I don’t think anyone posted about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s weekend effort to channel the energy of Mein Kampf into an “America First” caucus. Punchbowl News got a leak of the manifesto, and it doesn’t sound too awesome according to the Post’s summary:
In a section on immigration, the document describes the United States as a place with “uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and argues that “societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.” […]
On infrastructure, the caucus calls for the construction of roads, bridges and buildings that reflect “the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture, whereby public infrastructure must be utilitarian as well as stunningly, classically beautiful, befitting a world power and source of freedom.”
It also called for stopping all immigration and a few other similarly modest proposals. Apparently Paul Gosar, the Member of Congress whose family told Arizonans not to vote for him, was also involved.
So far, no big surprise. We all know what these folks believe, and any leak to a source-fluffing insider publication like Punchbowl News, which employs the always-savvy Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan, is on purpose.
What’s interesting is that after Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney hinted around that she should have kept it in the original German, Greene quickly walked it back, and genuflected to Trump as the one, true America Firster. Isn’t that kind of remarkable? I mean, these people never walk anything back — that’s the whole Trump mode of operation: he says shit no politician should get away with, gets a bunch of attention, and never apologizes. She definitely got her attention, but then she came up with a lame excuse that it was a draft that she hadn’t read.
Is it possible that Greene is low energy? Is it possible that a Trumper shit the bed so badly that the stink even got to them? I’m genuinely puzzled.
For Our Readers In the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul Area: Be Prepared, Be Alert
CaseyL
The only people the GQP listens to are its true employers: the large donors. My guess is the large donors protested doing anything that blatant and threatened to turn off the money spigot.
jeffreyw
she definitely s*** the bed but her s*** does not stink
MattF
My guess is that MTG was told, in small words, that she was on the verge of being expelled from the House. In public, the House R caucus makes a lot of noise but it stays out of Pelosi’s way.
Ruckus
I’m going to say that she might be more alert than some of her cohorts.
It’s just a theory and it has little to no positive support of evidence, just a possibility.
IOW she might know she’s full of shit, she just likes it that way but can see when the fan is on.
randy khan
I was entirely unsurprised that MTG and her fellow travelers would endorse the basic America First agenda, appalling though it is. But what caught my eye was the second bit quoted in the article:
What is it with the sudden obsession with architecture? Most Trump supporters think his gold-slathered abominations are the epitome of class, and wouldn’t know a Greek Revival building if it fell on them. And of course despite his endorsement of classical architecture, the only Trump property that comes close to qualifying is the Trump International in D.C., which he didn’t build. (Not to mention that I wonder if any of the people writing this stuff and looking to Europe ever heard of the Bauhaus or know where Brutalism was born.)
Brachiator
Sigh. It wasn’t that long ago when right wing nutballs insisted that the US was a Christian nation. Now they have gone full Aryan. And “uniquely” Anglo Saxon? I am sure that there are some British asswipes who would disagree.
And this “contribution” crap. The big lie that the Liberal welfare state just funnels money to undeserving wretches. Can we talk about farm subsidies?
This would definitely make Hitler proud. Also, too, were the Greeks and Romans somewhow proto-Anglo Saxons?
These people are seriously wacky.
mrmoshpotato
Where do these shitstains want Zeppelin Field?
NotMax
So much for the Greene New Deal.
//
Kent
The obsession with classical architecture is not new. The Trump Administration issued some sort of similar guidelines for new Federal buildings. Essentially they don’t like new modern buildings and want everything to have Greek and Roman style facades I guess. Because no one was proposing building stuff in any sort of African or Asian style.
In any event, half the shit built in CA and the Southwest would have to go. The entire city of Santa Fe is built in Pueblo Indian Adobe style (or faux style). And much of the public architecture in CA and the rest of the Southwest is built in the Spanish mission style which is Latin American and not European.
trollhattan
She has the Trumpling act down cold, but I think is not disciplined enough to survive politically over the long haul. Boebert OTOH has backed away from the cameras after burning her fingers on the stove a few times, and might cause more harm in the long run.
pamelabrown53
@randy khan:
Wondering if MTG and cohorts want the government buildings in Santa Fe demolished and replaced with European neoclassic structures?
It’s all so absurd…and toxic.
trollhattan
@Kent:
That Trump architecture thing was weird as hell and reminded me of people who scatter pillars randomly inside their mcmansions, e.g., big archways that contain pillars on each side, effectively narrowing the passageway. I think we missed out on a Melania Christmas of all pillars in lieu of trees.
Ruckus
@randy khan:
There is so little that the people involved know that it’s always a good bet that what they don’t know fills far more volumes than what they do know. Especially if what they know has to actually be true.
Anoniminous
What is it with Right Wing whack-a-doodles and faux Classic Greek architecture?
germy
He says he had no idea.
MattF
OT. And now, in Minneapolis, it’s up to the jury.
Michael
@randy khan: The Old Post Office/Trump hotel is Richardsonian Romanesque. The Trump stuff in it is Hotel Louis the Something.
mrmoshpotato
Blood-soaked pillars or white-and-dead-as-ghosts pillars?
