A Political History of America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or how Democrats became Federalists and Republicans became Federalists

 

The old Republican party is already ruined, past redemption. New men and new maxims are the order of the day. ~John Randolph 1806

When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. ~Thomas Jefferson 1821

 

We need the Quids

A splinter faction from Thomas Jefferson’s party called the Tertium Quids, which means “third thing” in Latin,  were led by the brilliant but highly eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke, Va. Members of this faction often called themselves the “Old Republicans,” to differentiate themselves from the mainstream Republicans, who they believe had abandoned the principles of the founding.   

 

They were the cross-party faction of Federalists and Democratic-Republicans in the period of 1804-1812 before the collapse of the First Party System in 1824. At the time the Federalists promoted the financial system of  the Treasury, which emphasized federal assumption of state debts, a tariff to pay off those debts, a national bank to facilitate financing, and encouragement of banking and manufacturing. Whereas the Democratic-Republicans opposed a strong executive power, were hostile to a standing army and navy, demanded a limited reading of the Constitutional powers of the federal government, and strongly opposed the Treasury financial program.

 

We're all Federalists now Baby!

John Randolph was the leader of the "Old Republicans" insisting on a strict adherence to the Constitution and summarized their principles as a  "love of peace, hatred of offensive war, jealousy of the state governments toward the general government; a dread of standing armies; a loathing of public debts, taxes, and excises; tenderness for the liberty of the citizen; jealousy, Argus-eyed jealousy of the patronage of the President."

 

Me? I stand with John Randolph.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertium_quids

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/liberty-and-order-in-the-slave-society/

http://www.humanevents.com/2011/12/19/ron-paul-and-the-rise-of-the-new-tertium-quids/

 



About that election...

Where did all the Whiteys Go?

Romney received around 57.8 million votes in 2012. In 2008, John McCain received 59.9 million. Romney got over 2 million fewer votes than McCain.

Obama received 60.6 million votes in 2012, almost 9 million less than he received in 2008.

Romney won independents by 5 points, and they made up 29% of all voters. McCain didn’t win independents.

What does this really mean? That’s where the hurt comes. It appears to mean that our side lost because we failed to turn out our side. (Paul Kengor - McCain beats Romney)

I am uninterested in the post-election naval-gazing, but I find analysis of the numbers fascinating, and Sean Trende is one of the best. He’s not a Carl Rove that tells the base what they want to hear. He is a numbers guy who knows how to read them and explain them. He blogged about the polling discrepancies we saw pre-election, and he was one of the few who did not jump on the “the polls are wrong, Romney will win” bandwagon.

He analysis of this year’s election result numbers suggest that this was not a demographic tidal wave, sweeping the old and the white out in an undertow to oblivion.

The increased share of the minority vote as a percent of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the denominator. (The Case of the Missing White Voters)

White people are still out there, they just didn’t vote at 2008 levels.

if our assumption about the total number of votes cast is correct, almost 7 million fewer whites voted in 2012 than in 2008. This isn’t readily explainable by demographic shifts either; although whites are declining as a share of the voting-age population, their raw numbers are not. (The Case of the Missing White Voters)

He goes into an in-depth analysis of Ohio, finding that the biggest drop in voting happened in heavily white, blue collar and high unemployment areas of the state.

Yuval Leven expounds on this finding:

the story of this election is not massive turnout of the Democratic base but exceptionally depressed turnout of a portion of the electorate that, when it votes, tends to vote Republican.

Those were after all the two parts of President Obama’s cynical and substance-free campaign strategy: to work the most intensely committed and reliable parts of his base into a frenzy while persuading the least committed and reliable part of the Republican base (white working-class voters) that Mitt Romney didn't deserve their support so they should just sit it out.
[…]
using any low and mendacious tactic required to tell working-class voters (especially white, Midwestern ones) that Mitt Romney was an evil and uncaring plutocrat—was by far the more successful and important. Those voters were not going to support Obama, but they could be kept away from Romney, and evidently they were. (The Election and the Right)

This is not a Rovian cry of “Obama suppressed the white vote!” President Obama’s team did what campaigns do, so it is far from unprecedented. They won fair and square. And how dumb do you have to be to let a few campaign commercials talk you into staying home? These were GOP voters that the party and the candidate could not motivate to get up off of their asses and go vote their own interests.

Levin’s message: Don’t pander, present your core beliefs, and run with a positive message of who you are. Romney was a clean slate to many, and millions of dollars of attack ads successfully painted him as a rich plutocrat who not only wants to fire you, but who will kill your wife as well and make your raped daughter carry that baby to term. And it worked, because Romney and the GOP failed to define their candidate and their message.

 Such is politics.

See also:  The voters Who Stayed Home

Bread, Circuses, and Common Sense

"Bread and Circuses" from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace, as an offered "palliative."

Some 1900 years ago the Roman poet Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal) wrote:

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

Populism, or populist democracy has been around for a long time, it comes when you vote for politicians who promise you things you know you can't have.

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them a general favor; long a habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom.  But the tulmult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."  ~Thomas Paine, Common Sense.

Common Sense... a quality we seem to have lost when evaluating political pitches.  We lack common sense when we believe someone who tells us we're going to cover millions of people with medical insurance on the same number of doctors and facilities, and it is going to save us money.

We lack common sense when we believe someone who tells us we are going to raise enough revenue to cover the deficit by lowering taxes. Common sense dictates you pay off debt either by spending less, or earning more.

Next time some politician tells you something that doesn't pass the common sense test.... boo them offstage. We have to stop rooting for the home team like its a sporting event and start holding our 'players' accountable for their actions. 

And... if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Face it, both the Republican Party and Democratic Party are seriously screwed up, in some ways the same, in others different.  But as long as we keep filling the stands and cheering nothing will change.

I don't want to hear what is wrong with the other party.  I'd like to offer you the opportunity to tell us what you think is wrong with your party. Let's stop talking about 'them' and start talking about we.