tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/republican-national-convention-29508/articlesRepublican national convention – The Conversation2024-02-28T12:32:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236892024-02-28T12:32:11Z2024-02-28T12:32:11ZGOP primary elections use flawed math to pick nominees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578350/original/file-20240227-18-rw2ozs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C31%2C5311%2C3357&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How people vote isn't always reflected in how elections are decided.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/map-made-of-stickman-figure-with-patriotic-royalty-free-illustration/1281610356">bamlou/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans around the country are picking a nominee to run for president. However, their process – designed and run by the party, not government officials – is a mess of flawed mathematics that can end up delivering a result that’s in conflict with the person most voters actually support.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://ivolic.wellesley.edu/">mathematics professor</a> and co-founder of the <a href="https://mathematics-democracy-institute.org/">Institute for Mathematics and Democracy</a>, I watched this contradictory process play out in 2016, shaping the political landscape ever since. Elements of it are visible again in 2024.</p>
<p>There are many ways bad mathematics interferes with our democracy, as I explain in my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691248806/making-democracy-count">Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation</a>.” Here’s how the Republican primaries can manage to defy democratic ideals and deliver a nominee even though most voters prefer someone else:</p>
<h2>Splitting votes among many candidates</h2>
<p>In 2016, former President Donald Trump became the Republican choice, having <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">won 44.9% of the votes</a> cast in primaries. That was nearly twice the share of votes won by the runner-up, Ted Cruz, who had 25.1% of the primary votes.</p>
<p>But during primary season, <a href="https://fairvote.org/new_polls_show_that_gop_split_vote_problem_continues/">polls suggested</a> that in head-to-head primaries, Trump would have lost not only to Cruz, but also to <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">third-place Republican finisher John Kasich</a> and Marco Rubio, who placed fourth.</p>
<p>In other words, a majority of Republican voters preferred Cruz, Kasich and Rubio to Trump. But none of the three took the lead because of the party’s nomination system, which assigned <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">Trump 58.3% of the delegates</a> at the Republican National Convention – the formal process by which the nominee is selected.</p>
<h2>An attempt at proportional representation</h2>
<p>The Republican Party says its primaries are meant to <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Rules_Of_The_Republican_Party.pdf">encourage proportional assignment</a> of delegates to candidates. So if a candidate wins, say, 40% of the votes, she should win as close to 40% of the delegates as possible. </p>
<p>This sounds reasonable, and it aligns with most people’s notion of fairness. For primaries taking place before March 15, the Republican Party mandates proportional allocation, but with lots of exceptions that can effectively turn the election into winner-take-all or winner-take-most. After March 15, the exceptions become the norm, pulling the outcome further from proportional representation.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party has a more centralized system and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2024">mandates proportionality</a> for all its primaries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People stand at tables and raise their arms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.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">Crowd members cheer at the 2020 Republican National Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020RNC/b1f38c3935c94ade99728f71b15da1fd/photo">Travis Dove/The New York Times via AP, Pool</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Allocation of delegates</h2>
<p>The process begins with the <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/2020_RNC_Call_of_the_Convention_1575665975.pdf">states each receiving a number of delegates</a> that will later be assigned to candidates.</p>
<p>Each state gets 10 at-large delegates, and three delegates for each congressional district it contains. A state can also get additional delegates based on how Republican it is – depending on whether its people voted for a Republican presidential candidate in the previous general election, and on how much of its legislature is Republican.</p>
<p>These allocations can result in inequities. For instance, Massachusetts and Utah, two of the states voting on Super Tuesday, both get 40 delegates. That’s because Massachusetts has more congressional districts, while Utah is more Republican. </p>
<p>But Utah has roughly 960,000 <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters">registered Republican voters</a>, and Massachusetts has about 440,000. That means for any candidate to get a Utah delegate would require support from at least twice as many voters as that candidate would need to get a Massachusetts delegate.</p>
<h2>Assigning delegates to candidates</h2>
<p>There are as many as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24954-9">seven different proportional methods</a> used to assign states’ at-large delegates, each with its own mathematical problems. And in 21 states, the delegates allocated because of each congressional district are also assigned by the same methods as the at-large delegates.</p>
<p>In other states, the three delegates in each congressional district are all allocated to the winner in that district. And in still other states, the district delegates are allocated with a 2-1 split: The top vote-getter in the district receives two delegates and the runner-up receives one.</p>
<p>Math makes clear that these methods are not proportional representation: Imagine that three candidates in a close race get 33.5%, 33.3% and 33.2% of the votes, respectively. The winner-take-all method would give all three delegates to the top scorer. And in the 2-1 split, the last-place candidate would get nothing. </p>
<p>In some states, the party’s rules also allow the method of counting to vary depending on how dominant a candidate’s win is. For instance, <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/02/08/california-primary-new-state-party-rules-could-accelerate-trump-nomination/72400693007/">California is the latest state to adopt the practice</a> in which a candidate who wins more than half the statewide vote gets all of the state’s delegates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people stand behind lecterns on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.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">Republican candidates for president appear at a debate in Milwaukee in August 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Debate/876ea8c85d5048fea034a652dd1348bc/photo">AP Photo/Morry Gash</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Two candidates doesn’t make the math clearer</h2>
<p>The GOP’s system offers other significant advantages to winners as well. </p>
<p>Suppose a state has eight districts with three delegates apiece and in each, Candidate Alice gets 51% of the votes and Candidate Bob gets 49%. If the allocation was 2-1, Alice would get 16 delegates and Bob would get eight.</p>
<p>Then there are the 10 at-large delegates the party assigns to each state. Most proportional methods would split these delegates evenly, with five given to each candidate. That would deliver a grand total for Alice of 21 delegates, and 13 for Bob.</p>
<p>In that situation, Alice would get 51% of the votes but 62% of the delegates. This “winner’s bonus” was evident in many states Trump won in the 2016 primary, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_Alabama,_2016">such as Alabama</a>, where his vote share was 43% but he collected 72% of the delegates. In the 2020 Democratic primary races, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Major_candidates">Joe Biden won 51.6% of the votes</a> and 68% of the delegates overall.</p>
<p>Winner-take-all is problematic too. Consider Utah and Massachusetts again. If a candidate won Utah by a landslide, and another narrowly won in Massachusetts, they would both get 40 delegates – based on vastly different numbers of actual votes cast by supporters.</p>
<h2>An additional barrier</h2>
<p>Most states also require candidates to get a certain percentage of voter support before being assigned any delegates at all. Under the Republican rules, some states set this bar as high as 20%. The Democratic Party mandates a 15% threshold for every state. </p>
<p>These thresholds are biased toward more popular candidates and can even cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0608-3">mathematically counterintuitive delegate allocations</a>.</p>
<p>The combination of winner-take-all and complicated threshold structures is where all hope of proportionality and fairness vanishes. For example, in 2016, Trump won all of South Carolina’s 50 delegates by <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_South_Carolina,_2016#South_Carolina_primary_results">garnering 33% of the votes</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_Florida,_2016#Florida_primary_results">all of Florida’s 99 delegates</a> with 46% of the votes.</p>
<p>This phenomenon is occurring again in this cycle: In the 2024 South Carolina primary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/24/us/elections/results-south-carolina-republican-primary.html">Trump won 60% of the vote</a> but landed 94% of the state’s delegates. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman stands on a stage holding a microphone in front of a U.S. flag and the South Carolina state flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.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">Nikki Haley got 40% of the primary vote in her home state of South Carolina, but only 4% of the state’s Republican delegates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024MichiganWhattoWatch/9fc716699bf2449aa70ab90ee7956350/photo">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Picking a single winner</h2>
<p>Ultimately, the party delegate system has to arrive at a single winner. Somehow, one candidate must win a majority of the delegate votes that are cast at the summer convention. For this year’s Republican nomination, this is 1,215 of the 2,429 delegates. </p>
<p>Even if the delegate apportionment reflected Republican voters’ preferences in perfect proportion, the system has yet another inherent flaw. Suppose the process gave 35% of the delegates to one candidate, 30% to another, 20% to a third, and then split the remaining 15% between several others. Who should win the nomination?</p>
<p>In a sequential process often called a “<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Brokered_conventions">brokered convention</a>,” various candidates who recognize they cannot win the nomination free their delegates to vote for others. As its name suggests, this method more closely resembles a business deal than a fair election – and it’s very far from the eyes of the voters and even more distant from the rigor of mathematics.</p>
<p>There is no unbiased way to pick a single nominee using the GOP’s current primary structure. Voters are reluctant to risk wasting their votes by supporting less popular candidates. Candidates who appear weaker exit races earlier because they don’t think they can clear the hurdles in enough states. As a result, candidates with small but committed followings can rise to the top – even if most people prefer someone else.</p>
<h2>Some alternatives</h2>
<p>Math does offer some options for possible solutions that eliminate the flaws of winner-take-all, reduce divisiveness, ensure that each voter has an equal say, and enact the will of a majority.</p>