Laura
The problem with the document was that it was too blatant, American fascists are careful to cultivate non-Anglo Saxons so as to disguise their white supremacy. Hence, Candice Whatsername of Turning Point. They don’t want OPENLY label themselves as white supremists. The document would have been fine it it has referred to traditional values, original intent, real true American culture etc
Frankensteinbeck
“Everything good, everything civilized, comes from White People.” Seriously, they say this. All the time. Then argue that Greece and Rome and Jesus were white. But ahem: “A proud white nation needs to show off, so I care about architecture and must declare it has to be White People style even when I don’t know what that means. I’ll know it when I see it.”
germy
I don’t know, but the industries who donate to them really love building cheap, plain, box-like crap. They don’t want to pay stone masons a fortune to craft neo-classical stuff. They just want more “modernistic” cheap minimalism. The strip mall style of architecture.
Michael
@trollhattan: Speaking of McMansions, this site is great:
https://mcmansionhell.com/
mrmoshpotato
@Anoniminous: See Olympia (1938)?
Martin
@randy khan:
Nothing sudden about it. Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again executive order, last year.
Facism has always projected its authority. See Albert Speer and Hugo Boss. This is anti-modernism. It’s about stopping all external cultural influences at the border. More sipping mint juleps on a porch while being fanned by your house slave, and fewer taco trucks on every corner.
This has been going on for ages.
pat
Anglo-Saxon? What does that even mean.
Do the Italians qualify? How about the Germans? the French??
Why not just say White?
Dahlia
@Anoniminous: “You gotta get yourself some mah-ble kah-lums”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWGPsS0dh5k
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: IIRC, Boebert’s district isn’t as overwhelmingly red as Greene’s. With any luck, she’ll be one and done.
NotMax
@pat
Only right Angles, natch.
//
germy
@Betty Cracker:
And then back into the salmonella business, where she belongs.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@trollhattan:
You might be right, but I also think she’s hiding out because she gave tours to terrorists and that news is going to drop in a bit. Being an out-and-out asshole is going to inspire people to expel her.
Michael Cain
@Kent: CU-Boulder is just a ways down the road from me. I’ve always been fond of how they have stuck consistently with their ledgestone facings using local sandstone and red tile roofs. For decades!
Anoniminous
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’d be ALL FOR fully painted Classic Greek friezes sculpted in the Class Greek manner, e.g., men with their WingDings a’flopping in the breeze.
Hours of hilarity would ensue.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
And shot into the Sun.
Martin
@pat: Ah, because the dirty Italians didn’t found this country. We were founded by the English and Dutch and maybe Germans if we’re feeling generous. All proper Americans can trace their lineage to William Wallace and maybe a few vikings. When roused we will pull a sword out of a stone, and when felled we will be honored on a pyre. We are proud. We are WASPs. We are Fjord Tough.
BlueDWarrior
@CaseyL: The Financial Powers-That-Be don’t want to get dragged into the cultural fight because they don’t want to lose 40 to 70% of the population as potential future customers.
They know damn well they don’t want to get on Millenial, Zoomer, or Gen Alpha shitlists, so they will bleat about anything that affects their taxes, but mumble in hush tones about stuff like trying to restrict LGBTQ rights and expression and the like, if they as CEOs or board members personally agree with said restriction.
catclub
Barber Poles!
germy
Bring back Art Deco.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Oh, yeah, I had forgot about that. Mainly because Trump never had any taste.
Which of course contradicts their fetish for Anglo-Saxon culture.
And I guess that Art-Deco just has to go go.
ETA: All this stuff reminds me of a wonderful art history course I took in college. The professor noted that a great deal of the architecture in the antebellum South, and especially the iron work in New Orleans, had significant African touches because free and enslaved black people were often the primary builders.
Anoniminous
@germy:
The International Style infested the globe because it gives the largest amount of floor space for the cheapest per-foot cost.
@mrmoshpotato:
Speer designed the buildings under correction of old Adolf – Duh Furhair – hisself.
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: No. Not for that gold-digging birther bitch.
Geminid
@Brachiator: I remember reading about southern proponents of secession emphasizing the South’s Anglo-Saxon heritage. The North’s large German and Irish populations were resented, and thought to be of low fighting value. The South had it’s share of immigrants, but there was an Episcopal elite that dominated the South’s politics. These people took pride in their Anglo-Saxon lineage, and thought very highly of their own martial prowess and leadership ability.
MattF
Alexandra Petri on the Anglo-Saxon political tradition:
BlueDWarrior
@pat: Jesus… even the cultural ancestral homeland of the British Isles were a total hodgepodge of Anglo, Saxon, Dutch-Scandanavian, Northern French, Celt, Scot, and Welsh influence. Now once you get to the Continent you get German, Dutch, French, Spanish, and innumerable Aboriginal-American and West and North African touches, as well as deliberate callback to Mediterranian (both Roman and Greek as part of study of the ‘Classics’) influence in all our art and culture.
They are screaming for a purity that never was and god-help-us never will be.
germy
Paul R. Williams
Check out his Lon Chaney High Sierra House.
germy
@BlueDWarrior:
These are people that really didn’t pay attention in high school. MTG, Boebert… they weren’t scholars.
So history to them is whatever they think it is.
germy
@Anoniminous:
“From Bauhaus to Our House”
Jeffro
@Martin: “fjord tough” ???
Brachiator
@Martin:
Early on, Ben Franklin had no use for Germans and did not believe that they could be assimilated.
When my family moved to California, I was surprised to learn that one of the radio stations still regularly had German language programming because there was still a sizeable German ancestry community. But now, no one disputed that these folks were real Americans. Even later, I found out that the German American grandmother of a co-worker thought that Hitler was largely right “until he went crazy.” But that is another story for another day.
Wait. Them ain’t no Anglo Saxons.
Martin
@Anoniminous: The romans had a tradition of hanging a little pendant of a dick and balls around the neck of new babies for good luck.
BlueDWarrior
@germy: That’s why the epestiemic closure of the modern Right is so goddamn dangerous.
They already know ‘the Truth’ so any attempt to try and update what we all know is met with absolutely VICIOUS backlash because then their ‘Truth’ would have to change, which would be they were wrong, and they can’t be wrong. Partly because they already knew ‘the Truth’ and some roundabout feeling of divine inspiration. As if they ‘Truth’ they know is the Truth of God Himself and any attempt to change ‘the Truth’ is akin to changing the actual literal text of the Bible, which is a mortal sin.
Tell that to anyone who has had to translate or update the common tongue of the thing how you deal with that; I honestly don’t know…
Kent
I haven’t been to CU-Boulder. But I think that is what is technically called Tuscan Vernacular style, so at least it is Euro. UCLA is built in a similar style but more ornate.
But now that you are talking about universities I recall that UT-El Paso (UTEP) is entirely built in Himalayan Bhutanese style. Which is 100x more cool than another state university that looks like something plucked out of Europe Seriously.
https://www.kmdarchitects.com/utep-1
https://www.rudolphvw.com/ever-wonder-why-utep-looks-like-bhutan/
Hoodie
@Martin: I’d say this is more like the type of totalitarian kitsch Kundera describes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, “the absolute denial of shit.” MTG and crew have a sentimental (kitschy) view of America that makes them feel good about themselves. Even though they’re semi-literate dipshits with little or no talents (Greene’s talents seemed to be limited to banging dudes at the local Crossfit), they want to think they’re the progeny of a pure “uniquely Anglo-Saxon political tradition” and “stunningly, classically beautiful” architecture. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with sentimentality, but they want to enforce this sentimental vision using the state, which makes it totalitarian. Of course, it’s likely that this crap was written by some dweeb from the Federalist Society (or the equivalent thereof), as Greene probably knows squat about Anglo-Saxons or architecture.
gene108
She’s doing what she’s been elected to do.
I wonder how can you have an inclusive Republican Party, where (Steve Scalise) Italian-, (Devin Nunes) Portuguese-, and (Kevin McCarthy) Irish-Americans are in leadership positions, while still insisting on maintaining Anglo-Saxon values.
If Republicans fully embrace Anglo-Saxon values, does this forbid staff for ordering pizza delivery, if they are working late?
I don’t think she thought this Anglo-Saxon values thing through considering how diverse and non-Anglo-Saxon so many House Republicans are.
Philbert
I’m Celtic, the Anglo Saxons are barbarians and can go pound sand if they can figure how.
germy
LOL
BlueDWarrior
@gene108: That’s the strangest and most fucked up thing about it. They use that particular framing not in a real cultural anthropological sense, but as a substitute for “White”, however they fucking define “White”.
Seriously every single ethnic group is capable and fully ready to produce members that you can consider “right-wing cultural revanchists” in the modern parlance, so this shouldn’t be anything new. I know there are a lot of African-American I talk to on a regular basis, being one myself, who are mortified at our current phase of LGBTQ inclusion, and wonder when the hell we got so gay friendly.
Martin
@Brachiator: Shut up. Our proper ancestors were bad ass white motherfuckers. That’s all you need to know. And they definitely weren’t Catholic.
The Nazis were really big on retconning history to paint the German people as having descended from Norse mythology but weakened by Jewish blood. This effort is just that, but in English.
germy
@BlueDWarrior:
Sometimes I wish MTG, Boebert, etc. would just say “White” instead of bending themselves into pretzel shapes to prove they’re not bigots and racists.
BlueDWarrior
@germy: … THey do know that the Slavic peoples have had organized society as long, if not longer, than forerunners to the Britons, let alone who we’d consider to be Britons now?
Geoduck
@mrmoshpotato: If you had to pick one thing from Nazi Germany to revive, zeppelins would be pretty high on the list of choices.
NotMax
Anglo-Saxon was trotted out once it dawned on them to whom the J word in Judeo-Christian referred.
//
germy
@Geoduck:
Unfortunately, they revived the haircuts.
BlueDWarrior
@Martin: This one place where the whole “It sounded better in the Original German” black joke works.
At the very least it was performed in a more dramatic manner. Hopefully this farcical recreation doesn’t need a globe-shattering World War to beat back.
germy
@BlueDWarrior:
That particular blogger doesn’t seem to know much of anything.
Spanky
Too much overthinking going on here. “Ango-Saxon” merely means “Us”. And if you ain’t Us, then you’re Them. And Us is far superior to Them. QED.
Delk
Trolls gotta troll.
Wapiti
@germy: Heck, Boebert didn’t finish high school. She went back for the GED.
scav
Ooooo, are we going for timber and thatch longhouses or will wattle and daub roundhouses also be sufficiently traditional?
