You can’t open up a major newspaper today without reading a steady stream of op-eds lamenting the end of democracy in the United States or come across a poll predicting a civil war in the next few years.
I was assigned a bio on Florence Kelley in grad school. Americans like her are what give me life and they can be examples of how one girds oneself for the present. Her advocacy for working class folk needs to be known more widely.
You would think education, better mental health (maybe), better health care leading to longer healthier life, tools to make work less arduous, and the like, would lead us to be more reasonable people. Alas we are really no different than any other animal. We mark our territory and prowl around showing how strong we are in defense of it. We want other animals to fear us and animals like us to bow at our feet and lick our muzzles in a show of peity. We prey on the weak and infirmed. We show off our strengths so we can breed with genetic equals so as to make our offspring strong enough to survive and kill our lesser so their genetic material doesn't get to survive another generation.
There is certainly a lot to worry about with our fraught situation, but this is not yet the 1850s. I highly recommend Andrew Delbanco’s book “The War Before The War”, which does a masterful job of explaining how the Fugitive Slave Act, the abandonment of the Compromise of 1820, Bloody Kansas and related issues fostered a political atmosphere where reasoned discussion became increasingly impossible. There are plenty of wedge issues today — abortion, trans rights, DEI — that are plenty divisive, but none of them, unlike slavery, are so over-arching as to bring about a sense that there is no middle ground and that the only option is civil war. But we should be alert, particularly when people resort to violence. That is why the gaslighting about January 6 is so disturbing.
Or consider 17th century England, where a civil war raged for nearly 50 years. Although there were plenty of political issues, religious differences were at the heart of the problem, and people become inflexible and dogmatic because they believed that God was on their side.
Or take Germany in 1933, which many people see as the relevant historical precedent. Germany was still suffering from the sense that the war reparations and the seizure of territory were wholly unjustified, the post war years had been brutal economically, there was understandable concern about what had happened in Russia after 1917, and there had never been anything quite like the Nazis. I am not saying that there aren’t people in this country who prefer autocracy to democracy, but this is not Germany 1933.
These are just my opinions, so feel free to disagree, but they speak to Kevin’s important point that we need to be thoughtful about how we leverage the past.
In Frederick Douglass' speech I came to this part regarding the 'mob':
"It has assumed all the functions of civil authority. It laughs at legal processes, courts and juries, and its redhanded murderers range abroad unchecked and unchallenged by law or by public opinion."
This was Douglass watching the turn of the century, white, Christian, democratic south erect a hellscape of social oppression, exclusively and specifically for black Americans. When I read that passage, I was watching the right now, 2nd Trump administration coming to power, bizarre appointments, hirings and firings all over government and a Ukraine agenda that is ranging unchecked by law at least for the moment.
Our POTUS lied to a duly elected representative of another nation and when that representative pushed back on the incorrectness of it, our POTUS said, "Well, you can believe that if you want to." To me there is something just very wrong with a president saying that. That's something a con man or a monte dealer says with his/her mouth, while their hands are in the very process of cheating you!
I don't think another civil war is looming, as I don't see any specific 'thing' worth fighting/dying for that's at risk. But man, oh man, have we got the division, the separation and the partisan split. We've got it because I don't think we ever put it down. Not once. Not at all since Appomattox.
Agreed. However, I think it's also reasonable to imagine the possibility and at least intellectually try to play out the some of the feasible scenarios in our imagination so as not to be caught off Guard in the eventuality.
It's an interesting thing for me that states like Massachusetts and New York are perpetuating a kind of neo-nullification From what they see as the ravages of Trump's “program to remove the legal aliens. I think there's close to irreconcilable differences between the conservative view in the United States and those of the far left, which is what the Democratic Party consists of primarily. However, the convention of states' constitutional process could resolve this issue without resorting to war. I think the United States were to return to a more vigorous federalism allowing a kind of home rule situation within these separate states, much as the United Kingdom had offered the Irish in the 19th century, many of these issues could be resolved.
MAGA rose up and attacked the Capitol and the perceived deep state. Then they elected Trump to finish the job, which he is doing recklessly. The government is theirs now, but they never bargained on the indiscriminate cuts to subsidies and a safety net they forgot they counted on. Hard to imagine a civil war under these circumstances. I do worry, however, about the chaos and anger and where it leads. We could use someone of Frederick Douglas’s eloquence now.
Excellent essay. Political violence -- sometimes barbaric -- has been with us almost since the country's founding. Our failure, or inability, to remember it and incorporate it into our understanding of our history is remarkable, so wedded are we to the mythic notion of the U.S. as an always (and positively) exceptional nation. I also recommended thefine Grinspan book which you cite.
