Historian Allan Lichtman, professor emeritus at American University, has a crystal ball in his possession. In the last forty years, he has guessed the winner of all the United States presidential elections, with the exception of those in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, losing the popular vote and thanks to a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court. . In 2016, he was one of the few analysts who predicted the unexpected victory of Donald Trump, when all the polls predicted a comfortable victory for Hillary Clinton. From his successful predictions was born his peculiar nickname: the Oracle of Washington.
In 1981, Lichtman designed, together with Russian geophysicist and seismologist Vladimir Keilis-Borock, the prediction system The Keys to the White House, which applies earthquake detection methods to predict the outcome of the presidential elections. Instead of focusing on the opposing candidate, his system is based on citizens’ satisfaction with government action. It consists of a list of thirteen premises: if five or fewer are false, it can be predicted that the candidate of the party that occupies the White House will win the election.
With nine months until the elections, it is still early to make predictions. And even more so when the probable opposition candidate, Trump, faces 91 criminal charges in four judicial proceedings: New York, Washington, Atlanta and Miami. No article of the Constitution prohibits an accused, convicted or imprisoned person from running for office. However, there is an article that is driving jurists across the country upside down.
This is the Third Section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which reads as follows: “no person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, president or vice president […] if, having previously taken an oath to the Constitution, as a member of Congress or official , has participated in an insurrection or rebellion against it.”
By virtue of this text – written in 1866, after the Civil War, to prevent those who had been part of the Confederacy from coming to power in Washington – the Colorado Supreme Court in December prohibited Trump from running for office in the elections. that state. His interpretation: that he participated in an insurrection by trying to rig the 2020 election and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, culminating on January 6, 2021 with the assault on the Capitol.
Trump appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which accepted the case, and opening arguments will begin this Thursday. The magnate’s defense alleges that the 14th amendment does not contemplate a US president, because it literally refers to an “official.” But Allan Lichtman, along with 24 other distinguished historians of the country, have signed a report addressed to the Supreme Court in which they maintain that the historical evidence is clear: those in charge of drafting the Third Section included the figure of a former president involved in a rebellion.
In the amicus curiae they have presented to the Supreme Court, they suggest through historical analysis that Trump should not be able to run for office. Under the 14th amendment, why couldn’t his name be on the ballot?
In the brief that we present to the Supreme Court, we move away from political and legal arguments, and we analyze its Third Section from a historical perspective, as it was understood at the time of its writing. We concluded that it clearly covers the president. This question was raised directly during drafting debates in 1866, when a Democratic senator who opposed the 14th Amendment, Reverdy Johnson, asked why he was not included. Lot Morrill, a supporter, responded that he was, as a US official. Johnson faithfully accepted it, and no other senator disputed the fact that the president was contemplated.
Years later, in 1872, when Congress passed an amnesty law for most former Confederates, they decided not to give it to former President Jefferson Davis precisely because they recognized that he was disqualified from running for president under section three. If they had granted amnesty, his name could have been on the Democratic Party ballot, and they wanted to avoid that. Davis himself acknowledged that he was disqualified the day the states ratified the 14th amendment, in 1968. This is the historical evidence that we have presented to the Court, which defines itself as originalist, that is, it should take into account the intention of the editors in their context.
Trump alleges that this would be an intrusion of the judicial branch over the executive.
Yes, I have heard the argument that it is the people who should decide, and not the courts. Well, we do not live in a plebiscite, but in a democratic republic governed by the rules of the Constitution. And Section Three is no less applicable because a candidate is very popular. It is as valid as the clauses that disqualify presidents based on age or place of birth. In fact, who was it that, for five years, pushed the idea that Barack Obama should not be president, with the false claim that he was born in Africa? Indeed, it was Trump. And now his arguments have taken a 180 degree turn.
Do you think your report will have any effect on the ruling?
I can’t predict what the judges are going to do. But we hope that the weight of 25 of the nation’s leading historians will persuade the court that they should take our findings and analysis into account. They can’t just ignore what we’ve shown and fabricate some kind of alternative story. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to kick Trump off the ballot; they could find other ways to overturn Colorado’s decision. But we strongly urge you to take into account our historic work.
Trump denies that what happened from the election to the assault on the Capitol was an insurrection. And if it were, it could be argued that he did not participate directly, since he was not in the Capitol.
From my knowledge of the Reconstruction period, I can tell you that many former Confederates were deprived of their rights without having directly participated in the insurrection, because they did not take up arms against the United States. Many judges were disqualified, for example. To be considered an insurrectionist, he does not have to participate in violence: he can incite rebellion, as Trump did in his previous speech, and then sit by for three hours while his furious supporters attacked the Capitol. He even inflamed them, with a tweet in which he criticized Mike Pence, his vice president, who decided not to follow his orders and certified Biden’s election as president. That day, the cries of Trumpists called to “hang” and “kill” Pence.
The committee that investigated January 6 in Congress, made up of Democrats and Republicans, reached a similar conclusion: Trump not only participated, but led the insurrection.
