a>.”</p>
<p>These small-scale anomalies in a small number of counties in just one state were critical to determine who would be president. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/09/us/contesting-vote-florida-supreme-court-s-decision-hand-recounts-ballots.html">legal back-and-forth</a> about how to recount the ballots raced through state and federal courts, culminating in a Supreme Court ruling. The justices determined the Florida recount plan was not good enough and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html">stopped the recount</a>. Their decision effectively gave Bush the win in Florida, and therefore the Electoral College.</p>
<p>Critics noted that Bush had failed to win the popular vote, and that the Supreme Court vote was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore">split 5-4, with the conservative justices</a> in the majority delivering an outcome favorable to their political leanings. </p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>In the 1824 election, historians see a country rebalancing itself politically and questioning what kinds of leaders the people wanted. In 2000, courts stepped into the most political of all processes: voting. </p>
<p>These elections’ outcomes divided the nation, in ways that were hard to heal, or perhaps never healed. When the winner lacks legitimacy and the loser can say the process was rigged, it is always bad for democracy. If there is, in one way or another, a “stolen” election in 2020 and the winner fails to bring the country together, it is unlikely the U.S. will see another Era of Good Feelings for a long time.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Burns is affiliated with The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statesmanship. </span></em></p>When the electoral process was helped along by practices that either were or appeared to be underhanded, the resulting wounds took a long time to heal – and may not ever have healed.Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1278022020-01-05T18:51:00Z2020-01-05T18:51:00ZAs Digital Earth gains momentum, China is setting the pace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307077/original/file-20191216-124016-1961b95.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C320%2C2963%2C2331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A section of Beijing Daxing International Airport from the first 3D images released by China National Space Administration using data from the recently launched Gaofen-7 Earth observation satellite, which can resolve objects less than a metre wide. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">China National Space Administration/Xinhua</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Al Gore’s 1992 <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FYfcAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA358&dq=%22I+have+proposed+something+called+the+Digital+Earth+program%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXtP-mwLHmAhWFoOkKHYYlDP8Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20have%20proposed%20something%20called%20the%20Digital%20Earth%20program%22&f=false">forecast of a Digital Earth</a> — where satellites beam data to reveal all the planet’s environmental dynamics – has gained momentum with the publication of the <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789813299146">Manual of Digital Earth</a> last month. The major anthology is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It’s a mark of the importance China attaches to what is now a United Nations-led project named the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (<a href="https://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.php">GEOSS</a>). </p>
<p>GEOSS seems like medical science’s worldwide collaborations to map the human genome and the human brain – but at a much bigger magnitude. Scientists want to data-visualise the whole Earth. The project’s scope ranges from deep subterranean core samples, volcanic tremors, ocean surface temperatures, flooding and solar storms to urban populations, migrations and sprawls. </p>
<p>A recent Australian contribution to the Digital Earth vision is the online mapping of bushfires. This includes the <a href="https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/">Digital Earth Australia Hotspots</a> map run by Geoscience Australia and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service’s <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=2168b5162d61432c8b3499818a2d60df&fbclid=IwAR3uWehKIISo83xTGFRKCVbvwa7jPKkJ_7n5BhfGyW9KL2gjBMHttFpdsRA">Fire Map</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-earth-the-paradigm-now-shaping-our-worlds-data-cities-104938">Digital Earth: the paradigm now shaping our world's data cities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>GEOSS began operating in 2005 (the same year as Google Earth) and is accelerating with the <a href="https://www.gislounge.com/mapping-through-the-ages/">most tumultuous technology revolution in the history of cartography</a>. It goes way beyond the satellite mapping we see on TV weather reports. And it relies on the grid of globally networked computers to access and crunch massive lakes and banks of geotagged data stored in high-security bunkers. </p>
<h2>China’s digital ‘religion’</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306757/original/file-20191213-85428-1nqu9bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Huadong Guo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is honorary president of the International Society for Digital Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>China’s support for the Digital Earth and GEOSS movement has become entwined with its foreign policy. Chinese authors wrote many papers in the 26-chapter manual. And the Chinese Academy of Sciences operates the secretariat and journal of the <a href="http://www.digitalearth-isde.org/">International Society for Digital Earth</a> (ISDE). </p>
<p>Recent ISDE conferences have included invitation-only workshops on how to evolve China’s <a href="http://www.dbeltroad.org/">Digital Belt and Road</a> program. It’s the high-tech aspect of China’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative">Belt and Road Initiative</a> to expand its historical Silk Road trading links. China’s map of <a href="https://reconnectingasia.csis.org/analysis/entries/traveling-60000km-across-chinas-belt-and-road/">desired international paths and connections</a> now includes non-Silk Road destinations, including the Malaysian peninsula, Ukraine, Germany, England, Portugal and Morocco. </p>
<p>A Geneva-based Australian pioneer of supercomputing and environmental simulations, Bob Bishop, welcomed the Manual of Digital Earth. He suggested to me it “somewhat proves” that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the religion of China in the 21st century is ‘science’ and their particular denomination is ‘digital’. China made Buddhism universal by documenting a previously oral philosophy coming from India. It seems China could make Digital Earth universal by documenting fragmented ideas coming from the US and the rest of the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The manual explains, in more than 250,000 illustrated words, what has been done, and what needs to be done, to develop different parts of Gore’s vast ambition.
Science now has all the basic capabilities to deliver a GEOSS/Digital Earth. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li>grid computing</li>
<li>ubiquitous sensors to monitor environmental variables</li>
<li>machine learning and robotics to automate processes</li>
<li>good expertise with remote sensing data and imagery</li>
<li>broadband networks to enable citizen scientists to add and access information</li>
<li>international protocols and standards for writing, using and storing metadata and for exchanging data across different hardware and software systems.</li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306747/original/file-20191213-85386-1lmy2zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vision of Digital Earth that Al Gore first proposed in 1992 is becoming a reality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Conboy/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Challenges remain</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-planners-new-best-friend-we-can-now-track-land-use-changes-on-a-scale-of-centimetres-53493">The planner's new best friend: we can now track land-use changes on a scale of centimetres</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306755/original/file-20191213-85381-7rmtbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bob Bishop has pointed out the scale of the challenge of processing and storing data on such a scale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More questionable is whether there is enough processing speed and data-storage capacity to deliver the vision yet. Bishop has <a href="http://www.icesfoundation.org/Pages/CustomPage.aspx?ID=169">suggested</a> we probably will need to look beyond still-nascent quantum computing to far-ahead <a href="https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/intelligent-machines/brains-chip-neuromorphic-computing">neuromorphic engineering</a> (imitating the human nervous system at a very large scale) to evolve an effective sim-planet system. That’s because, as Gore predicted, vast amounts of environmental data will need to be processed in real time.</p>
<p>The intergovernmental <a href="https://www.earthobservations.org/index.php">Group on Earth Observations</a> (GEO) secretariat in the World Meteorological Organisation tower on the UN campus in Geneva is co-ordinating GEOSS. Leading space, meteorological, geoscience, surveying and UN technical agencies are among its more than 200 member organisations. </p>
<p>The Manual of Digital Earth is the world’s first comprehensive book of scholarly papers about Digital Earth/GEOSS theories, technologies, advances and applications. (It builds on a 2013 GEO-sponsored <a href="http://www.dcitynetwork.net/manifesto">report</a> edited by ISDE members.)</p>
<p>The book summarises recent advances and the current status of many relevant technologies. It highlights the challenge of how to smoothly transition scales during continuous zooming. It also discusses applications (including climate change, disaster mitigation and the <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">UN Sustainable Development Goals</a>); regional and national development (in Europe, Russia, China and Australia); and education and ethics.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/collecting-satellite-data-australia-wants-a-new-direction-for-earth-observation-84678">Collecting satellite data Australia wants: a new direction for Earth observation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Who’s who in Digital Earth studies?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306804/original/file-20191213-85412-1jon18k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ISDE founder Michael Goodchild has authored some of its most influential papers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than 100 experts from 18 countries contributed to the anthology. It was edited by three leaders of the International Society for Digital Earth: Huadong Guo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is a professor at its <a href="http://english.radi.cas.cn/">Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth</a> (RADI); Michael F. Goodchild, emeritus professor of geography at the University of California Santa Barbara; and Alessandro Annoni, head of the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-topic/digital-economy">Digital Economy Unit</a> at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306761/original/file-20191213-85397-11an8ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ISDE president Alessandro Annoni co-authored a European Union report that urged Europe and the US to keep up with China’s high-tech ambitions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annoni is the ISDE’s president, Guo is the honorary president and Goodchild is an ISDE founder and a lead author of its most influential papers – including a next-generation Digital Earth <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/11088">vision statement</a> in 2012. </p>
<p>The ISDE secretariat is based at the RADI in Beijing, although its presidents and senior members work in various countries. It’s closely involved with the GEOSS in Europe and with the UN’s <a href="https://ggim.un.org/">Global Geospatial Information Management</a> group in New York. </p>
<p>A 2019 European Union report, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/china-challenges-and-prospects-industrial-and-innovation-powerhouse">China: Challenges and Prospects from an Industrial and Innovation Powerhouse</a>, examined China’s escalating industrial capabilities and international ambitions. Annoni and other senior European policy leaders were authors. The report said Europe and the United States needed to boost their industrial, research and innovation performances to compete with China in key high-tech sectors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Davina Jackson is an honorary life member of the International Society for Digital Earth and co-edited the Digital City chapter of the DE Manual. She edited the GEO-sponsored report D_City: Digital Earth | Virtual Nations | Data Cities (2012-14).
