Dana Blankenhorn

1876: Original Sin, Republican Hell

Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election are not unprecedented.

Republicans have already won twice this century without getting the most votes. Gore outpolled Bush. Clinton outpolled Trump. If just 45,000 votes in a few states had gone the other way, Trump would have won again.

But this isn’t new. Twice in the 19^th century Republicans won the White House while losing the popular vote. The 1888 election, with Benjamin Harrison beating Grover Cleveland, was like 2016.

It’s the 1876 election that is the Republicans’ original sin.

After 8 years of Reconstruction, with the South occupied, Wall Street was tired of it. New York had never been behind Lincoln’s War. The Panic of 1873, caused by New York greed, was still laid entirely at the feet of Washington. Mark Twain’s least successful book, The Gilded Age, is also the one he didn’t write by himself. Charles Dudley Warner, an essayist, was co-author. It’s as if Mozart wrote an opera with Salieri. It's the very definition of gilded, and history isn't fooled. 

But the book’s name became that of the era. The late 19^th century was truly gilded. Wealth was designed to impress, but it was all show. There was nothing behind it. Speculation ran rampant, and big railroad owners were like wolves. I’m considered out of step for saying this but the Progressive Era’s reforms were driven by Wall Street, by men like J.P. Morgan, forced to personally step in and stop the Panic of 1893, acting again in 1907. The only solution for the excesses of the market, it would turn out, was the firm hand of government. When everyone is a crook, civilization requires cops.

Flexibility

When the nation state came to glory in the 19^th century, it was as a bulwark against religion.

The great threat of our time is the unity of the state and religion.

It’s happening everywhere. The dominant religion unites with the local dictator, then oppresses or exterminates all opponents. The religion threatens those who see faith differently. The state goes after secular critics.

The result can be stability, even short-term prosperity, if a nation’s business leaders throw in with the dictator. This has kept Latin America in bondage to its “iron triangle” of church, police, and oligarchs for two centuries.

This is the real threat to American democracy. It’s not Trump.

We pretended it was Trump because he was an easy target. He was such a clown, so obvious. Yet he only lost by 7%. He still got 47% of the vote. People ask how. It was the iron triangle. Churches, in this case evangelical protestants, right-wing Catholics and orthodox Jews. Wall Street, the oligarchs who run money instead of making it. Police, especially the unions.

The victory of secularism and democracy was narrow. It was top-down. Republicans still dominate the Congress and the courts. The crisis of our time is not over.

Look around the world. The situation is worse.

The Caudillo Model

American ideas in governing have been dominating the world for nearly 250 years.

The Declaration of Independence was the first truly revolutionary document, its ideals a model for democracies ever since.

But other American governing inventions aren’t worth celebrating. Our genocide of the American Indian became a model for dictators worldwide. Our Constitution was designed to enshrine slavery. The idea of eugenics, that certain people were genetically inferior and deserved to be eliminated, became Hitler’s model for the Holocaust.

A later invention is now threatening to undo all the work of the Declaration. That’s the Monroe Doctrine.

On its face, the doctrine written by John Quincy Adams and pronounced by James Monroe is nothing but beneficial. It proclaimed that Europe should keep its hands off the Americas. But it didn’t promise that this country would keep its hands off.

Since the doctrine was first promulgated, in 1823, the United States has treated the rest of the hemisphere as its empire. We invaded Mexican, seizing the larger half of it. We created Panama to build the canal there. We acquired Puerto Rico in a war and still hold it.

Solving the Barrett Problem

The problem of Amy Barrett is solvable.

You don’t have to increase the size of the Supreme Court. Congress can simply create an “emeritus” class of Supreme Court justices.

Any justice age 70 or over becomes “emeritus.” They no longer sit in the chamber during arguments. They no longer must live in Washington. They can advise during arguments, they can file briefs on cases, and they can act as District Court judges when needed. Richard Posner did this in the case of Apple vs. Motorola, telling both sides they had lost. Emeritus judges can also work on their legacies, something they can’t do now. They can take gigs at law schools, or at law firms.

Right now, 3 justices are 70 and over – Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. Under this Judiciary Act of 2021 they would automatically go to emeritus status, with all the perks and opportunities that provides. Younger justices may also choose to retire early. I suspect a “former Supreme Court justice” can make a pile of coin.

Then you appoint replacements. Get two young progressives in for Thomas and Alito to balance the court. Maybe toss Republicans a bone and name Merrick Garland to the third seat.

This assures a steady flow of judicial appointments to every President. It means the court can be renewed continuously, as it should be. The idea of sitting for decades to scratch an ideological itch is ridiculous. A judge is not supposed to care who wins.

The authority of the President and the Congress in this matter is unquestioned. The first Supreme Court, under John Jay, had just 6 justices. Those jurists also had to “ride circuit,” hearing appeals. That’s why our regional appeals courts are called “circuit” courts. The current count of 9 came about in 1869, after Republicans had cut the number to 7, to keep Andrew Johnson from appointing any.  (That law also established the circuit courts.) 

