2018, Perhaps The Most Important Election EVER

Signs of a developing trend leading to the crucial midterm election on November 6 have been in abundance in early special elections. Americans almost always seem to reprimand the party holding the White House in elections held at the halfway mark of a president's term. (DAMN! It just dawned on me, that must be why they call them the "midterm elections." See, just give me a few decades and I can figure it out.) It doesn't always seem to mean that Americans dislike the president in office at the time, but all presidents step on some toes, and those with smarting toes are highly motivated to limp to the polls to vote, often leading their own party to turn out in large enough numbers to give anything from a nudge to an outright smack upside the head to the occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, better known as the White House. There have been numerous special elections since Donald Trump took office in January 2017, and while these elections have produced a number of Democratic wins, including some stunning wins, even the Democratic losses have shown a major narrowing of the margins of Republican victories, compared to recent historical Republican margins in those regions. 

Thoughtful change often wins in the end, but it can take time and the question is, can American institutions and American ideals hold on long enough to win against a man who longs to destroy American democracy so that he can become the undisputed Führer of the United States? Republicans in Congress have knowingly rolled over for this strident, divisive and highly insecure president. Have we forgotten the longstanding question about Hitler and Germans? How could an educated and cultured people follow such a self centered and maniacal man like Hitler, a man with obvious emotional problems? We need not ask that question any longer, for the answer is right before our eyes in the United States of America, where a bigoted, resentful and spiteful old bastard with a bad hairdo has risen to lead this country (hey, Hitler had a bad hairdo too). The GOP has long cultivated the uneasiness of some white Americans about the attempts of black Americans, as well as other American minorities, like Latinos, women (who are actually a majority) and gays, to gain equality and fairness in our society. The thing is, in my lifetime, I have heard many divisive statements by American politicians, including, but not limited to, George Wallace* in the 1960s and 1970s, and David Duke** in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, but I've never heard a president of the United States use so much divisive rhetoric to further his own cause and to satisfy his own ego, as one Donald Trump, the unity of the country be damned!      

This upcoming election is likely to be a fight to the death. Are Democrats, independents and anti Trump Republicans ready? Trump and the complicit and enabling Republicans will do anything and everything to minimize their losses and hold onto their control of Congress. The Koch brothers, the Mercers and all of the other "take me back to a previous century" people will spend unprecedented amounts to further Republican control of government. They will say it is to further the Republican Party, but that party is now the party of Donald Trump, which they will NOT tell you. Will the election prove to be the beginning of Trump's political demise, or will he and Republicans emerge stronger than ever, and likely be able to suppress the rights of Americans to protest and to stop the media from reporting critical news articles about them? Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China are Trump heroes, and they are dictators. We don't need to dig up Einstein to connect the dots for us to understand where Trump stands on democracy. This is all in front us, not hidden somewhere in the shadows of the news. Don't be in denial. Don't stick your head in the sand. We can't take our eyes off of them for one second. The young people of this country have stirred and have been springing into action. They can help to lead us through the potentially destructive nightmare of Trumpian fascism.

For the last couple of centuries, people around the world have looked to the United States as a beacon of hope. Some people have been inspired by the U.S. to pursue freedoms within their own respective countries, while others have left their homelands bound for American shores. We're seeing the light of that beacon flickering like a kerosene lamp running low on fuel. The question is, will WE choose to refill the lamp and keep this beacon of hope shining, or will we let the lamp go dry and extinguish its light, letting the path of hope go dark? We now have a man in office who praises dictators and judges people not as individuals, but by their ethnic, racial or religious backgrounds. That's what Führers do.


* George Wallace was the governor of Alabama in the 1960s, a time when desegregation of schools and public facilities was ongoing. For more on the issue of desegregation and racial politics, here are  two links: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-former-confederacy-modern-american_8.html 

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-former-confederacy-modern-american_15.html 

** David Duke is a long time member, and a former leader, of the "Ku Klux Klan," often known by its initials, "KKK," a racist and overall hate filled group dating to the post Civil War era in the American South. Duke was born in Oklahoma, but he has spent much of his life in Louisiana. As most Southerners of earlier times, Duke was a Democrat, and he sought office as such, but as Louisiana and the South, in general, moved more to the Republican Party, Duke changed to that party in the late 1980s. Duke became known for his anti Black American and anti Jewish views. 

