Brian Kalt

@joshchafetz Dunning-Kruger Twitter is the worst Twitter.

"Sir, this is a Wendy's"

XKCD has it right. (Still, though, Go Blue!)

@MattGlassman312 Never mind--one of the other commenters noted that Rubio voted to confirm himself. So not only an example but a very recent one...

@MattGlassman312 I was looking for and couldn't find any actual instances of someone voting on their own nomination. Are you aware of any?

Nothing prohibits it; often they abstain.

@speechboy71 @mattyglesias Looking at the 10 smallest states (WY, VT, AK, ND, SD, DE, RI, MT, ME, NH), I count 9 Democratic senators (VT, DE, RI, one in ME, NH) versus 11 Republicans (WY, AK, ND, SD, MT, and one in ME). Not what I would call a huge imbalance.

Let me say for the record that I don't think @mattyglesias is an idiot at all ... but the argument below about the structural impediments to Dems winning Senate seats is correct. Take, for example, the Democratic performance in swing states, which are the most narrowly divided and competitive states in the country. These are the places where hewing to the political center is most likely to be rewarded. Senate Democratic candidates dominate in swing states. They hold 10 of the 14 seats there ... and also 5 of the 7 governorships. In 2024, in House elections, there was a cross-partisan outcome (the House winner was from a different political party than the district’s presidential choice). Democrats won 13 out of 16 races. But even if Democrats won all 14 Senate seats in swing states, they'd still only have a two-seat majority in the Senate. If the GOP won all 14 swing state Senate seats, they'd have a 63-37 advantage. In fact, for the past six decades, whether controlling a majority or minority of Senate seats, the Republican Party has consistently controlled a higher share of Senate seats than the share of citizens residing in the states represented by Republican senators. The fundamental political problem for Democrats is structural -- the GOP's small-state dominance gives it an enormous advantage. And Democrats simply can't expect to win Senate seats in places that have consistently voted for Trump. Indeed, there is not a single Democratic senator in a state where Trump has won three times. That might change in 2026 because of an anti-incumbent backlash, but it's not a long-term strategy for success. Contrary to Matt's argument, Democrats are already seen as moderate, and Republicans are far more likely to be seen by the electorate as extreme and out of touch. Moreover, Democrats cannot policy their way out of this mess -- the country is too polarized. The only long-term play for Democrats is to add new Democratic-leaning states and expand the Senate. Is that a heavy lift? Yes. But it's the only real path for Democrats not just to win back political power but to hold it.

@rickhasen Time for me to dust off this old article of mine... papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

#ELB: NC: “GOP seeks ruling against ‘never residents’ voting in NC elections” ift.tt/uHF1mDK

As long as Congress isn’t going to legislate to scale back qualified immunity, private bills would provide an opportunity to highlight/debate these incidents and provide some redress to the victims. 2/2

With (1) the number of viral videos showing government actors clearly committing torts, and (2) the courts’ continued aggressive use of qualified immunity doctrine, I expect to see a big increase in the introduction of private bills in Congress. 1/2

This scenario (that the "incumbent GOP majority" would seat their preferred candidates in the disputed races) is inaccurate. The new House decides whom to seat, not the old one. This raises a separate set of potential problems, though. I wrote on it here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@derektmuller How hard is it for them to read all of Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, and not just the first part? What is going on here, Derek?

@JamesSurowiecki Par for the course these days. I'm not sure if I am viewing the past through rose-colored glasses, but I feel like Twitter comments have gotten a lot worse in this regard over the past couple of years.

This tweet has more than a thousand replies. Almost none are from people defending the absurd "mortgage holders should pay property taxes, but people who have paid off their homes shouldn't" position. It's almost all people who want to abolish property taxes entirely.

@kylegriffin1 (Whether the federal legislation in question is a good idea or not is a separate matter altogether, of course.)

@kylegriffin1 No, Kyle, Art. I, § 4 allows for national-level regulation: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”

FLAG: Trump said today that Republicans should nationalize elections — continuing to double down on his 2020 election lies. The suggestion runs contrary to the Constitution's delegation of election administration to state governments.

@adpavlik It’s a pretty good heuristic, but as you suggest there are some edge cases where it wouldn’t be right.

@ProfBrianKalt One argument I saw the other day said something like “if you see the President on TV giving speeches, the 25th Amendment isn’t the proper solution” and while I’m sure it’s not perfect I was wondering what you’d say about it as a heuristic.

Back in the day, when I would tweet something like this out to my 10,000+ followers, I would get tens of thousands of impressions. Now, the algorithm keeps me in the mere hundreds, for various not-good reasons.

My 2019 book on Section 4 of the 25th Amendment (amazon.com/Unable-Politic…) was motivated in part by ridiculously wrong takes I saw on Twitter--which continued then, under Biden, and now. As such, I turn off replies for these posts. But my DMs are open for people's questions. 4/4

* A thread that explains what Section 4 of the 25th Amendment was actually designed to do. As a practical matter, before Section 4 will work, the president has to be much farther "gone" than most people seem to think. x.com/ProfBrianKalt/… 3/4

President Trump's message to Norwegian PM Støre has my phone ringing again with people asking questions about 25th Amendment Section 4, which transfers power from the president when he is incapacitated. Seems like a useful time to retweet some of my old content about it... 1/4

@neoavatara He almost won Minnesota too—only lost by 0.18%.

Reagan knew then what you guys know now about Minnesota...