<p>One way could be using <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ranked-choice-voting-a-political-scientist-explains-165055">ranked-choice voting</a>, in which people rank all the candidates in their order of preference. A system that would be mathematically most representative and inclusive would involve nonpartisan primaries with some number of top vote-getters advancing to the general election. Both would be held with ranked-choice voting. Alaska and <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/state-primary-election-types">several other states</a> use this method in state elections, but not for the presidential race.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ismar Volić 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 are many ways bad mathematics interferes with our democracy. Assigning delegates is just one example.Ismar Volić, Professor of Mathematics, Director of Institute for Mathematics and Democracy, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1452202020-09-02T12:20:21Z2020-09-02T12:20:21ZWhy the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ is still pushed by anti-Semites more than a century after hoax first circulated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355897/original/file-20200901-18-10l8v6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C24%2C5439%2C3612&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mary Ann Mendoza was pulled as a speaker at the RNC after tweeting a link to an anti-Semitic thread.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Border-Security/be8fac2142cd450c97b99fd26eeb07eb/16/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An anti-Semitic hoax more than a century old <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2020/08/28/anti-semitism-trump-and-the-republican-convention">reared its ugly head again as the Republican National Convention was underway</a> last week.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rnc-speakers-what-to-know-about-mary-ann-mendoza">Mary Ann Mendoza</a>, a member of the advisory board of President Trump’s reelection campaign, was due to speak on Aug. 25. But she was suddenly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/politics/rnc-mary-ann-mendoza-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theory/index.html">pulled from the schedule</a> after she had retweeted a link to a conspiracy theory about Jewish elites plotting to take over the world.</p>
<p>In her now-deleted tweet, Mendoza urged her <a href="https://twitter.com/mamendoza480">roughly 40,000 followers</a> to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/rnc-speaker-boosts-qanon-conspiracy-theory-about-jewish-plot-to-enslave-the-world-1">read a lengthy thread</a> that warned of a plan to enslave the “goyim,” or non-Jews. It included fevered denunciations of the historically wealthy Jewish family, the Rothschilds, as well as the top target of right-wing extremism today, the liberal Jewish philanthropist George Soros.</p>
<p>The thread also made reference to one of the most notorious hoaxes in modern history: “The <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/a-hoax-of-hate-the-protocols-of-the-learned-elders-of-zion">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>.” As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=75bc9c2ec86c38e50322aba8d0c9175ea621dbbf">scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I know how durable this document has been as a source of the belief in Jewish conspiracies. The fact that it is still making the rounds within the fringe precincts of the political right today is testament to the longevity of this fabrication.</p>
<h2>Fake news</h2>
<p>Surely no outright forgery in modern history has ever proved itself more durable. In the early 20th century, the Protocols were concocted by Tsarist police known as the Okhrana, drawing upon an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/07/opinion/l-protocols-of-zion-originated-in-novel-774887.html">obscure 1868 German novel</a>, “Biarritz,” in which mysterious Jewish leaders meet in a Prague cemetery.</p>
<p>This fictional cabal aspires for power over entire nations through currency manipulation and seeks ideological domination by disseminating fake news. In the novel, the Devil listens sympathetically to the reports that representatives of the tribes of Israel present, describing the havoc and subversion that they have wrought, and the destruction that is yet to come.</p>
<p>The Okhrana – “protection” in Russian – worked for what was then the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/05/long-roots-russian-anti-semitism">most powerful anti-Semitic regime in Europe</a> and wanted to use the hoax to discredit revolutionary forces hostile to the reactionary policies and religious mysticism of Tsarist rule.</p>
<p>The document became a global phenomenon only about two decades after the Okhrana’s fabrication. Widespread publication and republication coincided with both the <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/influenza-pandemic-fueled-rise-of-nazi-party-research/">influenza pandemic</a> of 1918-20 and the <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/antisemitism-russian-revolution-bolsheviks-pogroms">aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution</a> in 1917 – both of which stirred fears of obscure forces that menaced social control. </p>
<p>Scapegoating Jews for disease and political unrest was nothing new. Medieval Jews had been <a href="https://www.bh.org.il/blog-items/700-years-before-coronavirus-jewish-life-during-the-black-death-plague/">massacred in the wake of accusations</a> of having poisoned wells and spreading plagues. </p>
<p>But a century ago, the crisis in public health probably mattered less than the Communists’ seizure of power in Russia, which, if unchecked, might overwhelm the political order that the Great War had destabilized. That some of the revolutionary leaders were of Jewish birth seemed to reinforce the predictions of the Protocols. </p>
<p>Tsar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs, was known to have read the Protocols before being executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. In the following year, Hitler delivered his first recorded speech, in which he depicted an international conspiracy of Jews – of all Jews – to weaken and poison the Aryan race and to extinguish German culture. </p>
<p>Hitler himself was unsure of the authenticity of the Protocols – a question of verification that may not have mattered all that much to the Nazis. The Führer <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/the-psychopathic-god-adolf-hitler/author/waite-robert-g-l/">told one of his early associates</a> that the Protocols were “immensely instructive” in exposing what the Jews could accomplish in terms of “political intrigue,” and in demonstrating their skill at “deception [and] organization.” </p>
<h2>‘Americanized’ conspiracy</h2>
<p>In the U.S., the hoax was given a wide distribution by the most admired businessman of his time: Henry Ford. By 1920, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/henryford-antisemitism/">Ford had “Americanized” the forged document</a> as “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.” It ran as excerpts in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, for 91 straight weeks. “The International Jew” was translated into 16 languages. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355915/original/file-20200901-16-1nrqpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Ford published anti-Semitic conspiracies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-challenges.html">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though Jewish communal leadership mounted a <a href="https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/popular-topics/henry-ford-and-anti-semitism-a-complex-story">lawsuit that forced the auto magnate to issue a retraction</a> in 1927, the malignant hatred behind the Protocols continued to seep into the public conversation.</p>
<p>In the 1930s, the popular anti-New Deal “radio priest” <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin">Charles E. Coughlin</a> excerpted the Protocols in his newspaper, Social Justice. But Father Coughlin was wary about endorsing its accuracy, and merely stated that it might be of “interest” to his readers. </p>
<h2>History as conspiracy</h2>
<p>Why is it that this demonstrably false document continues to hold sway today? </p>
<p>Perhaps the simplest explanation is human irrationality, which neither education nor enlightenment has ever managed to defeat.</p>
<p>The willingness to believe in the fantasy of a surreptitious Jewish stranglehold on the international economy and on mass media also validates the insight of the Columbia University historian <a href="http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/richard_hofstadter.html">Richard Hofstadter</a>. He traced in political extremism of both right and left an apocalyptic strain and a belief in an imminent confrontation between good and absolute evil.</p>
<p>Hofstadter was well aware that conspiracies punctuate the annals of the past. But especially for those Americans who hanker for the security of a settled way of life, political paranoia is tempting, such as the belief – as Hofstadter wrote – that “history <em>is</em> a conspiracy,” in which unseen forces are the shadowy driving mechanisms of human destiny.</p>
<p>Because anti-Semitism has survived nearly a couple of millennia, no form of prejudice has yet found a more vivid place in the imagination. And the fact that no international Jewish conspiracy was ever located has never depleted the power of the Protocols to tap into subterranean currents of demonization.</p>
<h2>From the Rothschilds to Soros</h2>
<p>What sustains the influence of the Protocols among cranks and extremists is not the language of the text itself – which few of them are likely to have fully read in its various versions – but what this forgery purports to underscore, which is the astonishingly cunning influence of Jews in modern history.</p>
<p>The Protocols thus have no importance in themselves; they are spurious. But they do bestow precision upon apocalyptic fears, which could not survive without some ingredient of plausibility – however wildly far-fetched.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The Rothschild family was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-early-rothschilds-built-a-fortune-2012-12">pivotal to the emergence of finance capitalism</a> in 19th-century Europe. The family firm had branches in Germany, France, Austria, Italy and England, which lent credence to the charge of “cosmopolitanism” during an era of rising nationalism. The boom-and-bust oscillations of the economy generated not only misery but also grievances against financiers who seemed to benefit from such uncertainties. </p>
<p>Today, Soros, a Hungarian-born, British-educated American Jew, has become an especially hated figure for the far-right. Among the world’s canniest investors, he has spent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/billionaire-financier-george-soros-shifts-18-billion-to-his-charitable-foundation/2017/10/17/d62d69b8-b374-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html">billions of dollars promoting</a> progressive causes. He seems to personify what Ford called “the international Jew.”</p>