</span></em></p>China has embraced the concept of Digital Earth – the use of data from satellites to create a visual map of what’s happening at every point on the planet – and is now a key player in making it happen.Davina Jackson, Honorary Academic, School of Architecture, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207042019-09-30T11:25:05Z2019-09-30T11:25:05ZLeave ‘em laughing instead of crying: Climate humor can break down barriers and find common ground<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294487/original/file-20190927-51414-12basr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5274%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protest in Gauhati, India, on Sept. 20, 2019, part of worldwide demonstrations ahead of a U.N. summit in New York. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Climate-Protests/e3c41f66711c4df1b2e158056421dcdb/34/0">AP Photo/Anupam Nath</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is not inherently funny. Typically, the messengers are serious scientists describing how rising greenhouse gas emissions are harming the planet <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-climate-change-report-underscores-the-need-to-manage-land-for-the-short-and-long-term-121716">on land</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/another-grim-climate-report-on-oceans-what-will-it-take-to-address-the-compounding-problems-123894">at sea</a>, or assessing what role it played in the latest <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-wildfires-how-do-we-know-if-there-is-a-link-101304">wildfire</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/climate/hurricane-dorian-climate-change.html">hurricane</a>.</p>
<p>Society may have reached a saturation point for such somber, gloomy and threatening science-centered discussions. This possibility is what inspires my recent work with colleague <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/theatredance/beth-osnes">Beth Osnes</a> to get messages out about climate change through comedy and humor.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aW3k5WMAAAAJ&hl=en">studied and practiced climate communication</a> for about 20 years. My new book, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/environmental-policy-economics-and-law/creative-climate-communications-productive-pathways-science-policy-and-society?format=PB&isbn=9781316646823">Creative (Climate) Communications</a>,” integrates social science and humanities research and practices to connect people more effectively through issues they care about. Rather than “dumbing down” science for the public, this is a “smartening up” approach that has been shown to bring people together around a highly divisive topic.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/353857643" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">University of Colorado-Boulder students act out a comedy skit set on a pedal-powered airplane.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why laugh about climate change?</h2>
<p>Science is critically important to understanding the enormity of the climate challenge and how it connects with other problems like disasters, food security, local air quality and migration. But stories that emanate from scientific ways of knowing have failed to significantly engage and activate large audiences. </p>
<p>Largely gloomy approaches and interpretations typically stifle audiences rather than inspiring them to take action. For example, novelist Jonathan Franzen recently published an essay in The New Yorker titled “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending">What If We Stop Pretending?</a>” in which he asserted: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The goal (of halting climate change) has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Social science and humanities research have shown that this kind of framing effectively disempowers readers who could be activated and moved by a smarter approach.</p>
<p>Comics took a different path when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in 2018 warning that the world <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">only had until about 2030</a> to take steps that could limit warming to manageable levels. Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You know the crazy people you see in the streets shouting that the world is ending? Turns out, they’re all <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/5cj6l9/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-the-u-n--issues-an-alarming-climate-report---banksy-shreds-his-painting">actually climate scientists</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Kimmel commented: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There’s always a silver lining. One planet’s calamity is another planet’s shop-portunity.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then cut to a going-out-of-business advertisement for Planet Earth that read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Everything must go! 50% of all nocturnal animals, insects, reptiles and amphibians … priced to sell before we live in hell. But you must act fast because planet Earth is over soon. And <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/arts/television/jimmy-kimmel-climate-change-earth.html">when it’s gone, it’s gone</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1175099462626074625"}"></div></p>
<h2>It’s getting hot in here</h2>
<p>Social science and humanities scholars have been examining new, potentially more effective ways to communicate about climate change. Consistently, as I describe in my book, research shows that emotional, tactile, visceral and experiential communication meets people where they are. These methods <a href="https://tinyurl.com/cccbook2019">arouse action and engagement</a>. </p>
<p>Scholars have examined how shows like “<a href="https://youtu.be/07oe1m67eik">Saturday Night Live</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg">Last Week Tonight</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UCdFbyL8y0">Jimmy Kimmel Live</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJO0XoakOJQ">Full Frontal</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRGgbcU7FmI">The Daily Show</a>” use jokes to increase understanding and engagement. In one example, former Vice President Al Gore appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in 2017 and took turns with Colbert serving up climate change pickup lines over saucy slow-jam background music:</p>
<p>Gore: “Are you climate change? Because when I look at you, the world disappears.” </p>
<p>Colbert: “I’m like 97% of scientists, and I can’t deny … it’s getting hot in here.” </p>
<p>Colbert: “Is that an iceberg the size of Delaware breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf, or are you just happy to see me?” </p>
<p>Gore: “I hope you’re not powered by fossil fuels, because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FCXxT94NJmA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Former Vice President Al Gore and late night comedy host Steven Colbert trade climate change pickup lines.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Comedian Sarah Silverman took time during her 2018 Hulu show “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKzW9Ls3E9Q">I Love You America</a>” to address the need for climate action. In her monologue, she focused on how climate change is driven “by the interests of a very small group and absurdly rich and powerful people.” She added: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The disgusting irony of all of it is that the billionaires who have created this global atrocity are going to be the ones to survive it. They are going to be fine while we all cook to death in a planet-sized hot car.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Breaching barriers and finding common ground</h2>
<p>Research shows that in a time of deep polarization, <a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs3173/chattoo2017.pdf">comedy can lower defenses</a>. It temporarily suspends social rules and connects people with ideas and new ways of thinking or acting. </p>
<p>Comedy exploits cracks in arguments. It wiggles in, pokes, prods and draws attention to the incongruous, hypocritical, false and pretentious. It can make the complex dimensions of climate change seem more accessible and its challenges seem more manageable. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 2019 climate change comedy night at the University of Colorado at Boulder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ami Nacu-Schmidt</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many disciplines can inform comedy, including theater, performance and media studies. With my colleagues <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/theatredance/beth-osnes">Beth Osnes</a>, <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/ebio/rebecca-safran">Rebecca Safran</a> and <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/communication/phaedra-c-pezzullo">Phaedra Pezzullo</a> at the University of Colorado, I co-direct the <a href="http://www.insidethegreenhouse.org/">Inside the Greenhouse</a> initiative, which uses insights from creative fields to develop effective climate communication strategies.</p>
<p>For four years we have directed “Stand Up for Climate Change,” a comedy project. We and our students write sketch comedy routines and perform them in front of live audiences on the Boulder campus. From those experiences, we have studied the content of the performances and how the performers and audience respond. Our work has found that humor <a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2018.10.pdf">provides effective pathways</a> to greater awareness, learning, sharing of feelings, conversations and inspiration for performers and audiences alike.</p>
<p>A comic approach might seem to trivialize climate change, which has life-and-death implications for millions of people, especially the world’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. But a greater risk would be for people to stop talking about the problem entirely, and miss the chance to reimagine and actively engage in their collective futures.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxwell Boykoff receives funding from private donors to support Inside the Greenhouse activities at the University of Colorado. </span></em></p>‘Two polar bears walk into a bar …’ is an unlikely opener for a joke, but memes and parodies are surprisingly effective ways to get people talking about climate change.Maxwell Boykoff, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202582019-07-12T20:39:26Z2019-07-12T20:39:26ZThe ‘giant sucking sound’ of NAFTA: Ross Perot was ridiculed as alarmist in 1992 but his warning turned out to be prescient<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283762/original/file-20190711-173366-achyt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Perot become a household name after making an independent run for president in 1992.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Virginia-United-/f8f37976e5e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/51/0">AP Photo/Doug Mills</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>H. Ross Perot famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osc9AI8aCt4&feature=youtu.be">had a way with words</a> that galvanized ordinary Americans and helped him become the most successful third-party candidate since 1912. </p>
<p>He hurled <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/slow-dancing-snakes-and-giant-sucking-sounds-memorable-quotes-from-ross-perot-2019-07-09">one of his most well-known lines</a> during a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush when he assailed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had just been tentatively agreed to by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. </p>
<p>He predicted Americans would soon hear a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3LvZAZ-HV4">giant sucking sound</a>” as production operations and factories packed up in the United States and moved to Mexico. Perot said something similar a year later in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi8OOAKuGQ">debate with Vice President Al Gore</a>, the most high profile in a series of debates on the trade pact, a few of which <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/harley-shaiken-0">I participated in</a> as an adviser to key Democratic leaders in Congress who opposed it. </p>
<p>Economists, business leaders, Clinton and most Republicans dismissed Perot’s worries as overblown. Despite the fact that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/17/opinion/in-america-pretty-words-on-nafta.html">most had never read</a> the agreement, they argued free trade would create jobs, period. Over the objections of Perot, <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/103-1993/h575">most Democrats in the House</a> and other critics like me – NAFTA was ratified and went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994. </p>
<p>A quarter century later, another populist billionaire <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/business/economy/ross-perot-nafta-trade.html">is promoting</a> an updated, expanded and renamed NAFTA, which he <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/usmca-60377">rebranded as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement</a> in an effort to avoid any association with the “giant sucking sounds” many Americans experienced from “free trade.”</p>
<p>As it turns out, Perot, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/ross-perot-death.html">who died</a> on July 9, had a point. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/11/ross-perot-brought-us-tea-party-president-trump/?utm_term=.a511e05bc767">His projections</a> were often fanciful, but his warning turned out to be prescient. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W3LvZAZ-HV4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Perot talks about NAFTA’s ‘giant sucking sound.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Perot’s warning</h2>
<p>“You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls,” Perot said during the second presidential debate in October 1992, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.” </p>
<p>The response to that remark was fierce and immediate. Economists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/17/us/a-primer-why-economists-favor-free-trade-agreement.html">argued</a> he was dead wrong as they sang the praises of free trade. Perot’s warning, however, resonated with workers, unions, environmentalists and people in manufacturing towns across the country, helping him earn <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/ross-perot-death.html?searchResultPosition=1">20 million votes or about 19% of the total</a>.</p>
<p>After Clinton became president, he took over the ratification of NAFTA and managed to add a side agreement with language for labor rights and the environment to bolster support from some Democrats in Congress.</p>
<p>When he finally signed it into law in December 1993, <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/naftas-impact-u-s-economy-facts/">he declared</a>, “NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our three nations … and create 200,000 jobs in the U.S. by 1995 alone.” </p>
<p>He was emphatic that the agreement would become “a force for social progress as well as economic growth.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al Gore and Ross Perot debated NAFTA with Larry King.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/6caab51062df4ded8078bb89b4186082/4/0">AP Photo/George Bennet</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Perot’s vindication</h2>
