111
votes
Is it true that Jim Crow laws were primarily promoted by the Democratic Party?
Yes. Following the American Civil War, the Democratic party was the primary haven for America's most machiavellian racists, (some of which set also included active criminals and terrorists), who ...
- 13k
80
votes
Is it true that Jim Crow laws were primarily promoted by the Democratic Party?
True, but.
This is a classic case of being true on paper but needing extensive qualifiers to be properly understood by a modern day audience.
At the time when Jim Crow laws were introduced – 150 to ...
- 13.2k
78
votes
Accepted
Prior to COVID-19, had any country fiscally targeted unvaccinated individuals?
Yes, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of the state to fiscally target unvaccinated individuals. Massachusetts had enacted the following law in ...
CDJB♦
- 109k
76
votes
Accepted
Has there ever been an independence movement with the goal to split off an underperforming part of a nation?
An example I could think of is Singapore. The country became independent from Malaysia after the Malaysian Parliament voted to expel Singapore, due to a combination of racial, economic and political ...
- 46.7k
71
votes
Accepted
Has a Nobel Peace laureate ever been accused of war crimes?
The State Counsellor of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, has a Nobel peace prize and there are calls for some of her military leaders to be prosecuted for war crimes. She herself might also be complicit. ...
- 30.7k
67
votes
Has a Nobel Peace laureate ever been accused of war crimes?
I'm sure there's more, but here are the ones that I can remember:
Henry Kissinger
He served as the U.S. Secretary of State during both the Nixon and Ford administrations and received the Nobel Peace ...
- 1,087
67
votes
Accepted
Has any mass protest in the USA after 1945 successfully pressured the government to change its decision based on the protesters' demands?
Has any mass protest in the USA after 1945 successfully pressured the government to change its decision based on the protesters' demands?
One single mass protest? Probably not. It takes a concerted, ...
- 15.1k
66
votes
Accepted
Have the results of any U.S. presidential election other than 2000, 2020 been widely disputed and litigated?
1876, Rutherford B. Hayes (R) v. Samuel J. Tilden (D)
The South had much voter intimidation against Black people and Republicans, with at least 150 people outright murdered.
Three states: Florida (4 ...
- 4,885
65
votes
Has there ever been a successful shift from a two-party system to a multi-party system in modern history?
New Zealand switched from first-past-the-post to "mixed member proportional representation (MMP)" starting in the 1996 election (https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/fpp-to-mmp).
Seats won by ...
- 5,689
65
votes
Why does the Islamic Republic of Iran view the US as its principal geopolitical adversary in the world?
The CIA had an Iranian PM removed in a coup in 1953. The venal, sordid and unedifying reason? A dispute about oil royalty payments.
It also supported the Shah, which had a rather notorious secret ...
- 92.8k
62
votes
Accepted
Where did all the Confederate Statues come from?
A more fruitful question, perhaps is "when" those monuments were erected, which the chart below illustrates, which provides some good inferences about "why" they were erected.
Basically, they were ...
- 88.3k
62
votes
Why is Biden's "(Putin) ...cannot remain in power" widely considered a gaffe to be walked back while previous US presidents have said similar?
It's often said that "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth", and that's very much what's happening here. For the most part, the pushback isn't because people think Putin should stay ...
- 26k
60
votes
Accepted
In the United States, why aren't both legislative chambers involved in the Supreme Court confirmation process?
The founders had two models in particularly in mind: the Ancient Roman Senate, and the UK parliament of Monarch/Lords/Commons.
In the UK, the House of Lords functioned as a Supreme Court. The ...
- 124k
59
votes
Accepted
Has politics always been so polarized?
Polarisation is not entirely new, but it’s not a constant either. Looking just at US national politics, there have been other periods of very strong polarisation (e.g. the late 19th century, ...
- 1,071
57
votes
Accepted
Have Texas voters ever selected a Democrat for President?
Yes, in fact from Wikipedia's article on "United States presidential elections in Texas", we can see that Texas has elected a Democrat for president twenty-two times since 1876, most ...
CDJB♦
- 109k
54
votes
Why do the right claim that Hitler was left-wing?
The right claim that Hitler was left-wing to make its political enemies on the left look worse than they really are.
There are plenty of examples of left-wing ideologies leading to unpleasant outcomes:...
- 12.6k
51
votes
Accepted
In the Weimar Republic what was the role of the people sitting on the left side of the speaker?
Very good question and I am surprised that I as German needed to dig deeper into the stuff than anticipated. I tried to consult the German Wikipedia and the normal Google results, but got essentially ...
- 4,712
50
votes
Was the 1800 US presidential election the first intentional, peaceful transfer of national control?
This is trivially untrue. I haven't researched the earliest peaceful transfer of power, but here's the wikipedia article for the UK general election of 1708.
That was the first UK election following ...
- 25k
49
votes
Has politics always been so polarized?
Personal animosity between political opponents is widespread and historic. It is particularly common in democracies.
In an oligarchical or dictatorial state, power and influence depends on your ...
- 124k
47
votes
Why is changing the size of the Supreme Court considered dangerous today, when it has been done in the past?
The reason for the first three increases in the size of the Supreme Court was related to the size of the country's boundaries growing.
The decrease in 1866 was, reportedly, more an attempt by the ...
- 28k
47
votes
Accepted
The politicization of the supreme court
How political parties view things is not necessarily commensurate with reality. After all, they have a political agenda to push. In this case the view of (federal) judges—Supreme Court Justices or ...
- 16.9k
46
votes
Difference between nationalism and patriotism
George Orwell in 'Notes on Nationalism' said it best I think,
By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human
beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of
...
- 1,113
44
votes
Accepted
When was the last time, if ever, a Supreme Court justice was appointed without prior experience as a judge?
Quite a lot of them have been, in fact. There have been 115 Justices in the court's entire history, and the linked page indicates that 41 of them, more than a third of all Justices in the court's ...
- 16.9k
44
votes
Are there any wars other than the 2023 Israel-Hamas War that are named after a country and a political party?
"Houthi–Saudi Arabian conflict" is the current title of a Wikipedia page. The Houthis are only a faction in Yemen, but they claim to be the legitimate government, IIRC. Their own wiki page ...
41
votes
Has the ICC ever ordered to arrest any Western or pro-Western politician?
In 2020, the International Criminal Court(ICC) started an investigation into alleged warcrimes perpetuated by US soldiers in Afghanistan.
So far, these investigations have not led to any indictments ...
- 78.9k
40
votes
Accepted
How does Israel teach the displacement of the Arab population in 1948 (Nakba)?
It depends.
Yes, some schools teach it, some don't, and in varying ways.
First, some context. The word Nakba has a variety of uses. To some people, it refers specifically to the expulsion of mostly ...
- 18.1k
40
votes
Accepted
Is it first time in history that ongoing war was halted for few hours to evacuate people?
According to more serious (but still Indian) sources relating on the matter (of this 2nd phone call), like The Hindu reporting of today, no such cessation was agreed. At best:
Moscow is considering a ...
39
votes
Accepted
Congressman Jeff Van Drew is switching parties over Trump impeachment: has this ever happened before?
Has this ever happened before, that a standing Member of Congress switched parties directly from one major party to the other? If so, when?
The number of party switchers is too numerous to list here. ...
- 36.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible