Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 October 26

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October 26

US County Consistent Election Results

Are there any US counties that has consistently voted for one party in presidential elections for more than 150 years or since the (the county's) formation? 69.209.14.47 (talk) 01:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Interesting question. I just looked through the five counties of Hawaii, as the state's only been around since 1959, and found that Wikipedia only shows the Democrats winning in Kalawao County. But this is not conclusive; presumably because of the county's unusual history and small population, Wikipedia doesn't show any results from before 1992. --174.89.48.182 (talk) 03:10, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering since Mitchell County, North Carolina has voted Republican since 1876 so thtat is a long period of time. 69.209.14.47 (talk) 03:40, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

So far, the oldest examination I've found goes back to 1912, so that gives you 100 years to start with. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Has the ballots so far been counted and tallied?

Dear Wikipedians:

Last night a Taiwanese friend of mine, who is perhaps a bit over-zealous with American politics, said that she's losing sleep over the fact that the ballots that have been cast so far have been counted and showing a massive lead for Biden. Is there any merit to what she said or is this yet another example of fake news?

Thanks,

172.97.199.135 (talk) 13:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

As with everything linked to the U.S. elections, it varies from state to state. The processing of mail-in ballots can begin before election day in certain states, but no actual reporting of results, so there is no "massive lead for Biden". Your friend will need to await election day to find out the results. See this article from NPR: [1] Xuxl (talk) 14:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much. That's the exact answer that I needed. 172.97.199.135 (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

They don't open and count the ballots til election day, but they track which ballots have been received, so they can tell how many were sent by registered Democrats, registered Republicans, etc. That doesn't say with certainty how those people voted, but it is likely to be correlated. So it is sort of a pre-election exit poll. Probably a bad idea to let the information out, but they do it anyway. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 03:32, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

British treaty with Mexico, ratified 1827

In our article on James Morier we read "between 1824 and 1826 he was special commissioner to Mexico negotiating the treaty with that country that was eventually ratified in 1827". What was that treaty? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 14:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

"British-Mexican Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation of December 26th, 1826" [2]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Briefly mentioned, with a Spanish source, in Mexico–United Kingdom relations#History. I'll add the title and above source there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 15:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Popular Vote vs Electoral College

Since it is the Electoral College that makes the decision re: who becomes President, why is there any emphasis on the Popular Vote? As I am understanding the polls, they are "measuring" the Popular Vote rather than the Electoral Vote. As I am not American, I am probably missing something (like how an Electoral College makes any sense at all - yes, I did read the article). 69.42.176.50 (talk) 18:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Because the popular vote in the US states will determine who will win a particular US state's Electoral College votes, and then it's simply a matter of math. Futurist110 (talk) 18:57, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

The OP may be referring to the national popular vote, which is often claimed to be a reason why a losing candidate "should have" won. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:36, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

It's just another indicator. Hillary's huge popular vote margin in 2016 while failing to win the electoral vote was highly unusual. An electoral vote landslide is also misleading. In theory, a candidate could win the popular vote by just a single vote in each state but end up winning every electoral vote. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:36, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

It’s easier to understand and usually corresponds pretty strongly to who wins. A surprising number of Americans don’t understand how the Electoral College works, despite civics education and despite cable news explaining it every few hours.

As to understanding why the EC is a method we use, it helps to understand the original way elections were to work. The idea was that people would elect electors that they knew and trusted in their communities, who would go to Washington and be courted by the candidates themselves for their electoral votes. Now, to me, that sounds stunningly like a Westminsterian Prime Minister, except instead of MPs choosing from among themselves, specially-elected single-purpose people choose from among really anybody. Apportionment of electors is itself a matter of the federal government representing a federal system (compare how MEPs are apportioned). And of course, the American system has a more meaningful separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The way it works now is essentially the result of the electors’ platforms in their communities being that they’d choose a particular candidate no matter what. 199.66.69.32 (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Fine point: the electors (members of the Electoral College) might visit Washington if they want to, but there is no requirement for them to go there. They meet and vote in their own states. --174.89.48.182 (talk) 22:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Pointing out that the winning candidate did not win the "popular vote" is to many a way of saying "The USA has a really dumb way of electing its President". Not saying that I agree or disagree with that observation. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

