Can you frontpage this? My spouse doesn’t read comments but he needs to read this about FDR and Butler
Americans did not revolt and attempt to overthrow the government at any point during the Great Depression. The closest thing that existed to a mass movement against the Hoover administration was the Bonus Army, also known as the Bonus Expeditionary Army orthe Bonus Marchers. A group of WW I veterans who were trying to get the bonus payment they’d been promised disbursed to them. During May and June of 1932 they marched, often with their families, hitching rides on trucks and trains, from all over the continental US to DC where they set up camp on the Anacostia flats. They tried to get a meeting with Hoover, who refused. Congress rushed through enabling legislation, for the second or third time, to give them their $500 bonus ahead of the scheduled payment, which was still a decade off. The closest they got to meeting with a senior leader was when Major General Smedley Darlington Butler went to their camp and spent hours talking to each of the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who wanted to speak to him. Butler had been passed over for his next assignment several years before– Commandant of the Marine Corps – and threatened him with false charges of insubordination for his public comments opposing Mussolini and the rise of fascism. Butler retired the year before the Bonus March.
As for the Bonus Army, they didn’t get their bonuses. They also, desperate as they were, didn’t try to overthrow the US government or even just the Hoover administration. They just quietly kept doing what they were doing: camping in DC, accepting what charity in terms of food aid was offered, and quietly pressuring the Hoover administration to give them what they were owed. For this, Hoover put MacArthur in charge of clearing them out as they were irritating him. MacArthur, because he was MacArthur and because the infiltrators he’d put into the camps told him that 1/3 of the marchers were Jews and 1/3 were black and all of them were communists, which was reinforced by J. Edgar Hoover who was already undertaking his plans to turn the Bureau of Investigation into the FBI, ordered the 20,000 Bonus marchers and their families cleared out. Five tanks, 200 cavalry, and several hundred infantry cleared out the marchers who were trying to evacuate peacefully on foot. Tear gas grenades were used on the Bonus marchers and their families. Some were run down by the cavalry and beaten with the flats of their sabres. Eisenhower told MacArthur he was an idiot and refused to participate. Patton, being Patton, clicked his heels and carried out MacArthur’s orders. The irony is that one of the veterans in the Bonus marchers driven out that day, Joe Angelo, was the Soldier who pulled Patton to safety on the battlefield in France, thereby saving his life.
Through all of this – the Depression, Hoover’s and MacArthur’s violent attack on peaceful veterans who merely wanted the bonus payment they’d been promised repeatedly, Hoover’s continued mishandling of the Depression through the election and the inauguration of FDR – Americans did not rise up and revolt. There was no backlash.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There was a backlash, to the election of FDR. And it wasn’t led by those who had been so brutalized by the Depression or Hoover’s failures as president or by MacArthur on the Anacostia flats in July of 1932. It was led by the wealthiest of the wealthy. The men who had actually made money during the Depression. The men who had picked America’s bones almost clean.
In 1933 a group of wealthy financiers and corporate owners decided that the US could not continue as a self governing democratic-republic if they and their peers were going to continue to profit. They decided that the US should instead become a fascistic oligarchy with a democratic facade. After sending a trusted agent to meet with the emerging fascist leaders in Italy, France, and Germany they determined that the easiest way to accomplish their goals in the US was to encourage and promote street level violence and disorder, culminating in widespread attacks in DC to pressure FDR and force him to accept their hand picked co-president. A co-president who would rule the US on their behalf from the shadows while FDR continued on the face of a faux democracy.
In order to achieve these objectives these wealthy financiers and captains of industry and investment determined that the remnants of the Bonus Army of WW I veterans would make the perfect foot soldiers in their campaign of disruption. They approached MajGen Smedley Darlington Butler, who was beloved by these veterans, to lead them. Fortunately, Butler recognized exactly what game was being played, gathered as much information as possible, and then took it to Congress and the news media. While Butler’s actions successfully stymied what we now call the Business Plot, Congress and the news media largely covered it up. As a result it is unclear even today exactly which, if any, elected or appointed officials might have been involved. The known coup organizers and plotters, however, were not some fly by night, nouveau riche group of amateurs. Their leaders included George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush Sr. The grandfather and father of one president and great-grandfather and grandfather of a second.
