Cromwell

Hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers died to put an end to slavery during the Civil War. Hundreds of thousands more were wounded. Millions of people had their lives disrupted. It was the worst catastrophe our nation has ever experienced.

This doesn’t fit in the narrative of the proponents of reparations, so they just gloss over it. To them, American history is just an unbroken list of evil actions taken by white people against blacks. And so, they go straight from the crime of slavery to the failures of Reconstruction, with nothing meaningful in between. To the extent that the Civil War is addressed at all, it is treated as if it were some sort of natural disaster–a hurricane, perhaps.

Of all the weaknesses in the case for reparations, this one is the most annoying. The fact is that the original sin of slavery was, in fact, redeemed in blood. Logically, the argument for reparations should be based on what happened in the century that followed. I will address that in subsequent posts.

Even the leaders of the red team openly admit that they have lost the culture war. Still, Trump is doubling down in favor of the losing side. How can that make sense?

There are two things at play here. First, GOP voters are typically more motivated by culture war issues than the blue team, which tends to take its successes for granted. Think about guns, for example; every national poll shows strong support for gun control measures, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference, because the politicians know that only the red team comes out to vote on that issue. Second, the raw number of votes on a national basis is meaningless in a presidential election; what matters is the distribution of those votes. If Trump can win over a few thousand swing voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan by putting himself on the wrong side of history, that could be enough to prevail in the election, regardless of his margin of defeat in New York and California.

I’m not saying this approach is destined to work; the electorate is likely to be swayed by the economy and the state of the pandemic, not the Confederate flag. One can’t completely dismiss the possibility, however.

The proponents of reparations have focused on wealth rather than income in their analysis, for three reasons. First, the differences between black and white people are stark, even within the same income groups; second, there is no remedy for these discrepancies in existing law, so a completely new approach would be required to resolve them; and third, since household wealth is accumulated over a period of many years, it inevitably puts most of the blame on our predecessors, not us. It is a politically shrewd decision. But is it logical?

The average working person relies on his income, not his wealth, in about 90 percent of his transactions. The obvious exception would be a large capital expenditure–typically, a house. The location of your house has a clear connection to the quality of education and economic opportunities. And so, the story here is mixed; the proposed connection to wealth does not reflect normal conditions, but is not irrational.

The commercials run by the various GOP candidates in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee don’t mention the pandemic. The recession doesn’t exist. No black lives are being taken by the police. Instead, we live in a world in which the radical left riots and loots for no reason other than they are simply bad people; they are abetted, of course, by Nancy Pelosi and the ubiquitous AOC.

You can see why these kinds of ads appeal to the base; there is no reason to move to the center during a primary. But what about the general election? Will we see more moderate commercials in September and October in an effort to win over swing voters?

All of these people are running as enthusiastic Trump accomplices, so I don’t think so. What you see now is what you will get. The entire party has bought into base mobilization/culture war politics. They will pay for it in the end.

During his Mt. Rushmore speech, Trump broadened his attack on the opponents of traditional American (i.e., Confederate) values to include advocates of cancel culture. My reactions are as follows:

1. The man who persistently identifies the MSM as “enemies of the people” and wants to change defamation laws as a supporter of liberal democracy and the First Amendment? Who is going to buy into that?
2. Cancel culture only has a minimal footprint in the Democratic Party. Joe Biden certainly isn’t a fan, and Bernie Sanders is a class, not culture, warrior. Ten years from now, this may become a serious issue, but not today.
3. As readers of this blog are aware, I have nothing but disdain for Twitter mobs, but they aren’t real mobs. Unlike Trump’s core supporters, they don’t have ropes and guns. All you have to do to avoid them is stay off social media. That’s easy enough; I do it every day.
4. Trump’s real issue is the structure of large social media companies as privately-owned and operated public spaces. He has half a point there. Sooner or later, Facebook in particular will either be broken up or regulated as a public utility, because Mark Zuckerberg cannot be trusted to determine what is and isn’t acceptable public discourse.

Which figure from the American Revolution does Trump most resemble? My initial response was Aaron Burr, who shared his will to power and lack of scruples, but that would be unfair to Burr. The man was a war hero of sorts and a successful lawyer, after all.

No, Trump reminds me more of George III. Can’t you just imagine George telling his ministers to dominate the streets of America? Can’t you see him saying “When they start looting, we start shooting?” Can’t you envision him ignoring the advice of his military experts and insisting that total victory was possible, when it wasn’t? Of course you can.

They came from everywhere. Millions of people, from different countries, with different, and often antagonistic, cultures, histories, and religions, immigrated to America seeking economic opportunity and more freedom. They were a microcosm of the entire world. Somehow, we made it work. America is the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world, and, in the words of Bono, an idea that belongs to everyone.