The reason for the electoral college is that the states, not the public as such, elect the president. That was part of the compromise that convinced the smaller states to ratify the Constitution and join the USA. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I've been hearing that criticism for decades, yet I know of no movement to change the system. It seems that vast numbers of people just assume it's all about the popular vote, and when they discover it isn't, meaning they have a somewhat uneducated notion of how their own constutution actually works, somehow it's someone else's fault and they think that complaining and protesting is a sensible way of proceeding. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

IMHO, the best defense of the Electoral College is similar to the best defense of the US Senate--as in, it gives small US states a disproportionate say and disproportionate influence relative to their total population. Of course, this in itself wouldn't justify awarding a US state's electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. Futurist110 (talk) 00:16, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact still has some degree of backing, and does currently have 196 of the 270 electors it needs to take effect. Although it is true that a lot of those came in the early years 2007 to 2011 with New York's 2014 adding a fair few and then 31 total from 2018 to 2019, I assume in part due to Trump's success in winning despite losing the popular vote. Still something happening in 2007-2011 is only a bit over a decade ago and IMO getting so many EC electors counts as a decent movement. Even if frankly, there doesn't seem to be much chance of it getting the 270 needed any time soon. But who knows, with changing demographics, maybe there will be a push in Texas. And if they can also get Florida suddenly things seem a lot more interesting. I believe it is true that there hasn't been any serious attempt to actually amend the constitution to modify or end the Electoral College since ~1970 United States Electoral College#Efforts to abolish or reform. Even Jimmy Carter's later proposal seems to have been mostly ignored. Amending the constitution is difficult hence the focus on the compact even if leads to greater uncertainty and debate over the legality. Nil Einne (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that enlightenment, Nil Einne. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I would support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact if it required a popular majority, but instead it gives the votes to the candidate with a popular plurality, thus further entrenching the Biparty. —Tamfang (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

What share of the popular vote did John Major receive? Or, for that matter, Boris Johnson? DOR (HK) (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

They are not voted for by the whole country. Boris Johnson, in his last election, won 52.6% of the vote in his constituency. But there are only 70,000ish potential voters who elected him. All other positions in the UK government are decided by internal party politics, and are not voted on by the nation at large. There is no "national election" for any single office in the UK. --Jayron32 10:40, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

If the question is about the percentage of the votes for the winning party, then in the 2019 United Kingdom general election the Conservatives under Johnson won 43.6% of the votes cast, against 32.1% for Labour. To find an election where the winning party didn't also "win the popular vote", you have to go back to the February 1974 United Kingdom general election, which had the Conservatives on 37.9% and Labour 37.2%. However, Labour won more seats in the House of Commons (301 to 297, out of a total of 635) and eventually formed a minority government. (There was another election later in the year in which Labour won a bare parliamentary majority with 39.2% of the vote.) In the 2010 United Kingdom general election the Conservatives took the highest proportion of the vote - 36.1% - but gaining 306 seats out of 650, and we ended up with the Cameron–Clegg coalition. Even in the Labour landslide of 1945 the winners only took 47.7% of the vote. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and the answer for Major in the 1992 election is 41.9%. AndrewWTaylor (talk)

I think DOR (HK) might know that and be asking the question to point out that choosing a chief executive by popular vote isn't such a normal thing that the United States not doing it needs to explained. --Khajidha (talk) 11:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. DOR (HK) (talk) 23:07, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