Mike in NC
All of this country’s problems are the fault of Negros, Hispanics, and Jews. I’ve been hearing that for more than 50 years, so long before there was FOX News.
NotMax
@Geoduck
SpaceDirigible Force!“Admittedly, making them radar invisible presents a challenge.”
;)
BlueDWarrior
@Mike in NC: Every problem in America can be blamed on “The Other” as long as we recognized America to be a thing.
But yeah this specific incarnation of “Muh Racial Purity” bleating goes back to the late 60s at the VERY least.
Martin
@Hoodie: Seriously, this is just run of the mill Third Reich propaganda translated into English. There’s not a single new idea here. America’s decline is because we allowed ourselves to be polluted by the blood of Catholics, Jews, and other people of inferior breeding stock. I’m guessing we’ll depart from the shoving them into railcars and opt for a proper Peterbilt or Freightliner rig (insert image of Trump playing truck driver), but keep all the rest.
@gene108: It’s about groups, not individuals. Diamond and Silk are more than welcome if they are willing to toe the aryan nation line. And if they get shoved in the oven along the way, so be it.
Ken
Granted, granted. But the true Anglo-Saxons — or, if I may be so bold, the progeny of the Ten Lost Tribes — kept themselves pure through the ages, not sullying their blood with that of the rabble around them, until they successfully migrated to the Lands Over the Sea to the West.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
As in Great Britain during the Victorian and Edwardian era, the thing about Anglo Saxon lineage was largely arbitrarily manufactured nonsense.
And a lot of Southerners were clearly Scots Irish, or at best descended from English criminals before the days of Australia transport.
ETA: I am also reminded of some Southerners who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War in part because they wanted to live somewhere that still had slavery. Communities of these people still exist there.
Martin
@BlueDWarrior: Yeah, these assholes really don’t have the style sense to pull it off. But then neither did Hitler. He hired that part out. I mean, brown shirts in October? When has that ever been fashionable?
Baud
Maybe if the Anglos hadn’t interbred with the Saxons, we wouldn’t have all these problems today with hypenated Americans.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Well, the Mission style was ultimately based on Spanish patterns. Of course those Spanish patterns have a heavy Arabic influence, so maybe they would have to be rejected.
NotMax
@BlueDWarrior
See: KKK, also Black Legion.
BlueDWarrior
@Ken: Anyone who says that Christianity doesn’t have mythology has not thought very hard about Christianity… like at all.
Good Lord where does that even COME from?
Mallard Filmore
I agree with this part, thinking back to the history of Texas in the early-mid 1800s, when Mexico let a bunch of white settlers occupy the area.
Martin
@BlueDWarrior: Consider how in-bred the royal family is, and how utterly put out everyone is by proverbially dropping Megan Markle in the punchbowl.
People really should play Crusader Kings.
Brachiator
@gene108:
America is the country where a guy in Southern California can jump in his Toyota, drive along Sepulveda Blvd, switch over to Rodeo Drive, stop and pick up some pizza and sushi and go to an America First/English Only meeting.
NotMax
@Brachiator
…and record it on his Samsung phone.
;)
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker:
Workin’ on it…
BlueDWarrior
@Brachiator: It is extremely obvious that these kinds of people, by and large, want to steal everything they find personally useful from other cultures, while either bleaching every other culture ‘white’ or just erasing it if it refuses to blanche.
Like, given me being hip deep in 10 different iterations of geek culture, the absolute pretzel of how some people love anime but cannot fucking STAND actual living breathing Japanese (or other Asians for that matter). Like the people who produce the media matters to the media being produced, am I right?
See also: Music commonly produced by African and Hispanic-Americans/et al.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
The Alhambra in Spain is an Islamic palace built on the remains of a Roman fortress. No Anglo Saxons there.
sab
@Philbert: I’m Celtic and Anglo-Saxon both. In America the Anglo-Saxon legal traditions are pretty much central to our legal traditions and government. I personally think that is a good thing, especially when you look at the alternatives anywhere in the world in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Culturally, I am up for everyone doing their own food, music, literary, fashion and art thing. That is what makes America so vibrant. Also too language, but American immigrants speak English pretty quickly. They don’t need coersion. It just happens if they want to fit in.
I think this is sort of the heart of America. The white supremicists like the whiteness of the Anglo-Saxon heritage, but they don’t much like the relentless slow drift towards democracy. And I personnally believe the only effective long term political change is slow and relentless “drift”. At certain times, amazing people sacrifice a lot or everything to push the change, but politically overall it has to feel slow and relentless. I say “drift” in quotes, but it has to be anything but that, and yet feel exactly like that.
By the way, that Celt Joe Biden is very good at that sort of thing. Making big change look slow and relentless, like a glacier.
PST
I read the America First Caucus Policy Platform from start to finish yesterday. I understand now why it was denounced immediately in the strongest terms by the Republican establishment. It is fortunate for them that the platform contains so much racism and xenophobia. That guaranteed that it would be attacked from all quarters – as it should be – without any need for the Republican establishment to confront the degree to which its contents are hostile to traditional Republican interests. The document is one more proof of ways in which the party of January 6 is irreconcilable with the party of big business and big military. Please don’t misunderstand me. These people are racist filth. I am not suggesting that we can or should try to reach common ground. The platform is horrid, to say nothing of poorly written, and where it isn’t evil it relies on hand waiving and magical thinking. However, buried within it is support for some reasonable goals. Understanding these goals helps to identify the fissures in the Republican party. As a result, some elements of the Democratic agenda could prove difficult for Republicans to oppose uniformly and relentlessly without further alienating the base from the congressional leadership.
