The Obama farewell address: advice from another world?
Posted on May 16, 2017. Filed under: American history, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tags: democracy, John Adams, Obama farewell address, Trump |
At long last we wrap up the close reading of President Obama's farewell address that we began on January 13! We, like most of the nation, have been waylaid and distracted many times since then by the almost daily, certainly weekly news bulletins from Washington alerting us to almost every conceivable type of crisis or question or misstep arising from the Trump administration.
Five months into that administration, we begin to wonder if it serves any purpose to follow all those bulletins. What good does listening to accounts of our Constitution being violated, our national commitment to making liberty and justice for all a reality being ridiculed and undermined, or our president acting like a king do? What action can we take? Do marches work in the long term? Petitions? Shouting matches at town hall meetings? Jokes on late-night talk shows?
One of those things does work, and it's nice that it's the town hall meetings. On this site that so often discusses the Puritans, creators of the American town hall and town hall meeting, it's good to be able to join with our last president in his optimistic view of the future by recommending a return to something the Puritans valued deeply: taking right action.
In this case, it's political action. As those Americans who believe our system of government—that any system, almost any kind of government—is the problem and not the solution, a hindrance at best and a trap at worst, attempt to dismantle it, we have to step up to keep it alive. Participate in local government. Vote, attend town hall meetings, go to candidate information sessions, learn how your government is supposed to work. Keep track of your state government. Write or call the people you elect to get information on how they plan to vote on upcoming legislation. Vote. Get referenda or other popular, grass-roots legislative change engines running if you need to. Do the same for your federal government.
This can be exhausting. Many Puritan men who were full church members and thus entitled to vote and run for political office chose never to become freemen and do so. (Freeman was their term for a full [male] citizen.) They knew how much time it took. Going to meetings after work is tiring. People with families may struggle to do it. Taking time out of the weekend is challenging.
But we were never so desperately in need of our democracy as we are now. So answer the call to right action. Be represented in our representative democracy. Choose the optimism Obama sent as his final message, the message that says if we remain inside our government, if we are its engine, we keep it alive and we keep it honest. Don't let those Americans who break the government and then say we should throw it out because it's broken achieve that self-fulfilling prophecy. Don't wait for Democrats to retake the House and Senate; this is just an aggravation of the partisanship that's killing us. We need to find ways to unite. Cross as many bridges as you can to create unity behind the real American identity, which is ever-expanding justice, liberty, and the common good.
We'll finish with a quote from John Adams to motivate us:
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
Go unite our states.
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Positive change v. negative: closing Obama's Farewell address
Posted on May 1, 2017. Filed under: American history, Puritans, U.S. Constitution, What History is For | Tags: democracy, Donald Trump, George Washington, Obama farewell address, optimism, Shackleton |
On we go at last with our close reading of the Obama farewell speech, despite our temptation to address the president's poignant question "why was there a Civil War?", since Yoni Appelbaum over at the The Atlantic does a fine job addressing that for us.
Our transcript source is now The New York Times, since the Trump Administration removing the transcript from its location at whitehouse.gov/farewell. Along with pages on LGBT rights, climate change, health care, and civil rights.
We left off with President Obama's comments on attacks on the Enlightenment order that is the foundation of the American way, with him saying there had not been a successful attack by foreign terrorists in the United States in the last eight years.
And although Boston and Orlando and San Bernardino and Fort Hood remind us of how dangerous radicalization can be, our law enforcement agencies are more effective and vigilant than ever. We have taken out tens of thousands of terrorists, including Bin Laden.
The global coalition we're leading against ISIL has taken out their leaders and taken away about half their territory. ISIL will be destroyed. And no one who threatens America will ever be safe.
And all who serve or have served — it has been the honor of my lifetime to be your commander-in-chief. And we all owe you a deep debt of gratitude.
But, protecting our way of life, that's not just the job of our military. Democracy can buckle when it gives into fear. So just as we as citizens must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are.
And that's why for the past eight years I've worked to put the fight against terrorism on a firmer legal footing. That's why we've ended torture, worked to close Gitmo, reformed our laws governing surveillance to protect privacy and civil liberties.
—This section starts out as the usual tough-on-crime/terrorism/"threats" section that is in most 21st-century farewell addresses, but then morphs into an attempt by the president to say that military action is not the only patriotic action, and that military action without constitutional underpinnings is as dangerous as any crime/terrorism/threats. But this section falls strangely flat. The quick half-sentence "we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are" is vague and could be used to support more militarization. It's not clearly stating that military action alone has no moral value; it is judged good or evil by the cause it supports. And the Obama administration did not leave a great legacy when it comes to prisoners at Guantanamo, stopping surveillance of the public, and protecting privacy.