They did this despite FDR winning 90% or so of the Electoral College vote and having gigantic majorities in both the House and the Senate. If I recall correctly the Democratic congressional majorities were something like 68 out of 96 senators and upwards of 300 members of the House. FDR’s electoral mandate was enormous and yet they still attempted a coup…
Here’s the Universal Newsreel of MajGen Butler calling out the plotters in an attempt to force Congress and the news media to actually take this seriously and do something about it.
For all of our vaunted lip service and fealty to our revolutionary past, Americans have consistently shown for the past 100 years that there is nothing you can do to them that will make them push back. Let me clarify that: white Americans have consistently shown the past 100 years that there is nothing you can do to them that will make them push back. Hell, as we’ve seen repeatedly over the past 100 years, a significant portion of them will actually be actively involved in creating and perpetuating the problem while another significant chunk will just stand on the sides and tut tut all of the upheaval. And those of good conscience, like all of you (and I mean that sincerely, whatever our disagreements, you’re all good people), will, of course, be willing to put themselves on the line for positive change.
You can’t out organize an extreme gerrymander. Nor extreme voter suppression. If just the Florida and Texas redistricting maps are allowed to stand, it won’t matter what happens in any other state, the Republicans will retake the House. The Senate map, while favorable to the Democrats for the 2022 elections, is still going to be a huge lift. And this is the last favorable Senate map for the Democrats. From 2024 on it gets worse and worse for them.
Those of us that keep beating this drum aren’t telling you all this because we want to be mean. Or because we want to upset you. We’re telling you this because we want everyone to understand just how dangerous this moment is. Just how precarious things are right now. And, as with the history lesson at the beginning of this comment, just how absolutely normal it is in America for extremely wealthy conservative interests to seek to overthrow the constitutional order and establish a fascist system running behind a facade of democracy.
Time will tell if I and the others sounding the alarms are right or wrong. I’d love to be wrong. I’d love for all of you to spend weeks and months dunking on me after the 2022 elections are over and, again, after the 2024 elections are over. Goku got started a bit prematurely in last night’s comments…
But until then, I will beat this drum until we are out of danger.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to walk my dogs. Back later.
Raven
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: My mistake, I’ll fix it up top. I confused Walters with Angelo.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
all the more reason to look at the recent past, learn from it, and not repeat mistakes
all the more reason to do everything we can to expand the Dem Senate Caucus in 2022
Do you think anyone who reads this blog doesn’t get this?
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: Fixed, thanks!
sab
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
Kathleen
The New York Times reported it thusly:
Same as it ever was.
The complete article is here:
https://timeline.com/business-plot-overthrow-fdr-9a59a012c32a
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You have no way of preventing the extreme gerrymanders coming in Florida, Texas, or Georgia. The Republicans control all elements of state government. Just Florida’s gives the Republicans the House majority.
While the Senate map is favorable to the Democrats, it is barely favorable. And it is unclear if they can even hold the 50-50 tie they have now, let alone expand it. Senator Warnock is an excellent senator and a wonderful person, but so was Doug Jones. Alabamans replaced Jones with a football coach incapable of completing a coherent sentence. Do you really think Georgians won’t replace Warnock with a football player incapable of completing a coherent sentence? Especially given the extreme voter suppression laws put in place over the summer in Georgia.
And based on the comments, I think there are a lot of people here in denial.
Benw
@Adam L Silverman: I feel like you’ve insufficiently told us how awesome your dogs are
Adam L Silverman
@Benw: They’re the best. And they’ve been very patient. And I’m now going to walk them before they eat me…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
From down below. I’m sorry Adam, I didn’t know who that guy was. I didn’t mean any offense
Benw
@Adam L Silverman: have a good walkies
Lapassionara
@Adam L Silverman: some of us are not in denial, but we don’t see how we can change the outcome of what we see coming.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Reposting from below:
I apologize for that one. I honestly didn’t know who the guy was. I’m sorry, Adam.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dude, that’s the third time you posted that. He’ll see it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: 1) you’re probably right, but maybe you’re not
2) we’ll have a better idea a year from now, but if forced to place a bet a year ago on the odds of the pastor of Ebeneezer Baptist being elected to Herman Talmadge’s seat (it was also Rebecca Felton‘s), I would’ve bet against it and been very happy to lose. I think the Rs might just Todd Akin/trumpify Mitch McConnell out of getting the majority leadership again in his fading life
3) maybe, we all pay attention to different comments. I see comments I think are bafflingly wrong about American politics, but few that I think wildly underestimate the difficulty we’re currently in
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
The first one didn’t show up on my screen for some reason so I reposted
Planetjanet
Excellent history lesson. I feel smarter now.