I find this quite helpful. Reminds me we are in a state of "contingency." The last paragraph of Douglass's is stirring. My biggest fear for the country is disinformation. People not knowing what is true with social media amplifing lies and rumors. Can history help us here? How did those during the civil war or other times deal with an influx of lies?
Your point about the Rough-and-Tumble politics of 19th Century presidential elections put me in mind of the Compromise of 1877, wherein Congress awarded the Presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes, with the understanding that he would withdraw Federal support for Reconstruction and withdraw Federal troops from Souther cities still under occupation.
I believe in this case that Hayes lost the popular vote, but neither he nor his opponent, Tilden, had secured enough electoral votes to claim victory and it was left to Congress to award the disputed electoral votes.
Your excerpt from Grinspan’s book included the passage, “From the 1860s through the early 1900s, presidential elections drew the highest turnouts ever reached, were decided by the closest margins, and witnessed the the most political violence.”
It made me recall the 1876 election. The nation was as politically divided as it had ever been and Hayes was running on a platform of conciliation, which much of the nation seems to have rejected.
Hayes agreeing to withdraw Federal support for reconstruction is echoed today with the dismantling of DEI initiatives and an impossible return to a meritocracy which never truly existed. A meritocracy Hayes himself championed.
It seems much the same today. I guess that was my point.
The subject of another civil war makes good fodder for playwrights, pundits and purveyors of agitprop - and at least one recent film - but I don’t see such a conflict in our future.
Nah -- he's stilla Tea Party guy, former MAGA who feels betrayed by the "Orange Elephant". He's one of the ex_GOP buys who gave us Trump and is now affronted. I gave up listening to him on 12/1.
At least I hope not.
I was assigned a bio on Florence Kelley in grad school. Americans like her are what give me life and they can be examples of how one girds oneself for the present. Her advocacy for working class folk needs to be known more widely.
I have to admit that I didn't know much about her or her father before reading Grinspan's book.
You would think education, better mental health (maybe), better health care leading to longer healthier life, tools to make work less arduous, and the like, would lead us to be more reasonable people. Alas we are really no different than any other animal. We mark our territory and prowl around showing how strong we are in defense of it. We want other animals to fear us and animals like us to bow at our feet and lick our muzzles in a show of peity. We prey on the weak and infirmed. We show off our strengths so we can breed with genetic equals so as to make our offspring strong enough to survive and kill our lesser so their genetic material doesn't get to survive another generation.
There is certainly a lot to worry about with our fraught situation, but this is not yet the 1850s. I highly recommend Andrew Delbanco’s book “The War Before The War”, which does a masterful job of explaining how the Fugitive Slave Act, the abandonment of the Compromise of 1820, Bloody Kansas and related issues fostered a political atmosphere where reasoned discussion became increasingly impossible. There are plenty of wedge issues today — abortion, trans rights, DEI — that are plenty divisive, but none of them, unlike slavery, are so over-arching as to bring about a sense that there is no middle ground and that the only option is civil war. But we should be alert, particularly when people resort to violence. That is why the gaslighting about January 6 is so disturbing.
Or consider 17th century England, where a civil war raged for nearly 50 years. Although there were plenty of political issues, religious differences were at the heart of the problem, and people become inflexible and dogmatic because they believed that God was on their side.
Or take Germany in 1933, which many people see as the relevant historical precedent. Germany was still suffering from the sense that the war reparations and the seizure of territory were wholly unjustified, the post war years had been brutal economically, there was understandable concern about what had happened in Russia after 1917, and there had never been anything quite like the Nazis. I am not saying that there aren’t people in this country who prefer autocracy to democracy, but this is not Germany 1933.
These are just my opinions, so feel free to disagree, but they speak to Kevin’s important point that we need to be thoughtful about how we leverage the past.
Thanks for this. Delbanco's book is well worth reading.
Inspired prose, thanks
Thanks for sharing Douglass’ speech-uplifting!
You bet, Mary. Douglass never disappoints.
In Frederick Douglass' speech I came to this part regarding the 'mob':
"It has assumed all the functions of civil authority. It laughs at legal processes, courts and juries, and its redhanded murderers range abroad unchecked and unchallenged by law or by public opinion."
This was Douglass watching the turn of the century, white, Christian, democratic south erect a hellscape of social oppression, exclusively and specifically for black Americans. When I read that passage, I was watching the right now, 2nd Trump administration coming to power, bizarre appointments, hirings and firings all over government and a Ukraine agenda that is ranging unchecked by law at least for the moment.
Our POTUS lied to a duly elected representative of another nation and when that representative pushed back on the incorrectness of it, our POTUS said, "Well, you can believe that if you want to." To me there is something just very wrong with a president saying that. That's something a con man or a monte dealer says with his/her mouth, while their hands are in the very process of cheating you!