That's why I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans who are just as patriotic as we are.
That's why we cannot withdraw from big global fights to expand democracy and human rights and women's rights and LGBT rights.
No matter how imperfect our efforts, no matter how expedient ignoring such values may seem, that's part of defending America. For the fight against extremism and intolerance and sectarianism and chauvinism are of a piece with the fight against authoritarianism and nationalist aggression. If the scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law shrinks around the world, the likelihood of war within and between nations increases, and our own freedoms will eventually be threatened.
So let's be vigilant, but not afraid. ISIL will try to kill innocent people. But they cannot defeat America unless we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight.
Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world — unless we give up what we stand for, and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors.
Which brings me to my final point — our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.
—Here things pick up as the president says that fighting for human rights is "part of defending America." That's true. So long as Americans are willing to recognize extremism and intolerance and sectarianism and chauvinism within the U.S., and not always just in other nations, and to fight it as hard here at home as they do abroad, we are on solid ground. The scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law will shrink if the U.S. only enforces rule of law outside its own borders. That's what it means to say that no one can defeat America but ourselves—if we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight against injustice in other nations, our credibility is dissolved along with our democracy.
All of us, regardless of party, should be throwing ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions.
When voting rates in America are some of the lowest among advanced democracies, we should be making it easier, not harder, to vote.
When trust in our institutions is low, we should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics, and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service. When Congress is dysfunctional, we should draw our districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.
But remember, none of this happens on its own. All of this depends on our participation; on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power happens to be swinging.
Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift. But it's really just a piece of parchment. It has no power on its own. We, the people, give it power. We, the people, give it meaning — with our participation, and with the choices that we make and the alliances that we forge.
Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms. Whether or not we respect and enforce the rule of law, that's up to us. America is no fragile thing. But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured.
—We heartily second all of the statements made here! When people lose faith in our political system, they stop participating, and begin to elect people they hope will either destroy that system as impossibly corrupt, or reform it through strong-man tactics—bypassing Congress via executive orders and/or pushing oppressive and unconstitutional laws through Congress. But we, the people, have to bring meaning to our government or it will cease to exist. That is the substance of Obama's next section:
In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but "from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken… to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth."
—Read Washington's great address here.
And so we have to preserve this truth with "jealous anxiety;" that we should reject "the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties" that make us one.
America, we weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character aren't even willing to enter into public service. So coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are seen, not just as misguided, but as malevolent. We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others.
When we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt. And when we sit back and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.
It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy. Embrace the joyous task we have been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours because, for all our outward differences, we in fact all share the same proud type, the most important office in a democracy, citizen.
—It's this kind of optimism that is so desperately essential to democracy. If, over 275 years later we still have to work to improve our democracy, we can see that as a clear sign that it's hopelessly flawed and we should give up, or we can see it as a clear sign that our democracy has been greatly improved over those 275 years, and can just keep getting better and better. You have to choose the latter—choose optimism—to keep democracy alive.
Citizen. So, you see, that's what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there's an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.
If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing.
If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.
Show up, dive in, stay at it. Sometimes you'll win, sometimes you'll lose. Presuming a reservoir in goodness, that can be a risk. And there will be times when the process will disappoint you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of this one and to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America and in Americans will be confirmed. Mine sure has been.
—This is a call to energy and real life that more Americans need to answer.
Over the course of these eight years, I've seen the hopeful faces of young graduates and our newest military officers. I have mourned with grieving families searching for answers, and found grace in a Charleston church. I've seen our scientists help a paralyzed man regain his sense of touch. I've seen Wounded Warriors who at points were given up for dead walk again.
I've seen our doctors and volunteers rebuild after earthquakes and stop pandemics in their tracks. I've seen the youngest of children remind us through their actions and through their generosity of our obligations to care for refugees or work for peace and, above all, to look out for each other. So that faith that I placed all those years ago, not far from here, in the power of ordinary Americans to bring about change, that faith has been rewarded in ways I could not have possibly imagined.
And I hope your faith has too. Some of you here tonight or watching at home, you were there with us in 2004 and 2008, 2012.
—This list of the good and bad moments ends with an emphasis on the good, and subtly reminds us of the historic step that was electing our first black president.
The rest of the speech is shout-out to the First Lady, the Obama daughters, vice-president Joe Biden, the White House staff, and the vast network of volunteers who worked on his campaigns. And then this:
And that's why I leave this stage tonight even more optimistic about this country than when we started. Because I know our work has not only helped so many Americans; it has inspired so many Americans — especially so many young people out there — to believe that you can make a difference; to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourselves.