Sure Lurkalot
@Benw: OT, busy evening but just heard my new found team to root for won their series. I’m going to have to pay more attention!
sab
Spouse: ” Holy shit!”
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Seconded.
schrodingers_cat
I am bookmarking this prediction.
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: welcome aboard! Full disclosure, getting everyone excited before ripping their hearts out is classic ATL style., matey.
Mike in NC
A very good book about Hoover and FDR is “The Shattered Dream” by Gene Smith (1970).
patroclus
I thought that the WWI vets did get early redemption of their bonus certificates in 1936, when Congress over-rode FDR’s veto. And I also thought that they were repeatedly promised that they could only redeem their certificates after 25 years from the time the legislation was passed in the ’20’s, so they effectively got something well in advance of what was promised. And I also had thought that the fiasco of McArthur’s actions led almost directly into the push for the GI Bill in 1944 which treated WWII (and later) vets significantly differently than WWI vets.
John Miles
Butler was passed over for Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1930 and threatened by insubordination by Hoover in 1931 (over negative comments he had made about Mussolini.) Both before the Bonus March in 1932. Butler had already resigned in 1931.
Ohio Mom
We Ohioans voted TWICE for fair districts — no more Republican gerrymandering — and still, the newly redrawn districts are gerrymandered for Republicans for both Congress and the Statehouse.
I don’t know what we are supposed to do. My reliably Blue county is rent in two, with each half attached to large Red rural areas. There have been some strong Democratic candidates in recent years but we are outnumbered and will always be, because our votes on fair districting are ignored.
There is a dumb loophole in the law: because the Democrats do not endorse the new districts, they will only be in force for four years. Talk about booby-prizes!
On a related note, one of the leadership of my neighborhood Democratic Club somehow got us all invited to the neighborhood’s Republican Club’s Candiate Night. It’s tomorrow night, a ten minute walk from my house. I could go and the idea is tantalizing. But I don’t know if I could be sure I could make myself behave, and I think it could be very depressing to see the parade of banal evil. I think I just talked myself out of it.
Sure Lurkalot
@Benw: I think the Colorado sports ball teams have prepared me for open heart surgery. Go Braves!
sab
@Ohio Mom: Also too there’s the Covid risk with those un-vaxxed bozos.
Adam L Silverman
@John Miles: Thank you for catching that. I will update it up top.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: then we start going to the media with this – the choice is between imperfect democracy or authoritarian theocracy.
Adam L Silverman
@John Miles: All fixed.
Ksmiami
@Ohio Mom: you should all go and disrupt it. Call them out for being fuckhead fascist trash.
Steeplejack
Good post.
Typo: 96 senators (48 states) after the 1932 election, not 98.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think we’ll have a better idea after the Virginia gubernatorial elections next month.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: You have to hope that Marc Elias wins the lawsuit. And does so in enough time that the court orders fair maps be put in place for next year as opposed to letting the gerrymandered maps stand because it is too close to the election and ordering re-redistricting for 2024.
sab
@Ohio Mom: The only reason we have any continuity in office is because two generations of Sykes rotate the offices between each other, so they know what they are doing. But it looks weird when the only thing stalling the Rebublicans is a father and daughter voting to block them.
I hate term limits.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Thanks. It’s fixed. And it wasn’t a typo, I just got the number wrong.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Biden and Obama will be campaigning for Terry Mac. Everyone knows how important it is.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: that will be seen as a portent, and should probably be getting more attention. Obama is going to Richmond
J R in WV
I’m an old cynical person, an autodidact on many subjects, esp American political history. So I’m not a bit shy of thinking that the fascists are working as hard as they can to take over as soon as they possibly can… you’ve convinced me, or rather, I’ve been convinced that fascists (aka racist KKK no nothing bastards, also aka Republican ignoramuses) are working to take over again, and restore Jim Crow, only with more strict voting laws that won’t let Democrats vote, except for Republican candidates.
I’m interested in suggestions as to how we prevent that take over, given that we have 13 months before the next (last) election. While Republican fascists are spooling lies in every statehouse about how the last election was stolen, in spite of the fact that all the court cases (60+) Trump’s minions filed were dismissed for utter lack of evidence. Even the Ninja Recount in AZ turned out to find the undercount was way in Biden’s favor, in other words the Ninja’s recount found more new Biden votes AND fewer Trump votes than the original Maricopa election officers counted.