There were three exceptions to this narrative of success. Native Americans were already here; they paid the price for everyone else. The Chinese suffered significant discrimination, and were even excluded for a time. And Africans, of course, did not come here voluntarily.

For the authors of the 1619 Project, the story of black people in America is the only one that matters. The melding of all of the other wildly disparate groups into a unified entity is of no importance. They were all white, the victims were black, and that is that. America is a hypocritical, racist country run by and for white people. American history is a drama in which black people are the only heroes.

I don’t accept that argument, not because it isn’t true, but because it is only a fragment of the truth. As I said last year, racism shaped this country, but it did not define us. It is a narrative, but it is not the narrative.

Happy Independence Day!

Trump is attending an Independence Day celebration at Mt. Rushmore. There will be no masks and no social distancing.

My response: The only surprise here is that he would deign to appear with presidents who weren’t nearly as awesome as he is.

Life in the time of Trump.

The polls are looking bad.

Election’s just four months away.

Conservatives are mad.

Biden’s got a ten point lead.

The left is celebrating.

Between now and November, sure

There’ll be a lot of hating.

There are three separate threads of reactionary thought:

1. Religious Reactionaries are primarily concerned with the declining status of Christianity in American law, thought, and culture;
2. Economic Reactionaries lament their loss of status as the result of technological change and globalization: and
3. Racial Reactionaries worry that “real” American culture is being swamped by outsiders, who demand cuts in line.

These categories are hardly mutually exclusive; many Reactionaries would fall into all three of them. Not all of them, however.

So how do you deal with them, and are they entitled to any sympathy? In the case of the Christians, they have thousands of years on their side, and they can be mollified by carve-outs. Everyone would agree that we should try to find a way to improve the lot of the second group that doesn’t involve tariffs. Only the third group is beyond redemption. We have nothing to offer them except an acknowledgement that there will always be a place for white people in this country.

I’m old enough to remember when black people were called “Negroes.” In the late sixties or early seventies, it must have been concluded that “Negro” smacked too much of Uncle Tom, so the term of choice was changed to “black.” That made perfect sense. At some point in the late eighties or early nineties, however, the politically correct term changed again, to “African-American.” I wasn’t that wild about this one, as it would literally apply to a white South African who immigrated to this country, but the term stuck, so I went with it. Today, “Black” has suddenly emerged as the PC favorite.

To be honest, I’m torn. On the one hand, I feel like I’m being railroaded by an unrepresentative left-wing Twitter mob; furthermore, it would logically require us to capitalize “White,” as well. On the other hand, I think people have a right to decide what they are called without judgment from outsiders. In the end, I will probably bow to this choice as well, but not without some temporary objections.

Here is what the Chief Justice really meant to say in the abortion case:

Look, Louisiana, I’m on your side. I don’t support abortion. I don’t even think there is any kind of constitutional right to a abortion. But I care about the reputation of the Supreme Court. I can’t have people thinking that we’re just a bunch of unelected politicians in robes. That will damage both the GOP and the country.

Bring me a case that is plausibly different from the last one and I will rule in your favor. This one didn’t pass the straight face test. Better luck next time.

The message from the GOP leadership has completely changed. Mitch McConnell openly supports wearing masks. Fox celebrities have fallen in line. Even Trump no longer disparages them. What’s going on here?

Two things. First, the party is coming across as callous and inept to moderates and the elderly. Second, the refusal to embrace the use of masks has a direct impact on the virus numbers, and, therefore, on consumer confidence.. If Trump has to eat a little humble pie in order to supercharge the recovery, well, so be it.

The real question here is whether the Reactionaries will accept the new message from the leadership and change their behavior. I think it will be a mixed bag. It won’t be nearly enough to bring the economy back.

The commercials for GOP House candidates that I have seen in two states all feature rabid culture warriors who pledge undying loyalty to Donald Trump. Many of them include images of burning cities. More than a few showcase AOC and Nancy Pelosi. But Joe Biden is missing in action. He is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t scare the voters enough to be a target.

That was the point of nominating him. It’s working.

After the election of 1866, the Radical Republicans decided to break up the plantations and distribute the land to the former slaves. In spite of ferocious resistance from the plantation owners, and lukewarm support from war-weary voters in the North, the Union Army succeeded in carrying out the order. A revolution of sorts, it seemed, had come to the South.

Unfortunately, there was far more to operating a successful cotton farm than the willingness to work hard. The former slaves had little access to capital and lacked the technical expertise and the vast web of connections in the business and financial worlds that the plantation owners had developed over the years. As a result, most of the farms went under, and ultimately were repurchased by their former owners. The freed slaves became hired laborers or sharecroppers.

Radical Reconstruction was viewed as a noble experiment that had failed. Subsequent claims for reparations from the descendants of the freed slaves were rejected on the ground that adequate compensation had already been provided to their ancestors.