<p>It didn’t quite turn out that way. </p>
<p>Scholars and policymakers <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/naftas-economic-impact">often disagree</a> about the impact that NAFTA has had on economic growth and job generation in the U.S. That impact, they say, is not always easy to disentangle from other economic, social and political factors that have influenced U.S. growth. </p>
<p>It is true that leaders of all three countries did tear down trade barriers and insert effective protections for corporations and investment. But critics like Perot were right – and Clinton was wrong – about the warning on jobs. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-and-lower-wages/">The Economic Policy Institute</a>, a left-leaning think tank, concluded that the U.S. lost about 850,000 jobs from 1993 to 2013 as a result of NAFTA and that number has undoubtedly risen. And the “social progress as well as economic growth” in relation to the agreement never seemed to appear. Despite strong productivity growth in U.S. and Mexican manufacturing, real wages sank by <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">17%</a> in Mexico from 1994 to 2011 and slid in the U.S. as well.</p>
<p>In key manufacturing industries, such as the auto industry, NAFTA has had a <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">clear impact</a>. Global auto producers built 11 new assembly plants in North America from 2009 to 2017. All but three were sited in Mexico – even though they all primarily made vehicles for the U.S. market.</p>
<p>As a result, Mexican employment in the <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/bie">sector has soared</a>, while American auto jobs <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate">have declined</a>. Last year, Mexico had almost the same number of people working in its motor vehicle industry as the U.S. did, with about <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate">800,000</a> in <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/bie/">each</a> country. Mexican employment in this sector has almost doubled since 2007 while U.S. employment has slightly slipped. </p>
<p>An even more significant impact has been pushing down on U.S. manufacturing wages as a result of suppressed wages in Mexico due largely to a lack of independent unions in the export sector. With the threat of shifting production to Mexico a factor, real autoworker wages in the U.S. plummeted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/trump-economy.html?em_pos=small&ref=headline&nl_art=9&te=1&nl=opinion-today&emc=edit_ty_20190711?campaign_id=39&instance_id=10831&segment_id=15113&user_id=7ef266ef86ea556ee2bcb48d00ec020d&regi_id=11501198emc=edit_ty_20190711">26%</a> from 2002 to 2013 and have stagnated since. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it’s not just manufacturing workers who are affected by the “sucking sound.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/lordstown-general-motors-plant.html">Families and entire communities</a> can be devastated when a worker loses a job as a result.</p>
<h2>The USMCA and Perot’s legacy</h2>
<p>So will the new NAFTA – the United States Mexico Canada Agreement – end the sucking of jobs south? </p>
<p>Not likely. Mexico <a href="https://www.apnews.com/f076c902045f4cea9236d7093cd00036">has a new reform-minded president</a>, but the obstacles are daunting. They include <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/153467/mexico-brink-labor-revolution">powerful and often corrupt company unions</a> in Mexico who profit off the status quo and employers who have become accustomed to rock-bottom wages.</p>
<p>What Americans need is trade between the U.S. and Mexico that benefits people in both countries. To do that, labor rights need to be harmonized to the best standards in North America, not slide to the lowest. Workers and communities throughout North America should be the beneficiaries of expanded trade, not its victims. </p>
<p>While Mexico has pledged and passed positive labor reforms, it <a href="http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/15508.pdf">doesn’t have the capacity</a> to implement them. An important <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">lesson from NAFTA</a> is promises often evaporate once a deal goes into effect. The original NAFTA included similar promises but failed to deliver.</p>
<p>Americans have heard enough of Perot’s “giant sucking sound” over the last 25 years. What they need now is broadly shared prosperity. I’m sure that will sound a lot better to the ear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harley Shaiken is affiliated with Advisory Board Member of the Center for American Progress</span></em></p>As the US prepares to replace NAFTA, a labor scholar who was critical of Perot but shared concerns about the deal revisits the claim that helped him become the most successful third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt.Harley Shaiken, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Letters and Science, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1007082018-08-10T10:40:17Z2018-08-10T10:40:17ZWhy Trump shouldn’t leverage the government’s emergency oil supply to bolster the GOP<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231134/original/file-20180808-191044-hwvwdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Gerald Ford discussing plans for a Strategic Petroleum Reserve with workers in California in 1975</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/whphotos/A3883_NLGRF.jpg">Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1014611307427966976">President Donald Trump</a> has publicly griped about the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/RWTCD.htm">prices of oil</a> and <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W">gasoline</a>, which are at their highest levels in four years.</p>
<p>If oil supplies were to suddenly grow, those prices might well decline. That is why, according to unnamed sources, his administration is reportedly considering selling some of the oil stowed in the nation’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/24/what-happens-if-president-trump-taps-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve.html">Strategic Petroleum Reserve</a> and urging U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-is-angry-at-opec-over-oil-prices-experts-say-trump-shares-the-blame/2018/07/05/7c1cae18-8059-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?utm_term=.549a44c1f4e6">pump more oil</a>.</p>
<p>Should Trump attempt to lower gas prices to gain favor with voters, it wouldn’t be the first time a president has tapped the strategic reserve in advance of an election. But it would be the first time such a move was made solely for political reasons. And I believe it would be a particularly cavalier action in light of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35032">Congress’ recent moves to sharply reduce the amount of oil in the reserve</a> and the energy insurance it’s provided for over three decades.</p>
<p>Based on what <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kQdHRewAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1">I’ve learned</a> from researching <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/coal-and-empire">the links between energy and national security</a> since the 19th century, I see in these moves a strategic shift that ought to worry Americans.</p>
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<h2>Energy independence</h2>
<p>Congress and President Gerald Ford’s administration created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the mid-1970s to insulate the country from <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809075072">oil supply interruptions</a>.</p>
<p>At the time, the U.S. had become much more <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exhibition/consumer-era/energy-crisis">reliant on imported oil</a>. And there were deep concerns about supply interruptions because in 1973, the Arab members of the OPEC oil cartel imposed an embargo on countries, including the U.S., that were supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War.</p>
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<p>Crude oil prices out of the Middle East <a href="https://www.npr.org/news/specials/oil/gasprices.chronology.html">quadrupled in just a few months</a>, pushing up prices at American gas pumps.</p>
<p>Since that energy crisis, the federal government has made achieving U.S. “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-doesnt-understand-what-it-means-to-make-america-energy-independent">energy independence</a>,” or at least resilience, a top priority.</p>
<p>Over the decade following 1975, the government <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/121.5.1705">built the reserve</a> in roughly 60 caverns hollowed out of underground salt domes at four sites in Texas and Louisiana. The U.S. also has become <a href="https://www.iea.org/about/history/">one of about 30</a> industrialized, oil-consuming countries that maintain emergency oil supplies around the globe and coordinate responses to future disruptions, like those following the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/releasing-oil-spr#2011-IEA-Coordinated-Release">revolution in Libya in 2011</a>.</p>
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<h2>Political expediency</h2>
<p>But the release that the Trump team is reportedly mulling appears to be timed not for a petroleum shortfall but to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/energy/2018/06/29/can-president-trump-counter-soaring-gas-prices-tapping-reserves/744528002/">make voters feel less pinched</a> when they fill their tanks – or fill out their ballots.</p>
<p>If that happens, without any verifiable supply bottlenecks, it would mark an unprecedented attempt to benefit the party in power by <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Can-Trump-Counter-Soaring-Gasoline-Prices.html">temporarily cutting gasoline prices</a> – or at least to persuade voters that the administration is trying to make that happen.</p>
<p>The closest parallel of a contested election-year release happened in 2000, <a href="https://www.energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/releasing-oil-spr#2000HOExchange">when then-President Bill Clinton</a> released 2.7 million barrels of reserve crude – and later 30 million additional barrels – to relieve a shortage of residential heating oil in the northeast. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/gores-move-to-release-oil-serves-only-to-grease-votes/article770226/">Critics decried</a> the moves as ploys to aid the presidential campaign of then-Vice President Al Gore, <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2000/09/22/news/oil_spr/">who had called for such a release</a>. But, unlike the situation today, a <a href="https://archive.bangordailynews.com/2000/09/14/collins-asks-clinton-to-tap-into-petroleum-reserve/">bipartisan group of lawmakers from oil-consuming states</a> had demanded it and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/2449/american-public-supports-decision-tap-oil-reserves.aspx">public support was solidly behind it</a>.</p>
<p>Among those who criticized Clinton’s move was then-presidential candidate and <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2000/09/21/economy/gore_oil/">former oilman George W. Bush</a>. After assuming office in 2001, the second President Bush sought to fill the reserve to full capacity for the first time and only release oil during emergencies when refineries could not buy crude, and not simply because of high prices, no matter how much of an economic hardship these prices imposed. </p>
<p>On his watch, that meant selling some of the oil after <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2005/09/26/news/economy/bush/">Hurricane Katrina</a> interfered with refining along the Gulf Coast. In <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24446">Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address</a>, he called for the reserve to be doubled to 1.5 billion barrels, but <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congress-oil/senate-rejects-bush-policy-of-boosting-oil-reserve-idUSWBT00897920080513">Congress rejected even smaller increases almost unanimously as uneconomical</a>.</p>
<p>Another difference from past emergency reserve releases, should there be a sale soon, is that domestic oil production has risen sharply in recent years due to technological innovations like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-record-shale-analysis/u-s-oil-industry-set-to-break-record-upend-global-trade-idUSKBN1F50HV">hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling</a>. </p>
<p>That growth – which brought the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=32&t=6">country’s dependence on imported oil</a> to a 50-year low in 2017 – has made many politicians believe that maintaining more than 700 million barrels of oil has become an unnecessary extravagance.</p>
<p>In fact, Congress has already mandated the gradual sale of some <a href="https://www.oilandgas360.com/congress-readies-to-sell-off-empty-space-in-strategic-petroleum-reserve/">300 million barrels</a> of this oil over the coming decade. The proceeds would fund either unrelated spending, deferred maintenance on the reserves themselves, or pay for <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35032">revenue lost from the assorted tax cuts</a> that took effect in 2018. These reductions may make the country less prepared to deal with real supply disruptions in the future, like a catastrophic Iranian-Saudi Arabian war. </p>
<p>Anticipating these reductions, in July, House Republicans began discussing <a href="https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/doe-modernization-legislation-to-authorize-a-pilot-project-to-commercialize-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve/">plans to lease or even sell storage space in the reserve to private companies</a>.</p>
<p>Further distinguishing a fall release from previous ones, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOCIDUS2&f=M">U.S. refineries are currently running at nearly full capacity</a>, raising questions of how selling this oil would even benefit consumers.</p>
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<p>It is possible – and in the context of global warming, desirable – that someday, the U.S. economy will no longer rely on petroleum and therefore will have no need for a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Until then, I do not see how it can make sense for political opportunism to influence the nation’s energy strategy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Shulman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no precedent for selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time when there’s no market-driven reason for doing that.Peter Shulman, Associate Professor of History, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824142017-11-14T02:43:48Z2017-11-14T02:43:48ZDesigning better ballots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194412/original/file-20171113-27573-1az46ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should the future of voting look more like the past?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Election Day 2017 seems to have gone smoothly. </p>
