Category Archives: Modern Dictators
The Little Things
If you love . . .
Protecting a dim-witted, would-be dictator from legal consequences,
Suppressing a woman’s right to self-actuation and privacy,
Expediting white, unqualified patriarchs to the Supreme Court,
Rendering the US Senate inert,
Legislating so the wealthy have no tax burden,
The open targeting of Americans of color to brutality and murder,
The whole-sale destruction of the planet, and the rape of natural resources
Abetting political misinformation and conspiracies through social media,
Targeting those of differing sexuality
Pushing religion into American government,
Aligning apportionment and voter suppression to disenfranchise the poor, and people of color,
Withholding health care to the few with means,
The wholesale flood of firearms into civilian hands,
Cruelty dispensed upon desperate immigrants,
Coddling of white offenders over those of color,
Predatory treatment of consumers,
Blocking legislation to meet the dangers of the above list, and otherwise accomplishing nothing,
Vote for today’s Republican Party
Gail Chumbley, frustrated American History Educator.
The Long Haul
After the 1929 Market Crash the world fell into regional, nearly feudal isolation, and international trade quickly dried up. America, too, focused inward largely due to the nation’s earlier participation in the Great War in Europe.
Across the Pacific the Japanese Empire aimed to take advantage of global disinterest promoting its own national interests. Sold to other Asian countries as the “Co-prosperity Sphere,” hyper-nationalistic Japan intended to expand across the region, especially toward vulnerable, resource rich China.
Great Britain as well, struggled alone in a financial malaise, as did the French across the channel; both nations saddled with debt to American banks from the previous war. Germany, the defeated nation struggled with their own war debt demanded by the British and French.
The shroud of economic depression hung like a millstone over Europe and the rest of the world.
As the financial, and political fallout grew wildly unstable, regimes hunkered down and hoped for better times. However the climate instead became chaotic, bringing anti-democratic demagogues to power.
The Italians were first, producing a Fascist strongman, Benito Mussolini. El Duce, as he was known suppressed political diversity, harnessed economic efficiency, and soon, like the Japanese, pursued colonial inroads into Libya, and later the conquest of Ethiopia.
Germany soon flirted with its own style of fascism, with a meaner, violent credo. In a reaction to impossible debts, and national pride, Adolf Hitler, a feckless dreamer, stood on beer hall tables, and passionately spoke of national betrayal. Hitler revealed his malicious intentions by blaming Bolsheviks, Capitalists, and Jews for the hated Armistice of 1918, and war debt owed to the Allies.
Yet America, unlike the rest of the world, clung with all their might to the national system of Constitutional norms. At the same time Germany elected Hitler in 1932, the U.S. found their champion in Franklin Roosevelt.
A popular Roosevelt Coalition steered the country through those hard years holding America together. FDR’s New Deal and Fireside Chats broadcasts kept at bay the fears of a nation. That’s not to say there weren’t kooks, to borrow Lindsay Graham’s phrase, but Americans faced the long haul together, believing better days had to be ahead.
The current President is no Franklin Roosevelt. And his autocratic tendencies, strongly echo those in the 1930’s.
In Project 2025 Trump aims to raise tariffs, shut down borders, all done to economically and politically isolate America. Using the same playbook of past despots specific groups are targeted as the problem. The guilty include immigrants, the LGBTQ community, liberals, educators, women, and the rule of law all in the crosshairs. All done to divert and distract while he lines his pockets.
And his tactics, so far have succeeded making half of the electorate real mean.
So, here is the question. Can America survive?
Can Americans remain bound to the framework of our 238 year old republic as it did in the Great Depression? Or will this nation forsake our financial, social, and political traditions and turn to petty retribution and scapegoating?
Will we, as a nation withdraw from the world and exchange our democracy for a strong man who insists he has all the answers?
The signs are clear. When this national crisis has passed will there be enough of us left who stood resolute for our democracy? That is the question of this historic moment.
Gail Chumbley is a writer and history educator.
Rebellions
The Republican Party emerged in 1854 as a voice for liberty, and of opportunity. Forged in sectional controversy, members dedicated themselves to one overriding priority, no slavery in America’s western territories. On that point the fledgling party stood firm.
A lawyer in Springfield, Abraham Lincoln, joined the growing party early concerned, as were others, with escalating tensions between the North and South.