<p>Venom against minorities other than Jews has not resulted in any equivalent to the Protocols. Judeophobia produced a specious documentation that bigotry against no other minority has ever elicited. Perhaps the very explicitness of the Protocols helps strengthen the suspicion that majority beliefs and interests are under attack, and keeps this dangerous form of anti-Semitism alive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Whitfield 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>A would-be speaker at the Republican National Convention was yanked for encouraging people to read up on a hoax that has long been discredited but refuses to die.Stephen Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451492020-08-28T17:12:53Z2020-08-28T17:12:53ZThe Republican National Convention: Even more dangerous than 4 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355356/original/file-20200828-20-q8p3hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C50%2C5570%2C3096&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump joins Vice President Mike Pence on stage at the Republican National Convention at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore on Aug. 26, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2016 Republican National Convention was filled with chants of “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12232608/republican-convention-hillary-clinton-lock-her-up">lock her up</a>” and “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/republican-convention-takeaways/index.html">build that wall</a>,” packed with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12225872/republican-convention-racism">fear-mongering and often openly racist messages</a>. </p>
<p>The 2020 convention has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/republicans-counter-charges-trump-racism-night-rnc-200825183638904.html">clearly been designed to convey a different message</a>, highlighting speakers of colour and showcasing U.S. President Donald Trump’s pardons and his granting of citizenship to people of colour. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3050%2C2027&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grimacing Trump speaks into a microphone wearing a blue suit and blue and red striped tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3050%2C2027&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355353/original/file-20200828-15-1o1xpnf.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">U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on Aug. 27, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As someone who studies racist rhetoric, I find this version even scarier than the previous one.</p>
<p>For several years now, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/25481050/Racial_Figleaves_the_Shifting_Boundaries_of_the_Permissible_and_the_Rise_of_Donald_Trump">I have been especially interested in what I call “racial fig leaves</a>,” utterances or actions that work to prevent people from recognizing the racism in front of them. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shitholes-and-figleaves-how-donald-trump-is-making-racist-language-ok-again-91705">Shitholes and figleaves: how Donald Trump is making racist language OK again</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>I use the term fig leaves because they serve to just barely cover something you aren’t supposed to show in public. Fig leaves are needed because most white people <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691070711/the-race-card">don’t want to think of themselves as racist</a>. Fig leaves work because some white people are <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/The+Everyday+Language+of+White+Racism-p-9781405184533">so keen to convince themselves that something apparently racist really isn’t racist after all.</a></p>
<p>In Trump’s famous <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916">comment about Mexican rapists</a>, he went out of his way to indicate that he wasn’t talking about all Mexicans, and that some Mexicans are good people. These incongruous additions to the diatribe serve as fig leaves for those who falsely believe you can only be racist if you condemn all members of a group. </p>
<p>As I studied online discussions among Trump followers, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/25481050/Racial_Figleaves_the_Shifting_Boundaries_of_the_Permissible_and_the_Rise_of_Donald_Trump">I saw them</a> making precisely this case to one another, to convince themselves that Trump wasn’t racist. </p>
<h2>A litany of racist conduct</h2>
<p>Now turn to where we are now. Trump as president <a href="https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban">instituted a Muslim ban</a>, albeit after some changes to get it past the courts. He locked immigrant <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44518942">children in cages</a>. He quoted a violent segregationist, calling for the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts">shooting of peaceful protesters</a> seeking racial justice. He told four congresswomen of colour to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/us/politics/trump-twitter-squad-congress.html">go back to where they came from</a>. And that’s just off the top of my head.</p>
<p>And now, after all this, Trump and the Republican party chose to feature Black Republican Sen. Tim Scott and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, of Indian descent, along with other Black and brown speakers, to showcase their apparent embrace of people of colour.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Nikki Haley, wearing a pink suit and carrying a document in her hand, smiles as she begins to walk away from a podium that reads Trump/Pence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355125/original/file-20200827-16-1e4bu5v.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">Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is seen after speaking during the Republican National Convention from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington on Aug. 24, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump’s high-profile <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/rnc-trump-hatch-act-violations-white-house-20200826.html">pardon and naturalization ceremonies</a> at the White House are also aimed at showing his ostensible benevolence toward people of colour. </p>
<p>These are attempted fig leaves, probably directed squarely at the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/668726284/where-the-suburbs-moved-left-and-how-it-swung-elections">suburban voters the party missed out on in the 2018 mid-term elections</a>. </p>
<p>These fig leaves were meant to convince voters that Trump and his party are not racist after all. They may have done some things that seemed alarmingly “racially charged,” perhaps, but in their hearts they were not really racist, as shown by the kindness to people of colour now on display. </p>
<p>But to accept this, you have to accept that locking kids in cages, banning Muslims, telling people to go back to where they came from and calling for the shooting of peaceful protesters demanding racial justice isn’t racist. And that someone can institute these policies and hold these opinions without being racist.</p>
<p>This is what makes fig leaves so dangerous: they have the potential to change our views about what racism is and to make us accept increasingly racist policy and conduct as not racist after all. </p>
<h2>Blatant racism also on display</h2>
<p>The convention wasn’t all fig leaves. There was also actual, blatant racism in the form of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/24/mccloskey-convention-speech-guns-suburbs-401297">Mark and Patricia McCloskey</a>, famed for brandishing guns at peaceful protesters. They worried that Democrats would “bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighbourhoods.” This was surely meant to be what’s known as a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/46922909/dog-whistles-the-secret-language-politicians-are-using">dog whistle</a>, using coded language to express the fear that Black people might move into white neighbourhoods. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1298096585117663233"}"></div></p>
<p>But in our current circumstances, that message was likely heard loud and clear by all of us. And if anyone failed to catch the McCloskey’s message, it was hammered home again and again in much the same vocabulary by a wide range of speakers.</p>
<p>There was also Trump’s reference to COVID-19 as the “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/republican-party-not-racist-declare-convention-speakers-the-china-virus-1049468/">China virus</a>.” There was the use of the phrase “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/25/rnc-day-1-trump-stokes-racial-division-claims-hes-not-racist-in-night-of-unhinged-dishonesty/">bodyguard of western civilization</a>,” a coded phrase commonly used by white supremacists. Even if you’d missed the last four years and just tuned into the Republican convention, deeming these comments as non-racist would require a shockingly limited definition of racism. </p>
<h2>Major crises ignored</h2>
<p>Then there were the choices about what to say and what to ignore. The COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/05/26/860913793/how-the-crisis-is-making-racial-inequality-worse">disproportionately killing people of colour</a>, was barely mentioned except as the “China virus” that was now behind Americans. </p>
<p>The protests against police killings of Black people were frequently mentioned, but only as scenes of violence and unrest, not racial injustice — a fig leaf if there ever was one. The killing of two peaceful protesters, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53934109">allegedly by a Trump-supporting teenager in Wisconsin,</a> as the convention was being held was scrupulously ignored. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People wearing masks embrace by candlelight." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355352/original/file-20200828-14-1czxwaa.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">Protesters observe a moment of silence while marching Aug. 26, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis., near the scene of a fatal shooting of two fellow protesters who were demonstrating against the police shooting of unarmed Black man Jacob Blake. A white, 17-year-old police admirer has been arrested.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/David Goldman)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Speakers could easily have acknowledged the illegitimacy of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/08/27/jacob-blake-kenosha-police-shooting-two-killed/3442878001/">shooting an unarmed man multiple times in the back, and they could have easily expressed concern about a heavily armed white teenager who’s accused of murder in the street</a>. </p>
<p>They chose not to. </p>
<p>To fill your convention with utterly blatant racism, as the Republicans did in 2016, is bad enough. But after four years of blatantly racist actions, a convention filled with fig leaves is perhaps even more dangerous. If the fig leaves work, then — for those who fall for them — the perception grows that the Trump administration’s racist actions weren’t really racist after all. </p>
<p>Recognizing racism has never come easily to white people. But if Trump’s actions and words are no longer seen as racist, the fight against hate, bigotry and racial injustice will be harder than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am a member of the Democratic Party. </span></em></p>To fill a convention with blatant racism, as the Republicans did in 2016, is bad enough. But, after four years of racist policies, a convention filled with subtle racism is perhaps more dangerous.Jennifer Saul, Waterloo Chair in Social and Political Philosophy of Language, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1416632020-08-17T14:04:47Z2020-08-17T14:04:47ZPandemic alters political conventions – which have always changed with the times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352987/original/file-20200814-24-1q6h3uy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5455%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The spectacle at the 2016 Republican National Convention will not be repeated in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-GOP-2016-Convention/bf9bd72b6b984c18b8063c488f8bfc2b/9/1">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Politics, like everything else in American life, is being reshaped by the pandemic and by technology. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-unveil-wide-ranging-speaker-schedule-virtual-convention/story?id=72303837">Democrats held almost all of their 2020 nominating convention virtually</a>. Republicans have not moved their convention online – <a href="https://www.charlotteagenda.com/227800/what-to-expect-with-the-scaled-back-rnc-in-charlotte-this-month/">delegates will still attend the event</a> in Charlotte, North Carolina – but it will be significantly scaled back. </p>