<p>There were few contests of major consequence and turnout was low – with Virginia the most notable exception. Election integrity – the extent to which the outcome of the election matches the will of the voters – was not an issue in the news.</p>
<p>Things could, however, be different in 2018. Concern over election integrity could become amplified if turnout is high and margins close. Given the stakes in the 2018 midterms – now less than a year away – and other concerns such as widespread reports about Russian hacking, now is the time when election officials must begin the critical work of ensuring the integrity of the vote.</p>
<p>When most people think about threats to election integrity, security and fraud are the primary concerns. For example, were the ballots or the election totals hacked? Were ballot boxes stuffed? Were there ballots cast by people who were not eligible to vote?</p>
<p>However, there is another threat to election integrity that has received increasing attention from election officials and researchers <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DalLJdYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">like me</a> over the past dozen or so years: voting system usability. That is, does what actually gets recorded on to the ballots accurately reflect the will of the voters? </p>
<p>All the security in the world means little if ballots are inaccurate. </p>
<p>But how could what’s on the ballots themselves be wrong? </p>
<h2>Good design is critical</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194011/original/file-20171109-13303-13h0533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Florida election official examines a ‘butterfly ballot’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</span></span>
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<p>Incorrect ballots happen when the ballot itself is badly designed and that poor design leads voters to make errors. </p>
<p>While concerns about voter fraud are mostly unfounded, major elections – including one U.S. presidential election – have almost certainly been decided by poor ballot design. In 2000, Palm Beach County, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3117714">Florida deployed a now-infamous “butterfly ballot”</a> with a two-column design that caused thousands of likely Al Gore voters to either cast a vote for Pat Buchanan or cast an invalid ballot.</p>
<p>In that same election, Duval County, Florida saw over <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/Better%20Ballots.pdf">20,000 votes in a highly Democratic county thrown out</a> because the presidential race was split across the front and back of the ballot, and voters voted on both sides. </p>
<p>Either one of these poorly designed ballots alone would have tipped the state of Florida, and thus the presidency, as <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/Better%20Ballots.pdf">Gore lost Florida by fewer than 400 votes</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, a combination of poor screen layout and an unsophisticated computer touchscreen interface likely turned the outcome of a U.S. congressional race in <a href="http://chil.rice.edu/research/pdf/Greene_10.pdf">Sarasota, Florida in 2006</a>.</p>
<p>Even apparently well-designed paper ballots are not immune to problems. <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2008/11/19_challenged_ballots/round1/index.shtml">Thousands of ballots were contested</a> in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, many of them thrown out because voters attempted to correct mistakes on their ballots rather than making the effort to get a new one. Whether these errors determined the result is unclear, but the state and the candidates spent substantial time and money sorting out the outcome.</p>
<p>The point is that even well-designed paper ballots can produce error rates of about <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7e10/3c4fa4be567215b18ed8c3bbf82b6be7fd4f.pdf">1 to 2 percent</a>, which is larger than the margin of victory in many elections. It is highly unlikely that deliberate bad design is what occurred in any of these historic cases. Bad design usually results from a lack of understanding of good design, not ill intent. For example, in Palm Beach County in 2000, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3117714">the poor ballot was actually designed by a Democrat</a>, certainly not someone trying to defeat Gore. </p>
<p>Rather, the problem is that good design is difficult and requires deep understanding of how people interact with technology. There are academic disciplines devoted to studying how to make things usable, as well as active research in many corporate and government labs. Historically, little of this work has centered on voting, but the 2000 presidential election served as a catalyst for change on many fronts.</p>
<h2>Spending too fast?</h2>
<p>Wanting to avoid a repeat of the problems in the 2000 presidential election, Congress in 2002 passed the <a href="https://www.eac.gov/about/help-america-vote-act/">Help America Vote Act</a>, which not only created the federal Election Assistance Commission to set standards, but allocated billions of dollars for local jurisdictions to purchase new voting equipment. Unfortunately, these purchases preceded the relevant science.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that systems like punch cards, lever voting machines and paper ballots had been in use for decades, there had been almost zero research on how usable these systems were prior to 2005. Computer voting systems purchased with Help America Vote Act money were deployed in the early 2000s with no idea whether they were better or worse than the technologies they replaced. We have since learned that paper ballots were the best legacy technology, as <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7e10/3c4fa4be567215b18ed8c3bbf82b6be7fd4f.pdf">paper ballots are generally superior to lever machines and punch cards</a>. Unfortunately, most <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/voting-technology/">computer voting systems are also worse than paper in terms of error rate</a>.</p>
<p>Many jurisdictions that switched from paper to computers likely made things worse for the voters. Most commercial computer voting systems also suffer from many <a href="http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-systems/oversight/top-bottom-review/">well-documented security flaws</a>, which are compounded in many cases by lack of a paper record. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, even paper is not an ideal technology. Paper ballots are a poor choice for accessibility. They are particularly challenging for voters with visual and motor impairments. Paper ballots are also logistically difficult for election administrators, especially in large jurisdictions that have to deal with many ballot styles and multiple languages.</p>
<p>The good news is that it is possible to design computer interfaces that are superior to paper. This requires careful design by usability experts and a commitment to multiple cycles of usability testing during the design process. While the systems that were available for election officials to purchase in the early 2000s did not meet this standard, careful design and usability testing of voting systems is now starting to happen. In fact, it is local election officials who are leading the way.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles County – the most populous county in the U.S. – the county clerk came to the conclusion that none of the commercially available systems met the needs of his voters and the county embarked on <a href="http://vsap.lavote.net">an ambitious multi-year design process</a>. </p>
<p>Information used in the design of LA County’s voting system was gathered from many stakeholders. A professional design firm was contracted, with oversight from a technical group made up of experts from many relevant disciplines, including usability, security, election administration and technology policy. While this system is computer-based, the computer produces a paper record that voters can verify before casting their vote.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/evtwote13/jets-0101-bell.pdf">The county clerk in Travis County, Texas</a> – with input from usability experts – is also leading an effort to design a voting system with even more sophisticated security mechanisms.</p>
<p>While these efforts are an important start, differences in local election laws, customs and budgets means that it is unlikely that a “one size fits all” system will be developed that would be effective everywhere. Voting is much more complicated than it appears on the surface. There are over 3,000 counties in the U.S., and each one is unique. What is critical is that each jurisdiction treat usability as an essential concern and seek out expertise to protect election integrity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Byrne receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Have you ever struggled to understand exactly what to do inside a voting booth?Michael Byrne, Professor of Psychology and of Computer Science, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830332017-09-05T20:13:24Z2017-09-05T20:13:24ZCan ‘cli-fi’ actually make a difference? A climate scientist’s perspective<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184466/original/file-20170904-8510-16zmsdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Day After Tomorrow's apocalyptic depiction of climate change is a little embellished. But such storylines can ignite conversations with people that mainstream science fails to reach.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">20th Century Fox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change - or global warming - is a term we are all familiar with. The <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/">warming</a> of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the consumption of fossil fuels by human activity was predicted in the <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/">19th century</a>. It can be seen in the increase in <a href="https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/">global temperature</a> from the industrial revolution onwards, and has been a central political issue for decades.</p>
<p>Climate scientists who moonlight as communicators tend to bombard their audiences with facts and figures - to convince them how rapidly our planet is warming - and scientific evidence demonstrating why we are to blame. A classic example is Al Gore’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, and its <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6322922/">sequel</a>, which are loaded with graphs and statistics. However, it is becoming ever clearer that these methods don’t <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/08/11/more-climate-change-stories-fewer-graphs-and-maps/#665d7f8b798e">work as well as we’d like</a>. In fact, more often than not, we are preaching to the converted, and can further polarise those who accept the science from those who don’t.</p>
<p>One way of potentially tapping into previously unreached audiences is via <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_fiction">cli-fi</a>, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/cli-fi-could-a-literary-genre-help-save-the-planet-23478">climate-fiction</a>. Cli-fi explores how the world may look in the process or aftermath of dealing with climate change, and not just that caused by burning fossil fuels. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-solarpunk-or-how-to-be-an-optimistic-radical-80275">Explainer: 'solarpunk', or how to be an optimistic radical</a>
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<p>Recently, I participated as a scientist in a <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2017/08-16-cli-fi?utm_source=email&utm_medium=enews-23-aug&utm_campaign=cli-fi">forum with Screen Australia</a>, looking at how cli-fi might communicate the issues around climate change in new ways. I’m a heatwave scientist and I’d love to see a cli-fi story bringing the experience of heatwaves to light. After the forum, Screen Australia put out a call for proposals for TV series and telemovies in the cli-fi genre. </p>
<p>We absolutely need and should rely on peer-reviewed scientific findings for public policy, and planning to stop climate change and adapt to it. But climate scientists should not expect everyone to be as concerned as they are when they show a plot of increasing global temperatures. </p>
<p>Cli-fi has the potential to work in the exact opposite way, through compelling storylines, dramatic visuals, and characters. By making people care about and individually connect to climate change, it can motivate them to seek out the scientific evidence for themselves. </p>
<h2>Imagined worlds</h2>
<p>The term “cli-fi” was coined at the turn of the millennium, but the genre has existed for much longer. One of the earliest examples is Jules Verne’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6271800-the-purchase-of-the-north-pole">The Purchase of the North Pole</a>, where the tilt of the Earth’s axis is altered by human endeavours (of the astronaut, not industrial kind), bringing an end to seasonal variability.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>More modern examples of cli-fi take their prose from real-life contemporary issues, imagining the effects of human-caused climate change. Some pieces of cli-fi are perhaps closer to the truth than others</p>
<p>Could the <a href="http://www.pik-potsdam.de/%7Estefan/thc_fact_sheet.html">thermohaline circulatio</a>n (which carries heat around our oceans) shut down, bringing a sudden global freeze, as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/">The Day After Tomorrow</a> suggests? There is <a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n5/full/nclimate2554.html">evidence</a> that it will, but perhaps not as quickly as the film imagines. </p>
<p>Is it possible that fertility rates will be affected by climate change? The television-adapted version of Margaret Atwood’s <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/the-handmaids-tale">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> blames pollution and environmental change for a world-wide plummet in fertility, thus giving a cli-fi undertone to the whole dystopian series. While there is no scientific evidence to currently back this scenario, as a new parent, it struck a chord with me personally. The thought of a world where virtually every couple is unable to experience the joys of parenthood, particularly due to climate change, is quite distressing.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184469/original/file-20170904-8496-1pmxofc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Poster for The Road Warrior, the second in the first Mad Max trilogy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kennedy Miller Productions</span></span>
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<p>Cli-fi also underpins the highly acclaimed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_(franchise)">Mad Max</a> movie series. In a dystopian near-future, fossil fuel resources have depleted and the social and environmental impacts are vast. Australia has become a desolate wasteland and our society has all but collapsed.</p>
<p>Although such a scenario will be unlikely to occur in the next couple of decades, it is not completely unrealistic. We are burning fossil fuels far faster than they are forming, with <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508004126">some predictions</a> that accessible sources will run out in the next century.