In 1860, Lincoln threw his very tall hat into the ring, and declared his candidacy for President. Defying considerable odds, Lincoln prevailed over other, more prominent Republicans at the GOP Convention in Chicago. Lincoln grasped the nomination.
The South responded as one. If Lincoln won the Presidency, they would bolt the Union. He did win, and tried to reason with Southern States through his inaugural address. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.”
The sticking point of course, slavery.
By the time Lincoln took the oath of office, eight Southern States had voted to secede from the Union. This president understood the fears of the South, and knew what drove the secessionists. He didn’t hate them, he did not want them punished. During the last year of the war Lincoln, in his second inaugural address gently offered an olive branch stating, “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”
Lincoln’s lasting legacy held that the Civil War meant more than reunification of the states. His “new birth of freedom” implied a higher ideal, the turmoil meant something more honorable, and timeless: the cause of humanity. The Emancipation Proclamation came first, then the 13th Amendment, forever freeing those held in bondage. This president took no credit for prevailing over the Rebels, hoping only to heal the divisions that fueled the rage.
His martyrdom on April 15,1865 left the GOP imprinted with Lincoln’s goodness, modesty, and nobility. This first Republican President endured four years of national hell, and never forgot his mission.
Lincoln met the Rebellion, and vanquished it.
America today hears no soaring rhetoric from the GOP, nor elegant prose, only hate speech and bellyaching. The GOP has severed the cords of duty to country, replacing patriotic obligation with an unapologetic lust for power, and self interest.
For four years the taxpayers have been fleeced, and minorities targeted, the kind of intolerance Lincoln abhorred. Long standing alliances were cast aside as a self-serving dunce cozied up to America’s enemies. The Republican members of Congress have forsaken their obligation to country first, pretending and excusing that all was normal in the turbulent White House.
The greatest harm perpetrated by, and enabled by the current GOP, is the violent attack on the heart of our democracy: the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The irony is rich. As the Republican Party grew from a rebellion, it will now perish from another.
Don’t They Realize?
The attack did not come until almost 5:00pm on July 2, 1863. The Yankees under the command of General George Meade held on to both Cemetery Hill, and Cemetery Ridge, south of the town of Gettysburg. Situated across an open ground of boulders, orchards, wheat and corn fields, waited invading Confederates commanded by Robert E Lee.
Issued vague orders the day before by General Lee the boys in grey had failed to capture the vital high ground on the northern end of the Union lines, and were forced to deploy upon less desirable ground called Seminary Ridge. Imagine an irregular stadium from north to south, with foes facing one another across a lethal killing zone.
On that second day, Lee had ordered fresh assaults on the southern end of the Yankee lines. Fierce fighting commenced in the Wheat Field, and upon the boulders of Devil’s Den, culminating in a main assault on a rise called Little Round Top.
The lower of two southern summits, Little Round Top appeared vulnerable to the Rebs massing below. Alabamians were ordered to angle around to their right, and cut to the rear of Union lines. However, their movements were detected by Union Colonel Strong Vincent, and Vincent acted at once.
Issuing orders boys from Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Maine units were to double-quick to defend rubble-strewn, steep, Little Round Top. Holding the end of that hastily formed line stood Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine. And as many readers know, Colonel Chamberlain held off three assaults by the Alabamians scrambling up the steep terrain. Finally out of ammunition, Colonel Chamberlain in desperation ordered a bayonet charge, sweeping down the hill against another attack. And miraculously that bladed downhill charge worked.
A less known story concerns the Yankee soldiers assigned to guard that hard-won hill that night. Under orders to detect any further Confederate threats, these sentries could hear the moans and piteous cries of their brothers wounded and dying below them in the darkness.
Distressed by the audible suffering and with no way to help, the guards kept to their orders. Somewhere in that endless night one sentry was said to have cried, “Don’t they know they saved the country today?”
And those words echo to us today, on this July 2.
Those of us who serve honorably in public office we stand for America.
Those of us who get involved in community action, or contribute to candidates and causes stand for America.
Those of us who rally for freedom in good and bad weather stand for America.
Those of us who believe in fair play and government by the people stand for America.
To those of us that will never submit to authoritarianism stand for America.