<p>Most notably, President Donald Trump will give his renomination acceptance speech at another location – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/jacksonville-rnc.html">first planned to be in Jacksonville, Florida</a>, but which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/politics/trump-rnc-speech-white-house/index.html">now might be at the White House</a>, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/10/trump-gettysburg-republican-national-convention-nomination">possibly the Gettysburg battlefield</a>, but which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech.html">could theoretically happen anywhere</a>. </p>
<p>These technological adaptations signal a permanent shift in the way nominating conventions meet and the way voters watch them – but it’s not the first time such radical changes have come to politics.</p>
<p>Technology has driven change in the presidential nominating process since the earliest days of American parties. This is a lesson I learned while researching 19th-century party politics for my book, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511750748">The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896</a>.” America’s current party organizations were built as party leaders used new technologies to make their proceedings more attractive to voters and their candidates more appealing. </p>
<p><iframe id="0ycJz" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/0ycJz/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The caucus system</h2>
<p>The first nominating process was not a convention at all. In an age of horse-drawn carriages on muddy dirt roads it could take more than a week – in good weather – <a href="http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/138/a/">just to cross large states like New York</a>. Travel was expensive and unreliable, making large gatherings of people separated by great distances unworkable. So the earliest party nominations in 1796 and 1800 happened when <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/presidency-of-the-United-States-of-America/Selecting-a-president#ref792989">members of Congress started consulting in informal meetings called caucuses</a> to select nominees before returning home for fall campaigns. It was an efficient means of achieving party unity under the circumstances. There was, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-conventions-today-are-for-partying-and-pageantry-not-picking-nominees-142246">little room for voter involvement</a>.</p>
<p>Between 1800 and 1830, states built better roads and canals. Travel times were shortened, and the cost of travel shrunk. The Post Office, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/postal-service-act-regulates-united-states-post-office-department">established in 1792</a>, delivered printed material cheaply, subsidizing a booming national press. Americans were able to gather across vast distances, had better information and depended less on word of mouth from political leaders. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People gathered in a large auditorium with a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An engraving of the 1860 Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00652812/">Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of conventions</h2>
<p>With better informed citizens, the caucus system was in disarray by the 1820s. It was fully discredited in the eyes of many voters and political elites in 1824 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1824#ref1113452">when less than half of the members of the Republican party caucus attended the meeting</a>. <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/campaigns-and-elections">Multiple nominees were instead selected by state legislatures</a>, creating a crisis of legitimacy for the dominant <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mjm&fileName=05/mjm05.db&recNum=591">Republican party</a>, which historians now refer to as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Republican-Party">Democratic-Republican party</a>.</p>
<p>In 1828, Andrew Jackson won the presidency, based in part on a nomination from the Tennessee state legislature. After his victory, he engineered <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/main/polcon/democraticindex.html">the first national convention of a major party in 1832</a>, at which the Jackson faction of the Republican party called itself the Democratic party. </p>
<p>The convention did not officially re-nominate Jackson, but it did choose his running mate, Martin Van Buren. In the process it demonstrated that a national convention could in fact gather larger numbers of delegates, who themselves represented a larger number of voters, and could therefore be more democratic.</p>
<p>This convention model dominated American politics for the next hundred years. </p>
<p>Convention sites followed the progress of American transportation networks westward. The first six Democratic national conventions were held in Baltimore due to its convenient location and its position on the border of slave and free states. But as railroads made travel less expensive, the parties moved west. In 1856 Democrats convened in Cincinnati, in 1864 in Chicago, and in 1900 in Kansas City, Missouri. </p>
<p>Republicans met in Chicago as early as 1860 and as far west as Minneapolis by 1892. To appeal to different regions, both parties moved their conventions every four years – a tradition maintained to this day.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man gives a speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin Roosevelt accepts his party’s presidential nomination in person at the 1932 Democratic convention in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Illinois-United-/7b97a801fae6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/168/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conventions in the 20th century</h2>
<p>Another technological shift came in 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt became the first major party nominee to address a convention in person. </p>
<p>Until then, custom dictated that the nominee stayed home under the pretense of not being too ambitious for office. Some months later, a committee of delegates would visit the nominee to “inform” him of his candidacy. Only then did the nominee give brief prepared remarks and start actively campaigning. </p>
<p>Roosevelt blew through that custom by catching a plane from New York to the Democratic convention site in Chicago and <a href="https://www.fdrlibrary.org/dnc-curriculum-hub">addressing the delegates the day after his nomination</a>. “Let it be from now on the task of our party to break foolish traditions,” Roosevelt intoned, before calling for a “new deal.” </p>
<p>Traveling to Chicago was not just a metaphor for Roosevelt. By dominating the attention of the convention at precisely the time voters were paying attention to it, FDR signaled his intention to not only be a nominee of the party, <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/99/">but the leader of the party</a>. And it made his transformative political message part of the news.</p>
<p>Television further changed the conventions. For much of the 19th century, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/04/contested-presidential-conventions-and-why-parties-try-to-avoid-them/">presidential nominations were contested by multiple candidates</a>, causing difficult convention battles; the 1924 Democratic convention went through 103 rounds of balloting before settling on John W. Davis.</p>
<p>Starting in 1948, conventions permitted television cameras, which reduced the incentives for endless ballots. Instead, conventions became <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-conventions-today-are-for-partying-and-pageantry-not-picking-nominees-142246">visible celebrations of party unity</a>. </p>
<p>In 1972, the parties started using primary elections to select delegates pledged to vote for specific candidates, so the delegate count was publicly known <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Edguber/POLS125/articles/piroth.htm">before the conventions were gaveled to order</a>. Conventions became days-long infomercials for the nominee. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people in straw hats wave signs at a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.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">At the 1968 Democratic convention, people wore straw hats and waved signs to indicate which candidate they supported.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-party-members-holding-placards-in-support-of-news-photo/1208801316">Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unconventional conventions</h2>
<p>The pandemic has struck at just the right moment for another technological shift. Network television news – the medium through which most 20th century conventions were viewed – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/fewer-americans-rely-on-tv-news-what-type-they-watch-varies-by-who-they-are/">commands less voter attention</a>. </p>
<p>Moving the convention spectacle online allows the party to control their message more effectively – as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/01/politics/rnc-charlotte-press/index.html">Republican efforts to exclude journalists from the proceedings highlight</a>. </p>
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<p>Democrats recorded some speeches in advance, allowing the party to release focused content compatible with the pace and packaging of social media. As voters share and comment on that content, <a href="https://www.demconvention.com/get-involved/">using official party social media graphics and Zoom screens</a>, it could nurture a sense of party identification, and of virtual participation. </p>
<h2>What comes next?</h2>
<p>The GOP’s wavering between different locations, and the Democrats’ reliance on remote speakers, will lead some to ask whether a centralized convention is even necessary. In the future, why not have multiple convention sites across the country, with multiple political figures speaking to smaller physical audiences? </p>
<p>Events like that could enable the party to target narrow groups of voters more effectively. As parties experiment with the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90537463/the-democratic-convention-can-be-anything-this-year-we-asked-designers-for-their-wildest-concepts">potential of digital technologies</a>, it seems likely that they will find some of them more attractive than cavernous convention halls and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-straw-boater-the-unofficial-hat-of-political-conventions-1469033845">outdated swarms of straw hats</a>.</p>
<p>But that approach would have disadvantages. Social media spectacles would eliminate spontaneous reactions from delegates that give home viewers a sense of the mood – whether dissension from the party line, contagious enthusiasm or even the striking power of a memorable speech line. Democrats have acknowledged that the online format in 2020 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-head-to-convention-united-against-trump-but-expecting-conflict-once-the-election-is-over/2020/08/15/a6754a88-de41-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html">will deprive supporters of Bernie Sanders the stage they had in 2016</a>. As much as specialized events might draw in some voters by targeting narrow groups, they might also allow parties to create more divisive appeals in ways that evade broader scrutiny. And virtual conventions can make it easier for party leaders to obscure proceedings from journalists and the public.</p>