In this country, there is a distinction between "council officers" (who are employees and presumably answerable to the Human Resources Department in some way) and the elected councillors. Some ministers sit in the House of Lords, which is not elected by popular vote (although some members are elected by the House). Comparatively recently, a few mayors have been elected by popular vote concurrently with the local council election (these directly elected mayors do not appear to be councillors, though they may have been in the past). Aldermen (who are not elected by the voters, though they may well be elected by the councillors) were abolished everywhere outside the City of London (I've not investigated the procedure there - its councillors are not elected by a simple vote of residents, of whom there are very few). 81.139.213.56 (talk) 10:58, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The thing is, 1) Many countries do elect their chief executive by popular vote. Not many on the Westminster system, but there are many countries which are NOT using said system of statehood. In many countries, the President (or equivalent) is elected by direct popular vote. 2) In the U.S., there is still a universal popular vote, it's just counted strangely. Everyone in the U.S. (meaning the 50 states and DC) gets a vote. Those votes are all counted. THEN there is a second, pro-forma round of voting whereby those popular votes are put in buckets, and whoever wins a particular bucket gets ALL of the votes for the second round due to that bucket. The next president is then the person who gets more than 1/2 of the votes in that second round. It's this convoluted second step that makes the U.S. weird. The popular vote still happens, like in many other countries, but NOT like the U.K., where no one ever gets to vote as a nation for one person to hold that job. --Jayron32 14:19, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

That's because the US wasn't really designed as "a" country. In some ways it functions as an alliance of (currently 50) "countries". There's a reason we use the word "states" for our subunits. Which aren't actually subunits of the US. The US is actually a "superunit" of the states.--Khajidha (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, it was that, but only from July 1776- March 1789, a little less than 13 years. Under the Articles of Confederation the U.S. was indeed conceived as a supranational organization and each state was functionally sovereign. However, under the United States Constitution, sovereignty of the United States as a country is supreme over the states, and each state really is a subdivision of the U.S. States have almost none of the sovereign-state-like functions one would expect of a country. They have no border controls, no currency, no central banks, no independent foreign relations, etc. etc. They have limited sovereignty in areas of local laws surrounding some matters, like crime and punishment, education, safety and welfare, infrastructure, etc. etc. However, that sovereignty can be overridden by the U.S. Federal apparatus if the state laws are found to be unconstitutional with regard to the U.S. Constitution, especially since the incorporation doctrine of the 14th Amendment. Other presumed state-like functions, like the ability to sever ties with other states (which every sovereign country in the world has with other such countries) U.S. States do not have (see Texas v. White). --Jayron32 18:32, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

That's a bit beside the point, I think, Jayron32. You claimed that what makes the US weird is having a national popular vote, but counting it in a weird way. But in fact there was never a national decision to have a national popular vote. The legislatures of the several states retain the authority to appoint electors as they see fit. Each of those legislatures, individually, has passed legislation that delegates that authority to a popular vote. Aside — what counts as the "legislature" of DC? Any of the several states could pass legislation appointing a slate of electors independent of the popular vote. Could DC do that? I don't know.

So really there is no national popular vote, only 51 state/District votes. The "national popular vote" is in some sense a media creation. --Trovatore (talk) 05:23, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

And not a recent invention. In Newspapers.com (pay site) I'm seeing the phrase "national popular vote" at least as far back as 1861. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:51, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

References

The popularity of the Italian monarchy before 1940?

Just how popular was the Italian monarchy before the Fall of France and Italy's entry into World War II? Futurist110 (talk) 19:00, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

There's not much on the internet, but our Victor Emmanuel III of Italy#Loss of popular support section says (with reference): "Foreigners noted how even as late as the 1930s newsreel images of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders". Support waned when the king supported Mussolini's overseas conquests. Alansplodge (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

La Croix de Berny: Roman steeple-chase

La Croix de Berny: Roman steeple-chase (Amazon listing) is the name of a book by Théophile Gautier, Delphine de Girardin, Jules Sandeau and Joseph Méry.

"Roman steeple-chase" seems to suggest a novel about horse racing, but the term seems unknown outside this book. Novels are rarely the work of multiple authors, let alone four.

Here it's called The Cross of Berny: or, Irene's Lovers, and is described as an "epistolary novel". We're told:

• Literary partnerships have often been tried, but very rarely with success in the more imaginative branches of literature. Occasionally two minds have been found to supplement each other sufficiently to produce good joint writing, as in the works of MM. Erckman-Chatrian; but when the partnership has included more than two, it has almost invariably proved a failure, even when composed of individually the brightest intellects, and where the highest hopes have been entertained. Standing almost if not quite alone, in contrast with these failures of the past, THE CROSS OF BERNY is the more remarkable; and has achieved the success not merely of being the simply harmonious joint work of four individual minds,—but of being in itself, and entirely aside from its interest as a literary curiosity, a great book.