And we will save our country.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-volume memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also written three stage plays. “Clay” regarding the life of statesman Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” a study of slavery and racism, and “Peer Review” where 47 converses with four past presidents. In addition Chumbley has co-authored a screenplay, “Dancing on Air,” based on her two books.
gailchumbley@ymail.com
Pickaxe To Nerve Agent
Josef Stalin was the embodiment of evil. Moreover, if one figure set the standard for Russian despots, it was Stalin. His reign of domestic brutality and foreign terror set the tone for a long, dangerous Cold War. Czarist Russia had set a particularly high bar for authoritarianism, but Uncle Joe inflicted monstrosities that would make Ivan the Terrible cringe.
After Russia withdrew from WWI, through a series of moves, the Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Lenin prevailed in gripping the reins of power. Through the aid of Leon Trotsky, a brilliant intellectual, and Josef Stalin a seasoned street fighter, the Bolsheviks founded a peoples state, loosely framed around the teachings of Marx.
During the next few years The US provided relief to the starving of Europe from Great Britain to Vladivostok. But aid made no difference to Lenin. In 1919 the Comintern was established in Moscow, professing the aim of Communist takeover of the world.
In 1924 Lenin died, and a fresh struggle for power ensued. When the snow storm settled Stalin was in command and Trotsky exiled.* Conditions in Stalin’s USSR flowed a crimson red. The Kremlin’s secret police cracked down on the people, through arrests, murders, and spying. By 1934 the NKVD began a purge that included the liquidation of middle class Ukrainian farmers resulting in the deaths of millions.
And those policies were domestic.
At the same time, spying took center stage in Stalin’s foreign policy. English and American assets were turned including left-leaning Americans disillusioned by the Depression, and England’s Cambridge Five, headed by Kim Philby. Philby held a high clearance in British intelligence. The use of such double agents allowed Stalin to essentially shoot fish in a barrel.
Atomic weaponry literally mushroomed on the scene, raising the stakes in East West relations. America lost it’s mind in the Red Scare, and Soviet agents burrowed deeper undercover.
That was then. But it is also now. Excluding reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian leadership emulates the tone set by Josef Stalin. Infiltrating the National Rifle Association, political misinformation, cyber hacking, and buying off scoundrels with generous loans, Vladimir Putin is an apt pupil of old Uncle Joe.
On January 6, 2021 as white supremacists broke past Capitol barriers, vandalizing and assaulting law enforcement, the winner of that moment was Vladimir Putin. Destabilizing America has been the object of the struggle since the Russian Revolution.
Dear GOP, you are indeed Putin’s puppets.
*Trotsky was murdered in August, 1940. An operative bludgeoned him to death outside Mexico City with a pickaxe. Putin critic, Alexei Navalny is currently in a Russian jail, weakened by a nerve agent that was meant to silence him.
Gail Chumbley is an author, and history educator. Her two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” are both available on Kindle.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
Masterpiece
Russia and the US didn’t have much contact in the 19th Century. A rumor had once circulated insisting presidential candidate, John Quincy Adams had procured American virgins for the Russian Czar when a young diplomat in Moscow. Not true, but there it is.
Still, the political tyranny of Russia has been widely understood in America as early as the 19th Century. When Abraham Lincoln condemned racism and intolerance stateside, he remarked that Russia’s oppression was, at least, less hypocritical than practiced in the United States. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward later had his moment with the Czar when he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Seward’s Ice Box, 1867 newspapers scoffed.
Some sixty years later, during World War One, revolutionaries deposed the Czar, and the last Romanov abdicated his throne. Bolsheviks arrested the former Czar, eventually shooting him, and the rest of the royal family in July, 1918. That same year President Wilson dispatched American forces to Archangel, to aid the White Russians to defeat Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks, and stabilize democracy. The Whites failed, surrendering all of the vast Russian landmass into the hands of the Communists.
In the newly founded USSR, Premier Vladimir Lenin established the Comintern, the Communist International, publicly pronouncing the Soviet aim of exporting Communism worldwide, prompting in America our first domestic Red Scare.
In the following years, economic depression shrouded the globe, only dispelled by the horror of World War Two. Josef Stalin, Lenin’s cruel, and ruthless successor, struck a nonaggression pact with equally ruthless Adolf Hitler, dividing Poland as a buffer to buy time for both dictators. It comes as no surprise that neither trusted the other, and in 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union, bringing an abrupt, bloody end to that alliance.