Let me tell you, this generation coming up — unselfish, altruistic, creative, patriotic — I've seen you in every corner of the country. You believe in a fair, and just, and inclusive America; you know that constant change has been America's hallmark, that it's not something to fear but something to embrace, you are willing to carry this hard work of democracy forward. You'll soon outnumber any of us, and I believe as a result the future is in good hands.
—These are defiantly positive statements to make as Donald Trump prepared to take office. Obama wants to counter the idea that there will no longer be a place in the country for those who did not support Trump, and encourage them to continue to push for the positive change that is the work of improving our democracy by extending and strengthening it, even as proponents of the negative change that is the work of narrowing and destroying our democracy look forward to having the upper hand.
My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you. I won't stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my remaining days. But for now, whether you are young or whether you're young at heart, I do have one final ask of you as your president — the same thing I asked when you took a chance on me eight years ago.
I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change — but in yours.
I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written:
Yes, we did.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. Thank you.
—Next time: thoughts on how to live Obama's optimism.
Obama's Farewell Speech: If only Washington hadn't been so right
Posted on April 6, 2017. Filed under: American history, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tags: climate change, fake news, George Washington Farewell Address, Obama farewell address |
On we go at last with our close reading of the Obama farewell speech, despite our temptation to address the latest violation of our Constitution re moves to end the right of judicial filibuster.
We left off with this statement: "And increasingly we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it's true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there." We pick up from there:
And this trend represents a third threat to our democracy. Look, politics is a battle of ideas. That's how our democracy was designed. In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts, without a willingness to admit new information and concede that your opponent might be making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, then we're going to keep talking past each other.
(CROWD CHEERS)
And we'll make common ground and compromise impossible. And isn't that part of what so often makes politics dispiriting? How can elected officials rage about deficits when we propose to spend money on pre-school for kids, but not when we're cutting taxes for corporations?
How do we excuse ethical lapses in our own party, but pounce when the other party does the same thing? It's not just dishonest, it's selective sorting of the facts. It's self-defeating because, as my mom used to tell me, reality has a way of catching up with you.
—"A common baseline of facts"; we find that even in the short time since Obama's farewell we have experienced many people lobbying harder than we could have believed possible to deny, denigrate, and destroy that foundation of rational society. "Fake news" has become the most used phrase in America, to our detriment, because it just doesn't make sense. If something is untrue/a lie, it's not news at all. There aren't two kinds of news, the real and the fake. There is news of real events and lies/rumors of fake events. But we have been worked on so diligently by anti-democratic people that we seem now to accept that news itself is somehow suspect, and those anti-democratic people slander the truth as "fake news", which is such a big leap into some dystopia from a YA novel that we can't quite believe it's happening, but it is.
Take the challenge of climate change. In just eight years we've halved our dependence on foreign oil, we've doubled our renewable energy, we've led the world to an agreement that (at) the promise to save this planet.
But without bolder action, our children won't have time to debate the existence of climate change. They'll be busy dealing with its effects. More environmental disasters, more economic disruptions, waves of climate refugees seeking sanctuary. Now we can and should argue about the best approach to solve the problem. But to simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations, it betrays the essential spirit of this country, the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our founders.
—It's amazing what ancient history this seems like just a few months later, as the Trump Administration has begun the process of undoing all of the climate change prevention measures the Obama Administration put in place, and has actually forbidden government agencies to use the term "climate change" in any written or oral communication. This is such a big leap into dystopia that it moves beyond YA to 1984, but it's also happening. We will indeed be "busy dealing with its effects" even if we don't say the words "climate change."
It is that spirit — it is that spirit born of the enlightenment that made us an economic powerhouse. The spirit that took flight at Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral, the spirit that cures disease and put a computer in every pocket, it's that spirit. A faith in reason and enterprise, and the primacy of right over might, that allowed us to resist the lure of fascism and tyranny during the Great Depression, that allowed us to build a post-World War II order with other democracies.
An order based not just on military power or national affiliations, but built on principles, the rule of law, human rights, freedom of religion and speech and assembly and an independent press.
—The "spirit" is that of "innovation and practical problem-solving" and it is indeed beholden to the Enlightenment; faith in reason and primacy of right over might, rule of law, human rights, and an independent press are what made the United States a great nation. Those are the principles enshrined in the Constitution.
That order is now being challenged. First by violent fanatics who claim to speak for Islam. More recently by autocrats in foreign capitals who seek free markets in open democracies and civil society itself as a threat to their power.