<p>It’s not yet clear how this moment will reshape nominating conventions. But party leaders will adapt to the technological opportunities it presents, and find new ways to make conventions work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Klinghard has in the past received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>This year’s technological adaptations may signal a permanent shift in the way nominating conventions meet and the way voters watch them – but it’s not the first time.Daniel Klinghard, Professor of Political Science, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1439632020-08-10T12:08:50Z2020-08-10T12:08:50ZDemocratic, Republican parties both play favorites when allotting convention delegates to states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351424/original/file-20200805-164-1wkgme7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=280%2C412%2C4535%2C2357&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Politics is a push-and-pull between the parties and the states.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/elephant-and-donkey-divided-map-of-america-royalty-free-illustration/683847434"> Samuil_Levich/iStock/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the Democratic and Republican parties pick their nominees for the presidency, they’ll do so under a delegate system that rewards states for their partisan loyalty – and ignores the common principle of everyone having an equal say.</p>
<p>Consider these examples: Texas, home to 28.9 million people, will have 228 pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention. New York, with two-thirds the number of people, at 19.5 million, will have more pledged delegates – 274. This inequality extends to less-populous states as well: Arizona’s 7.3 million residents will be represented by 67 pledged delegates, while Maryland’s 6 million people will have 96 pledged delegates.</p>
<p>It’s similar with the Republican National Convention. Ohio, with a population of 11.7 million, will have 82 delegates, while Pennsylvania – home to 12.8 million people – has just 34. Oregon’s 4.2 million people have 28 Republican delegates, one fewer than either of the Dakotas, which each has well under a million residents.</p>
<p><iframe id="kCPp8" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kCPp8/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Only delegates can vote on party decisions at the conventions. This situation makes it harder for either party to attract independents, who make up <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about-us-political-independents/">about one-third of U.S. voters</a>. If leaders in especially blue states get a disproportionately higher number of delegates than those in purple or red states, they will have more power to control which Democratic Party member is nominated, what the platform will be and what the rules will be for awarding states delegates the next time. It’s a similar story in the GOP for particularly red states, whose leaders will get more power over Republican decisions than people from swing states or states that tend to vote for the Democratic Party.</p>
<h2>Big differences in voting power</h2>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3y3BVcEAAAAJ&hl=en">I</a> divided the pledged delegates assigned to each state by the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/10/799979293/how-many-delegates-do-the-2020-presidential-democratic-candidates-have">Democratic National Committee</a> and the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/elections/results/primaries/republican/">Republican National Committee</a> by the <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-by-population.html">states’ populations</a>, and found some staggering disparities. </p>
<p>For the Democratic Party, the District of Columbia received 28.34 delegates for each million residents, while Texas had 7.86 delegates per million people. A D.C. Democrat’s voice has 3.6 times the power of a Texas Democrat, which is the widest disparity in that party.</p>
<p>But that’s nothing compared to the situation in the Republican Party. Wyoming received 50.1 delegates per million residents, compared to 2.66 delegates per million residents for Pennsylvania. The GOP’s widest disparity gives a Wyoming Republican a voice that is a whopping 18.9 times as powerful as a Pennsylvania Republican.</p>
<p>That’s far more even than the Electoral College disparity, in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/electoral-college-benefits-whiter-states-study-shows-142600">Wyoming gets four times more electoral votes</a> per person than Florida.</p>
<p><iframe id="4qoB1" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4qoB1/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why such a difference?</h2>
<p>The parties’ <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/141622-how-many-delegates-does-each-state-get-the-answer-is-165-pages-long">rule books</a> for delegate selection are quite extensive. The <a href="https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/2016%20PRESIDENTIAL%20NOMINATING%20PROCESS%20BOOK_1443803140.pdf">RNC book</a> is 40 pages long, while the <a href="https://demrulz.org/wp-content/files/12.15.14_2016_Delegate_Selection_Documents_Mailing_-_Rules_Call_Regs_Model_Plan_Checklist_12.15.14.pdf">DNC rules</a> go on for 165 pages. </p>
<p>It comes down to more than just population. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2020">Democrats have a formula</a> for delegates that includes how the state voted in the last three presidential elections, the state’s number of Electoral College votes and when the state holds its primary. </p>
<p>The Republican system gives each state three delegates per congressional district, 10 at-large delegates, and three more delegate spots – to be taken by party leaders from that state. The GOP also <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_National_Convention,_2020">gives states “bonus” delegates</a> if they voted for the Republican nominee in the previous presidential election, and if they have Republican governors and U.S. senators, and if there are Republican majorities in state legislatures and U.S. House of Representatives delegations. </p>
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<p>Both of these systems, in different ways, reward states where the party is strong, at the expense of party members in states that are more evenly divided or could be stronger.</p>
<p>If your state votes solidly blue or bright red, you’ll have more power over that national party. Perhaps that’s why parties are becoming more extreme; the delegate allocations mean the Democratic Party is dominated by the most liberal states, while conservative states own the Republican Party. That leaves even less of a voice for states that are ideologically moderate, hurting party outreach efforts.</p>
<h2>Effects on the public</h2>
<p>Of course, the political parties can argue that they are private groups who can determine their own governance however they wish. But that power is not absolute.</p>
<p>In the early 20th century, the Texas Democratic Party sought to exclude Blacks from voting in its primaries. A <a href="https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/archive/html/vce/features/0503_01/smith.html">series of Supreme Court decisions over two decades</a> culminated in a 1944 ruling declaring that state laws establishing party primaries made the Texas primary <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/321us649">more than just a function of a private organization</a>. Instead, those laws made the party’s primary a key component of the electoral process, and therefore the party could not exclude Blacks from participating.</p>
<p>Beyond being unequal, these systems hurt parties’ ability to reach moderates. When New Jersey Democrats get more delegates than Georgians, despite having a smaller population, the party is less likely to select candidates who appeal beyond the die-hard faithful, who are more likely to be found among New Jersey’s delegates. It’s the same for Republicans, where the Alaska GOP has more than 10 times the delegates, proportionally speaking, as California’s GOP. </p>
<h2>A fairer future?</h2>
<p>There may be improvement on the horizon: Democrats are <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-national-convention-rules-committee-super-delegate-reforms_n_5f231143c5b6a34284b824b7">debating their delegate system</a> for the 2024 primary. They are considering whether to continue limiting the power of superdelegates, determining what should happen to the delegates of candidates who drop out and encouraging diversity among party leaders.</p>
<p>And GOP state conventions <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/virtual-gop-convention-reveals-party-at-odds-with-its-governor/ar-BB16UH6N">like the one this year in Texas</a> are having a conflict over who will represent the party at the national convention and in the Electoral College. The question specifically is about whether rank-and-file party members will dominate, or whether the process will be opened up more to independents, libertarians and other nonmembers.</p>
<p>So long as their most loyally partisan states have such disproportionate influence over candidate choices, party platforms and even the rules for delegate allocation, neither party will be at its best for reaching swing states or independent voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John A. Tures 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>Internal party rules make it harder to attract independents, who make up about one-third of US voters.John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1438872020-08-06T12:33:23Z2020-08-06T12:33:23Z1864 elections went on during the Civil War – even though Lincoln thought it would be a disaster for himself and the Republican Party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351401/original/file-20200805-20-m2d7k5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C2%2C844%2C592&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soldiers and African American workers standing near caskets and dead bodies covered with cloths during Grant's Overland Campaign. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2019633431/">Matthew Brady/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The outlook was not promising in 1864 for President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection. </p>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of Americans had been <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-civil-war-year-by-year-1773748">killed, wounded or displaced</a> in a civil war with no end in sight. Lincoln was unpopular. Radical Republicans in his own party doubted his commitment to Black civil rights and condemned his friendliness to ex-rebels.</p>
<p>Momentum was building to replace him on the ballot with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. A <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lincoln/lTQSlhUUEOQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pomeroy+%22want+of+intellectual+grasp%22&pg=PA481&printsec=frontcover">pamphlet</a> went viral arguing that “Lincoln cannot be re-elected to the Presidency,” warning that “The people have lost all confidence in his ability to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.” An embarrassed Chase offered Lincoln his resignation, which the president declined.</p>
<p>The fact remained that no president had won a second term since Andrew Jackson, 32 years and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/">nine presidents</a> earlier. And no country had held elections in the midst of civil war.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Lincoln-Johnson campaign ticket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351398/original/file-20200805-237-1nthsww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&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 Lincoln-Johnson campaign ticket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/scsm000744/">King & Beird, Printers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1864/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Arguments for postponing</h2>
<p>Some urged that the June Republican convention be postponed until September to give the Union one more shot at military victory. Other Republicans went further, arguing that the country should “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020712/1864-04-26/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1864&index=17&date2=1864&words=election+postpone+Postponing&searchType=basic&sequence=0&sort=date&state=&rows=20&proxtext=postpone+election&y=11&x=15&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3">postpone</a> … a Presidential election for four years more … (until) the rebellion will not only be subdued, but the country will be tranquillized and restored to its normal condition.”</p>
