Tag Archives: politics

New Name Same Party

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On Twitter, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Congressman Louis Gohmert, R-Texas have been been busy disseminating political fiction.

Both have tweeted on the Democratic Party as the perpetrators of the Civil War, racism, and other misleading accusations.

Were these two guilty of sleeping through their history classes, or purposefully spreading propaganda to other former classroom snoozers? 

The Democratic Party evolved from Thomas Jefferson’s opposition to the US Constitution. Jefferson had been abroad during the Constitutional Convention and upon his return quickly made his objections known. A planter and slave master, this “natural aristocrat” resisted any higher form of government that checked his own authority.

Jefferson rejected the notion that a distant power knew better than he, the master of Monticello. He favored a small, disinterested government that coordinated foreign affairs, trade, and not much more. Men such as himself could better govern localities than any distant political power.

As America’s third president, Jefferson envisioned a Republic of “farmers,” like himself, running their own fiefdoms across the continent. (That is until he bought Louisiana, where he stretched the Constitution plenty).

That’s about it. That was the essence of the 18th, and early 19th Century philosophy supporting the Democratic Party. Oh, and the party shuffled names over that time, as well, though never wavering from the belief that local government served democracy best.

First, called Antifederalists, for opposing the Constitution, then Jeffersonian-Republicans, opposing Hamilton’s Federalists. Later, after the War of 1812, the name became Democratic-Republicans, then simply Democrats under Andrew Jackson. Still the philosophy endured; curb centralized economic, and other domestic investments and maintain local control.

The late 20th Century’s Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War brought about yet another rebranding of the party. Ronald Reagan’s election moved the Solid South from Democratic to Republican.

Reagan’s famously asserted that big government wasn’t the solution, but the problem. And that suited former southern Democrats just fine. Less government, less in taxes, and more local control. Relaxing economic regulations, and starving domestic programs rounded out the 1980 agenda. 

When Ted Cruz and Louis Gohmert spout off on the villainy of the Democratic Party, don’t be fooled. Remember that these sons of the South embrace the same old Jeffersonian ideology today, neatly packaged under the now-eroding GOP.  

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Half-breeds, Stalwarts, and Mugwumps

His political career was none too stellar, except for that one moment he seized history.

This dapper-looking fellow is President Chester Alan Arthur, (1881-1885). Arthur was considered a dandy, pursuing an opulent lifestyle filled with fine food, drink, and expensive suits; largely paid for from the public trough.

Arthur came of political age in the post-Civil War Gilded Age, a world of political machines, graft and corruption. When a supporter helped their man get elected, position and profit rained down in return.

This dubious system functioned rather well for victorious elective candidates through countless election cycles. The political universe of Chet Arthur and his band of Republican cronies became expert skimmers from the public trough and the public trust. In the Republican Party this faction was christened Stalwarts, and Stalwarts liked their well-oiled approach to public service very much, indeed.

Arthur, himself, had been named Collector for the New York Customs House during the Grant Administration, and money from this lucrative Customs House flowed to Arthur’s friends and political operatives. His particular patron was the powerful New York Senator, Roscoe Conkling, a master in Senate handiwork.

Opposing this Old Guard of money changers were the crudely titled, Half-breeds. This oddly pejorative moniker (too common in that era) represented a growing group of reformers in the GOP who aimed to clean up the corrupt practice of patronage. Senator James G. Blaine of Maine believed government jobs should be based on merit, not connections, and Blaine promoted the use of Civil Service Exams. In other words, Half-breeds endorsed qualified government workers over payola for their friends. The Stalwarts were horrified.

In the 1880 Presidential Election the Republicans, in a heated convention, split the ticket with candidates of both wings. For President, James Garfield, a Half-breed, and for Vice President, Stalwart, Chester Arthur, crony of Sen. Conkling. The Party felt it had fused the differences between the two factions, and the fat cats believed they could continue to prey. Then came the Garfield assassination.