The peril each poses to our democracy is more far reaching than a car bomb or a missile. They represent the fear of change. The fear of people who look or speak or pray differently. A contempt for the rule of law that holds leaders accountable. An intolerance of dissent and free thought. A belief that the sword or the gun or the bomb or the propaganda machine is the ultimate arbiter of what's true and what's right.
Because of the extraordinary courage of our men and women in uniform. Because of our intelligence officers and law enforcement and diplomats who support our troops…
… no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years.
—Sadly, that Enlightenment order we call the American Way is being challenged by Americans who are not Muslim or immigrants or "suspicious" in any other way. Freedom is being attacked by mainstream Americans who see it as standing in the way of their power. Our federal government is being dismantled, and what is left is being honed to serve individual profit. We are being turned against each other in the interest of people who will gain by our division.
We are, in short, seeing what George Washington warned us about most passionately and directly in his 1796 Farewell Address: treachery from within. Let's turn to the first Farewell Address in American history, which seems as if it was written expressly for us in 2017 (we did the bolding):
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
—That is, you love your democracy and your democratic government, and you should. But remember that it is a painfully new idea, and there are going to be many people—outside the U.S. and even within it, your fellow citizens—who don't believe it will really work. They will try to tear it down, and tell you you're crazy, and get you to go back to the old ways. You've got to remember that being united under your unique government is your greatest treasure. Forget the things that make you different, like religion or customs and focus on what you have in common, what you share that no other people on earth share: a democratic government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
That was Washington's message. We'll continue on with Obama's next time.
Alt-right and other peculiar institutions
Posted on January 5, 2017. Filed under: American history, Civil Rights, Politics | Tags: alt-right, anti-choice, Donald Trump, peculiar institution, Right to Life, slavery, white supremists |
There was a story on the radio a while ago about the term "alt-right" that said in part:
[Ian Haney Lopez, UC Berkeley] says use of the term alt-right is an effort to make white supremacist views more palatable.
LOPEZ: It's clearly a strategy designed to obfuscate the central tenets of the movement in a way that will hopefully allow that movement to enter mainstream discourse. That was the goal, and they've largely achieved that goal.
[Reporter Adrian] FLORIDO: He points to how pervasive the term has become in just the last few months. Heidi Beirich tracks hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. She thinks the term alt-right is just the latest way white supremacists have rebranded themselves since the Civil Rights Movement [to make] their beliefs socially unacceptable.
HEIDI BEIRICH: If you said I'm white supremacist, you weren't going to get talked to. So they rebranded to white nationalism in an attempt to still be in the conversation about politics in the United States. So it went from white supremacy to white nationalism and now from white nationalism to the alt-right or the alternative right.
FLORIDO: But Beirich says this latest term has done something new and ingenious.
BEIRICH: It specifically ditches the term white [and] it puts right in there. And what white supremacists were doing was to say we are part of the conservative coalition. We are part of the right wing.
Any student of history knows that language is everything. Coin the right name for your movement and you can gain a lot of ground. The name is so clear and persuasive that it not only explains in an instant what your movement is about, it claims the moral high ground. The Anti-Choice movement, for example, was smart enough not to choose that name—they called themselves Right to Life. This name at once tells people the group is against legal abortion and for a "baby's" right to live. The fact that there is no "baby" to live or die in the first trimester, when most abortions are performed, is erased by an overriding irrational demand that we ignore this fact and agree that a baby is present from conception on and that every baby has a right to live. Who wants to deny that babies have a right to live, even when they don't exist? A movement characterized by periodic acts of violence and everyday acts of harassment and hatred is given an entirely positive spin by its name.
Before slavery was abolished in this country, slaveholders and slavery apologists worked hard to come up with a name for slavery that made it sound like a "positive good" (the phrase they often used). They eventually hit on "our peculiar institution". This name did a lot of work: it defined slavery only in terms of the American South so it could not be associated with slavery going on in nations we deplored as primitive ("our"), separated it from other social organizations in this country so that their principles could not be applied to it ("peculiar"), and gave the business of breeding human beings for sale the gravitas of politics and society ("institution"). This worked well for a while. It narrowed some people's vision and kept them from dwelling on the fact that slavery was unconstitutional and violated our basic national founding principles—you couldn't think about slavery in that way, like you thought about other features of U.S. society and business. Slavery was "peculiar". It had its own ways. You couldn't judge it in terms of liberty and justice for all.