And some of our <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/05/economist-explains-3">famous ecosystems</a> are already very sick thanks to climate change.</p>
<p>And then there is <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114898/">Waterworld</a>. Yet another dystopia, where there is no ice left on Earth and sea levels have risen 7.5km above current levels. Civilisations exists only in small settlements, where inhabitants dream of the mythical “dry land”. While the movie overestimates exactly how much water is locked away in ice (sea levels can only rise by up to <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/how-high-will-global-sea-levels-rise">60-70 metres</a>), many major global cities would be <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/">inundated</a> and no longer exist. And while it will take thousands, not hundreds of years for complete melting to take place, sea level rise is already posing a problem for some <a href="http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/news/floria-and-the-rising-sea">coastal settlements</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/sea-level-rise-has-claimed-five-whole-islands-in-the-pacific-first-scientific-evidence-58511">small islands</a>. Moreover, Arctic ice is predicted to completely melt away well before the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/31/12571.abstract">end of this century</a>.</p>
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<p>Sure, the scientific evidence underpinning these storylines is embellished to say the least, But they are certainly worth deliberating over if they ignite conversations with people that mainstream science fails to reach.</p>
<h2>The power of fiction</h2>
<p>In the long run, cli-fi might encourage audiences to modify their everyday lives (and maybe even who they vote for) to reduce their own carbon footprint.</p>
<p>From personal experience, some audiences tend to disengage from climate change because of how overwhelming the issue may seem. Global temperatures are rising at a rate not seen for millions of years, and we are currently not doing enough to avoid dangerous climate change. Understandably, the scale and weight of climate change likely encourages many to bury their heads firmly in the sand.</p>
<p>To this audience, cli-fi also has an important message to deliver – that of hope. That it is not, or will it be ever, too late to combat human-caused climate change.</p>
<p>Imagining a future where green energy is accessible to everyone, where global politicians work tirelessly to rapidly reduce emissions, or where new technologies are discovered that safely and permanently remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere are absolutely worth air time. Cli-fi can act as prose for science. And on the topic of mitigating climate change, there is no such thing as too much prose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Climate scientists often bombard their audiences with facts and figures - a method of communication that often doesn’t work. Perhaps this is where cli-fi can step in, with its compelling characters and just slightly embellished science.Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Research Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/817992017-08-16T23:06:48Z2017-08-16T23:06:48ZAn inconvenient truth about An Inconvenient Truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182130/original/file-20170815-27845-90sduq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Still from An Inconvenient Truth (2006)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Handout)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Al Gore has a follow-up to his blockbuster documentary film, <em>An Inconvenient Truth</em>. However, <a href="https://inconvenientsequel.tumblr.com/"><em>An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power</em></a> was greeted with far less fanfare than the original. </p>
<p>This is not surprising given how the first movie dominated the <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=documentary.htm">international box office</a> and became one of the most successful documentaries of all time. The film ultimately helped Al Gore win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in promoting action against climate change. </p>
<p>In addition to the many accolades it received, the movie undeniably raised the public awareness of climate change. <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-how-al-gores-an-inconvenient-truth-made-its-mark-59387">According to a prominent climate scientist</a>, the movie “had a much greater impact on public opinion and public awareness of global climate change than any scientific paper or report.” </p>
<p>However, 11 years after its release, there is also evidence that it might have had an unintended consequence: serving as a catalyst in the polarization of American public opinion on climate change. </p>
<p>We have studied in detail how the media covered the issue of climate change since the 1980s and how it may have played a role in polarizing the American public. The commonly observed pattern is that <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo11644533.html">public opinion tends to follow</a>, rather than lead, debate among political elites. This is of particular importance for our work.</p>
<h2>Opinions dictated by political parties</h2>
<p>Voters, particularly in America, tend to harbour strong positive <em>and</em> negative attachments to political parties. These form critical components of their social identities. When uncertain about novel political issues, like climate change, they look for signals from political elites for guidance. These signals are, more often than not, carried to them by the mass media. </p>
<p>In our research, we examined the political signals that were present in the coverage of climate change in major, high circulation daily newspapers, like the <em>New York Times</em>, <em>Wall Street Journal</em> and <em>USA Today</em>, as well network television channels <em>ABC</em>, <em>CBS</em> and <em>NBC</em>, and cable news channel <em>Fox News</em>. </p>
<p>What we found is a nuanced story that sheds considerable light on why the public polarized on climate change. First, politicians became increasingly common in coverage, politicizing the issue as it grew in importance. As a result, the public has been exposed to a growing number of messages about climate change from party elites. </p>
<p>Second, Democratic messages have been more common in news coverage, and, unsurprisingly, consistent in a pro-climate direction. Meanwhile, Republican messages have been fewer in number, and, until the Obama presidency, ambiguous in direction. Contrary to conventional wisdom, only a small fraction of Republican messages on climate change explicitly denied the scientific consensus on climate change. </p>
<p>When one side’s messages are clear and the other side’s are muddled, as was the case here, it’s <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00541.x/abstract">plausible</a> that Republican voters took their cues from Democrats. This should not be surprising. In an age of <a href="https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2015/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf">affective polarization</a> where Republicans and Democrats each increasingly dislike the other, it makes sense that Republicans may have taken an oppositional stance on climate change, at least partly, in response to signals from Democratic elites.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182139/original/file-20170815-18355-lwq245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this January 2007 file photo, former Vice President Al Gore acknowledges spectators in Japan in front of a poster of his documentary film</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An Inconvenient Truth</h2>
<p>So, what about the role of Al Gore and <em>An Inconvenient Truth</em> in this process? Al Gore was featured prominently in the news media coverage of climate change. This was particularly true when climate change was salient and Americans were significantly polarizing on the issue. </p>
<p>For example, Al Gore was featured in 48 per cent of climate change stories on <em>Fox News</em> in 2006 and in 57 per cent in 2007. There were explicit references to the movie in 28 per cent of the stories in 2006 and 17 per cent of the stories in 2007. On the other hand, a leading Republican climate change denier, Sen. Jim Inhofe, was not featured in a single story on <em>Fox News</em> in 2006 and in only one per cent of the stories in 2007. </p>
<p>The traditional media also focused heavily on Al Gore. In 2006 and 2007, the former U.S. vice-president was featured in 13 per cent and 17 per cent of news stories in the highest circulation newspapers in the United States, and in 16 per cent and 23 per cent of the network broadcasts. </p>
<p>In other words, if you tuned in to news about climate change in that time period, you were exposed to Al Gore and his message. And even though that message was unabashedly pro-climate and for strong climate action, it likely played a role in turning Republicans against that message, since to them, Gore was simply a Democratic politician they disliked. </p>
<p>It’s highly unlikely that the release of Al Gore’s sequel to <em>An Inconvenient Truth</em> will have an impact similar to the original. The movie is generating significantly less traction in the <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=aninconvenientsequel.htm">box office</a> and in the media. Furthermore, climate change has already become one of the most polarized issues of the day. </p>
<p>Sadly, there is likely no way to turn back the clock. But it should serve as a warning for the future. It is not only important to pick a salient and informative message, but also an effective messenger to deliver it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominik Stecula receives doctoral research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Merkley receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Eleven years after its release, An Inconvenient Truth, the iconic climate documentary, has spawned a sequel. But did the original do more harm than good by polarizing Americans on climate change?Dominik Stecuła, PhD candidate in political science, University of British ColumbiaEric Merkley, Ph.D. Candidate, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823802017-08-15T20:14:35Z2017-08-15T20:14:35ZCostly signals needed to deliver inconvenient truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181932/original/file-20170814-14751-a5g2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former US Vice President and Chair of the Climate Reality Project Al Gore and Victoria's climate and energy minister Lily D'Ambrosio (right) ride on a tram after speaking at the climate conference in Melbourne.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A little over half the world’s population sees climate change as a serious problem (<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/18/what-the-world-thinks-about-climate-change-in-7-charts/">54% according to a 40-nation Pew Research survey</a>). Coincidentally, roughly the same number identify as <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/pf_17-04-05_projectionsupdate_grl310px/">Christian or Muslim (55%)</a>. </p>
<p>On the one hand, these statistics speak to the success of climate change communication. In just a few decades, climate scientists have convinced a large part of the world’s population that a set of powerful, invisible forces have important implications for the way we live. World religions took centuries to achieve similar success. </p>
<p>On the other hand, religion spreads without the support of empirical evidence and is capable of generating <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/cultural-evolution-of-prosocial-religions/01B053B0294890F8CFACFB808FE2A0EF">changes in people’s behaviour</a> that climate scientists would envy. Religion pervades almost every aspect of the lives of believers, from the food they eat to what they do on the weekend. We argue that scientists can take lessons from this.</p>
<h2>Actions louder than words</h2>
<p>One way that religions succeed is to focus not just on what adherents say, but what they do. A key strategy is to encourage or require adherents (including leaders) to engage in <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1069397103037002003">behaviours that act as signals of commitment</a> to their beliefs. Followers, for example, may be asked to dress in distinctive (often impractical) garb, engage in regular rituals in public (sometimes multiple times a day), or abide by seemingly arbitrary dietary restrictions. </p>
<p>Even more is required of leaders, from highly restricted diets, giving up worldly possessions, to lives of celibacy. The costs of these behaviours make them hard-to-fake signals of sincerity that <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513809000245">help spread belief</a> to otherwise sceptical outsiders and bolster support among followers.</p>
<p>We like to think that science is completely different. While religion is dogmatic and based on faith, science is continually questioning, grounded in the scientific method and the many useful predictions and technologies that emerge from it. </p>
<p>But we do not, as individuals, test all the claims that scientists and science communicators make. Out of practical necessity, we must all take a good deal of what science tells us, as well as it’s implications for how we should live our lives, on trust. </p>
<h2>Sending signals of commitment</h2>
<p>Al Gore’s 2006 movie <a href="https://www.algore.com/library/an-inconvenient-truth-dvd">An Inconvenient Truth</a> was hailed as a turning point in public awareness of climate change, but it also attracted heated criticism. Some criticism was directed at the movie’s content, but much was also made of Gore’s apparent hypocrisy, including his use of private jets, home energy consumption and acquisition of beachfront property. </p>
<p>While ad hominem attacks do not undermine the factual claims made in the movie, Gore’s actions undoubtedly reduced the credibility of his message to some people. If he is still flying extensively and buying up beachfront property, how bad can the problem really be? </p>