WORD HISTORY:
Beacon-This word for "a light positioned on some high place to serve as a guide or warning, often for ships, but not exclusively so," goes back to Indo European "bhah," which had the notion, "to shine, to be bright, to appear as bright." This provided the later basis for West Germanic "bauknan" (English is West Germanic), meaning, "signal light." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "beacen/becn," meaning, "sign, signal." This then became "beken," before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German "Bake" (pronounced as if, "bahkeh") meaning, "traffic sign, railway signal," originally used in reference to "a fire set on a geographically high point or in a tower to provide sea navigation);" Low German Saxon "Baak" (sign or signal for ships), West Frisian "beaken" ("buoy"), Dutch "baken" ("beacon"). "Apparently," long ago, Old Norse, from the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, borrowed the word from Frisian as, "bákn," which meant, "signal, signal fire."^ This was passed down to the modern North Germanic languages as: Icelandic "bákn," which now means, "large stone column;" that is, "a column showing direction."

^ Centuries ago, the Frisian word was "baken/beken," and meant "signal or signal fire." Later, Frisian split into dialects, giving West Frisian the altered spelling and the narrowed meaning to the modern "buoy." Researching North Frisian is very hard, but it "seems" to have "beken," but I can't confirm that from multiple sources. North Frisian is spoken in the German region of North Frisia, which also includes a number of North Sea islands, called the North Frisian Islands (someone stayed awake late to come up with that name). Remember too, while North Frisian is the spoken regional language, standard German is taught to everyone in school.   

The Former Confederacy & Modern American Politics, Part Thirteen

NOTE: I forgot to mention this in an earlier segment: In the primaries of 1972, George Wallace ran in the Democratic Party primaries. He opposed busing, but said that he had changed his mind about desegregation in the general sense. In the former Confederate states, Wallace won a stunning victory in the Florida Democratic primary, winning 75 of the state's 81 delegates to the Democratic Convention, with nearly 42% of the vote, far more than any other candidate in the race. Hubert Humphrey finished a distant second with 18 1/2% of the vote, and he won the 6 remaining delegates. Wallace also won big victories in North Carolina, where he received more than half of the primary vote, and in Tennessee, where he garnered more than two-thirds of the vote. In May of 1972, Wallace, while campaigning in Maryland, was shot and paralyzed from the waist down by Arthur Bremer. Bremer, who had actually intended to assassinate President Nixon, but then chose Wallace, was released from prison (probation) in late 2007. The assassination attempt ended Wallace's presidential bid in 1972. I was on my way to umpire a little league baseball game when I heard the news of the shooting, as a man was running along the sidewalk shouting, "George Corley Wallace just got himself shot."

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The 1970s saw the American economy struggling with increased oil and gasoline prices (brought on by instability in the Middle East), which put upward pressure on overall prices, which put a drag on the economy, a situation that came to be called "stagflation." Further, automation continued to whittle away at jobs, and business people with industries in northern cities began to look more and more to the South for ways to cut costs. Southern states had resisted labor unions to a great extent, so business people saw this as a way of cutting labor costs. Gradually this transfer of jobs and industry (and not just heavy duty industry) southward to the "Sunbelt" (named for the warmer climate) would pick up steam, leaving behind the communities in the northern part of the country as the "Rustbelt;" that is, older, declining industrial centers. The Confederacy had surrendered more than a hundred years before, but suddenly the slogan "the South will rise again," began to come into play.

The Republican Party had long been tilted in the direction of conservatism, going back more obviously to the split in the election of 1912, which saw former Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, run against his Republican successor, William Howard Taft, who proved to be too conservative for the more progressive Roosevelt.* This split allowed the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson as president. Wilson was a Southerner, having been born in Virginia and raised there, as well as in North Carolina. He later became president of Princeton University in New Jersey, which led to his election as governor of that state.

With the Great Depression and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in four successive elections, Republicans generally staked out positions at least somewhat to the right of Roosevelt. This general tendency toward conservatism was solidified during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, as Republicans, generally seen as pro-business, were also seen as, and campaigned on, being the party of law and order, especially as compared to the Democrats, who slugged it out with each other over the Vietnam War, segregation and many social issues, such as abortion and women's rights, in the 1960s and 1970s, leaving socially conservative elements of the party to come more into play for Republicans. If you've been following this series, you've seen the Republicans become more and more competitive in the former Confederacy.