This isn’t “court packing.” If anything, it’s court unpacking. If we get a solid Senate majority, I’m guessing some Republicans will support it. Then we go about increasing the number of District and Circuit court judgeships, to reduce the present backlog of cases. That’s how you balance those courts ideologically.

This is a quick, even fair way of making a one-time reform to the courts and reducing the ideological temperature. You’re appointed for life but go on emeritus status at 70, or whenever you feel ready. You remain useful in that position for life, able to discuss and dispose on legal issues as they come up.

The Common Good

Without an overwhelming victory for democracy on November 3, I’ll be glad to die.

Trump is the ultimate expression of a basic misperception, that private goods matter more than the public goods, that national well-being matters more than global well-being, that fences and borders can isolate and separate us.

This is especially true when it comes to the environment.

My children face a bleak future unless current climate trends are reversed. But the U.S. can’t change it alone. Every country must do its part.

The ice caps’ disappearance means many cities around the world are doomed. New Orleans is doomed. Miami is doomed. New York City is doomed. So are Calcutta, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur. Sea level rise means these places will soon be underwater.

Meanwhile, the methane of the Siberian tundra is bubbling to the surface. Fires in the Amazon and West mean the Earth can no longer breathe. The “habitable” part of the U.S. will be cut by two-thirds within 50 years. The oceans are warming so that, along with overfishing, all that’s left will be jellyfish.

In past bouts of global warming, when the ice caps disappeared, nature adjusted. Cooling trends returned and nature came back. With man-made global warming, there’s no natural reversal. It takes 80 grams of energy to melt a gram of ice. Once the ice is melted, 80 grams of energy take its temperature to 112.

The Great Panic of 2020

The 2020 campaign isn’t marked by much movement in the polls.

Joe Biden has been ahead all year by anywhere from 5-10 points. The margin has been increasing, as Trump has acted like every suburban housewife’s abusive ex-.

Yet to read Lefty Twitter, you would be certain Trump is going to be President this time next year.

Uh, no. My guess is he won’t even be alive. When he realizes he’s going to be held to account, I suspect, he’ll take the coward’s way out.

Trump wants to steal the election, and is threatening a coup, because he knows he has lost.

The Tides of History

Ignore the polls that claim there’s a close election going on. Use your own intuition. You can feel the tide under your feet.

2020 has been a shit show. The idea that no one has changed their political views as a result is crazy. Yet that’s what everyone in Washington thinks, including those whose job (or hobby) it is to analyze elections.

Truth is there’s a tsunami out there.

History is made by people who create these tides. Great men (and women) are those who ride them. Villains are those who defy them.

Trump-ism and the Overton Window

Here’s something I never wanted to write, and something it will pain you to read.

Donald Trump is the most consequential President of our lifetime.

He has done far more than Hillary Clinton ever could, ever would, or ever thought of.

Yes, it’s all terrible stuff. Consequential doesn’t mean good. It means significant. Adolf Hitler “won” Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” multiple times. That doesn’t mean he was good, or that Time liked him. But when it comes to the history of the 20^th century, he was consequential.

Like Hitler, Trump is doing truly terrible things. Constantly. There’s not enough time to list it all.

Public Goods and Private Goods

Democrats re-made Woodrow Wilson into a liberal to win the peace of WWII.

The myth was that the peace of the Civil War, and that of WWI, were punitive. This hurt economies and led to new war.

Determined not to make those mistakes again Roosevelt called his alliance against Hitler the “United Nations.” His wife, the forever-underestimated Eleanor Roosevelt, was a key actor in creating today’s UN. FDR’s top general, George Marshall, became even more important after FDR’s death because of the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan did more than just pour money into Europe’s economies. It created a new economic model. It assumed that, while private goods are important, there should also be growing demand for public goods. These include education, health care, infrastructure, defense, civil law, and the environment.

Putting Our 20th Century into Perspective

As much as we’re (rightly) reviling Woodrow Wilson for his racism, he’s still an important figure in liberal history.

Wilson named Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. He initiated the income tax and the Federal Reserve. During Wilson’s term, the 19^th Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote.

But it’s what was done with Wilson’s memory that we should focus on. Wilson was one of only two Democrats elected to the White House between Lincoln and FDR. In building a history for his own ideas, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t have much to choose from. He had also served Wilson’s Administration as assistant secretary for the Navy and tried to succeed him as James Cox’s VP candidate in 1920, running on a Wilsonian platform.

Thus, Roosevelt used Wilson’s memory as a gloss to pass New Deal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority, which transformed the South. Even more important was how Roosevelt used Wilson’s last crusade, on behalf of a League of Nations. You can see this laid out in the propaganda Hollywood produced about Wilson in 1944.

“Wilson” is garbage as history or biography. It starts in 1912. It ignores Wilson’s racism entirely. But as hagiography it’s first-rate. In it he’s an academic and reluctant politician, incorruptible, a relentless reformer. In life he was nothing of the sort.