I don't think another civil war is looming, as I don't see any specific 'thing' worth fighting/dying for that's at risk. But man, oh man, have we got the division, the separation and the partisan split. We've got it because I don't think we ever put it down. Not once. Not at all since Appomattox.
Agreed. However, I think it's also reasonable to imagine the possibility and at least intellectually try to play out the some of the feasible scenarios in our imagination so as not to be caught off Guard in the eventuality.
Sure, but in doing so we need to be more intentional about how we leverage the past as a guide.
It's an interesting thing for me that states like Massachusetts and New York are perpetuating a kind of neo-nullification From what they see as the ravages of Trump's “program to remove the legal aliens. I think there's close to irreconcilable differences between the conservative view in the United States and those of the far left, which is what the Democratic Party consists of primarily. However, the convention of states' constitutional process could resolve this issue without resorting to war. I think the United States were to return to a more vigorous federalism allowing a kind of home rule situation within these separate states, much as the United Kingdom had offered the Irish in the 19th century, many of these issues could be resolved.
Massachusetts isn't nullifying or attempting to nullify anything re: the federal government's immigration policy.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/massachusetts-court-defies-ice-frees-illegal-alien-accused-of-kidnapping-and-attempted-rape?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dlvr.it_fb_theblaze&tpcc=social_fb-post
'NEO"
Thanks for the book suggestions. I put both on hold at my library.
Great. Read Grinspan first.
Will do.
MAGA rose up and attacked the Capitol and the perceived deep state. Then they elected Trump to finish the job, which he is doing recklessly. The government is theirs now, but they never bargained on the indiscriminate cuts to subsidies and a safety net they forgot they counted on. Hard to imagine a civil war under these circumstances. I do worry, however, about the chaos and anger and where it leads. We could use someone of Frederick Douglas’s eloquence now.
Excellent essay. Political violence -- sometimes barbaric -- has been with us almost since the country's founding. Our failure, or inability, to remember it and incorporate it into our understanding of our history is remarkable, so wedded are we to the mythic notion of the U.S. as an always (and positively) exceptional nation. I also recommended thefine Grinspan book which you cite.
Thanks, Kevin - it's a bleak kind of optimism, but I needed to read that passage from Douglass today.
You bet. Douglass is both reality check even as he feeds the soul.
I find this quite helpful. Reminds me we are in a state of "contingency." The last paragraph of Douglass's is stirring. My biggest fear for the country is disinformation. People not knowing what is true with social media amplifing lies and rumors. Can history help us here? How did those during the civil war or other times deal with an influx of lies?
I don't know if you caught my live chat yesterday, but I am going to write it up at some point his week. It addresses your question directly.
Great, thanks. I came in late and was distracted during part of it so I look forward to your write up.
Your point about the Rough-and-Tumble politics of 19th Century presidential elections put me in mind of the Compromise of 1877, wherein Congress awarded the Presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes, with the understanding that he would withdraw Federal support for Reconstruction and withdraw Federal troops from Souther cities still under occupation.
I believe in this case that Hayes lost the popular vote, but neither he nor his opponent, Tilden, had secured enough electoral votes to claim victory and it was left to Congress to award the disputed electoral votes.
Thanks for the response, Pete, but I am not exactly sure what point you are trying to make here. Perhaps a bit more to flesh this out? Appreciate it.
Your excerpt from Grinspan’s book included the passage, “From the 1860s through the early 1900s, presidential elections drew the highest turnouts ever reached, were decided by the closest margins, and witnessed the the most political violence.”
It made me recall the 1876 election. The nation was as politically divided as it had ever been and Hayes was running on a platform of conciliation, which much of the nation seems to have rejected.
Hayes agreeing to withdraw Federal support for reconstruction is echoed today with the dismantling of DEI initiatives and an impossible return to a meritocracy which never truly existed. A meritocracy Hayes himself championed.
It seems much the same today. I guess that was my point.
The subject of another civil war makes good fodder for playwrights, pundits and purveyors of agitprop - and at least one recent film - but I don’t see such a conflict in our future.
Got it. Thanks for the follow up.
Remember: 1. Joe walsh is a former Tea Party operative before 2. He comes from a Secessionist Sate.
True, but his language transcends political and regional differences right now. It's become a popular fallback position.
Nah -- he's stilla Tea Party guy, former MAGA who feels betrayed by the "Orange Elephant". He's one of the ex_GOP buys who gave us Trump and is now affronted. I gave up listening to him on 12/1.
I hear you, but all I am suggesting is that what he is saying specifically re: a possible civil war is part of our popular discourse right now.