<p>We argue that because all of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, must take much in science on trust, behavioural signals are potentially just as important to the spread of scientific knowledge as they are to that of religion. It does not follow that science and religion stand on the same <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884">epistemological foundations</a>; rather it is an acknowledgement that trust in the vast stocks of scientific knowledge and its implications can only be established by any one individual using non-scientific means. </p>
<h2>Going beyond talk</h2>
<p>Scientists and science communicators should therefore be prepared to make better use of signals, particularly costly signals, to demonstrate they are truly committed to what they are advocating.</p>
<p>Whether or not An Inconvenient Truth was undermined by apparent hypocrisy, it was a lost opportunity on Gore’s part. If, for example, he had sold his energy-intensive mansion and refused to fly to his engagements, he could have sent a credible signal to the public that he was personally deeply concerned about the threat of climate change. As his new movie, <a href="https://www.algore.com/library/an-inconvenient-sequel-truth-to-power-a39b1050-d846-4b9e-a4e7-3b5fd6bb6b03">An Inconvenient Sequel</a>, is released around the world, he has another opportunity to bolster his argument with action.</p>
<p>We do not wish to lambast leading climate change communicators for hypocrisy. There are plenty of others who do that already. But our point is this: although the validity of scientific ideas should be independent of their messenger, our actions matter for generating the kind of deep commitment to scientific evidence that will be required to tackle the problems of our time. Scientists and science communicators need to focus not just on what we say, but on the signals we send via our actions.</p>
<h2>Our personal action plan</h2>
<p>Our own first step in this direction is a commitment to forgo air travel in 2018 as a costly signal of our belief in the need for urgent action on climate change. By far our largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is flying to academic conferences. <a href="http://www.carbonbalanced.org/calculator/flights.asp">A single return flight from Auckland to London</a> is roughly equivalent to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita">the average annual carbon dioxide emissions per capita of New Zealand</a>. </p>
<p>Carbon offsets are one way to address emissions from flying, but <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/wcc.207/abstract">(efficacy aside)</a> they are controversial and tend to be cheap and invisible, which makes them ineffective as credible signals of commitment. </p>
<p>We make our commitment to forgo flying publicly and challenge other senior academics to do likewise. Forgoing flying, particularly for those in New Zealand and Australia, carries costs in that networking and exposure to new ideas can become more difficult. Giving a speech at an international conference is highly prestigious for an academic, and in New Zealand it is one of the criteria in our <a href="http://www.tec.govt.nz/assets/Forms-templates-and-guides/PBRF-Panel-Specific-Guidelines-2018-Quality-Evaluation.pdf">national research assessment exercise</a>. </p>
<p>With careful planning, we believe we can overcome some of the costs in forgoing opportunities to travel. We intend to make better use of prerecorded talks and video conferencing and support local and online conferences and research networks. By committing to these practices, and encouraging others to do the same, scientists can demonstrate that change is possible and send a powerful signal that they are personally committed to action on climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Taking inspiration from the spread of world religions, Quentin Atkinson and Shaun Hendy argue scientists need to do more to signal commitment to ideas they want to spread.Quentin Douglas Atkinson, Associate Professor in Evolutionary Psychology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauShaun Hendy, Professor of Physics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823762017-08-14T20:16:07Z2017-08-14T20:16:07ZThe truth about inconvenient truths: ‘big issue’ documentaries don’t always change our behaviour<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181889/original/file-20170814-28461-5wystt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Al Gore brings climate change back to the big screen in An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change has returned to the big screen with the release of Al Gore’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6322922/">An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power</a>. It’s the follow-up to his Oscar-winning documentary from 2006, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, which raised awareness about global warming and encouraged us to reduce our carbon footprints.</p>
<p>The sequel puts the spotlight on climate change once again and will likely re-ignite the debate in popular culture for a whole new generation of moviegoers.</p>
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<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-how-al-gores-an-inconvenient-truth-made-its-mark-59387">Ten years on: how Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth made its mark</a></em> </p>
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<p>While “big issue” documentaries do a great job raising awareness and developing attitudes on important issues, they often don’t go far enough in inspiring a “call to action” – especially one that leads to long-term behaviour change. Gore’s first film did inspire short-term action on climate change, but the effects soon faded. </p>
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<p>As well as being artistically engaging, a successful advocacy film should encourage viewers to do something. This might be to reduce their consumption of fast food (as in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/">Super Size Me</a>), petition for the protection of threatened wildlife (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Cove</a>), or adopt a whole-food plant-based diet (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1567233/">Forks Over Knives</a>).</p>
<h2>Media influence</h2>
<p>Media can and do affect our behaviour. There is a well-established link between <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/204790">violent media and aggressive behaviour</a>. <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/116/6/1516.short">Smoking in movies</a> can encourage teenagers to take up smoking. </p>
<p>Less is known about the media’s ability to have a positive influence – such as encouraging environmentally friendly behaviours. Even when research is conducted, the long-term effects are rarely considered.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/al-gore-qanda-and-video-interview-fixing-democracy-to-combat-climate-change-82426">Al Gore Q&A and video interview:
Fixing democracy to combat climate change</a>
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<p>Some studies have looked for a direct link between viewing an environmental documentary and environmental donations. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17524032.2014.993415?journalCode=renc20">One study</a> found that twice as many people donated to an environmental cause after watching a seven-minute environmental clip. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1533015X.2016.1142197?journalCode=ueec20">Another</a> found that after watching a full-length dolphin documentary, almost everyone donated to a related cause.</p>
<p>These studies might seem encouraging, but in both cases money was given to participants and they were asked to donate it to one of a predetermined list of charities. Sadly, this means the behaviour is unlikely to translate to the real world.</p>
<h2>Short-lived success</h2>
<p>In the case of Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, individuals who watched the film <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916509357696?journalCode=eaba">reported</a> an increase in knowledge, environmental concern, and willingness to act. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069610001014">Another study</a> found that two months after the film was released, the purchase of carbon offsets increased by 50% in suburbs near cinemas that screened it.</p>
<p>After watching the documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/">Food, Inc.</a>, which takes a critical look at America’s industrialised food industry, one of us (Kim) personally took up the challenge of avoiding processed foods. She stocked her fridge with local produce and started eating more fresh fruit and vegetables. Her friends and family also copped an earful about the difference between “food” and “food-like products” – some even adjusted their behaviours as a result.</p>
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<p>It appears Kim wasn’t alone in her response. A study by the <a href="http://www.participantmedia.com/2012/02/research-study-finds-film-can-have-measurable-impact-audience-behavior">Norman Lear Center</a> found that people who saw Food, Inc. were more likely to do as she did, at least in the short term (there was no follow-up study). The real challenge is in creating long-term sustainable change. Kim’s Food, Inc.-induced commitments faded within six months.</p>
<p>This seems to be the common trend with “big issue” documentaries. While more people intended to reduce greenhouse gases after watching An Inconvenient Truth, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916509357696?journalCode=eaba">a survey a month later</a> showed few had followed through.</p>
<p>Similarly, the increased purchase of carbon offsets failed to translate into a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069610001014">repeated behaviour</a>. If customers had renewed their film-inspired purchase, the notable spike two months after its release should have been observed the following year, but this was not the case.</p>
<h2>An unexpected win</h2>
<p>One success story was the “big issue” documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2545118/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Blackfish</a>, which centres on the plight of captive orcas in parks like SeaWorld. The film didn’t tell people how to feel or how to respond (it didn’t include a specific “call to action”), but since its release in 2013 SeaWorld has reported a consistent drop in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-seaworld-earnings-20170228-story.html">visitors and revenue</a>. In 2016 Seaworld <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/17/seaworld-to-stop-breeding-killer-whales-orcas-blackfish">discontinued its orca breeding program</a> and recently discontinued <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-08/seaworld-san-diego-ending-killer-whale-show/8168512">the orca show itself</a>.</p>
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<p>Apart from its strong emotional appeal, part of the film’s success is credited to the distributor, CNN, for capitalising on the growing popularity of social media. As a result, Blackfish became the <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2013/the-blackfish-phenomenon-a-whale-of-a-tale-takes-over-twitter.html">most-talked-about show on Twitter</a>, achieving almost <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=096112996165527;res=IELLCC">70,000 Tweets</a> on the night it was released in the US. It sparked a fierce online debate, which included celebrities and media personalities, further stimulating its reach and success.</p>
<h2>Making change last</h2>
<p>If documentary makers want to create long-term change, they need to do more than just pull at our heartstrings. They must include a solution message and an achievable “call to action”. Without telling viewers how they can help, they can be left feeling that it’s a lost cause and that everyone is doomed.</p>
<p>Advocacy documentaries should also be coupled with other behaviour change techniques to increase their chances of success. For instance, they should ask viewers to publicly pledge to change their behaviour or to set goals, give them tools to help form a new habit, or tell them exactly how to petition organisations and governments to make structural changes.</p>
<p>Gore’s latest film ends with a brief “call to action” – urging viewers to encourage local governments and institutions to switch to 100% renewables. It even asks for a public pledge on Twitter using the hashtag #beinconvenient. But these requests seem like an afterthought. Although the doom and gloom message is paired with glimmers of hope, watching Gore’s personal struggles against big business and politics did not leave Kim, an everyday citizen, feeling empowered. </p>
<p>Documentaries can be a useful instrument in the behaviour change toolkit. But lasting change needs more than an engaging story on its own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth woke up the world to climate change. But with its sequel hitting cinemas now, it’s not clear that ‘big issue’ documentaries make a difference in the long term.Kim Borg, Research Officer at BehaviourWorks Australia within the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash UniversityBradley Jorgensen, Senior Research Fellow in Applied Social and Environmental Psychology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824262017-08-13T18:12:53Z2017-08-13T18:12:53ZAl Gore Q&A and video interview:
Fixing democracy to combat climate change<p>It is more than ten years since Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change to the masses. At its heart, it showed the former US vice-president giving a comprehensive global warming slide show – warning of the dire consequences if we do nothing about the climate crisis. </p>
<p>The film grossed US$24m in the US and US$26m internationally. Not only was the film a financial success but it was also a critical success and won two Oscars. An Inconvenient Truth has been credited for raising international public awareness of climate change and re-energising the environmental movement. The documentary has been <a href="https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-6/inconvenient-truth">included in science curricula</a> in schools around the world. It was also instrumental in Al Gore sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-scientists-know-climate-change-is-happening-51421">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC). </p>