A longstanding foreign policy issue was over the Panama Canal, or actually more specifically, the Panama Canal "Zone," which had been under U.S. control from the time of Teddy Roosevelt. The overall debate about the canal zone is complex, as the international situation of the U.S. versus the Soviet Union, the fear of the spread of communism and the political positions of Latin American governments had much to do with the politics of the canal. "Generally" speaking, many conservatives, sort of led by Ronald Reagan and South Carolina senator, Strom Thurmond, opposed the negotiation of a new treaty about the canal or the canal zone. The issue became highly  contentious, but in the end there were two separate treaties signed and then ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1978 (ratification requires 2/3 affirmative vote of the Senate).

In what became a major event of the times, following a revolution in Iran, which brought to power a fundamentalist Islamic government, more than 50 American embassy personnel were taken hostage and held prisoner beginning in November 1979. The crisis went on and on, and the network news shows (no cable news in those days) began opening their newscasts with, "Day 120," or, "Day 187."** An American military rescue attempt in the spring of 1980 failed and the hostage crisis continued to hang like a dark cloud over the 1980 election process.  

In the nomination process for the 1980 election, incumbent Democrat and Southerner, President Jimmy Carter, was challenged by Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts, the brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and slain presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Carter won all primary contests by big margins in the former Confederacy against Kennedy.

On the Republican side, Ronald Reagan easily defeated George Bush (Sr.), and a number of other candidates, in primaries in states of the former Confederacy, although the vote in Texas was much closer, Reagan 53% to 46% for Bush. Overall, Reagan won the Republican nomination by a comfortable margin.

Next... The Republicans Choose Reagan and The South Follows

* Teddy Roosevelt was a distant cousin of future Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he was the uncle of Franklin's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, the daughter of Teddy's brother.

** A friend of mine told me that his wife, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was so distraught over the hostage situation, that he and his family had to keep her away from the television during the news, as it upset her so much. 

WORD HISTORY:
Ordeal-The main body of this word, "deal," goes back to Indo European "dail/dhail," which meant "divide." This gave Old Germanic "dailiz/dailaz," meaning "a part, a share, a portion." The prefix "or-" goes back to Indo European "uds," with the notion of "upwards, up, out." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "uz," meaning, "out, out from, away from." In Old English this developed into "or-," while in German, for instance, it developed into "ur-" (originally "ir-," and it also gave German the prefix "er-," for many words, and in English also "a-" as a prefix in some words). The prefixed form in West Germanic was the verb "uzdailijan," meaning, "to deal out a judgment;" that is, "to give a verdict." Lying behind the meaning was the notion of "judgment received from the gods," and later, after Christianity spread among the Germanic tribes, "judgment by God;" that is, "judgment rendered by a physical test," as survivors or those uninjured were seen as innocent and non survivors or those injured were seen as deservedly dead or injured, as they had been guilty. "Ordeal by fire" is still something we hear of in modern times. The West Germanic word produced the Old English noun "ordal," meaning, "judgment by test;" with the spelling later becoming "ordeal," and the meaning of, "something that severely tests a person," still very much a meaning in the word, which has kept it much closer to the original meaning; whereas, in the other West Germanic languages, the word has come to mean "judgment, verdict," in the more general sense, without the "physical test" element. Forms in the other West Germanic languages: German has "Urteil," Low German Saxon "Ordeel," Dutch "oordeel," West Frisian "oardiel." 

The Former Confederacy & Modern American Politics, Part Seven

While parts of this information does not just pertain to the former Confederacy, it is necessary to explain what was going on in the country and to set the stage for the political events in the southern states.

During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement began to often blend with anti Vietnam War protests on college campuses and in many cities. In the former Confederate states, where many white citizens already opposed the Civil Rights Movement, many of the same white citizens felt very comfortable opposing the antiwar protests, too. The overlap of protests (and many protesters), which often times ended in confrontations with police or campus authorities, made a number of Americans feel that there was a breakdown in law and order. As President Johnson prepared to run for reelection in 1968, he faced serious challenges from within the Democratic Party, primarily over his handling of the Vietnam War. After a narrow win in the New Hampshire Primary over Senator Eugene McCarthy (of Minnesota), Johnson made an announcement that stunned many Americans; he was withdrawing from the presidential race.