What can we do. other than contribute to good Democratic candidates?
I have trouble walking through the grocery store once a week, so I’m not going to be able to canvass from door-to-door enough to make a difference.
I have done phone banking, although the past couple of elections where I’ve done that it didn’t appear to help out at all. I called into Ohio for Hillary daily for weeks, look how that worked out!!
I confess it helped that the person running the phone bank was a young and attractive woman, but still, I talked to voters in Ohio, not the office manager. By election day, there was just me and her. It was very depressing, actually.
I gotta quit now, feed the fur balls, go to bed… best wishes fellow Jackals !!!
artem1s
Just because we aren’t taught the history of workers strikes in this country doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It’s an insult to those who died for labor rights to say there has never been an uprising against authoritarian fascists. their names aren’t enshrined on statues on the town square, but they should be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_United_States_labor_disputes
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: haha good point. Let’s do this, Braves
Ohio Mom
@Ksmiami:
That’s what I am afraid of, I can have quite a temper and a loud mouth.
But the Democratic Club leader who arranged this moment of detente did not do so to cause a scene. I think the idea is quiet reconnaissance and to put the fear of God on us so we are motivated to squash as many of those candidates as we can (which is still possible on the very local level. Just not for the Statehouse and the House).
sab
@Adam L Silverman: Governor’s son is on the Ohio Supreme Court and won’t recuse himself from hearing case on his father’s vote.
debbie
Was this plot connected to the people who were hoping Charles Lindbergh would run for the presidency?
H.E.Wolf
A 1936 cartoon by Peter Arno: “Let’s all go to the Trans-Lux and hiss Roosevelt!” Library of Congress has the details, including an extensive description involving the phrase “rather scantily dressed”:
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004679096/
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: Of course I’m pulling for the court to throw out those trashy maps. But I am not including that possibility in my calculus because look at the judges — Ugh!
ETA: I see Sab got here first on the Judge situation.
Mary G
I was exceedingly gung-ho a month back, writing postcards to voters and calling and writing DiFi, Padilla, and my rep Mike Levin to recognize that we are in serious danger of losing even the tattered remnants of democracy that we have now and that drastic action is needed now to stop the rolling coup that has been going on for decades. Padilla and Levin replied fuck yes and send us money and DiFi ignored me. Now I am in a fatalistic WASF phase and can hardly even read political posts here. I know my stubbornness and optimism will probably get me back into the fight, but with the clear conviction that it’s a losing effort. I am happy that Biden and Newsom are quietly doing some very radical things under the radar and know that all we can do is all we can do. We are the new Bonus Army.
Adam L Silverman
@sab: That would seem to be a problem.
Ksmiami
@Ohio Mom: but we know the corollary; which is to be a Republican today, is to be a horrible lunatic- there’s no need to be exposed to these plague rats.
debbie
@sab:
I have a feeling that will be vociferously contested.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, I’m sorry. Honestly. I’m telling you truth when I tell you I didn’t know who the fuck that guy was. I didn’t mean any offense
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I saw it the first four times. I understand.
Another Scott
Kinda-sorta related to some threads here today…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qcccZy03s (0:04)
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I keep hoping that the younger DeWine will remember that he holds an elected office and that we voted to fix gerrymandering twice statewide. If he wants to stay on the court he has to win more than the primary.
Steeplejack
If we can’t outvote extreme gerrymandering, I wonder whether we can outlitigate it. I have been reading stuff on Twitter by Marc E. Elias and others detailing the legal challenges they are preparing or mounting to fight the GQP grab.
Ohio Mom
@Ksmiami:
I don’t think the local Republican club members will be particularly obnoxious — they are my neighbors, and I (reluctantly) know some of them.
But the local AM Radio host who is their emcee for this gala event (the are starting with a cash dinner, to which we Dems were also invited, if we wanted to pay for our meals), and the local candidates — they will be beyond repulsive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Josh Mandel and/or Hillbilly Elegy Vance was there, and now I’ve really talked myself into staying home.