<p>A decade on, Gore has made a follow-up entitled <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-environmental-documentaries-make-waves-76683">An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power</a>. This film updates us on the major changes that have occurred over the past decade; including the accelerated retreat of the ice caps, extreme weather events and the historic signing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-paris-climate-deal-52256">Paris Climate Agreement</a> in 2015. </p>
<p>The sequel is different to the first film – it is much more biographical and focuses on how Gore became the great climate change communicator and what he has been doing with his charities to build awareness and train future climate change leaders around the world. </p>
<p>Had this film been released a year ago, its optimistic tone would not have seemed out of place. It is almost as if the filmmakers had assumed there would be a different election result. The film has been hastily edited to include <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-decision-to-quit-the-paris-agreement-may-be-his-worst-business-deal-yet-78780">Donald Trump’s withdrawal</a> from the Paris Agreement. The end of the film seems out of kilter with the optimistic tone of the rest of the film, which occasionally borders on triumphant.</p>
<p>I interviewed Al Gore and we mainly focused on politics and how to deal with bipartisanship. We both believe that it will be in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science-34949">political realm</a> where the fight to solve climate change will be won or lost.</p>
<p><strong>Watch the interview here</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Mark Maslin: It’s clear that the first film had a huge impact. So what is the motivation behind you doing a sequel?</strong></p>
<p>Al Gore: When we reached the ten-year anniversary of the first movie it seemed like an appropriate time to present what’s new in the previous decade – and there have been two very big changes and a third that occurred during the filming of the movie. </p>
<p>The first is that unfortunately the climate-related extreme weather events have of course become far more common and more destructive. Mother nature is speaking up in a very persuasive way. </p>
<p>The second big change is that the solutions are here now. A decade ago you could see them on the horizon but you had to have the technology experts reassure you that they’re coming, that they’ll be here – well now they’re here. And for example electricity from wind and solar has fallen so quickly in price that in many regions it’s much cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels and soon will be almost everywhere.</p>
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<span class="caption">Electric cars are fast becoming the new normal.</span>
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<p>Electric cars are becoming affordable. Batteries are now beginning to decline sharply in price which will be a real game-changer for the energy industry. LEDs and hundreds of new far more efficient technologies are helping to stabilise and soon reduce emissions.</p>
<p><strong>I was struck in the middle of your film by a profound statement: “To fix the climate crisis we need to fix democracy”. And then the film moved on to another topic. How do you think we can fix our democracies now in the 21st century?</strong></p>
<p>Well, big money has hacked our democracy even before Putin did. And it accompanied the transition from the printing press to television, when all of a sudden candidates – especially in the US – were made to feel they have to spend all their time begging rich people and special interests for money so they can buy more TV ads and their opponents.</p>
<p>And that’s really given an enormous unhealthy and toxic degree of influence to lobbyists and special interests. Now just as television replaced the printing press, internet-based media are beginning to displace television and once again open up the doorways to the public forum for individuals who can use knowledge and the best available evidence.</p>
<p>If you believe in democracy as I do and if you believe in harvesting the wisdom of crowds, then the interaction of free people exchanging the best available evidence of what’s more likely to be true than not will once again push us toward a government of by and for the people. One quick example. Last year the Bernie Sanders campaign – regardless of what you might think about his agenda – proved that it is now possible on the internet to run a very credible nationwide campaign without taking any money from lobbyists and special interests or billionaires. Instead, you can raise money in small amounts from individuals on the internet and then be accountable to them and not have to worry about being accountable to the big donors.</p>
<p><strong>There was a poignant moment in the film when you’re sitting in front of the Senate hearing – and there’s a Republican senator and he’s just not hearing what you’re saying. In a two-party system, how do you reach out to those Republicans – and some of the Democrats – that still don’t to get climate change?</strong></p>
<p>Well, part of it is related to the changes necessary in the financing of campaigns. A famous journalist in the US, over a century ago, Upton Sinclair wrote: it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon him not understanding it. And if you substitute campaign finance for salary, you get part of the answer. </p>
<p>But I know for a fact that there are many Republican members of the Senate and House who know that what they’ve been advocating is wrong and would like to crawl back from the end of the limb they’ve put themselves on. And as more and more people express the passionate view that we’ve got to solve the climate crisis that can give them the backbone to change their position, some of them already have.</p>
<p>There’s a new Noah’s Ark caucus <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/27/climate-solutions-caucus-republicans-trump">the Climate Solutions Caucus</a> in the Congress – a reference to the biblical deluge but also a reference to the fact that they only can join by twos one Democrat one Republican – and more Republicans are now switching sides.</p>
<p><strong>You’ve done a great job at communicating climate change around the world – but perhaps you being a very prominent, highly respected liberal Democrat has incensed some Republicans and actually hardened their view against climate change. Do you feel that’s fair?</strong></p>
<p>I don’t think that’s fair at all and in fact there’s been a great deal of social science research that shows that’s completely inaccurate. You may know <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/climate/">Joe Romm</a> – a great climate blogger – he has compiled all that research. For two and a half years after the first movie, bipartisanship increased significantly on this issue. The Republican nominee in 2008, John McCain, had a very responsible position on this issue.</p>
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<p>But what happened was in the wake of the Great Recession the carbon polluters launched the Tea Party movement – some of them joined on their own, but they actually provided the seed money and insisted that climate denial be a part of that political movement. The polluters have done exactly what the tobacco companies did years ago when they hired actors and dressed them up as doctors and put them on camera to say there are no health problems with cigarettes – 100m people died as a result.</p>
<p>Well, now the carbon polluters have taken that same approach hiring the same PR firms spending more than a billion dollars to put out pseudo science and false information. They’re not necessarily going to win the debate. They just want to give the appearance that there is a debate – in order to paralyse the political process. But people are seeing through it now.</p>
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<p>What struck me about the interview – and also the film – is that Gore is making two very clear points. First is that now all the solutions to climate change exist. There is a wonderful sequence in the movie where he meets <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-mayor-texas-clean-energy-no-brainer-n769056">Dale Ross, the mayor of Georgetown in Texas</a>. The mayor describes Georgetown as the reddest city in the reddest county in Texas – and he’s a conservative Republican. But he sees moving toward renewable energy, as just making sense. As his job is to deliver the best value for money to his taxpaying citizens and wind and solar are the cheapest energy source. </p>
<p>The second is that Gore makes the profound statement that Western democracies are broken and in order to solve the climate crisis they need to fix democracy. In the interview, Gore suggested that big business has bought many politicians and this must be unpicked so that they are free to make informed unbiased decisions. </p>
<p>He sees social media as the great leveller as campaigns can be run on much smaller budgets reducing the power of party donors. He also suggests in the film that educating both politicians and the electorate on the damages of climate change will make a significant difference. But this is the same rhetoric we here from intellectuals all the time – if the poor people were properly educated they would make the <a href="https://theconversation.com/anglophone-political-populism-and-the-cultural-rejection-of-climate-change-68694">correct political decisions</a>. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-origins-of-post-truth-and-how-it-was-spawned-by-the-liberal-left-68929">post-truth era</a> this neatly sidesteps issues of growing inequality, poverty and a general feeling of disenfranchisement.</p>
<p>In this way, An Inconvenient Truth was the right movie at the right time and An Inconvenient Sequel is the wrong movie at the wrong time. At the end of the film, Gore makes an impassioned rally speech – part Winston Churchill and part Martin Luther King – which even the hardened sceptic couldn’t help but admire. He finishes by declaring the tag line of the film: “It’s time to fight like your world depends on it.” </p>
<p>Given the forces of big business and Trumpism aligned against climate action, we all need to be as passionate, optimistic and committed to a new safer cleaner future as Gore – because he is right, the world does depend on us acting now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Maslin is a Professor at University College London, Founding Director of Rezatec Ltd, Director of The London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. He is an unpaid member of the Sopra-Steria CSR Board. He has received funding in the past from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, Royal Society, DIFD, DECC, BIS, FCO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Leverhulme Trust, WWF, JLT Re, Channel 4, RICS, British Council, and CAFOD. Prof. Maslin's third edition of his book 'Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction' is published by Oxford University Press and is out now.</span></em></p>Climate scientist Mark Maslin interviewed the former US vice-president about his new film, An Inconvenient Sequel.Mark Maslin, Professor of Palaeoclimatology, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/810232017-07-14T02:50:53Z2017-07-14T02:50:53ZA brief history of Al Gore’s climate missions to Australia<p>Al Gore has been <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-10/donald-trump-isolated-on-climate-change-says-al-gore/8693806">visiting Australia this week</a> – partly because he has a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/12/10/goremoviesequel/?utm_term=.ad92c8a60808">new film to promote</a>, but also because he and Australian climate policy have had a surprisingly long entanglement. Given that this year <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-climate-politics-in-2017-a-guide-for-%20the-perplexed-70526">is likely to be a bloody one</a> as far as climate policy goes, don’t be surprised if he’s back again before 2017 is out.</p>
<p>Gore has a long and honourable record on climate change, although ironically his weakest period on climate coincided with the peak of his political power, as US Vice President.</p>
<p>As he says in his 2006 documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, he was first alerted to climate change by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Revelle">Roger Revelle</a>, who can justly be called the (American) father of climate science. On becoming a Congressman, Gore was part of the move by Democrats to sustain momentum on climate policy that had stalled with the arrival of Ronald Reagan as President.</p>
<p>Gore organised <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/259162016/Gore-Hearing-on-global-warming-July-%2031-1981">Congressional hearings in 1981</a>, and 1982 (NASA climatologist James Hansen’s <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/2007/Testimony_20070319.pdf">first congressional testimony</a>).</p>
<p>Even back then, the familiar political narrative around climate change had already formed, as journalism academic David Sachsman <a href="http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/En56-157-2000E.pdf">recalls</a>:</p>
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<p>The CBS Evening News for March 25, 1982, included a two minute and 50 second story by David Culhane on the greenhouse effect. Chemist Melvin Calvin raised the threat of global warming, Representative Al Gore called for further research, and James Kane of the Energy Department said there was no need for haste.</p>
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<p>This report from the following year tells a similar tale, noting the political difficulty of solving the climate problem:</p>
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<p>By the time of the seminal <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/2815/development_of_an_international_agenda_for_climate_change.html">Villach conference of October 1985</a>, Gore was a Senator, and helped to organise the first Senate hearings since 1979. Gore’s colleague, Republican Senator David Durenberger remarked that “grappling with this problem [of climate change] is going to be just about as easy as nailing Jello to the wall”.</p>
<p>The following year, as Joshua Howe notes in his excellent book on the politics and science of climate change, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18762183-behind-the-curve">Behind the Curve</a> (2014), the then Senator Joe Biden introduced an initiative mandating that the president commission an executive-level task force to devise a strategy for responding to global warming – a strategy the president was meant to deliver to Congress within one year.</p>