The first clue is in the second paragraph, which tells us that “a certain intellectual boldness is needed amongst members of the AFC to follow in President Trump’s footsteps, and potentially step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation.” Some of these sacred cows are Republican. For example:
Setting aside the crap about how the rebuilding must reflect classic European aesthetics, this section of the platform reinforces what polling shows: most populist Republicans want to see big bucks spent on roads, bridges, dams, drinking water, sewers, and “other much needed investments.”
On national security, the platform states:
It is hard to read that passage other than as including Bush Republicans among the traitorous. How aggressively America should pursue goals abroad with means that include military power divides both parties, but this represents a return to a very old-fashioned Republicanism and a direct challenge to the Republican orthodoxy for more than half a century. It offers cover for pullbacks by Biden.
Regarding trade, the platform has a wordy and confusing critique of economic theory, but the bottom line is to attack both government and business for exporting jobs. Plucking out a few representative sentences:
There are other passages that attack business in ways that could be helpful to Democrats. After all, if it were actually true that the “econometric evidence and consensus amongst labor economists” is that post-1965 immigration caused “a massive shift in the gains of the economy from wage earners to the shareholders and owners of large firms,” then who could object to taxing some of that gain back again, especially to pay for all that needed infrastructure? They deserve it, since “Unfortunately, American corporations – following federal policies that have actively incentivized investment outside of the US – have chosen to place short-term financial interests at the expense of basic human decency.” The platform may also be attacking corporations when it argues that “certain economic and financial interest groups benefit immensely from mass immigration, legal as well as illegal,” although this actually sounds to me like a genteel (or gentile) way of saying Jews will not replace us.
I urge people to read this document for what it reveals over and above the expected racism. There is lots of special pleading and cowardly nonsense that meshes with normal Republican dogma. For example, the environment is important but not at the expense of mining, drilling, or manufacturing. We shouldn’t let “wasteful social justice programs like the Green New Deal” stand in the way of clean coal, the Keystone pipeline, or green nuclear energy. There is a truly weird section about protecting the value of American Savings by promoting the development of cryptocurrency companies and defending the right of Americans to own blockchain-based currencies like Bitcoin. But above all, the document highlights the contradictions affecting conservatives. This was something Trump had the peculiar ability to paper over, but maybe no one else can. The plutocrats and the populists are on a collision course.
The Moar You Know
@randy khan: longtime obsession with Nazis, the literal kind. Trump’s now rescinded EO on Federal architecture (and the language in MJTs Contract On America) is word for word what Hitler’s orders were to Albert Speer, chief architect for the Nazi party and government.
Ken
@BlueDWarrior: Well, I did make up the part about the Ten Lost Tribes living in Britain until they migrated to the Americas. Everyone knows they went straight to the Americas and became the ancestors of the Native Americans.
(There are some seriously weird beliefs about the Tribes. Great Britain isn’t the strangest claim. It isn’t even in the top ten.)
NotMax
@Brachiator
When comes the crackdown on these insidious polluters of the “unique” heritage?
;)
scav
@Brachiator: Anglo-Saxons seemed not to much admire the purity of the actual Roman architecture left scattered about the place they immigrated to. Established their own small towns elsewhere, constructed most everything (except the add church) in timber.
Matt McIrvin
See, this is what Gandalf was trying to restore when he got Theoden King out from under the thumb of Grima Wormtongue.
BlueDWarrior
@PST: I actually do agree with the sentiment. THere are multiple angles to view the intellectual diaorama this document paints, as crude as it may seem.
And this is something that will keep the Democratic Party in business, as it were. As much as the right hates the cultural democratization and blending, a handful can get gotten here and there with appeals to economic well-being. Especially coming from the angle of ‘punishing’ Corporations that shipped jobs elsewhere to save a few pennies and nickels.
NotMax
@Ken
One of the things which the Lewis & Clark expedition was on the lookout for was a legendary tribe of blue-eyed, Welsh-speaking people.
Barbara
@germy: I am thinking that the other hyphenated Americans were seriously annoyed after generations of living as American citizens to be told that they don’t represent America. Most white supremacists are canny enough to use the word “European” to explain who needs to be kicked to the curb. You don’t see much Anglo-Saxon architecture that hearkens back to Greece and Rome. Then again, you don’t see much Anglo-Saxon architecture at all, maybe a few ancient tithe barns and churches.
Matt McIrvin
@sab:
Every single new group of immigrants since before the United States was formed has been characterized as uniquely unassimilable. They keep to themselves, they don’t learn the language, they have divided loyalties! Not like all the previous groups of immigrants we’re descended from, which were completely different and are now wonderful patriots.
craigie
Genius
Brachiator
@sab:
Yeah, especially those parts which might be Greek or Roman, or inspired by the Jewish Bible, or derived from Anglo-Norman codifications of English law. Or even Scandinavian origin. And the Scandinavians claim to have had the oldest Parliament, the Icelandic Althing.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Well, it must be something. Even the Magna Carta was written in Latin.