<p>Holding the election during civil war would render “the vote … <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020712/1864-04-26/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1864&index=17&date2=1864&words=election+postpone+Postponing&searchType=basic&sequence=0&sort=date&state=&rows=20&proxtext=postpone+election&y=11&x=15&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3">fraudulent</a>,” argued the New York Sunday Mercury, in a widely reprinted article. The nation would “flame up in revolution, and the streets of our cities would run with blood.”</p>
<p>But Lincoln’s party renominated him. He was a canny political strategist who calculated that nominating Democratic Unionist and military Governor of Tennessee Andrew Johnson for vice president would attract disaffected Democrats and speed national reunification.</p>
<p>Johnson proved to be a disastrous choice for Black civil rights, but in 1864 his candidacy shrewdly balanced the ticket.</p>
<p>Yet a military victory that could also help Lincoln’s standing and prospects was elusive. General Ulysses S. Grant led <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/overland-campaign-1864">the Overland Campaign</a> against Confederates, led by General Robert E. Lee, across much of eastern Virginia that spring. After 55,000 Union casualties – about 45% of Grant’s army – <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/petersburg-wearing-down-lees-army">Grant laid siege to Petersburg</a>.</p>
<p>By the time <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/democrats-nominate-mcclellan-to-challenge-lincoln-aug-31-1864-227488">Democrats met in August to nominate General George B. McClellan</a>, there was still no end in sight to the war. Lincoln had removed McLellan from command of the Union Army of the Potomac in 1862, but the general was still a commissioned officer. Yet McClellan’s party was in disarray. He opposed a peace settlement with the Confederacy while the Democratic Party platform committed him to it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Lincoln having a nightmare about being defeated." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351392/original/file-20200805-239-13982e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&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 artist portrays a president tormented by nightmares of defeat in the election of 1864. The print probably appeared late in the campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2003689256/">Currier & Ives/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Defeat ‘seems exceedingly probable’</h2>
<p>Without scientific polling, Lincoln and his advisers predicted defeat. </p>
<p>At the end of August, Lincoln <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4359700/?sp=1&st=text">wrote</a> to his Cabinet, “it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.”</p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln understood that the war for the Union was about the integrity of a constitutional republic, not the president or the party. It was about “<a href="https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/gettysburg/good_cause/transcript.htm">a new birth of freedom</a>” and not about him. And that meant his victory in the election was less important to him than the fate of the entire country.</p>
<p>Yet Lincoln also made contingency plans in the event he lost, asking Frederick Douglass to help <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mal&fileName=mal1/356/3565200/malpage.db&recNum=0">free enslaved people</a> in rebel-held areas.</p>
<h2>Soldiers vote absentee</h2>
<p>It was a bitter campaign. Lincoln’s opponents tarred him with racist and bestial characterizations. Republicans fought back, charging Democrats with being treasonous.</p>
<p>But no slogan discrediting the opposition was as effective in building support for Lincoln as the September Union military victories at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Mobile-Bay">Mobile Bay</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Atlanta">Atlanta</a>.</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>General Grant <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/lincoln/campaigns-and-elections">made sure soldiers voting absentee</a> sent their mail-in ballots. He furloughed others to go home to vote in person.</p>
<p>Even on the eve of the election, there were still calls to delay or cancel the vote. </p>
<p>Lincoln, who would go on to win, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3253/3253-h/3253-h.htm#Glink2H_4_0273">assured</a> those critics, “We cannot have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Calvin Schermerhorn 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>Lincoln’s chances of reelection in 1864 were dim. He was presiding over a bloody civil war, and the public was losing confidence in him. But he steadfastly rejected pleas to postpone the election.Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639872016-08-30T03:05:42Z2016-08-30T03:05:42ZGuns in Donald Trump’s America<p>Donald Trump’s new outreach to “minority voters” is already showing signs of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/24/politics/donald-trump-outreach-minority-voters/">strain</a>. </p>
<p>Soon after the shooting death of Nykea Aldridge, cousin of basketball star Dwyane Wade, Trump sent a controversial tweet: </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"769571710924263424"}"></div></p>
<p>Trump’s missive drew widespread <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/08/27/don-cheadle-unleashes-twitter-storm-donald-trump/89477440/">condemnation</a> for its opportunism and insensitivity, particularly in the context of Chicago. Shootings in the city surged more than <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/01/murders-shootings-soar-chicago-through-first-three-months-2016/82507210/0">88 percent</a> in the first three months of 2016 alone.</p>
<p>The furor that ensued after the tweet raised an important question: How would Trump’s gun policies affect life for communities of color in cities like Chicago?</p>
<p>Prior to running for president, Trump <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003H4I4Q8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1#nav-subnav">supported</a> banning assault rifles, requiring waiting periods on gun purchases, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/donald-trump-gun-positions-nra-orlando">regulating gun sales</a> to persons on terrorism watch lists, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-guns-classrooms_us_5741b615e4b0613b512a88de">limiting</a> guns in classrooms and a host of other gun violence prevention strategies.</p>
<p>Now, however, the New York real estate developer positions himself as the defender of even the most extreme gun rights as part of his broader transition to a guardian of law and order. </p>
<p>“I alone can fix it,” he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination">told</a> a national audience in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, casting himself as the candidate of law and order. In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting, he made <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lgbt-groups-slam-donald-trump">far-reaching statements</a> that patrons should bring loaded guns with them into nightclubs. His claims prompted even the National Rifle Association, a group that endorsed Trump, to respond saying that the candidate <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/nra-donald-trump-armed-orlando-club-goers">defied</a> common sense. </p>
<p>According to an <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/02/11/Donald-Trump-I-Always-Carry-Gun">interview</a> with a far-right French magazine, Trump now carries a weapon with him at all times. He also named a vice presidential nominee, Mike Pence, who repeatedly voted to <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/IN/Mike_Pence_Gun_Control.htm">block</a> liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers and boasts an A rating from the NRA.</p>
<p>As a gun violence <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302242">researcher</a>, I believe <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-u-s-gun-deaths-compare-to-other-countries">epidemic</a> rates of American gun injury and death would get even worse if the positions Trump now claims to support are translated into national policies.</p>
<h2>Eliminating gun regulations</h2>
<p>For instance, in sharp contrast to <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/gun-violence-prevention">positions</a> outlined by Hillary Clinton and vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, Trump promises to eliminate most gun and ammunition regulations. This includes regulations that monitor sales of the assault-style rifles that have been used in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/12/the-gun-used-in-the-orlando-shooting-is-becoming-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice">practically every</a> recent mass shooting, and in recent killings of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/17/report-man-with-assault-rifle-shoots-seven-officers-kills-three-in-baton-rouge.html">police officers</a>. </p>
<p>These popular, military-grade rifles, which were subjected to federal ban <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-banning-assault-weapons-in-one-post/?tid=a_inl">until 2004</a>, are the weapons of choice for criminals and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-video-buy-automatic-weapons-start-shooting/story?id=13704264">terrorists</a> seeking mass casualty. The firearms are capable of accurately firing many rounds of ammunition in <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-ar15-gun-used-in-orlando-20160613">short bursts</a>.</p>
<p>For these reasons, many states and cities such as Chicago <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/20/gun-laws-vary-state-by-state-cnbc-explains.html">regulate</a> their sale and use. Yet under a Trump administration, such regulations could be in jeopardy. Trump’s <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/second-amendment-rights">website</a> states, “the government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.” It is unclear exactly how he would enforce such restrictions on states or come up with a standard of “good honest people,” and particularly so without the use of background checks.</p>
<p>Trump also supports a so-called <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/second-amendment-rights">national right-to-carry permit</a> that allows gun owners to conceal and carry anywhere in the United States. This position could effectively make it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/01/08/donald-trumps-radical-new-proposal-on-guns">illegal</a> for cities like Chicago, or states like Illinois, to pass their own laws regulating guns. He also advocates for <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/trump-clinton-gun-control-second-amendment">expansion</a> of controversial “stand-your-ground” laws, and <a href="http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2016/jun/02/donald-trump/donald-trump-minimizes-number-revoked-gun-permits-">minimizes</a> the rights of states to revoke gun permits. </p>
<p>So too, the Trump campaign <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/second-amendment-rights">rejects</a> expansion of the federal background check system. This, despite the fact that <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-americans-agree-with-obama-that-more-gun-buyers-should-get-background-checks">most</a> Americans – as many as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/cnn-gun-poll">92 percent</a> in a recent CNN poll – support requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales. Data also suggest that states where background checks are required have <a href="http://everytown.org/issue/background-checks">half</a> the gun-related gun suicide, domestic violence, trafficking and violence against the police as states that do not. <a href="http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/repeal-of-missouris-background-law-associated-with-increase-in-states-murders.html">One study</a> by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research found the murder rate in Missouri jumped 14 percent after the repeal of a state law that required anyone purchasing a handgun to obtain a permit showing they had passed a background check.</p>