<p>Gore scored another political victory on May 8, 1989, when Hansen testified that George H. W. Bush’s administration had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/08/us/scientist-says-budget-office-altered-his-testimony.html?pagewanted=all">ordered him to change the conclusions in written testimony regarding the seriousness of global warming</a></p>
<h2>From Vice President to movie star</h2>
<p>However, as Vice President to Bill Clinton, Gore disappointed environmentalists. An energy tax was <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-06-09/news/1993160006_1_btu-tax-energy-tax-kind-of-tax">defeated by industry lobbyists in 1993</a>, and the Clinton administration (perhaps wisely) opted not to try and pass the Kyoto Protocol through a <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSenate.html">defiant Senate</a>.</p>
<p>After leaving the West Wing he embraced Hollywood, where his budding movie career attracted derision in some quarters, despite the hefty policy achievements earlier in Gore’s career.</p>
<p>Besides an Inconvenient Truth (see <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-how-%20al-gores-an-inconvenient-truth-made-its-mark-59387">here</a> for an account of its impact in Australia), Gore “starred” in another movie, the 1990 philosophy-based talkie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100151/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Mindwalk</a>, starring Sam Waterston as Senator Jack Edwards, a thinly veiled version of Gore. </p>
<p>Former Australian industry minister Ian Macfarlane certainly considered Gore more entertainer than policymaker when <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1737704.htm">speculating on his reasons for visiting in 2006</a>:</p>
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<p>Well, Al Gore’s here to sell tickets to a movie, and no one can begrudge him that. It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.</p>
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<h2>Gore and Australia</h2>
<p>Gore has been on these shores many times. During his May 2003 visit Gore <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/03/1051876899977.html">urged the then Prime Minister John Howard to ratify the Kyoto Protocol</a>. He met with the then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, and also with former Liberal leader and current climate hawk John Hewson. He spoke at an <a href="http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/documents/FinalBLFSD03progrrevd19-5.pdf">event co-hosted by the Business Council of Australia</a> to advocate sustainable development.</p>
<p>After a controversial visit in 2005, Gore visited twice in 2006. As Joan Staples <a href="https://joanstaples.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/joan-staples-%20phd-thesis-for-printing1.pdf">notes in her PhD</a>, he teamed up with the Australian Conservation Foundation to launch his Climate Project:</p>
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<p>Having reached out to the wider NGO sector, to doctors, unions, and the corporate sector, this initiative then moved ACF’s efforts towards influencing individual citizens. Gore’s organisation aimed to harness the power of mass mobilisation by expanding the message of his film An Inconvenient Truth.</p>
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<p>Gore returned in 2007 and spoke at a A$1,000-a-plate event on the <a href="https://www.nsxa.com.au/documents/news/FEX-SIM%20NSX%20Market%20Release%20draft%209-7-07-final.pdf">Sustainability and Cleantech Investment Market</a>, with Carr introducing him while clutching a copy of Gore’s 1992 book <a href="https://www.algore.com/library/earth-in-the-balance">Earth in the Balance</a>.</p>
<p>He had his share of Australian critics too. On a frosty morning in July 2009 Gore’s launch speech of the <a href="http://gozer.com.au/work/safe-climate-australia/">Safe Climate Australia</a> initiative attracted around 30 members of the newly formed Climate Sceptics Party, who handed out leaflets and wore t-shirts bearing their slogan: “Carbon Really Ain’t Pollution – CRAP”.</p>
<p>Gore also <a href="http://www.climaticoanalysis.org/post/al-gore-in-melbourne-to-address-climate-change/">offered an opinion</a> on Kevin Rudd’s proposed climate legislation: </p>
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<p>It’s not what I would have written, I would have written it as a stronger bill, but I’m realistic about what can be accomplished in the political system as it is.</p>
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<p>Gore seems to have (wisely) eschewed direct involvement during the tumultuous Julia Gillard years, but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/24/al-gore-%20attacks-tony-abbotts-refusal-to-link-bushfires-with-climate-change">pitched in</a> in October 2013 when the new Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused to link bushfires with climate change.</p>
<h2>The Palmer moment</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most bizarre, rub-my-eyes-did-that-just-happen moment came in June 2014, when Gore <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4033228.htm">stood alongside Clive Palmer</a> in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/al-gore-and-clive-palmer-behind-%20the-scenes-of-an-unlikely-bromance">deal to save some of Gillard’s carbon policy package from Tony Abbott’s axe</a>.</p>
<p>In July 2015, with the Paris climate conference approaching, Gore visited on a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/al-gore-flies-into-australia-to-push-momentum-towards-paris-climate-summit-20150726-gikno6.html">whistlestop tour</a> that included meetings with senior business figures (BHP, National Australia Bank, Qantas, and Victorian state government ministers) to try and build momentum ahead of the crucial summit.</p>
<h2>Looking into the crystal ball</h2>
<p>Despite his <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21262661/ns/us_news-environment/t/gore-un-climate-panel-win-nobel-peace-prize/#.VEQzO6024YQ">Nobel Prize shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Al-Gore-Manual-Alexander-Cockburn/dp/1859848036">not everyone is a fan</a>, with Canadian journalism academic Chris Russill arguing that Gore’s approach “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0963662510364201">narrows our understanding of climate change discourse</a>”.</p>
<p>And just because some climate sceptics think he’s a very naughty boy – and can <a href="https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/07/23/the-gore-effect-nature-strikes-back-at-a-charlatan">change the weather by his mere presence</a> – that doesn’t mean he’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plZRe1kPWZw">the messiah</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, we all need to find new and better ways of exerting more sustained pressure, not only on policymakers but also other institutions and norm-makers in our society, to change the trajectory we’re currently on. </p>
<p>Gore will keep banging on about climate change. He will turn up to give speeches, and will be both praised and derided. What matters is not what he does the same, but what we all do differently.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Al Gore’s trip to Australia this week is the latest in a long line of visits - and not just because he has movies to promote.Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766832017-05-05T14:01:47Z2017-05-05T14:01:47ZCan environmental documentaries make waves?<p>Trump’s first 100 days in office were, among other things, marked by a <a href="https://peoplesclimate.org/homepage-2/">climate march</a> in Washington DC that attracted tens of thousands of demonstrators. No surprises there. Since the beginning of his mandate in January, Trump has signed orders to roll back the number of federally protected waterways, restart the construction of contentious oil pipeline, and cut the budget from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Among the various orders and memoranda, the one signed to overhaul <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-slams-brakes-on-obamas-climate-plan-but-theres-still-a-long-road-ahead-75252">Obama’s Clean Power Plan</a> is probably the most remarkable, along with promoting coal extractions all over the US.</p>
<p>A good time, then, to follow up Al Gore’s iconic documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, which was released 11 years ago in a similarly discouraging political climate. At that time George W Bush, who is remembered for undermining climate science and for strongly supporting oil interests, was in power. In his own first 100 days at the White House, Bush backed down from the promise of regulating carbon dioxide from coal power plants and announced that the US would not implement the Kyoto climate change treaty. </p>
<p>This summer sees the release of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6322922/">An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power</a>. More than ten years have passed and the documentary looks likely to be released in a very similar context. With republicans in power, war in the Middle East, and regulations on the environment to be reversed, this inconvenient sequel is a reminder that the climate of the conversation about global warming has not changed much in the interim.</p>
<p>But the strategies needed to grab the attention of the public certainly have. In the fast-paced, ever-evolving media landscape of the 21st century, knowing how to engage the public on environmental matters is no easy thing. The tendency of the environmental films that have mushroomed since 2000 has been to use a rhetoric of fear. But how effective has this been? Certainly, environmental activism has grown, particularly with the help of social media, but the role of these productions is unclear, and there is a lack of research on audience response to these films.</p>
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<h2>Personal planet</h2>
<p>The selling point of An Inconvenient Truth was its personal approach. Although it had a lecture-style tone, this was a documentary that was all about Gore. He told his story entwined with that of the planet. It was extraordinary that people paid to go to the cinema to watch a politician giving a lecture. This was a big shift in cinema. Arguably, this format was enlivened by the way in which Gore opened up about his personal history.</p>
<p>The documentary opened with the politician’s notorious quote: “I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States.” In November 2000 Gore had lost the presidential elections to George W Bush with an extraordinarily narrow defeat. The choice to run with a very personal rhetoric was certainly strategic – the right time for the former vice president to open up six years from that unfortunate election. Gore told the story of global warming through his personal life, featuring his career disappointments, family tragedies and constantly referring to the scientists he interviewed as “my friend”. </p>
<p>This was a very innovative way of approaching the matter of climate change. We are talking about a politician who decided to offer an insight on his private life for a greater cause: to engage the public on a vital scientific subject. The originality of the documentary led to An Inconvenient Truth scoring two Oscars at the Academy Awards 2006.</p>
<p>Today, An Inconvenient Truth is seen as the prototype of activist film-making. Founder of the Climate Reality Project in 2006 and co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (with the IPCC), Gore and his movement soon became the core of environmental activism, gathering several environmental groups that, despite their differences, today march together for the greatest challenge of our time. </p>
<h2>New hope?</h2>
<p>Eleven years on, the revolution under Gore’s lead that many expected has yet to be fulfilled. The next decade was beset with disappointments. More recently, the 2015 Paris Agreement has marked a new era for climate action, proving that both developed and developing countries are now ready to work together to reduce carbon emissions. But today there is a new protagonist – or antagonist – in the picture. The trailer for An Inconvenient Sequel shows Gore watching Trump shouting his doubts about global warming to the crowd and announcing his plans to strip back the EPA’s budget.</p>
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<p>It will be interesting to see how the tone of the film moves off from that of the original. The “personal reveal” tactic won’t work so well the second time round. And a change in the narrative is certainly evident from the trailer. The graphs of the previous documentary are replaced with more evocative images of extreme weather and disasters. While statistics about carbon dioxide emissions and sea-level rises were predominantly used to trigger emotions in the audience, this time round Gore can show the results of his predictions. One example of this is the iconic footage of a flooded World Trade Centre Memorial, a possibility which was discussed by Gore in the 2006 documentary and criticised by many for being a “fictional” element at that time rather than an “evidence” of climate impact.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I am not sure how much this shift will affect the public or whether the sequel will be the manifesto of that revolution that Gore and his followers have been waiting for. The role that the media have played in the communication of climate change issues has changed and developed alongside the evolution of the medium itself and people’s perception of the environment. The last decade has seen an explosion of sensational images and audiences are fatigued by this use of fear. </p>
<p>Many look for media that includes “positive” messages rather than the traditional onslaught of facts and images triggering negative emotions. It has never been more difficult for environmental communicators to please viewers and readers in the midst of a never-ending flow of information available to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michela Cortese received funding from research councils in the past.</span></em></p>This summer sees the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.Michela Cortese, Associate Lecturer, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.