NotMax
@Brachiator
If looking at it isn’t a sufficient clue, the “Al” at the beginning of the name is a direct tell of its Moorish-Islamic origin.
cain
It’s a lovely place I enjoyed going through it.
sab
@Brachiator: And then bitch that when he lived in Miami he could only order a pizza in Spanish.
When I first moved back to NE Ohi 20+ years ago, when I got into the banks’ automatic phone system, the alternative language wasn’t Espanol, it was Polska. (If you want English press one……polska….)
Nobody complained about it then.
Baud
@PST:
How many of them do you think will sign on to Biden’s infrastructure plan?
Ken
It hasn’t been all that long that the Irish, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Greeks, etc. have been considered “white”.
Barbara
@sab: The English Common Law is a set of principles that are the product of centuries of legal developments mostly beginning with the Norman kings, but especially Henry II.
cain
@cain:
dammit I didn’t notice I got #100!!! YAY ME!
jimmiraybob
Uh……..nope. Their political tradition was might-is-right and monarchy. They were basically migrant pagans, which might be their bigger plus but hardly what Marjorie Q would seem to champion.
It took centuries for the “Anglo-Saxons”, after abundant mingling with the local indigenous peoples of Britain and Wales, to appropriate enough civilization from Mediteranian and Asian regions to be considered civil. And then came the Normans. And then came the Enlightenment. And then came the American Revolution and a new nation rejecting might-is right and monarchy and engraving liberal enlightened moral & political imperatives into the founding documents for future generations to feast upon.
The whole GOP seems to be sympathetic to might-is-right rule and monarchy (but Protestant Christian of course) as long as they get to choose the king (a paraphrase of something I once heard Patrick Buchanan say) so maybe she does mean a return to the good old days.
whomever
@Michael Cain: except for the Engineering center, which is done in Brutalist style and is flawed in so many ways (for starters the bathroom location is a disaster) as well as cracking (because honestly Brutalism doesn’t tend to age). OTOH I think NCAR looks pretty awesome.
–CU Enginerring class of 96 so spent a lot of time there.
sab
@Brachiator: How much of Greek and Roman government leaked over to the Constitution. ( Outside of the South?)
Baud
To be fair to the fascists, it’s hard to find a good Anglo-Saxon restaurant these days.
Mart
I just as soon keep the architectural styling of the Shard, Gerhkin, Cheese Cutter, and Walkie Talkie in London
Ken
@Baud: “I’ll have the mutton.”
“Very good, sir. And would you like that cooked?”
sab
@Barbara: Yes. Agree with you there. But where were the Normans from? Certainly not Normandy. Vikings with exceptional administrative talent.
NotMax
Hazy memory says Prince Charles went on a not too dissimilar neo-classical architecture crusade?
Trivia: After Westminster burned in the earlyish 19th century, William IV offered Parliament Buckingham Palace as a replacement meeting building. It was rejected by MPs, who described it as being too dingy.
RSA
@Martin:
Cool, thanks for the interesting reading. Here’s a reaction from an architecture magazine with photos of buildings that the executive order is against.
https://www.dezeen.com/2020/02/10/trump-draft-executive-order-making-federal-buildings-beautiful-again-brutalism
ETA: I find these buildings striking, imposing, and not ugly.
NotMax
@jimmiraybob
Angles ended up getting the last laugh — after all we don’t speak Normish, do we?
:)
Laura
Anglo-Saxons were Germans. Pre-Germans, since the area wasn’t called by that name at the time. But they are the reason we speak a Germanic language rather than Latin or some form of Gaelic or French.
England developed a sort of cult of the Anglo-Saxon part of their history during the run up to WW2. Yes, it was linked to being pro-Nazi.
So maybe MTG is onto something. Maybe there is such a thing as “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” which could also be called “authoritarianism mixed with nativism”
Brachiator
@sab:
The Founders, who liked to use Latin aliases in their pamphlet writing, studied various forms of government, including that of Native Americans.
Even if you said that the US government is based in part on English common law, that ain’t Anglo Saxon.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
Which is the kind of BS you can only believe if you never actually talk to any immigrants. My Chinese-American coworkers were always complaining about not understanding their children, and the root of their problem was that their children were growing up American instead of Chinese. And it’s fascinating to talk to the Mexican-American housekeeper for my building at work. She came here illegally during the 1980s, was legalized by the amnesty under Reagan, and had her family here. One of her sons is a career NCO in the Air Force, and now we’re trying to help one of her granddaughters into our summer student program so she’ll have the kind of perfect resume that will help her get into medical school.
PST
@Baud:
Zero in Congress, but that doesn’t mean that the infrastructure bill still won’t help drive a wedge into the Republican party. It may help wean some voters from loyalty to the congressional party, even if that is only manifested in reduced enthusiasm.
sab
@sab: This isn’t at all all racial and ethnic. Certain societies, by some serendipity, manage to break out out of horrible traditions.
Historians should think about this.
Whatever went on with the Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Celtic confluence or clash in Britain, it was good for Britain, and much later for America.
Miss Bianca
@PST: Fascinating, thanks for the analysis.