Now we have "alt-right", as explained above. We remember starting to hear this in mainstream media a few years ago, once in a while, but during the 2016 election it became a constant. You figured it meant "alternative right" and that it's just a new term to replace "neo-con" or "far right". And, sadly, the media did little to nothing to correct this impression by stating the truth: alt-right means fascist. The "alt" is "alternative to liberty and justice for all." Conservatism—the right—in America had been becoming less and less about fiscal prudence and more and more about cracking down on non-whites, non-straights, and non-native-born Americans for decades, until it was easy for fascist white supremacists to just dump that negative name and say they were part of the right—part of a new right that was dedicated to white supremacist fascism. But they didn't have to say that. They could just say "we're a new kind of right wing–the alt-right."
It's a real problem that media routinely lacerated as "liberal", like NPR, where the story quoted above comes from, allowed white supremacist fascists to take on a positive name, used that name, and helped make it mainstream. Belatedly now, as a man supported by nearly 100% of white supremacist fascists takes office, media outlets are trying to blow the whistle. Hopefully we can all help to strip away the benign alt-right name from this anti-American hate movement.
Finding historical context for 2016–or manufacturing it?
Posted on December 16, 2016. Filed under: American history, Uncategorized | Tags: 2016 presidential election, backlash, civil discourse, Civil Rights, Donald Trump, Jefferson, John Adams, white supremacy |
Since the presidential election, many people, including historians, have stepped up to say that the nastiness of the campaign and the election of Trump are not unique in American history.
You think this election was nasty? Look at Adams v. Jefferson! You think Trump says crazy things? Look at Andrew Jackson! You think Trump is racist? What about Wilson!
This is meant to reassure us that nothing fundamental is changing in American politics or society. But this is critically inaccurate. This type of comparison normalizes Trump, and fits him into a continuum when he is actually unique in presidential history. First and foremost, no other person has come into office swearing to destroy our federal government. Aside from that, we have had about about 60 years of dedicated expansion of civil rights in this country, to black, Asian, and Latino Americans; to women; to gay Americans; to non-Christian Americans.
Trump goes forcefully against the tide of this history and he is the leader of a backlash against civil rights in this country that we fear will last many, many years. Backlash is inevitable, but the fury of it now is alarming. One can only hope that once all the forces of white supremacy and sexism and homophobia come parading out, real Americans can do battle with them and restore the mandate to offer liberty and justice to all given in our founding documents.
So to all historians and others saying we need more civility, we agree up to a point: civil discourse is crucial to democracy. But 2016 was not about civility. Yes, Jefferson v. Adams was uncivil—does that make it like 2016? No. Something much bigger is now at stake. Something much worse is happening.
We can't use history to hide our heads in the sand and to (ironically) deny that this is a historic moment in our history. We can use history to inform our response to this historic moment.
…those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it: Trump's America First policy
Posted on April 29, 2016. Filed under: American history, Civil Rights, Politics | Tags: Adolf Hitler, America First, China, Donald Trump, Japan, neo-Nazis, Trump salute |
So many world events seem to be trending toward a repeat of World War II: China's decision to "own" all the islands in the East China Sea and its vocal and powerful minority calling for a return to strict Maoism; Japan's corresponding military build-up and refusal to acknowledge war crimes its soldiers committed before and during WWII; ethnic violence and the upswing in the growth of neo-Nazi groups (both official political parties and grassroots organizations) in Europe…
…and the racial, ethnic, and xenophobic hatred being brought to its logical conclusion by the Trump campaign in the U.S. Since the 1970s, the Republican party has been taken over by neoconservatives who have urged white Americans—rich and poor—to hate any American who isn't white and to blame them for all the white people's (perceived) problems. The hatred has extended to gay Americans, non-Republicans, feminists, and any other group that isn't toeing a traditional line.
The hatred has also been extended to the federal government. It has been openly described as "the problem" since Reagan, and white Americans have been relentlessly urged to destroy it by starving it of tax money, electing people to office who are devoted to tearing it apart from the inside, and, frankly, ignoring it.
Now there is a man who is willing to admit this is the party policy and reap the harvest of all those decades of hate-mongering, who is not afraid to actually destroy our system of federal government. Other Republicans had not been willing to do this because they make their living in government work. Trump does not, and he is happy to wreck our federal government for a few reasons: he doesn't understand how it works, and therefore will push it to do things it can't and then blame it/shut it down; his most passionate supporters want this and he wants their admiration; and since he will be incapable of serving as president, he will appoint people to do that work for him from the ground up.
Trump has contributed to the 1930s feel of the world today in many ways, but his "America First" foreign policy, delivered in a speech on April 27, is very clear. As CNN.com reminds us:
It is extremely unfortunate that in his speech Wednesday outlining his foreign policy goals,Donald Trump chose to brand his foreign policy with the noxious slogan "America First," the name of the isolationist, defeatist, anti-Semitic national organization that urged the United States to appease Adolf Hitler.