After Pearl Harbor, the the Russians found themselves, by default, allied to Britain and the United States. Stalin trusted Washington about as much as he had Hitler, and in return Washington didn’t trust Stalin. Both Churchill and FDR remembered the Russians had cut and run during WWI, and the recent treaty with Hitler. Still, the two leaders went out of their way to appease their new Soviet ally.
In the last months of the European war, Stalin signaled his intentions to dominate by billeting the Red Army throughout Eastern Europe. Western allies acquiesced to Stalin’s aggression, and allowed Red forces to enter Berlin first, where the Communists didn’t leave until 1989.
A second Red Scare hit America much harder than the first. Stalin’s operatives managed to purloin atomic and hydrogen bomb intelligence, successfully delivering them to Soviet physicists to replicate. During the Kennedy Administration, the Berlin Wall sprouted up nearly overnight, and the entire Soviet Sphere of Influence made for an intense, dangerous Cold War. Conflict burned hot in America, the government attempting to flush out possible subversives, and ruining the lives of many innocent citizens. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage, and Joe McCarthy accused the State Department and Army of harboring Communists. Soviet satellite Sputnik orbited the globe in 1957, the U2 spy plane crashed inside the Soviet Union in 1960, while at school we practiced ‘duck and cover’ drills. Proxy wars increased American foreign aid and deployed US forces to our allies across the free world, from Greece to Vietnam.
Some of America’s greatest Cold Warriors included President Eisenhower, JFK, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. President Reagan, in particular, while speaking in Berlin, demanded the Soviets “tear down this wall.” These Chief Executives understood that any agreements with the Kremlin required stringent verification before any closure. America’s Soviet rivals were seasoned operatives, and were, in no way, friends of the west.
So where does this story leave us? Clearly the Kremlin has not changed. Spy networks, election hackers, and embedded operatives are perpetual threats. Maria Butina, the little Red darling of the NRA, and the GOP is an example of Russia’s recent relentless efforts. So, when an American President smiles and pays court to Vladimir Putin something serious is amiss.
Update: At a Conway South Carolina campaign stop on February 10, 2024, Trump remarked concerning NATO, “”If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
The Russian government is patient, and that patience has appeared to pay off. Putin’s masterpiece? He elevated a Russian asset to the White House, and convinced GOP voters to look the other way.
At this writing the entire Republican Party still remains steadfast to their Russian operative as he remains the presidential frontrunner for nomination.
Gail Chumbley is a history educator, and the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” Both available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned three stage plays, “Clay,” “Wolf By The Ears, and “Peer Review.” In addition, Gail has co-written “Dancing on Air” a film script centered on a true 20th Century tale of Depression and War.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
The Arrogance of Now
Each year I prepared for two major wars, the finale if you will, of second semester US History. With a combined sense of dread and anticipation, I led the kids through the causes, and progression of the Civil War (with 10th graders), and WWII (with my Juniors).
A lifetime of study in these eras, especially Antebellum America, tells an anxious story, as two passionate belief systems came to blows. Sophomores learned that our nation, a democracy born in such promise, plunged into the abyss over America’s original sin, slavery.
Meanwhile, for Juniors, the failures of the uneasy peace that followed WWI shaped a broader corrosion. The world after 1919 disintegrated into deadly factions, underscored by exaggerated entitlement, racial hate, and lust for revenge.
Much like America’s 19th Century plunge into the breach, the 20th Century also debased human life, sliding into scapegoating, unthinkable cruelty, and massacre. This record is hard to face, let alone study.
Real monsters masqueraded as heads of state; Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the War Lords of Japan. All, to varying degrees, convinced regular people that the “worth” of others was suspect, and targeting civilians an acceptable strategy. Yet, as awful as both conflicts were, it’s hard not to stare, and to hopefully recognize the signs when hate again emerges as a justification for horror.
The heresy of exceptionalism, normalizing violence on the vulnerable, and extremism, unleashed evil on the world. Andersonville Prison, Fort Pillow Massacre, the Rape of Nanking, Bataan, the Warsaw Ghetto, and death camps. More than one a student wondered aloud, how could that happen?
In increments.