NotMax
@Baud
Place where one NYC meet-up was held, The Shakespeare, is firmly in the same culinary neighborhood.
Aside: One of the items Keen’s Chop House in NYC (est. 1885) is known for is its (very tasty) mutton.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Yeah, we kinda do.
What’s the old over-simplified version of how this works?
Anglo Saxon “cow” in the barn became Anglo Norman (French) “beef” when served at the table.
Even among the English nobility, old Anglo Saxon Earls were demoted in favor of Anglo Norman Dukes.
An obscure favorite: in Tennis “30-love” is derived from “30 l’oeuf,” the French word for “egg.”
sab
@Brachiator: You and Barbara have an important point. But what was the root? It didn’t start in Va or Ma. Uk was their legal root.
Barbara
@sab: How does that make them Anglo-Saxon?
sab
Aren’t we, and also too our country, founded on amazingly diverse roots? I believe this, and it makes me tear up a lot. This is who we are. Since the beginning and now.
mrmoshpotato
@Geoduck: Hahaha. It’s actually just the first thing that came to mind.
sab
@sab: Invading the place. In the course of invasion treasties intermarrying
Brachiator
@sab:
Uh, yeah. William of Normandy was from, well, Normandy, which was the place where these Normands (Viking “North Men”) had settled earlier.
The other fun thing were the Britons pushed out of England by the Anglo Saxons, who settled in Brittany, and who later returned after the Norman Conquest. They also brought back their versions of the tales of King Arthur, and may have added a new character, Sir Lancelot.
Roger Moore
@sab:
I am kind of annoyed at the amount of phone spam I get in Mandarin. Sorry, guys, you’re wasting your time talking to me in a language I don’t understand.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
Contrary to popular belief, the English do know how to cook. They just don’t know when to stop.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Most of us would have an easier time reading Old French than Old English. While 80% of our everyday words are recognizably Anglo-Saxon, the structure of our grammar is totally different. Even Middle English and Shakespearean English is challenging in a way that romance language of the same vintage is not. We are and we are not Anglo-Saxon. It’s one of the thing that makes English so interesting.
Origuy
Some of the Declaration of Independence was lifted from the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, which was a letter to the Pope from the nobles and bishops of Scotland asserting Scotland’s independence from England. Some of the signatories were Anglo-Scots or Norman-Scots; others were probably Gaelic. The letter itself was written in Latin.
Ken
“English is the product of Norman bowmen trying to pick up Saxon barmaids, and as legitimate as any of the other results”?
trnc
I thought she deleted all the Jewish laser crap on facebook and blaming other people was already established as a pattern for her.
debbie
I cannot wait for the statement from T****’s office blasting MTG into smithereens.
Brachiator
@sab:
UK is not the same thing as “Anglo Saxon.” And the idea of “root” is not always accurate, useful or meaningful.
There are even British historians and archeologists who think that the idea of an Anglo Saxon invasion of England is inaccurate.
I am not an expert on this area in any way, but I notice that there is still a great deal of uncertainty about the pre-Roman tribes and communities which made up England, and little understanding of their culture and beliefs. Latching onto Anglo Saxons as somehow pre-eminent is arbitrary and really dates from bad history of the 19th century.
Hell, there were significant cultural differences between the West Saxons and the Mercians of the 9th century. Even Anglo Saxon society was not a mono-culture.
And everyone leaves out the Jutes.
mr perfect
@randy khan: What came to my mind was the lack of thought in that statement regarding infrastructure and architecture in Southern Europe left behind by the Moors. Anyone who would reject the architect of Alhambra or the mosque come cathedral in Cordoba for religious/political grounds is Philistine at best. As well, while the Romans built roads within cities in grids, the Moors took into account the searing heat of the mid day sun when building curvatures to their roads in order to create shade for protection. Some low voltage IQ coming from the MTG white supremist bunch. May they all bake what little brains they have in the Noon day sun.
NotMax
@Brachiator
History has deliberately ignored the comedic culture of the Yakkity Saxons.
:)
geg6
@Baud:
As a second generation British American (both paternal grandparents immigrated), I’m here to tell you that has always been true.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Benny Hill kept this culture alive.
sab
@Brachiator: Uk when US stated was England. Scottish law still doesn’t have English roots. Closer to France and Louisuana than London or NE Us.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: OK, now I totally want “the Yakkity Saxons” for my next band name. I’m thinking a Scandi folk/metal/polka/jazz kind of combo. Should really wow the sturdy white plebecite in the Heart of the Heartland.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
They can bake. Wonderful baking traditions. Common British food is generally pretty awful. There are exceptions, like hand pies and roast beef, but a lot of traditional British savory dishes are awful. I’m not a picky eater at all. Not even as a child. But some of the stuff my grandmother made that my grandfather raved about being just like his mother’s was horrible.
NotMax
Speaking of Greene (if we must),
Uncle Cosmo
And before that us Eye-talians, who were all anarchists and criminals. My father’s generation had to deal with being called d*go or w*p until the WASPs decided to godfather our hairy darkskinned culi into the White tent circa 1945.
