Think of this as Volume 14, Number 13 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I’ve written since 1997. Enjoy.
Ironic, is it not, that William Ayers was dragged into the 2008 campaign as a symbol of “Obamaism,” because he had so much in common with the Bushies who today make up the Tea Party.
He began life as a patriot, who protested the actions of his government while people were being killed by it. But, while giving lip service to his cause, the government turned in another direction, and he was moved to violence. It’s something he now regrets, but even 40 years later that gives him no credit. His name lives in infamy.
What’s different between that day and this is that the Democratic Party of 1970 was seeking to disassociate itself from its fringe elements while today’s Republican Party is embracing them. That’s what the commentary which leads this Clue is all about.
I don’t think we are in danger of losing the next election, or the one after that, or as many after that as we may bring honest governance. I believe that our political course is set, that the Obama Thesis will be validated and vindicated, over time, through all the years of my life.
But I do think we could lose the culture and history’s verdict. The two are related. This is a great risk to successful political movements. The world moves on, and much of the great work which follows can be misunderstood, even overturned, because supporters grow quiet while opponents remain passionate.
Of those who have created political theses that lasted a generation only two — the Roosevelts — were able to control the culture and have the history of their time written as they wanted it. Lincoln and Nixon both failed this crucial test.
Exhibit A. Until Sean Wilentz reminded us all of U.S. Grant’s real record as President, most were content to see him only as the man who ushered in the “Gilded Age,” as a quiet man in over his head, surrounded by corruption. In fact Grant pursued Reconstruction vigorously, with blacks given rights and power they would not hold again for a century.
Instead generations were taught — I was taught — that Andrew Johnson was the hero of Reconstruction, that the Reconstruction period was marked by “carpetbaggers and scalawags,” and that while Grant was a brave general he was among our worst Presidents. I was taught this in New York, in the 1970s.
But his contemporaries knew better. He was a great hero to Mark Twain, who became his good friend, publishing Grant’s autobiography at great risk and with an enormous royalty in order to protect his family from destitution as cancer began taking him.
To the men of that Army it was Grant who was the Reagan of the era, not Lincoln. It was Grant who won the war, and Grant who won the peace. That’s why he’s on the $50 bill, and that’s where he should remain. (I think Reagan needs something like a $1 coin. Best way to get it circulated.)
How did the GOP of that era lose history? Partly it was their own harping on it. “Waving the Bloody Shirt” became an excuse for active corruption, on the part of the rising Industrial Elite. Even Twain grew disgusted, in Grant’s last days, supporting Grover Cleveland along with his fellow mugwumps. Partly it was down to the persistence of the South, groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy, who pushed the Lost Cause as great and good right through Gone With the Wind.
The point of this story is to remind Democrats that culture is an important element of power, and that every effort must be made, today and tomorrow, to shape the culture, to write it right, to make the story compelling, and to keep the history straight.
Exhibit B. The 1960s, as they were taught for many years through our media, were not what they in fact were. Nixon was the villain, the hippies were the heroes. It was the war against the war that mattered, not the Cold War of which it was a part. Some of the blame here lies with Watergate, which made Nixon as infamous as Ayers. But much of it again was down to persistence, the movement of anti-war veterans into TV, movies, the media, and onto university faculty.
Thus Jimmy Carter really thought he could lead the people where he was going, because he assumed that majority assumptions remained with him. He was wrong, and we have paid for that with blood and treasure in the decades since. Just as black people paid in blood for our revisionism regarding Grant.
Culture and media are where this political battle is moving. He who defines the field wins. The violent rhetoric, and any actual violence, will pass. We are most fortunate that Republicans have aligned themselves with the worst elements among their number, with the haties. This is an opportunity for us to define what has happened, in what we write, in what we produce, in what we teach about these times.
Don’t blow it.