<p>Trump also supports the elimination of all gun-free zones. “I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/08/donald-trump-i-will-get-rid-of-gun-free-zones-on-schools/?tid=a_inl">he said</a> at a campaign rally earlier this year. His position would end long-held and often successful efforts to limit firearms in places like schools and classrooms, military bases, airports and even <a href="http://time.com/4399500/republican-convention-guns">inside</a> the RNC convention. For instance, <a href="http://www.armedcampuses.org">advocacy groups</a> that track classroom gun violence report that gun-free zones have been highly effective in minimizing gun homicides on college campuses.</p>
<h2>Changing the law of the land</h2>
<p>Perhaps most important, Trump’s promises to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-national-rifle-association-endorsement-20160520-story.html">appoint</a> Supreme Court justices who will assure that these policies become the law of the land for generations to come. Indeed, Trump <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-national-rifle-association-endorsement-20160520-story.html">released</a> a list of staunchly pro-gun potential Supreme Court nominees as a sign of his commitment to upholding the Second Amendment while speaking at the recent NRA convention.</p>
<p>If brought to reality, I believe Trump’s positions would worsen a state of affairs in which the U.S. has <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america">by far</a> the most privately owned guns and the <a href="http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/fulltext">highest rates</a> of gun violence among developed nations. Gun proliferation and increasingly lax gun laws would undermine his newly found commitments to <a href="https://theconversation.com/gun-researchers-see-a-public-health-emergency-in-orlando-mass-shooting-heres-why-60982">promoting safety, law and order</a> for the people of Chicago and elsewhere. Research consistently shows that more guns lead to <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america">more death</a>, and particularly so among communities that Trump now says he aims to protect, such as <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-014-9865-8">African-Americans</a>, people who live in “<a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/">inner cities</a>,” people with <a href="http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/suicide-by-firearm-rates-shift-in-two-states-after-changes-in-state-gun-laws.html">mental illness</a> and even the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/08/more-police-officers-die-on-the-job-in-states-with-more-guns">police</a>.</p>
<p>More broadly, Trump’s Twitter misstep and series of related <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/politics/donald-trump-black-voters.html">comments</a> raise questions about the candidate’s commitment to actually improving the lives of communities of color. Rather than offering solutions that might stem the epidemic of gun violence, the policies he supports could make life markedly more dangerous for everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research Director, the Safe Tennessee Project,
a volunteer-based organization that is concerned with gun-related injuries and fatalities in America and in Tennessee.</span></em></p>The candidate endorsed by the NRA this year wasn’t always so pro-gun. A sociologist and physician explains how Trump’s position on guns could play out if he were to win in November.Jonathan M. Metzl, Director, Center for Medicine, Health, and Society; Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/629482016-07-29T04:16:59Z2016-07-29T04:16:59ZClinton vs. Trump: Whose acceptance speech hit the right note?<p>Tonight at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton formally accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Last week, Republican nominee Donald Trump did the same at the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p>Which candidate did a better job of delivering a speech that hit just the right emotional notes to win over voters? The study of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637756309375380?journalCode=rcmm19">language intensity</a> provides one lens to compare the performances of the candidates.</p>
<p>This line of research focuses on word choice, not the way a speech is delivered, to evaluate how well a message is received. It doesn’t consider the strength of performance – so nonverbal components and other elements such as volume or pitch are not part of the analysis. </p>
<p>At Ohio State University’s School of Communication, I used my background in political speech writing to extend <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/20/2/246/">this well-established field</a> into political speech – like Clinton’s and Trump’s speeches – by running two experiments.</p>
<h2>A focus on intensity</h2>
<p>In a paper to be published in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psq.12299">Presidential Studies Quarterly</a> before the election, my coauthors <a href="http://www.loyola.edu/academic/communication/facultyandstaff">Paola Pascual-Ferrá</a> and <a href="http://com.miami.edu/profile/michael-beatty">Michael J. Beatty</a> and I created speech excerpts for hypothetical presidential candidates and tested their effect on 304 participants drawn from political science and communication classes at the University of Miami.</p>
<p>We found that voters who are optimistic about their personal economic situation prefer presidential candidates who use restrained language. This type of language is called “low intensity.” On the other hand, voters who are fearful about the future of the economy are more likely to trust candidates who reflect back their emotional turmoil – those who use high-intensity language. </p>
<h2>Highs and lows</h2>
<p>Trump’s acceptance speech last week was largely high-intensity. On foreign policy, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974">he said</a>, “Libya is in ruins. Our ambassador was left to die at the hands of savage killers” and “Iraq is in chaos.” </p>
<p>About his rival, he said, “The situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton. Death, destruction, terrorism and weakness.” </p>
<p>Some commentators referred to Trump’s speech as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination/">dark</a>” or “<a href="http://variety.com/2016/tv/opinion/donald-trump-acceptance-speech-republican-national-convention-1201820141/">apocalyptic</a>.” </p>
<p>But in terms of language intensity, similar observations have been made by rhetorical analysis of past convention nomination speeches. Reagan’s 1980 speech <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10417948409372600#.V5qqSEYrLIU">framed government as the devil</a>. In 1932, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=23198">Herbert Hoover</a> and <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=75174">Franklin Roosevelt</a> each hurled high-intensity barbs at his opponent’s economic philosophy. For example, FDR warned that the “danger of radicalism is to invite disaster” while Hoover said “to remedy present evils a change is necessary.” </p>
<p>Barack Obama’s <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?280566-10/barack-obama-2008-acceptance-speech">2008 acceptance speech</a> had low-intensity statements like “we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.” And he made high-intensity statements like “the times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook.” </p>
<p>In Hillary Clinton’s speech, we also saw examples of both low- and high-intensity language. She said, “We have to decide whether we can all work together so we can rise together.” But she also said, “America is once again at a moment of reckoning.” </p>
<p>So what does language intensity research say about how these rhetorical decisions will play with the voters?</p>
<h2>Experimenting with language intensity</h2>
<p>For much of the 20th century, researchers found conflicting results in language intensity experiments. </p>
<p>Initial studies indicated people were turned off by <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2785309?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">emotional messages</a>. There is a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637756309375380?journalCode=rcmm19">“boomerang effect”</a> when an emotional message backfires. But in the ’50’s, Yale professors led by Carl Hovland found that the <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/54/2/257/">stronger language</a> resulted in the most compliance with the speaker’s persuasive plea.</p>
<p>Later studies added nuance to our understanding. Researchers like <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/20/2/246/">Gerald R. Miller and Michael Burgoon</a>, <a href="http://cas.ou.edu/claude-miller">Claude Miller</a> and <a href="http://www.wiu.edu/cofac/communication/directory/averbeck.php">Josh Averbeck</a> have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10510974.2013.775955">explored factors</a> that interact with language intensity. For example, the speaker’s background and experience matter in bolstering credibility. Certain speakers have a wider latitude of acceptance before they even open their mouth. For example, voters might consider Clinton’s service as secretary of state when she is speaking about foreign policy or Trump’s business background when talk turns to turning around the economy.</p>
<p>Also, when it comes to language intensity, there appears to be a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1979.tb00639.x/abstract">gender bias</a>. Decades of studies have shown that persuasive speeches ascribed to a female name are perceived more aversely – by both males and females – than the same message ascribed to a male. This could inform the presidential race if Clinton uses high-intensity language that triggers a boomerang effect simply on account of her gender. It helps explain Ivanka Trump’s relative success in introducing her father last week; she kept her language mild by comparison to her father’s.</p>
<p>Other researchers found somewhat conflicting results, showing that the effects of language intensity depend on the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2Fj.1468-2958.1975.tb00271.x#.V5aHBQL_rjY">audience’s expectations</a>. For example, if people expect Trump to use high-intensity language, it would have less of a boomerang effect than other politicians who may try to use emotional rhetoric. </p>
<h2>Experience matters</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2014.959689">a second paper</a>, published in the Journal of Political Marketing, my coauthors and I tested hypothetical presidential candidates. As before, the candidates varied in language intensity and were not ascribed characteristics of gender, party identification or ideology. </p>
<p>Unlike the first experiment, the candidates’ professional backgrounds differed. One was a two-term governor. The other had no political experience but had worked in business and owned a national franchise. </p>
<p>We looked at how the interaction of a presidential candidate’s language intensity and background affected perceptions of authoritativeness and character. </p>
<p>We found that language intensity did not have a direct effect on authoritativeness. Perceptions of authoritativeness seemed to purely be a function of a politician’s résumé. But a presidential candidate using low-intensity language was perceived as having significantly more character. </p>
<h2>Judging the candidates</h2>