1968 proved to be a violent year, as the war continued, and with the assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee in April* and Robert F. Kennedy,** the brother of assassinated president, John F. Kennedy, and a Democratic primary candidate himself, in June. Protests at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago turned violent and Americans were stunned by the images on their television screens of the violence outside the convention hall. Richard Nixon was the choice of Republicans to lead their ticket and he chose Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland as his running mate. Democrats finally had settled on Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey (who was the sitting vice president), and he chose Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine as his running mate. As if to confirm how divided the country was at the time, segregationist George Wallace of Alabama entered the presidential race under the banner of the American Independent Party, an action which struck at the very core of the Democratic Party coalition and which gave Nixon an excellent chance at winning.

George Wallace drew lots of support in the former Confederate states, and even elsewhere, as his typical speech played off of the prejudices of supporters, not only about race, but against the changing clothing and hair styles, as bell-bottom jeans and long hair were becoming increasingly common among men. Wallace's appearances drew protesters and as they shouted obscenities at Wallace, he would turn to them and say, "There are two four-letter words you people don't know: (and he would spell out) W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P." For a time, polls showed Wallace running ahead of Democrat Hubert Humphrey, but as election day approached, more Democrats got behind Humphrey and, when the votes were counted, it was pretty close.

Republican Nixon won 301 electoral votes and slightly less than 43 1/2% of the popular vote. Of the former Confederate states, Nixon won Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Democrat Humphrey won 191 electoral votes and slightly more than 42 1/2%, but he carried only Texas among the Confederate states. American Independent Wallace won 46 electoral votes and 13 1/2%. He carried five former Confederate states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. In the Senate, the Republicans (Edward Gurney) won a Florida race for the first time since Reconstruction. In the House of Representatives delegations, changes came in three of the former Confederate states, as Republicans made gains: North Carolina had 7 Democrats and 4 Republicans; Texas had 20 Democrats and 3 Republicans; Virginia had 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans.         

* Reverend King was shot and killed by racist James Earl Ray, who died in prison in Nashville, Tennessee in 1998.

** Robert Kennedy was shot and killed by anti-Israel Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan, who had lived both in Jordan and in the United States. Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles in June, 1968 and he died the next day. Sirhan, now in his 70s, is serving a life sentence in California.  

WORD HISTORY:
 Lyre-The origin of this word for the stringed "harp like" instrument is unknown, but Greek had "lýra," which was used for the instrument. Latin borrowed the word as "lyra," and this was passed to Latin-based Old French as "lire." English borrowed the word from French in the early 1200s. The word is pronounced as if, "liar," so if you say you can play the instrument, but you can't, that would be, "Lyre, lyre, pants on fire!" 

The Former Confederacy & Modern American Politics, Part Four

Schools throughout the United States were segregated, with all schools in the former Confederacy being so. This whole order of segregated education, and of segregated public facilities in general, was reinforced by a Supreme Court decision in the 1890s known as "Plessy versus Ferguson," which blindly accepted the notion that separate white and black schools and other facilities were "separate but equal." The idea that in the former Confederate states, and elsewhere, for that matter, that black schools were funded to an equal degree as white schools was a bunch of nonsense, and by the mid 1950s, the Supreme Court unanimously declared it to be nonsense in the case, "Brown versus the Board of Education (of Topeka, Kansas)," as state and local laws making for segregated schools were declared unconstitutional.

Actually desegregating schools has been a challenge ever since, but for the first several years, there were outright confrontations over the issue, such as in Arkansas, where Governor Orval Faubus, a Democrat, ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block black students from entering, what had been, the white high school in the state capital of Little Rock. This brought President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, to send in U.S. Army troops and placing the Arkansas National Guard under his overall control, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. By the early 1960s, Democrat George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama, and he made the television news by standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block the entry of black students. President John Kennedy ordered the National Guard to secure the admittance of the students.      

WORD HISTORY: 
Segregate-This compound, "somewhat" distantly related to "aggregate," goes back to Indo European "se(d)," which had the meaning, "alone, separate, apart." This gave Latin "se," used as a prefix. The main body of the word goes back to Indo European "ger," which had the notion, "to put together, to gather together." This gave Latin "grex," which meant "herd or flock." The direct form seems to have come from either the genitive, "gregis," dative "gregi," or ablative "grege." When combined, Latin had "segregare," which literally meant, "to set apart from the herd," but more practically, "to set aside, to divide off." One of its participle forms was "segregatus," and this was borrowed by English in the mid 1500s. 

