Republican vs. Democrat: A Longer Perspective

My wife and I recently acquired an antique sideboard.  The surfaces are made of walnut, and the interior woods are yellow pine and tulip poplar.  These interior woods strongly suggest a Southern origin.  Mahogany was readily available at this time in coastal cities of the South, but the use of walnut indicates it was probably made in the "backcountry" of the South.

Hoping to find out more about the furniture from this area, I borrowed though Cornell’s library Southern Furniture 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection by Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown (1997).  Their book wasn't helpful in regard to our sideboard, but Prown's description of how the Southerners living in coastal cities regarded the people living inland started me thinking of the way Democrats tend to regard Republicans today and vice versa.

The longer-settled, more urban, better educated, and more mercantile inhabitants of the 18th and early 19th centuries in the South were unquestionably prejudiced about the inhabitants of the backcountry.  As Jonathan Prown comments, "Regarded by outsiders with a combination of fear, fascination, amusement, and contempt, the backcountry represented a place of cultural chaos.  Nonurban and noncommercial, the early backcountry rarely is hailed for its cultural achievements.  Instead, the region more often is cited for its cultural anomalies--whiskey stills, minimal education, family feuds, desolate living conditions, first-cousin marriages, and rowdy behavior."  It's much to the point that these aspects resonate even more strongly today.

As David Hackett Fischer has persuasively argued in Albion's Seed:  Four British Folkways in  America (1989), the settlers in the Southern backcountry were different from those who had come to the colonies earlier because they came from a different part of Great Britain and determinedly kept to their own traditions.  Caricatured--think of Ma and Pa Kettle, Hee-Haw, or Justified--these anomalies soon were appropriated.  With a reversed kind of pride, "backcountry" became "country."  Jeff Foxworthy’s red-neck jokes going viral are an obvious example.  Those in the backcountry looking outward toward the coastal population probably saw themselves as embattled defenders of traditional values of hearth and home, family and kin, the Bible and the rifle.  They were the pioneers of what became known as Manifest Destiny, those who made America great.  And they are still with us as those who passionately believe that Donald Trump will indeed make America great again.

From the Republicans’ point of view, the best government is the least government (as long, of course, as reformers don't touch their Medicare benefits).  In the 18th century, this backcountry distrust of government and the governing class was rational:  North Britons wanted to escape oppressive regulation by the government; French Huguenots and German Protestants wanted freedom of religion.  They all wanted land of their own and to have like-minded people as neighbors.

But, as my son used to say as a five-year-old, "That was then and this is now."  In our time, regulation by the federal government is the only hope of preventing the excesses of 21st century capitalism, be they fraudulent investment practices, pollution of air, ground, and water, the crippling cost of medical operations, or the obscene pricing of medications.  As Trump and the Republican majority in Congress make government (except for the Defense Department) smaller, it is a near certainty that they will destroy America in order to save it.

What used to be a cultural divide in the South has gone national, and it cannot be overcome by ever more narrowly pointed political targeting of fly-over country.  We have far less to fear from terrorists from without than from fanatics within.  Cultural chaos is at hand.  Unfortunately, we need something more than "a combination of fear, fascination, amusement, and contempt" to restore a moderate balance of power.  I have no suggestions for a solution, but I can say that unless one is found quickly, we are entering the last days.  It's one thing for America's greatness to wane; it's another for it to implode.

You Have to Laugh: Voter Fraud

We all know that the Democrats fraudulently rigged the vote for the presidency, right?  That's why Hillary beat Trump in the popular vote:  voter fraud!

I just caught up on one instance of fraudulent registration, and golly gosh, guess whom it concerns?  None other than Gregg Phillips, one of Trump's go-to experts on this topic!  Here's what Salon reported on Jan. 31, 2017--you just have to laugh:

"A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.

"Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.

"In a post earlier this month, Phillips described 'an amazing effort' by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found 'thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people.'

"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.

"The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips’ Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.

"At the time of November’s presidential election, Phillips’ status was 'inactive' in Mississippi and suspended in Texas. Officials in both states told the AP that Phillips could have voted, however, by producing identification and updating his address at the polls.

"Citing concerns about voters registered in several states, the president last week called for a major investigation into his claim of voter fraud, despite his campaign lawyer’s conclusion that the 2016 election was 'not tainted.'

"'When you look at the people that are registered, dead, illegal and two states, and some cases maybe three states, we have a lot to look into,' Trump said in an ABC interview [DJT's incoherence; my emphasis]."

Oh, and Mr. President?  While you're investigating this topic, would you mind glancing at how many black and Hispanic votes were suppressed by legislative rulings in the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas after the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder (2013) that those states no longer needed to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965?  Just a thought!

Update on voter fraud:  Salon also reported on 3/22/2017 the arrest of Steven Curtis, the former chair of the Republican Party in Colorado, for voter fraud.

According to Salon, "The former chairman of Colorado’s Republican Party, who just last year suggested on his “Wake Up!” talk radio show that Democrats were largely to blame for fraudulent votes, has been charged with voter fraud and forgery.

According to the Weld County District Attorney’s office, Curtis allegedly filled out his ex-wife’s absentee ballot for last year’s presidential election after it had been sent to his house, and forged her signature. He was charged with one count of misdemeanor voter fraud and one count of forgery, a Class 5 felony, according to local media. The 57-year-old radio jock, who served as state party chairman from 1997 to 1999, faces up to three years in jail if convicted.

I wish I were making this up!