Ksmiami
@Ohio Mom: eh phone bank or pet some animals – don’t spend time with garbage people
Kay
@artem1s:
Cornell University put together a group to find and count strikes across the US (because the federal government only counts labor actions that meet certain sizes) and the researchers believed there was an uncounted uptick so they pulled together news reports and social media photos of any strike, anywhere . There is an uptick.
Another Scott
Imagine that!!
Seriously, we can’t let the framing by the plutocrats get in the way of reality, when talking about poverty, or anything else.
(via dsquareddigest)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I’m always amazed at the things that aren’t counted. And hooray for the internet, which makes possible counting the previously uncounted.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
Go and report back. It’ll be interesting. Mandel got kicked out of a school board meeting because he doesn’t live in the district. I’m sure he’ll be yelling about that.
rikyrah
Thank you for this history lesson
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
I love that they thought about them! I didn’t get any labor history in college so I had to read it on my own.
Everyone knows about this one:
There’s a statue. “Monument”, I guess.
The Oracle of Solace
This topic has me rather exercised, and I wrote out my concerns in a related article over on Daily Kos: The Futures of the GOP (It was my first diary there, and I later produced a short film on the same topic). As I see it, opposing the Republican Party requires not only the usual activism, but the forging of a popular front, which means lefties, liberals, centrists, and conservatives joining forces to stop the GOP. I know there’s a lot of factional and ideological mistrust at work between these groups, but we really need to set aside our differences in the short term. Otherwise there won’t be a long term.
TEL
I appreciate the point of this history. I’ve been following a fair amount of the fight over voter laws as well as the ongoing cases against the insurrectionists. I said on the previous thread that we also need to remember that our side has strengths as well – that doesn’t mean that what’s happening isn’t important – it means we have to recognize our strengths and figure out how to use them effectively, so I’ll mention one. One thing that comes up from time to time are the “normies” – people who spend almost no time thinking about politics and who don’t want to think about politics. One of the bigger dangers the republicans run is doing things that wake the “normies” up – that piss them off enough that they have to pay attention. It’s why the supreme court is trying to allow Texas to outlaw abortion on the downlow instead of being up front about it, and why the smarter republicans are trying to not talk about birth control at all. I think it’s a real danger right now for the republican party because they have a critical mass of crazy people who got elected.
You usually only see a little of this on the national level, but it’s more common at the local level. Remember that what shut down Trump’s hired thugs in Portland wasn’t the young protesters (who often do this type of stuff), it was when word got out that the hired thugs were effectively acting as a police force, the “normies” (the “moms” and the “leaf-blower dads”) came out in droves. Even the Portland police stayed away from the situation – if the suburban white people turn against the police, the political will to actually put through meaningful change could happen and the police know that. (I first lived in Oregon 50 years ago, and have lived in the Portland area on and off for years, and still have family there, so I have some understanding of the area).
I’d be interested in seeing any ideas people have on how to harness this. Kay talks about this a lot – she knows that supporting public schools, drug addiction-related services, and quite a few other things that are part of the democratic platform are really important to most voters.
Ruckus
@TEL:
Messaging is vital.
Because the press as a whole is first, in the pocket of the people who own a lot of stuff and second because those owners often have very little reason to actually report the truth. There are of course exceptions to every rule, many of which are excellent. Part of Adam’s story is that few people, especially those on the receiving end had a clue in time to do much of anything, if anything was possible.
I’ve been writing that a lot of this is about big money for a long time and I think it’s a premise that needs to be repeated often. Money talks, no question about that, but it also buys silence and blocking/misdirection. Most of the newer republican politicians are there for blocking/misdirection/reliable political voters, nothing more. They make a lot of what we don’t see out in the open possible.
Tata
@Adam L Silverman: If I can’t do anything about it, what am I supposed to do about it? Speak slowly, and in very small words.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): To clarify, so you’re not confused or worried.
I saw the apologies. I appreciate them. You’re fine.
sab
@TEL: Thanks. That is helpful.
Adam L Silverman
@Tata: It isn’t that you can’t do anything, it’s that the options are exceedingly limited. What you can do, if you can afford to, is support Marc Elias’s democracy docket efforts. The best opportunities right now are going to be the litigation he’s either brought already or is planning on bringing. Beyond that, it is reaching out to the people you know that live in those states, make sure they understand what is going on, what is at stake, and encourage them to get engaged. And just stay informed. The good news, if there is any, is because you’re in New Jersey and it is unlikely to go Republican any time soon, you have a level of protection if things go sideways that those of us that live in states under Republican control don’t have. Staying informed will allow you to pressure your state officials if it becomes necessary for the states controlled by Democrats to lead the fight against Republican attempts to abuse the electoral system to take over.
Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: yes. They complain all the time about eeyores and how down the blog is.
Maybe you have them all pied?
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Link to Mark Elias’s Democracy Docket. News site about what’s going on in individual states re voting rights. Super useful; I donate.
Mary G
WaPo:
California set to become first state to ban gasoline-powered lawn equipment
Mary G
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: He’s doing righteous yeoman’s work!
Brachiator
Some wealthy interests try, but they keep failing. And these are not necessarily the most wealthy, nor can they always be easily labeled as conservative. And there are attempts to mobilize and to manipulate ordinary people. These efforts are not always successful either.
I agree that we live in dangerous times. In the UK, a lot of the continued success of BREXIT is due to a chunk of the public foolishly believing that keeping out immigrants and eliminating freedom of movement will result in more jobs and higher wages for the folks at home. The suckers who have bought into this lie seem to be willing to let the UK become a third rate country as long as they can cling to this lie.
Elsewhere, India may turn its back on its democratic values on the false and noxious idea that Hindu nationalism can lead to respect and greatness.
Here in the US, the Big Lie urging autocracy is that America can only prosper if it is brought under the control of the right white people.
We have been here before. If it’s time for another fight to save democracy, so be it.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
The other part of the story is that even though Congress may have covered up the story, ultimately they did not go along with the scheme.
Democracy is surprisingly fragile. But it can also be incredibly tough and resilient.
And a funny thing about money. It can get power, but it cannot reliably buy continued loyalty.
Another Scott
Wonkette – AZ Cyber Ninja audit was ever worser than you thought.
This is my shocked, shocked face.
Cheers,
Scott.
Eolirin
I kind of take issue with this:
America pushed back even in your example; they elected FDR.
And America has had a long history of social movements, many with significant or majority white support, pushing back against injustice, and it’s been broadly very successful, eventually; the labor movement, women’s sufferage, civil rights and gay rights. We’ve never needed to violently overthrow the government. We’ve never been in a moment like that. The closest parallel was the confederacy trying to preserve slavery.
We may be looking at an inflection point much like that, but in reverse. And it’s certainly true that the left has never been as willing to forgo the slower less violent process as the right has. But there’s literally no precedent for the complete subversion of democracy in this country. We’ve always been able to reform through the systems that exist without needing to overthrow the constitutional order.
We really can’t know what’ll happen if a republican controlled house voids a presidential election in as blatant a way as they’ve indicated they will. We can’t even know what’ll happen if we get a dysfunctional republican controlled congress that we can’t get rid of. We’ve never had things well and truly break in this country the way things will if they get back into power and make it impossible for it to be taken away from them.
But the story doesn’t end there even if we lose here. And we’ll be in well and truly unknown territory if the worst of our expectations come to pass. I don’t think we’ll be so powerless to respond or so unwilling to move to more extreme measures if all of the more legal or peaceful options are denied us.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin:
*cough* the establishment of Jim Crow *cough
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: That was a majority suppressing a minority and not a minority attempting to suppress a majority and it was regional. Jim Crow was awful and it definitely undermined democracy, but it didn’t fundamentally break the constitutional order. There was no yeah, we know you voted to elect this president, but we’ve decided to overturn those results.
Plenty of overturning local elections, in some cases by murdering the elected officials, sure. But targeting already disenfranchised groups. It’s not the same thing
We were able to beat it back (for a while at least) because it wasn’t the same thing. You can’t beat it back through the system if it’s done successfully at the national level.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin:
Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America#Demographics
In several states of the former Confederacy, Blacks outnumbered whites, and for a while, there were multiracial governments. But armed militias overthrew them, and in some cases with extreme violence (e.g. Wilmington, NC). So sure, if you mean that at the national level, the “majority” continued to express its will, maybe that’s true. But not at the state level.
ETA: they weren’t “already disenfranchised groups”: Black Americans got to vote, and they did. This was a violent act of disenfranchisement of groups that were getting their rights for the first time, and *exercising* them.
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: yeah I edited to be clearer.
And I meant disenfranchised in a less technical more modern colloquial sense. Whites held (and still do) more power to commit violence.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
You are strangely misreading history.