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Eight

The 1976 Republican nominating process was a tough one, with incumbent President Gerald Ford challenged by former California Governor Ronald Reagan; but a little background first. The 1964 Republican contest had shown conservatives strengthening their hold on the Republican Party, as conservative Barry Goldwater won the nomination. What was left of the progressive wing of the Republican Party, most symbolized in those days by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, began to fade into what might be termed "moderates," which included Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Reagan, a former Democrat, became a prominent supporter of Goldwater in 1964 and the heir apparent leader of conservatives in the Republican Party after Goldwater's landslide loss to Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Nixon captured the presidency in 1968, as President Johnson and Democrats wrestled with discontent over the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, increasing inflation, and serious divisions within their own political party, as many southern Democrats took to supporting Alabama Governor George Wallace, an avowed segregationist,* who ran for the presidency in 1968 as an independent; thus siphoning off both popular votes and electoral votes from Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey. Nixon won a narrow half million vote plurality (43.4%) over Humphrey (42.7%), but Wallace received nearly ten million votes nationwide (13.5%), although the largest portion came in the traditionally Democratic South, where he carried five states.** Democrats were obviously in trouble, as a significant part of their coalition abandoned them for Wallace. The 1972 election saw a landslide reelection of Nixon, as Democratic Senator George McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and losing the popular vote to Nixon 60.7% to 37.5%. This time, in a forerunner of what was to come later, the Solid South voted solidly Republican.

Republican momentum at assembling a dominant coalition was halted by events and a self-inflicted wound. Events had to do with the winding down of the Vietnam War, where American troops were being withdrawn in stages, and conflict in the Middle East, which brought an oil embargo by Arab nations against the United States for its support of Israel in a war begun in October 1973. The oil shortage created long lines at American gas stations and escalating inflation, which was already becoming a problem as a drag on the slowing economy. The self-inflicted wound was by Nixon and some of his aides. Burglars broke into the Democratic headquarters in Washington D.C, in the Watergate complex, but they were captured. The resulting investigation led Nixon and his closest aides to cover up information about the break in and about other activities initiated by his reelection staff and White House personnel. The whole ordeal came to be called "Watergate," and Nixon resigned in August 1974, with Vice President Gerald Ford becoming president.*** 

Since Nixon would not have been able to run again anyway, as he was term limited, Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, was clearly a force to be reckoned with, as he garnered support from conservatives nationwide. It is interesting that Reagan could run for the presidency, seeing that he warned of the imminent demise of freedom in the country if Medicare became law in the mid 1960s, but Medicare did become law, and freedom lasted to see Reagan run for president in 1976, to see him elected twice, and we're still free in 2012. You think he misjudged? Or exaggerated?

Next, the "Reagan coalition" and the ascendancy of the American political right.

* Wallace carried some of assassinated Louisianan Huey Long's populist ideas along too, as he supported more aid to elderly people on Social Security. As to the red hot issue of the Vietnam War, he preached to either go all out to win the war in a short period of time, or to get out of Vietnam. Wallace was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by Arthur Bremer during the 1972 (not 1968) campaign and was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life, which ended in 1998 at the age of 79. After his presidential campaigns, Wallace renounced his segregationist views.

** Nixon, as are all presidents, was actually elected by electoral votes: Nixon 301, Humphrey 191 and Wallace 46.

*** Ford had been appointed to replace Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973 over legal problems of his own involving tax evasion over brides he received while governor of Maryland.

WORD HISTORY:
South-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain, but it likely goes back to Indo European "shuwen," which meant "sun, bright light." This gave Old Germanic "sunno" (sun), which then spawned "sunthaz," which meant "land or area of the sun, southward." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "suth," with the meaning "south," which later came to be "south." When I was a kid, there were people around who pronounced it "suth," which rhymed with "tooth," and this was likely close to the pronunciation in Anglo-Saxon times. Common in the other Germanic languages: German has "Süd(en)," Low German Saxon has "Süüd," Dutch has "zuid," West Frisian has "Sud(en)," Icelandic has "suthur," Swedish has "syd/söder," Danish has "syd," and Norwegian has "sør."