And hundreds of his followers accused of rebellion came to the same conclusion. When asked, most responded that they were there for Donald Trump, not on his behalf. So clear.
Trump has benefited from the court cases against him: he has raised more money and has greater voting intentions. How is it possible that almost half of the American population continues to support him?
I am surprised that support for Trump has endured as it has. He is a unique character in the entire US political history: since he came out as a candidate in 2015, for almost nine years, his approval ratings have barely changed: they have remained around 40%. He seems absolutely impervious to anything that happens, like the insurrection or convictions for sexual assault and fraud.
Because? Many Americans feel alienated from their society and politics, feeling that they have been left behind in economic, religious, racial and gender terms. And Trump exploits all those feelings. His followers don’t care about anything he does: he may be a bully and he may be a reprobate, but he is his bully, he is his reprobate. He is the one who defends them. He always says: “They’re coming for me because they’re coming for you, but I’m getting in their way.” And to that we must add the dynamics of this era of social communication: people only listen to voices that reinforce their opinion and close themselves to any idea or information that contradicts it. The complete opposite is “the deep state”, it is “the “socialists”, it is “Joe Biden”.
Of all your accusations, which do you think is the most serious and which could harm you the most?
Exit polls in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary showed something interesting: A significant portion of Republican voters said that if Trump is convicted of a felony, he will be unfit to be president. Clearly, the most important charges are those that have to do with his attempt to overturn our democracy, filed in Washington (for the events of January 6, 2021) and in Georgia (for trying to manipulate the electoral result in that state).
But none of his four accusations are trivial. In Florida he is accused of compromising our national security by stealing sensitive documents and exposing them in unsafe locations at Mar-a-Lago. And the least serious case is that of New York, where he is accused of buying the silence of a porn star in the middle of a campaign, for a quarter of a million dollars, and then covering it up as if it were an everyday expense of his business. It may not seem that important, but it is serious, because it is related to our democracy: he deceived the American people on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.
Precisely, it may be the case that is going to harm him the most: while the other trials are delayed, this one seems to still stand before the elections. Furthermore, if he is convicted and then wins the election, he will not be able to pardon himself because it is a state case, unlike those in Washington and Florida.
With nine months until the elections, do you already have a prediction about who will occupy the White House next year?
I’m not going to give you a prediction so soon, because if I do, everyone will jump on me claiming that I’ve already made my final prediction. But I can give you some clues. Right now, Biden is an unpopular candidate and criticism is raining down on him, especially because of his age. But I still believe that he is the Democrats’ best option to win. My 13 keys are true and false questions, in which an affirmative answer always favors the party that occupies the White House. And, if six or more are false, you are predicted to lose.
The fact that Biden appears already fulfills two keys: that of incumbency and that of the race, because he is the president in office and there is no significant opposition in the primaries. Of the remaining 11, six would have to be false to predict his defeat. Then, the economy does not seem like it will enter a recession, which confirms another premise. Nor has there been a major scandal during his presidency: another. On the other hand, my first key is confirmed false, since the Democrats have fewer representatives than in the previous midterm elections; the fourth, because Robert Kennedy Jr. represents a significant third option; and the thirteenth, since Trump is a charismatic opposition candidate.
That means that, to a large extent, what will determine Biden’s re-election chances are foreign policy successes and failures (premises 10 and 11): we will have to keep an eye on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Of all the elections you have predicted, is this the most uncertain?
I am not astrologer Jean Dixon, nor do I have a crystal ball. But my prediction model is solid, because it is based on history. It dates back to 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, and my first prospecting was in 1984, with the re-election of Ronald Reagan. That doesn’t mean it will last forever: there may be a cataclysm that changes the pattern of history.
Every four years they tell me that we have to change the premises: that if we now have social networks, that if we have an African-American candidate, that if the first president is criminally prosecuted… And my answer is always the same: you do not change a system of prediction on the fly. However, in this case, a criminal conviction of Trump could fall into the category of cataclysm, it could change the pattern of history. And it could test the robustness of my system.
This year, its fourth key will also be tested, regarding the existence of a third strong candidate. Polls give Kennedy around 10%, after having abandoned the Democratic race to run as an independent. Will that hurt Biden or Trump more?
Normally, the existence of third candidates plays against the party that occupies the White House. For example, Ross Perot in 1992. With 19% of the votes, he was the definitive key that made George H. W. Bush lose to Bill Clinton. But RFK Jr.’s case is more complicated. It’s not clear he will appeal to Democrats. His main draw seems to be his anti-vaccine crusade, and that’s largely a Republican issue. It’s also not clear that he will get on the ballot, or that, as we get closer to the election, his numbers will hold up.
Can we expect a new insurrection attempt if Trump loses the election? Do you think he is going to accept the election result?
Assuming he is the Republican nominee, and that he is not disqualified by the Supreme Court, I see little chance that Trump will accept defeat. I don’t think he is going to allow, again, a peaceful ratification of power. But, if that happens, he will have an enormously difficult time in 2024, because he is no longer the president in office. He won’t have any of the powers he used four years ago. So I believe that if he loses, our democracy will survive his attempts to take it away from us.