In July, 1881, President Garfield, a distinguished Union general, and a former member of the House of Representatives, appeared at the Baltimore and Potomac Rail Station in Washington DC. In the crowd waited Charles Guiteau, an unhinged, office-seeking Stalwart. Guiteau approached the President in the crowd, shooting him at close range. Garfield died two months later from his infected wounds.

Guiteau had shouted, after opening fire, that he was a Stalwart, and would now get a government job. He didn’t. In fact, all Guiteau received was a date with the hangman, carried out in June, 1882.

And what of Chester A. Arthur? He assumed the presidency in a charged atmosphere of national grief. So changed was Arthur, that he promoted passage of the Pendleton Act of 1883. This act created the Civil Service Commission, and mandated written exams for classes of government jobs. The Stalwarts were horrified, but politically could do nothing. Garfield had been made a martyr for reform, and Arthur took the high road, making that reform real.

Oh, and by the way, the Mugwumps were another reforming splinter of the GOP. So appalled by the legacy of bribery and corruption, they bolted the party in 1884 for Democrat, Grover Cleveland.

Wonder how the 2020 Election will reshape the current GOP?

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.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

 

Political Science

 

We were in the midst of text book adoption some years ago when an unexpected snag brought the process to a halt. 

The Social Studies Departments across our district were asked to pilot an array of textbooks for the Fall of 1994. Publishers had generously provided sample texts, and we spent hours previewing different titles, passing our preferences to our District Social Studies Coordinator.

Government teachers decided, unanimously, that they would replace their current text with the newer edition of the book they had used for some years. To a person, instructors agreed to readopt Magruders American Government; a trusty standard, and the hands-down favorite of most 12th grade teachers across the country. Our staff had ready-made units, lessons, speakers, ancillary materials,, film clips, debate resolutions, etc . . . only requiring the newer book with updated factual information. And their decision appeared to be resolved.

But in the last phase, presentation for final adoption, the Board of Trustees suddenly slammed on the brakes, visibly unhappy with the choice.

 Magruders, as a tradition, had placed a photo of the current first lady inside the first page of their textbook. The old copies may have still been of Mamie Eisenhower by the tattered condition of the old copies. But no longer. The inside photo of this new edition featured First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and board members, reactionaries to the core, lost their minds.

I taught AP American History at that same time, and thought nothing of reordering Thomas Bailey’s American Pageant, another classic. We had used this text for some time, but needed an updated edition, too. However, in light of the fiasco over Magruders, I too, found my text in the crosshairs.

Wearing an understanding, sympathetic expression the district coordinator said I had to prepare a defense of my book, too. And it wasn’t that I minded touting the virtues of the book, I liked Pageant a lot, but I did mind the time lost in preparing my classroom work. Plus, it was so annoying that we all had to jump for the Board because Mrs. Clinton had the audacity to be the new First Lady.

I supposed, fair was fair, if one book was attacked for fallacious reasons, attack the rest-a convenient diversion to camouflage the real aim of thought suppression.

The central thrust is that Trump era of intolerance had been in the making for quite some years. The irrational politics of 2016 was clearly hardening across the nation years earlier. From School Boards, to City Halls, to library districts, restriction of free thought was under assault. 

Nothing pisses off the far right more than a rational challenge from open-minded, articulate, and educated thinkers.

Gail Chumbley is a retired history educator, and author of the two-part memoir River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

 

Lest We Forget

This new year begins with Americans caught in a moral quagmire. Traditional beliefs such as love of country and confidence in leadership seems to suffer from vast divisions. Our American experiment in self government has been turned on end, and what was once seen as threatening, is now open to a sliding scale of opinions. Our national values are, as sung in the musical Hamilton “Upside Down.”

I came into the world as the Cold War simmered between the US and the USSR. Khrushchev had replaced Stalin, and nuclear missiles rested uneasily, waiting for one wrong move from either side. America, caught up in the Red Scare convicted and executed suspected spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The House on UnAmerican Activities Committee, (HUAC) became the equivalent of political show trials, publicly ruining the reputations of citizens, suspected as secret Russian collaborators.