When Reconstruction was abandoned, black elected officials were thrown out of office. “Yeah, we know you voted and elected your representatives, but we just decided to overturn the results of the election.”
And of course, later on black people were not allowed to vote. Bigots didn’t have to worry about overturning votes if the vote was never cast in the first place.
Democracy and the constitutional order doesn’t mean much if people are not allowed to participate.
And of course democracy was a sham to the degree to which women were excluded.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: We were able to end that (at least partially) because they hadn’t done that at the national level for the whole country. President was not meant as something to be used as an analogy there. It was specific.
That we’re refighting this is a problem, but if it’s implemented at the national level to where only Republicans can ever have power, we cannot make gains the way we did before. We will be locked out of the possibility of reforms made through the constitutional order. We have never been there.
It’s like if instead of ceceeding the confederates had been able to simply void Lincoln’s election. I’m not so sure the north would have just rolled over and shrugged.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin: Again, not so sure that this is new. Sure, the Civil Rights campaigners were able to redress some small part of the oppression [only a small part] seventy years after the advent of Jim Crow. If that’s the definition of “we had an avenue for redress within the Constitutional order”, well, sure, I guess.
Effectively, for Black Americans, things were over once Jim Crow was the law of the land. They could flee North (to, well, relatively better conditions), and this time, they’ll be able to flee to the coastal Northern and Western cities, sure.
Elizabelle
@Edmund Dantes:
RE Eeyores: it is hardly that I (and several others) do not see the dangers ahead. It is that to fight back requires courage and — yes — the hope that one can effect positive change.
This blog is heavy on people who are in the “we are all so doomed” commenting mode, and it absolutely saps and enervates me. Perhaps others too. I have noticed that a lot of jackals are not participating as much. Maybe it is because they are working hard, in person, in their own communities and states.
This is more of an answer than you deserved, but here it is.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
You keep framing this incorrectly. If you shut any group out of political participation you weaken democracy and the constitutional order. By becoming complicit in restoring white supremacy in the South, politicians of both parties set back the possibility of reform.
As I recall, the North didn’t just roll over and shrug in response to secession.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
All very true.
I will take some exception that those buying the loyalty have more than enough to up that reliable factor a bit more than in the past.
Also they seemed to have learned not to purchase higher than third rate or lower loyalty, those who seldom used to get very far up the food chain, so they cost a bit less, and yes, provide less, but are easier and cheaper to purchase, thereby extending their usefulness. Also there seems to be an endless supply of third rate or lower beings willing to be bought.
Elizabelle
Adam: I would be interested in disclosure of the names of these captains of industry and millionaires from the 1930s who tried to overthrow FDR and democracy.
We should know what their heirs — and what the family fortunes — are up to, 88 years later.
Assuming that might be in the Sally Denton book?
Matt McIrvin
To quote a movie… we should perhaps be planning not to save American democracy but to avenge it.
RevRick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Dave Wasserman of Redistrict is not as pessimistic about the effects of gerrymandering on the House, since, except for Florida, Republican opportunities to do so are limited. Meanwhile, it looks like Democrats in New York and Illinois will be able to brutally gerrymander a number of Republican seats out of existence. The bottom line is he sees no more than a seat or two swing in party alignment due to gerrymandering.
Of greater importance will be the behavior of Hispanic voters. Was what happened in 2020 an aberration or a trend?
Chris Johnson
@Steeplejack:
This. We don’t exist in a vacuum. Outlitigating is exactly what you do to attack gerrymandering, plus the public relations of exposing what’s going on.
People do not want to ‘vote’ in a puppet democracy where their vote is fake. I do wonder whether in order to mobilize against this particular threat, the threat has to be not latent but direct and in place. In other words, you overthrow a dictatorship by first having a dictatorship and documenting that people don’t have their voice, and then the goal is not to flip it to OUR dictatorship but to reestablish what’s broken.
Tricky, but it’s a game plan. The important thing is that dictatorships are fragile: they require a hell of a lot of loyalty and control of the military etc. to persist at all, otherwise they implode when they try to do unreasonable things and get caught doing them.
Since the first order of business for our little dictatorship is rolling back all civil rights and since that encompasses LOTS of the electorate, I think they’re looking to reap the whirlwind. I’m just interested in managing that so we can have rule of law, and democracy, back.
Burnspbesq
Beat that drum all you want. Got an action plan?