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110 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 ...
agc's user avatar
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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 ...
Jan's user avatar
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79 votes
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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's user avatar
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76 votes
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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 ...
Panda's user avatar
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71 votes
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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. ...
Denis de Bernardy's user avatar
64 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 ...
Koru's user avatar
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61 votes
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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 ...
ohwilleke's user avatar
  • 73k
61 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 ...
divibisan's user avatar
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60 votes
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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 ...
James K's user avatar
  • 115k
60 votes
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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, ...
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine's user avatar
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's user avatar
  • 105k
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 ...
Thorsten S.'s user avatar
  • 4,692
51 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:...
Timur Shtatland's user avatar
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 ...
Jontia's user avatar
  • 23.9k
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 ...
James K's user avatar
  • 115k
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 ...
Joe C's user avatar
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47 votes
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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 ...
zibadawa timmy's user avatar
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 ...
Alonzo Muncy's user avatar
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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 ...
zibadawa timmy's user avatar
40 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. ...
Rick Smith's user avatar
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40 votes
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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 ...
Fizz's user avatar
  • 144k
39 votes

Whose photos are carried by Vladimir Putin and those by his side in the May 9, 2022 Moscow Victory Day Parade and what are their significance?

The idea of this specific parade is to carry the photos of your relatives who fought in a war (usually WW2). In this case it seems to be a photo of Putin's father. I suspect there is no other ...
alamar's user avatar
  • 13.8k
39 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 ...
Philipp's user avatar
  • 74.7k
38 votes
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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 ...
Obie 2.0's user avatar
  • 13.6k
36 votes

Has any nuclear-protected country been under any significant attack by another country's military forces?

India and Pakistan. India most likely completed weaponized nuclear warheads around 1994 and tested them in 1998. Pakistan also tested their first nuclear weapons in 1998. Both had a war in 1999, the ...
NoDataDumpNoContribution's user avatar
36 votes

Whose photos are carried by Vladimir Putin and those by his side in the May 9, 2022 Moscow Victory Day Parade and what are their significance?

Alamar has covered the significance of the parade and of whom the photo Putin carried was. The man on Putin's left in the red jacket is Gennady Ivanov, one of the co-chairs of the Immortal Regiment ...
CDJB's user avatar
  • 105k
36 votes

What was the reason for extending NATO in the 1990s?

I'll quote this verbatim from an answer I wrote on History.SE. The explanation is by Bill Clinton - American president during the expansion. American President Bill Clinton, who was President during ...
Allure's user avatar
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33 votes
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How many Federal officials have been impeached and convicted?

Another source states: In all, the House of Representatives has impeached only 19 federal officials, and the Senate has conducted formal impeachment trials with seven acquittals, eight ...
ohwilleke's user avatar
  • 73k

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