The America First Committee actually began at Yale University, where Douglas Stuart Jr., the son of a vice president of Quaker Oats, began organizing his fellow students in spring 1940. He and Gerald Ford, the future American president, and Potter Stewart, the future Supreme Court justice, drafted a petition stating, "We demand that Congress refrain from war, even if England is on the verge of defeat."
—We have to break in to say that Stuart's involvement is no surprise. For decades into the 20th century the Quaker Oats slogan outside the U.S. was "Wherever white men live, Quaker Oats will be sold."
Their solution to the international crisis lay in a negotiated peace with Hitler. Other Yale students — including Sargent Shriver, who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and Kingman Brewster, the chairman of the Yale Daily News, future president of Yale and ambassador to the Court of St. James — joined their isolationist crusade.
Robert Wood, the board chairman of Sears, Roebuck, agreed to act as their group's temporary chair. The growing organization soon included powerful men like Col. Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune; Minnesota meatpacker Jay Hormel; Sterling Morton, the president of Morton Salt Company; U.S. Rep. Bruce Barton of New York; and Lessing Rosenwald, the former chairman of Sears.
…After Pearl Harbor, the America First Committee closed its doors, but not before Lindbergh made his infamous speech at an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in September 1941. After charging that President Roosevelt had manufactured "incidents" to propel the country into war, Lindbergh proceeded to blurt out his true thoughts.
"The British and the Jewish races," he declared, "for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war." The nation's enemy was an internal one, a Jewish one.
"Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government," he contended. Booing began to drown out the cheers, forcing him again and again to stop, wait out the catcalls, and start his sentences over.
The America First foreign policy announcement comes after Trump began asking his supporters to stretch out their right arms as a sign of support… in a gesture that can only be described as the Hitler salute.
Trump's response? The Republican front-runner at first dismissed the controversial comparison, calling it "ridiculous" and "a big stretch," and insisting rally attendees were just "having fun." "Well, I think it's ridiculous, I mean we're having such a great time," Trump said. "Sometimes we'll do it for fun, and they'll start screaming at me, 'do the swear-in, do the swear-in!'" …pressed [to state whether] he would stop asking supporters to make the pledge now that he was aware of the controversy, Trump said, "Well, I'll certainly look into it." "I mean I'd like to find out that that's true, but I would certainly look into it, because I don't want to offend anybody. But I can tell you that it's been amazingly received, but I will certainly look into that."
The more important Hitler comparison lies not with Trump, but with the American people. Most Germans though Hitler was a nut when he came on the scene. But he stayed, and after a few years people accepted him as a part of the political scene, albeit a nut. The shock and annoyance of hearing his crazy statements wore off as people became used to it. As he grew in power with the fringe, mainstream Germans began to shift from saying he would never be in power to speculating about what it would be like, and how he could be managed by "real" politicians. And then he took power, and that was that.
Let's hope mainstream Americans are not doing the same thing. Would a Trump presidency mean fascism? Not all at once. But even this election campaign has been the thin end of a wedge that will allow more radical, more hate-filled candidates to run in the future, and each time they do the shock will wear off a little more, and we will treat them a little more like normal candidates, and eventually, the worst will happen, if we are not vigilant. Historians always watch the long-tail past and the long-horizon future. Let's hope non-historians will start doing the same.
CNN's 10 "most bizarre" elections in U.S. history
Posted on March 11, 2016. Filed under: American history, Politics, Uncategorized | Tags: Andrew Jackson, CNN Race for the White House, Compromise of 1876, Daisy ad, Lyndon Johnson, presidential elections |
We were looking for the video CNN uses in its ads for its new series Race for the White House, which shows the changing face of the White House from the mid-1800s to the present (very interesting—more and more barriers put between the street and the building). We couldn't find it, but in the mayhem of features on the site we did find "10 of the most bizarre elections in American history". The name implies that many more than 10 American presidential elections were bizarre, but likely they just mean 10 were actually bizarre.
At any rate, they do a pretty good job describing the 10 elections/campaigns they list. No glaring errors. They don't say the 1824 election really was a corrupt bargain, they just note that Jackson claimed it was. They admit that the 1876 election was rigged by racist southerners to give the Republican candidate the presidency if he would end Reconstruction. And they focus on the real issue of the 1964 campaign—Johnson's commitment to ending institutional racism—instead of talking about the Daisy ad.
This was more than we expected of CNN, so we thought we'd pass it along with our commendation.