Yet for all its claimed greatness, the book appears in none of the lists of works in our articles on the individual authors. For a "great book", it seems all but unknown.

La Croix de Berny station is also the name of a metro station in Paris, but I don't know whether it has any connection to the book, or whether one was named after the other.

Can anyone give me more information/background about this curious work?

For what it's worth, my interest sprang from my attempt to pin down the source of the following quote from Gautier:

• Le hasard, c'est peut-être le pseudonyme de Dieu, quand il ne veut pas signer. (Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign His work.)

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Note. "La Croix de Berny station" is not located in Paris but in Antony,_Hauts-de-Seine in the southern suburbs of Paris. (There is a picture of the fountain that is located in "Croix de Berny" on the referred Wiki page). - AldoSyrt (talk) 10:27, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. In my "mind", a place that's in the suburbs of X is in X, but I know that not all places see it that way. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:50, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Only a starting-point: There was a real steeple-chase at the Berny crossroads in 1841, where none of the three riders obtained the prize: Wiener-Moden-Zeitung 1841. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The novel is placed by wikiquote in the year 1845, quote, which is reasonably close to 1841 and its subject are three men racing for a lady, seems reasonably close. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 01:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The Berny crossroads, now officially called Place du Général de Gaulle, used to be called the Carrefour de la Croix de Berny. Perhaps it was named, like the nearby RER station,^[3] after a local landmark, such as a notable crucifix. But French croix can by itself also mean "crossroads",^[4] and more likely that is the original sense, in which case Carrefour de la Croix is pleonastic, like "The London Gazette journal" or "the St Paul's Cathedral church".  --Lambiam 10:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

It is crossroads: "La ville est connue pour son relais de poste aux chevaux qui accueille les voyageurs au carrefour dénommé « Croix de Berny » car il est à l'intersection de la route royale, tracée au XVIIIe siècle, qui mène de Versailles à Choisy-le-Roi, et de la route reliant Paris à Orléans, intersection à l'angle nord-ouest du parc du château de Berny". fr:Antony#Le développement au xixe siècle. - AldoSyrt (talk) 13:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

According to Catherine Thomas (a university lecturer?)[5], the "steeple-chase" is a race between the four authors who compete to get the preference of the reader: [un] roman « steeple chase », une « course au clocher », [qui] repose sur une lutte littéraire au cours de laquelle les quatre auteurs doivent rivaliser « de style et d’esprit » afin de s’attirer la préférence du lecteur. Moreover, she wrote "each author personifies him/herself as a character in the novel". –AldoSyrt (talk) 10:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Another reference (in French) to a literary competition:[6]. - AldoSyrt (talk) 10:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The last words from the novel: "Nous avons tous fait une course désespérée pour atteindre le bonheur ! Un seul est arrivé, — mort !" (my higlight); [7] - AldoSyrt (talk) 10:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

So while the genre classifier roman steeple-chase ("steeple-chase novel") appears to have been chosen to classify the work as a literary competition between the four authors, they may have chosen the title La Croix de Berny to symbolize that, as in the 1841 steeple-chase, none should be considered the winner.  --Lambiam 10:59, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Concerning the work itself, according to the catalogue of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, it was reprinted regularly between 1846 and 1865, then seemed to have been completely forgotten until 2003, when it was reprinted as part of Gautier's collected works. But it only gained some profile when it was published again in 2019 in a solo edition that was actually accessible to the general reading public. So it's clearly a recently rediscovered work, after having been largely forgotten for 140 years or so, which explains why there's not much that can be found regarding it. Xuxl (talk) 13:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Two 19th century quotes in French: on a real La Croix de Berny steeple-chase Journal des Haras, Paris 1841, p. 124 and on the novel La Croix de Berny steeple-chase Grand Dictionnaire Universel, vol. 5, lettre C, Paris 1869, p. 578. Interesting to note that the connection between the novel, its title, and real steeple-chases at La Croix de Berny was already discussed in 1869. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks to all my excellent friends. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:28, 27 October 2020 (UTC)