These signs are clear again. Those same pre-conditions have resurfaced, right now, here in our communities, states, and nation.
A white nationalist parade in Charlotte that kills one, where there were “good people on both sides.” Normalized daily murders of people of color, and incendiary rhetoric that ends with an attack on the US Capitol, killing five. All offenses excused and minimized by a once great political party, that has forsaken its moral underpinnings.
The only difference between the Proud Boys and the Brown Shirts is the Brown Shirts didn’t wear Carhartt and flannel.
This endless playlist has looped over repeatedly, cursed by the “blind arrogance of now.” But dear reader, now is then, and deluded people do not change with time. The descent into barbarity is more predictable than exceptional.
When reasonable folks are manipulated by the chorus of the Big Lie, the era doesn’t matter. Society inevitably falls into depravity.
Gail Chumbley is a career history educator, and author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles on Kindle.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
Steal This Letter
If you feel like contacting your Republican Senators copy and paste this one. Tweak it for your own state and issues.
Senator,
Donald Trump’s stubborn refusal to face the reality of his election loss is as dangerous an assault on our nation as 911, and much more damaging than Pearl Harbor.
This election fiasco flies in the face of American traditions. General Washington sacrificed much of his personal happiness to found our nation. As America’s first president, he placed our republic above any personal comfort, and Washington’s legacy bears that out. When his officers suggested he take the reins of power, the general declined and went home to Mt Vernon.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln preserved what Washington had begun, our Union. And though it cost him his life, the United States was Lincoln’s primary concern.
Both men, a founding father, and the savior of the Union, counted their interests as secondary, because America mattered more than any one man. Now, through a series of events, that responsibility has fallen to you. The GOP majority in the Senate can end this assault on our heritage, and you can make that happen.
Your forebears would be proud.
The Republican Party came into being on a noble, decent premise. It is the Party of Lincoln, not a lout from Queens.
*Please don’t patronize me with excuses.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
Beware Of Darkness
Vote, but don’t vote in fear. Ignore the thugs who intend to intimidate.
If alarm guides your trip to the polls, clarify what frightens you. Whether it’s authoritarianism, climate change, or even attacks on our democracy, pull yourself together and vote with thoughtful purpose.
The former president thrives on doubt, lies and chaos.
While the GOP points to crime, and minorities as a threat, understand this distraction provides cover for greed and incompetence. This crowd is motivated by power, not service to country.
Many high officials have been indicted for conspiring to hack the 2016 Presidential election. This is not theory, it is fact. Of those thirty-five, four convicted conspirators “flipped” and were cooperating with Federal Prosecutors to shorten their sentences. These scoundrels rescinded their agreements and the previous Attorney General supported that effort. At the end almost all were granted a presidential pardon.
That is a concern.
Russia, under Cold Warrior and former KGB operative, Vladimir Putin, has unleashed powerful ‘oligarchs’ to perpetrate cyber sabotage against the United States. Never forget that. This is treason-providing aid and comfort to America’s enemies. At this writing the GOP have declared if they retake Congress they will give Ukraine to Russia.
To silence his critics, Putin has quite publicly dispatched hit squads of assassins, at home in Russia, and abroad. For example, executioners brazenly used military grade nerve agents to silence opponents. Though the Russian leader has denied authorizing any such thing, the former president willfully refuses to accept that, all too, obvious fact.
That is a grave concern.
Friendship extended from that White House to other totalitarian regimes similar to Putin’s. Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s butcher of not only family members, but masses of his own people, Rodrigo Deterte of the Philippines, who has pursued extralegal measures to kill “criminals,” and Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey who demanded Trump deport a Turkish journalist, critical of the strong arm regime in Ankara.
The previous president’s family still maintains business ties with the Saudi Prince, MBS, despite the grisly murder of a Washington Post journalist by Saudi assassins.
That is a concern.
Then came January 6th, that violent crescendo of the Trump years. This party is a plague.
Fear is a powerful and toxic impulse to rush the polls on Election Day. However, we must all understand what we fear. Do we focus on the bedlam promoted by that defeated administration, or do we ignore the noise and pinpoint the real threat?
Vote like a boss.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both books are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned two historical plays, “Clay” concerning the life of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” and exploration of racism and slavery in America.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
Gail Chumbley 