Immigrants have always been scary-looking, but that's never stopped us before
Posted on January 22, 2016. Filed under: American history, Immigration, What History is For | Tags: Chinese Exclusion Act, Ellis Island, Gentlemen's Agreement, Immigration, Immigration Act of 1924, john Oliver, photos of Ellis Island immigrants, refugee screening, Syrian refugees |
A while back we showed some photos from the wonderful Washington Post feature "What America's immigrants looked like when they arrived on Ellis Island". It's a collection of photos taken by Augustus Sherman at Ellis from 1892-1925. Sherman was the chief registry clerk at the immigration station.
Here's what we said at the time:
His photos are wonderful because most of them show people dressed in their very best clothing, usually traditional clothes. While immigrants at that time traveled in their regular clothes because they knew the trip in steerage was dirty, they brought their best clothes to put on once they arrived at Ellis Island so that they would seem like presentable people who were a) not poor and b) good citizen material. They dressed to impress, and they had plenty of time to change during the long waiting periods between landing at the dock and being processed.
Adults and children alike were decked out in elaborate clothes. Women must have been sewing for months to create these wonderful ensembles. As the site points out, seeing these people reminds us that America has long been a place where a multitude of cultures mix on the streets, in schools, at work and at play. While immigrants did not wear these magnificent dress pieces every day, they did leave Ellis and make their way in America with them on, and brought them out on special occasions, making America a bottomless reservoir of cultural identity and expression.
It would be great if someone would create a similar archive of 21st-century immigrants.
And then we showed some of the photos. At the time, we were just enjoying the window onto the past they provided. But with all the (usual) scaremongering talk about immigrants that was generated by the Syrian refugees, we suddenly thought of them in a new way.
Look at this woman from "Ruthenia" (today's Belarus and Ukraine):
Would this woman pass the very, very difficult screening process we have in place for refugees and be allowed into the U.S. today? It doesn't seem likely. Headscarf, ethnic clothing… looks like a terrorist.
In fact, all the women wore headscarves:
If headscarves are a red flag, these Slovakian and Dutch women would be held up for quite a while if they were screened today.
And what about these women?
They wear headscarves and have strange looks in their eyes; the one on the left seems pretty angry. Both of them were likely deeply committed to a religion that most native-born white Americans rejected as foreign and dangerous to the U.S. government and American Way. Yes, they were Italian Catholics who whisked into this country without anyone checking to see if they were terrorists. This at a time when the U.S. government was actually suspicious of Catholics as agents of the Pope. Yes, the Immigration Act of 1924 would limit the number of southeast European Catholics (and Jews) who could enter the country, but they were never banned altogether.
This Algerian man would likely not get into the U.S. today dressed like this. Yet he successfully entered the country a century ago, and likely lived a quiet life. His descendants are probably living quietly in the U.S. today.
What about this guy?
No way, right? But this German man successfully entered the country, likely with no more screening than the usual six-second physical at Ellis Island.
This Russian soldier seems fairly menacing:
Are those bullets of some kind on his jacket? That seems like a knife in his belt. Whatever he's holding—club, sword—is also pretty violent-looking. This man came to America loaded for bear. But he got in, and you know that he got his picture taken because of his "colorful outfit".
We just weren't scared of people like this a century ago because we assumed that anyone who came to America would see that it was the greatest society on Earth and toe the line. We believed that our society was strong enough to take in disparate peoples and turn them into Americans. We believed our society was appealing enough to win over our immigrants and make them real Americans who would live and die for their new country.
When did we lose that faith in ourselves? When did we decide that every single immigrant, man, woman or child, was a threat powerful enough to bring down our whole system and way of life? Why did we decide it? There have been acts of terrorism in this country before 2001, and they were usually (and usually wrongly) blamed on immigrants (think Haymarket). And we've passed stupid laws banning certain "undesirable" immigrants: the Chinese, the Japanese, southeastern Europeans (read Jews and Catholics). But the panicky idea that all immigration is a threat, that no one should be allowed into the country unless they're white people from Europe, that every immigrant and even every refugee must go through the most rigorous, nay impossible screening process imaginable, is recent.
Here's a rundown of what war refugees must do if they want to enter the U.S. today, courtesy of John Oliver:
Look, it is difficult to vet people coming out of a war zone, but it's not like we're letting just anyone in. We are the United States of America, not Arizona State. Because just for the record here, let me just walk you through what our screening process actually is.
If you're a refugee, first, you apply through the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees, which collects documents and performs interviews. Incidentally, less than one percent of refugees worldwide end up being recommended for resettlement.