Real covert agent, Klaus Fuchs, stole nuclear secrets from the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. David Greenglass, a physicist, turned Russian agent, and brother of Ethel Rosenberg, worked also on the Manhattan Project. English MI6 agent, Kim Philby, worked for a time in the offices of the OSS, (later the CIA) only to defect to the USSR, with all he knew of American and British secrets. American Communist and union organizer Eugene Dennis, was sentenced to five years for his affiliation with the Kremlin. Soviet spy, Whittaker Chambers renounced his Russian allegiance and became the darling of the conservative right, naming State Department official Alger Hiss as a Russian operative.

Whether true or not, many other Americans were stained with suspicion of acting as Communist agents. Joe McCarthy made a name for himself as a Commie hunting Senator. Caught in the fear were playwright Arthur Miller, screen writer Dalton Trumbo, actor Larry Parks, stage actor, Zero Mostel, movie star, Sterling Hayden, who all found their careers in tatters. Refusing to name others, HUAC branded these unfriendly witnesses as“Fifth Amendment Communists.” These accusations, for many of the accused, never washed off.

The 1950’s were dangerous years for political nonconformists.

So it is no small wonder that many Americans of a certain age are flummoxed by the denial of Russian election hacking at the highest levels of our government. This new president has repeatedly demonstrated absolutely no concern for our democracy, for fear it undermines his legitimacy. In other words he is more worried about his own hide while the most direct and sinister Russian attack ever, has infected our elective process. And worse, his band of true believers gloss over the breach as well, buying into the propagandized term of “Fake News.” Is this president truly more important than the country and people he was elected to serve? Does he understand the prime objective of Russian apparatchiks is to undermine the United States of America?

As for the members of Congress who know more of this breach, and still enable this president- is protecting your party more important than saving our democracy? Are your partisan priorities more vital than the oaths you swore to uphold the Constitution? If the answer is a blind yes, then what was the point of the suffering of that earlier generation—the ruin of artists and free thinkers, the brutal crimes of the guilty? The 33,000 loyal Americans who died fighting Communism in Korea? Or the 58,000 boys who were killed fighting the pro-Communists in the jungles of Vietnam? Are these past sacrifices meaningless in light of current political expediency? Are you going to shout ‘fake news’ while giving away our sovereignty?

America has a vibrant, if not an often difficult history. We who love our country would like a future, as well.

*It wasn’t the Ukraine, either.

El Dorado

 

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In the far west lay the Kingdom of Idaho. It is a vast, lovely realm; rich in scenic wonder, mountainous regions covered in timber, and a verdant plain of abundant fertility. The kingdom, in truth, a land of ceaseless beauty and bounty.

And the people are free in this land. And if a subject ever questions that truth, they only need ask Idaho’s barons who, every two years, remind them of their autonomy.

By regularly invoking the peasants liberty, these insulated aristocrats have much to gain.

The lordly use many devices to sway the masses. These powerful figures often array themselves in the garments of Idaho’s historic past–recognizable symbols of western freedom. Stetson hats, Tony Lama boots, lasso and horse in hand parading potent images of liberty to the populace. These cagey barons cleverly propagandize, through these symbols, the peasants good fortune in living in such a utopia.

And the powerful do not suffer challenges from the foolish–other non-barons holding competing beliefs. In fact, the most strident pretenders are set up for mockery, and honest contenders are marginalized and disenfranchised. These barons know what is best for their Kingdom.

Meanwhile the realm decays. The highways and byways, prove perilous, pocked in ruts and potholes. The young are packed into schools in overwhelming numbers, to be promoted through the education system with no regard for learning. The vulnerable, the sick, and others outside the barons’ understanding have no voice in this Kingdom of Idaho.

Still the barons persist in flourishing the images of freedom to placate the peasants in the domain. Indeed these humble folk predictably embrace this idealized portrait of their land, and reassured, most gleefully continue to support the Kingdom’s seated nobility.

The subjects residing in this beautiful realm live satisfied that they are, indeed, the freest, and luckiest, and the most independent folk around.

Their leaders, flourishing the domain’s revered symbols every two years, remind them so.