(And before us the Oyrish…)
Dan B
@BlueDWarrior: It’s interesting that black people, or at least some groups and leaders, have gotten LGBTQ friendly. In 1970 the Blackstone Rangers offered assistance to the very new Chicago Gay Liberation. I don’t believe they felt welcomed once we started to grow. I don’t believe black men were welcome in the four gay bars. Of course neither were women. It’s taken decades for this “sudden” acceptance. Racism among white gays is still an issue but I believe that too is receding.
Don’t quote me on that. 20 per cent less racism, or whatever it is, is still awful.
mr perfect
@cain: Especially when we entered the room where Christopher Columbus made his proposal to Ferdinand and Isabella in order to finance his trip to India which turned out to be the New World. It’s why I was born on the North American continent.
Uncle Cosmo
In Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin (1998), Alexandra Richie asserts that the Sturmabteilung was in effect costumed by the Weimar equivalent of a thrift store:
(pp. 380-81). I am somewhat skeptical – this massive tome (859 pages!), which I have been trudging through, is laced with egregious errors of fact – but I suppose it’s easy enough to check (which I am not about to bestir myself to do).
Barbara
@mr perfect: Even the Spanish Christians refused to destroy the sublime Moorish buildings.
KSinMA
@germy:
Hear, hear!
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
I think this is largely a result of deliberate coalition building. Liberals have been doing their very best to convince various out groups that they need to work together, and it’s really bearing fruit. I know people were making comparisons between the Obergefell and Loving decisions as a way of selling marriage equality, and it’s a solid argument. Similarly, I remember seeing something drawing parallels between the African slave trade, the Armenian Genocide, and the Holocaust, and I’m pretty sure that was also an attempt at coalition building.
jimmiraybob
@sab: But where were the Normans from?
I believe originally from Scandinavia (Vikings) and then settled in what would eventually be France.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: Good points and also younger people. A minority led environmental group I volunteered with for years is mostly led by young lesbians. It’s great to see the effortless ease with which the Muslims interact with the LGBTQ people.
Pramika Jayapal has a huge constituency in this neighborhood and it a true rainbow coalition. And you would not, never, ever disrespect an LGBTQ person within one hundred yards of Pramila. Of course disrespecting any minority is clearly off the table.
Chris Johnson
@germy: Damn good book. That and ‘The Painted Word’ :)
WaterGirl
@Michael: Both of your comments were in the trash. ?♀️
I released them. If they were supposed to be there, tell me and I can trash them.
boatboy_srq
@Kent: That was possibly the most Stalinist moment of Lord Dampnut’s pResidency.
The Pale Scot
@pat:
Right? I doubt MTG and Boebert have a drop of good white (A-S) blood in them. Boebert has the mean pinched face of a lowland Scot and Greene face is a match for a bas-relief I saw in an exhibit of Meso-American art. Their origins ain’t from the Saxon Shore. Just another example of cultural appropriation. I guess cattle raids and Ayahuasca don’t have the panache of slavers and systematic theft
BruceFromOhio
@Baud:
This entire thread, and this specific comment, is why I read this blog every single day.
@The Pale Scot:
This sounds awesome when read in Sean Connery mode.
The Pale Scot
@Geminid:
Those were the Cavaliers, who slipped out of England after the English Civil War and established themselves as slavers and pirates in the Caribbean squatting on what were Spanish possessions. They were a very small part of the population, and imported 10 of thousands of indentured servants from north and western Britain as indentured servants, slaves being too valuable for some dangerous labor. (also as a counterweight the whitey vs slave imbalance) They thought little more of immigrants than they thought of the slaves
jimmiraybob
Beer, wine and a veggie plate?
Sloane Ranger
@Martin:
I’ll give you that for the older generation but the inbreeding in question is mainly among a load of German royal and princely houses. But, the Queen’s mother was Scottish, which means Celt and Brithonic and her children all married English people, who, I would assume, were the usual English ethnic mix, a bit British (people living here before the Romans), a bit north German and Low Countries, a bit Scandinavian and a bit northern French.
Sloane Ranger
@NotMax:
Yes, Prince Charles did express strong views on aspects of some modern architectural styles but what he actually said was mischaracterised in the press. He was criticising some designs that pushed the boundaries of what could be done with the materials available but where the architect seemed to have forgotten that they were going to be occupied by people.
As for Buck House, its unloved by virtually everyone. The Royal Family hate it because its more a showcase than a home and when showing a TV crew around a few years ago, the guy in charge felt he had to apologise for all the red and gold decoration explaining that George IV liked his bling.
Sloane Ranger
@jimmiraybob:
Yes, I’m not entirely sure that Native Americans, African Americans and Mexicans would necessarily agree with this characterisation.
jimmiraybob
@Sloane Ranger:
The ideals are aspirational. How many people from Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr. to John Lewis to Deb Haaland have used the words and ideals baked into the the DOI and US Constitution/Bill of Rights?
The idea that a government could be built on an aspiration of equity and equitable justice and liberal democracy were revolutionary at the time and inspired many similar revolutions.
This was a liberal experiment in rule by the people and for the people that continues. Unfortunately, it involves “the people,” many of which want to bring any semblance of “justice for all” to a system of “justice for my only my tribe.”
jimmiraybob
@Sloane Ranger:
See the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789 – Wiki – and note that it was originally drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson.
Also too, check out the Haitian Revolution (1791).
bcw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saxon_palace_at_Cheddar.jpg