But if you're one of them, you may then be referred to the State Department to begin the vetting process. At this point, more information is collected, you'll be put through security screenings by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. And if you're a Syrian refugee, you'll get an additional layer of screening called the "Syria enhanced review," which may include a further check by a special part of Homeland Security, the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorates.
And don't relax yet, because we've barely even started. Then, you finally get an interview with USCIS officers, and you'll also be fingerprinted so your prints can be run through the biometric databases of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense.
And if you make it through all that, you'll then have health screenings which, let's face it, may not go too well for you, because you may have given yourself a stroke getting through this process so far. But if everything comes back clear, you'll be enrolled in cultural orientation classes, all while your information continues to be checked recurrently against terrorist databases to make sure that no new information comes in that wasn't caught before.
All of that has to happen before you get near a plane.
This process typically takes 18 to 24 months once you've been referred by the U.N. to the United States.
This is the most rigorous vetting anyone has to face before entering this country. No terrorist in their right mind would choose this path when the visa process requires far less efforts. But nevertheless, the House still voted on Thursday to add a few more steps.
It doesn't seem likely that anyone in the photos above would have entered the U.S. under those conditions. And that would have been a terrible injustice. Not every immigrant is an angel. That German guy probably got into a lot of fights. But we can't be scared of immigration. We can't put ourselves in a lock box and say "no more immigrants". We have to believe, as we once did, that America makes Americans, that Americans can be made, not born, and that that is a source of our greatest triumphs as a nation.
A Holiday Gift: Religious Tolerance
Posted on December 22, 2015. Filed under: American history, Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, U.S. Constitution | Tags: Larry Schweikart, PragerU, Puritans, religious tolerance, U.S. Constitution, University of Dayton |
Here's a sharp video from Dr. Larry Schweikart, University of Dayton, on the PragerU site that explains the origins of religious tolerance in the English colonies of North America, and the astounding breakthrough that was the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He even gets the Puritans right! Since WordPress won't let us import the video, we just have to give you the link:
Religious Tolerance: Made in America
Enjoy, and enjoy watching a short video rather than reading reams of text from the HP crew. That's our gift to you!
Saints and Strangers and history
Posted on December 16, 2015. Filed under: American history, Truth v. Myth, What History is For | Tags: NatGeo, Pilgrims, Plimoth, Saints and Strangers |
Welcome to the wrap-up to our short series on Saints and Strangers, the NatGeo series on the Plimoth settlers. We're keeping it brief, as promised.
We're all pretty used to the fact that movies and TV shows and series that cover historical events are never fully accurate. It's a shame that we all accept that, but it happens because most people don't realize that what they're seeing is inaccurate. Beyond that, most of the writers on these programs and movies don't realize themselves that what they're writing is inaccurate. Myths get passed down through the generations and become the basis of popular history, while facts get bullied into a corner and completely forgotten. This is doubly astounding because almost without fail, the facts are more interesting than the fictions. But because the facts are, sadly, less familiar than the myths, the facts are less appealing, no matter how interesting they are. Writers are also afraid to deviate from the accepted norms, to tell a story that goes against conventional wisdom, because they will be accused of violating the facts. It's a real crazy-quilt of fiction given the gravitas of fact and fact being denigrated as deviation from the norm.
In the case of the Plimoth settlers, the norms/myths are taught early on, in grade school, in America. Pilgrims, First Thanksgiving, white caps, turkey, religious freedom. One thing we were immensely grateful that S&S abstained from was telling the apocryphal 19th-century "story" of Captain Standish courting Priscilla Mullins via John Alden, and losing her to Alden. (This myth was given a nod by S&S' decision to portray Mullins as a sassy, flirty beauty with long flowing hair who comes on pretty strong to the dopey Alden.)
The heart of the problem is that when you begin from a myth, any research you do will be bent to the task of supporting that myth. If you believe the Pilgrims celebrated a single Thanksgiving each November as a holiday, you will read Of Plimoth Plantation's description of thanksgiving days as proof of this, rather than proof that days of thanksgiving were as constant as days of fasting and humiliation, and you will completely ignore the fact that one of the reasons why the Separatists left England was that they refused to celebrate any holidays.
Thus were primary resources proudly cited by S&S, but we can't get excited about it. Ignoring reams of facts while misapplying a few facts to support a general myth is not research.
It's always dangerous to manipulate facts to promote your own worldview, as we see from multiple political races and the claims candidates make to support their wild variations from U.S. principles of representative democracy and make them seem like tried-and-true Americana. Long story short, if you're interested in any topic, read objective histories about it, and then bring in as many primary sources as you can to test those histories, and then make a decision about what really happened, what it meant then, and how it reverberates now.
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