<p>At the DNC, Clinton needed to use her speech to seize the issue of the economy as well as perceptions of her own trustworthiness. The <a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/07/25/trump.clinton.poll.pdf">latest CNN/ORC poll</a> indicates 68 percent of voters consider her dishonest and untrustworthy. The same poll reveals Trump becoming slightly more favorable but shows that 55 percent of respondents still consider him dishonest and untrustworthy. The <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx">top issue of concern</a> to voters – resonating nicely with our study – is the economy.<br>
Our research suggests a presidential candidate is perceived as more trustworthy and presidential when speaking to the times. People in bad economic circumstances rate a presidential candidate as more trustworthy and presidential when he or she uses high-intensity language. Conversely, people in a stable economic scenario expect low-intensity language from the White House aspirant. </p>
<p>In Trump’s <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974">acceptance speech</a>, he spoke of the economy in relatively extreme terms. He said the nation is suffering from “disastrous trade deals” that have been “destroying our middle class,” but “I’m going to make our country rich again. I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great ones.” </p>
<p>Clinton spoke of the economy in strong terms, too. “Some of you are frustrated, even furious, and you know what? You’re right,” she said. But Clinton also let a little optimism come through, framing the nation as recovering from “the worst economic crisis of our lifetime.” </p>
<p>The relative success of each may boil down to which candidate does better matching his or her language intensity with respective audiences. </p>
<p>Who struck the right note? Whose rhetoric seemed trustworthy and presidential? The answer to that may depend on whether voters feel they are in good or bad economic times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E. Clementson has worked on political campaigns for both Democrats and Republicans.</span></em></p>Trump’s speech was called ‘dark,’ while Clinton let some optimism in.David E. Clementson, PhD Candidate in the School of Communication, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628702016-07-25T03:24:41Z2016-07-25T03:24:41ZThat time when the Mafia almost fixed the Democratic National Convention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131590/original/image-20160722-26817-1c7nax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=54078784%40N08&view_all=1&text=1932">FDR Presidential Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After a dramatic Republican National Convention in Cleveland which saw Donald Trump finally become the party’s official nominee, Hillary Clinton will this week accept the formal nomination of the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>U.S. national conventions have always been big business opportunities. As one long-time ally of the Bush family <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/gops-moneyed-class-finds-its-place-in-new-trump-world.html?">reportedly said</a>, “For people who operate in and around government, you can’t not be here.” Although some of the usual donors to the Republican National Convention, like Ford and UPS, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/corporations-dont-want-to-go-near-trumps-rnc.html">stayed home this year</a>, the host committee was able to raise nearly US$60 million from American businesses. Yet historically the “people who operate in and around government” are not only legitimate businesses but also, sometimes, less-than-legitimate ones.</p>
<p>Take the 1932 Democratic National Convention. As I explain in <a href="http://www.jamescockayne.com/hidden-power/">my book</a> about the hidden power of organized crime, from which this article is adapted, the nomination that year had come down to a contest between two New York politicians. <a href="https://www.gwu.edu/%7Eerpapers/teachinger/glossary/smith-al.cfm">Al Smith</a> was a reform-minded former governor aligned with Tammany Hall, the Manhattan-based Democratic political machine. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the sitting governor, was running against him, and he was not aligned with Tammany. </p>
<p>If Roosevelt was to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, he needed to neutralize the Tammany threat. That meant figuring out what to do about the Mob. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131611/original/image-20160722-26808-vy61ho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can’t fight Tammany Hall.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through their control of liquor and vice-markets in southern Manhattan, Tammany’s stronghold, the Italian-American Mafias and Jewish-heritage gangs that made up the New York Mob had developed growing power in Tammany affairs over the preceding years. </p>
<p>The Mob leadership now saw a huge strategic opportunity at the Democratic National Convention to leverage that power into something even bigger: influence over the next occupant of the White House.</p>
<h2>Strange bedfellows</h2>
<p>Mob leaders <a href="http://www.the-line-up.com/media/lucky-luciano-making-of-the-mob/">Lucky Luciano</a>, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/day-frank-costello-died-82-1973-article-1.2536232">Frank Costello</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meyer-lansky-ii/the-many-faces-of-meyer-l_b_4579284.html">Meyer Lansky</a> all accompanied the Tammany Hall delegation to the convention in Chicago. Their Mafia associate <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/Al%20Capone">Al Capone</a> provided much of the alcohol, banned under prohibition, and entertainment. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131606/original/image-20160722-26832-tfltvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=908&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 Capone in 1929.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24520406">US National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Costello shared a hotel suite with <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0CE7D91330E23BBC4E51DFB566838C649EDE">Jimmy Hines</a>, the Tammany “Grand Sachem,” who announced support for Roosevelt. But another Tammany politician, Albert Marinelli, announced that he and a small bloc were defecting and would not support Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Marinelli was Tammany’s leader in the Second Assembly District, its heartland below Manhattan’s 14th Street. During Prohibition he had owned a trucking company – run by none other than Lucky Luciano. Luciano had helped Marinelli become the first Italian-American district leader in Tammany, and in 1931 forced the resignation of the city clerk, whom Marinelli then replaced. This gave Luciano and Marinelli control over selection of grand jurors and the tabulation of votes during city elections. </p>
<p>Now, the two were sharing a Chicago hotel suite. </p>
<h2>An offer he couldn’t refuse</h2>
<p>Why were Costello and Luciano backing rival horses, and through them, rival candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination? Was this a disagreement over political strategy? </p>
<p>On the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Mob was playing both sides, to place themselves as brokers in the Democratic nomination process.</p>
<p>Roosevelt needed the full New York state delegation’s support – and thus Tammany’s – if he was going to win the floor vote at the convention. But he also needed to avoid being tainted by the whiff of scandal that hung stubbornly around Tammany – and the Mafia. </p>
<p>Roosevelt responded to the split by issuing a statement denouncing civic corruption, while carefully noting that he had not seen adequate evidence to date to warrant the prosecution of sitting Tammany leaders, despite an ongoing investigation run by an independent-minded prosecutor, Sam Seabury. Picking up his signal, Marinelli threw his support behind Roosevelt, giving him the full delegate slate and helping him gain the momentum needed to claim the nomination. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131605/original/image-20160722-26848-1sqkyqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roosevelt on the campaign trail in 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdrlibrary/8077709747/in/dateposted/">FDR Presidential Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mob’s role may not have been decisive. Roosevelt’s nomination had numerous fathers, not least <a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000074">John “Cactus Jack” Garner</a>, a rival presidential candidate to whom Roosevelt offered the vice presidency in return for the votes of the Texas and California delegations. But it was a factor. </p>
<p>If the Mob leaders were not quite kingmakers as they had hoped, they were certainly players. As Luciano <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=EV6jZzpjBOcC&pg=PT105&lpg=PT105&dq=%E2%80%9CI+don%E2%80%99t+say+we+elected+Roosevelt,+but+we+gave+him+a+pretty+good+push.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=rMb6v9jqpx&sig=P_s5cluDa1qv3Ds4ErUHwA8sELA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtxva-0oTOAhVEOBoKHfoEB_0Q6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CI%20don%E2%80%99t%20say%20we%20elected%20Roosevelt%2C%20but%20we%20gave%20him%20a%20pretty%20good%20push.%E2%80%9D&f=false">reportedly put it</a>, “I don’t say we elected Roosevelt, but we gave him a pretty good push.”</p>
<h2>It takes one to know one</h2>
<p>Luciano was nonetheless a newcomer to national politics, and seems to have been quickly outsmarted by his candidate. Having secured the nomination, Roosevelt loosened the reins on Seabury’s corruption investigation, making clear that if it developed new evidence, he might be prepared to back prosecutions after all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131612/original/image-20160722-26817-107m2or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luciano in 1948.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seabury <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/13/nyregion/in-scandal-of-1930-s-city-shook-and-a-mayor-fell.html?pagewanted=all">quickly exposed</a> significant Tammany graft in the New York administration. The city sheriff had amassed $400,000 in savings from a job that paid $12,000 a year. The mayor had awarded a bus contract to a company that <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=yUCGRMKb4z0C&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=bus+companies+seabury+investigation&source=bl&ots=Avzs1_CHGX&sig=Y5BAK67CXk8EAWPMGnn72poV7M0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEl_jokIfOAhUEVhQKHVOQBSsQ6AEIMDAD#v=onepage&q=bus%20companies%20seabury%20investigation&f=false">owned no buses</a> – but was happy to give him a personal line of credit. A judge with half a million dollars in savings had been granted a loan to support 34 “relatives” found to be in his care. Against the backdrop of Depression New York, with a collapsing private sector, 25 percent unemployment and imploding tax revenues, this was shocking profligacy and nepotism. </p>
<p>By September 1932, the mayor had resigned and fled to Paris with his showgirl girlfriend. In early 1933, Roosevelt moved into the White House and broke off the formal connection between Tammany Hall and the national Democratic Party for the first time in 105 years. He even tacitly supported the election of the reformist Republican <a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=l000007">Fiorello La Guardia</a> as New York mayor. </p>
<p>Luciano was pragmatic about having been outsmarted. “He done exactly what I would’ve done in the same position,” he reportedly said. “He was no different than me … we was both s—ass double-crossers, no matter how you look at it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Cockayne 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>Lucky Luciano, Al Capone and FDR walk into a Democratic convention…James Cockayne, Head of Office at the United Nations, United Nations UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.