BACK TO THE FUTURE

It sometimes takes a political scientist to put current events into their historical context. The Monkey Cage's Phil Klinkner offers this history lesson on Walmart's electioneering:

During the 1896 election, employers warned their workers that if Democrat William Jennings Bryan won the election over Republican William McKinley, they shouldn’t even bother to show up for work the next day since a Bryan victory would mean economic collapse. In 1936, many employers put the following message in their employees’ pay envelopes:

Effective January 1937, we are compelled by a Roosevelt New Deal law to make a 1 percent deduction from your wages and turn it over to the government. You might get this money back . . . but only if Congress decides to make the appropriations for this purpose.

Nothing like this could go on today, of course. Could it?