Dana Blankenhorn

2013: The Shifting of the Political Wind

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 51 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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It is the job of any crisis leader to deal with a fundamental shifting of political winds.

It happens just once in each generation. An existential crisis causes a rising generation to adopt new values, and causes some in the older generation to shift theirs. The result is to turn the old majority into a new minority, and vice versa. Until next time.

This has happened 5 times in modern American history. The Civil War. The Progressive Era. The Great Depression. The 1960s. Now, the Great Recession.

Presidents elected at a time of crisis have a unique opportunity. Success puts them at the forefront of great American Presidents. Failure doesn't change the history, it doesn't prevent the turn, but it passes that opportunity on to a successor.

Who are generally acknowledged to be our greatest Presidents?

Impeaching Your Own President

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 46 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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During America's last political crisis, which began with Richard Nixon's election and ended with the validation of his political coalition through Ronald Reagan, a huge strategic mistake was made.

Watergate delayed the conservative movement's march to power by nearly a decade. They'd had a 60-40 win over McGovern, they were well on their way to taking over the South, but because Nixon over-reached, because he was inherently distrustful of democracy – as other conservatives remain – we had six years of what was, in hindsight, an apotheosis of liberalism.

Democrats are, en masse, threatening to make the same mistake, turning away from Barack Obama.

The Money Strike

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 45 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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When your politics is rejected, you feel rejected. When you feel rejected, you predict disaster. When you predict disaster, you dump everything for gold or Bitcoins. When you dump everything for gold or bitcoins you feed a disaster. When you feed a disaster you get a disaster, but not the kind you want.

Don't feed a disaster.

There is a growing chorus predicting imminent disaster for the U.S. economy. They see the dollar becoming worthless, or stocks becoming worthless. They see the economy falling into a black hole.

The Obama Consensus

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 42 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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In the days after the government shutdown everyone on the TV was asking, “Was it worth it?”

My answer? Hell, yes. It was worth it.

Despite the estimated $40 billion in economic activity that didn't occur?

Despite 74% of people saying they want the whole Congress gone, and the President's popularity falling to an all-time low? Despite the fact that this was “only” a three-month respite in the Congressional war?

Yes. And it was damned cheap at that.

The Nature of the Crisis

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 40 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Every crisis in America's history has been a unique mixture of causes requiring a unique cure.

The Civil War was existential, the war itself inevitable. The progressive crisis was governmental. The New Deal problem was economic. The Vietnam crisis was social.

Our present crisis is political. What looked at first like an economic problem turned out to be a political one. This crisis tests whether our political institutions can survive an all-out attack from a determined minority, or whether a system originally designed to protect slavery would also, by its nature, halt the march of progress.

We have the perfect President for this crisis. Barack Obama studied constitutional law. He understands the nature of our political system inside and out. He understands our past and where we need to go.

The Crisis is Upon Us

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 39 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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A hundred and fifty years ago the fate of the nation hung in the balance.

History tells us that the results at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, which came in July, sealed the South's fate. But that wasn't the way people looked at it at the time.

That's because the South believed so strongly in their general, Robert E. “Bobby” Lee. They believed he could keep the North bleeding until it cried uncle, until a new leader like George McClellan took over and sued for peace. They saw the draft riots in New York as a sign of things to come.

History shows they were wrong about the North and it should show they were wrong about Lee. The same Lee who won at Chancellorsville by dividing his army multiple times in the face of superior force threw George Pickett's division into the fire at Gettysburg. That should have ended the war, except Union general George Meade refused to follow-up, which is why Lincoln eventually called for U.S. Grant. Grant and his chief lieutenant, William Tecumseh Sherman, gave Lee the war of attrition he could not answer.

Liberal Ennui

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 37 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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These are hard times to be a liberal. In some ways, it's harder than in the Bush years. At least then we had someone to hate.

When you're in power, you're naturally playing defense. When you're in the 5^th year of a Presidential cycle, you're also expecting bad things to happen. Lincoln didn't survive 1865, McKinley didn't survive 1901, FDR's 1937 was an annus horribilus and the horrors that were unearthed about Nixon in 1973 destroyed him.

Compared with that, the problems Barack Obama has faced are minimal. The economy hasn't been great but it's growing. Syria almost blew up on us but it didn't. Every effort to inject fear has been followed by a relief rally. Health reform is coming into force. Next year's off-year elections don't look like a disaster.

Still, liberals are mostly pissed at this Administration. The NSA revelations have a lot to do with it. The fact that the crooks who got us into the Great Recession are still walking around free. The fact that the President's legislative initiatives aren't just stalled, but they're being slowly reversed, in both state houses and the Capitol.

Breaking the Cycle of Gun Addiction

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 29 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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As drugs were to the 1970s, so guns are to our time.

Drugs like heroin, LSD and cocaine gave an illusion of pleasure and invulnerability to people 40 years ago. Guns today also provide an illusion of safety, and invulnerability.

The sense of invulnerability in the 1970s is exemplified by J.J. Cale's song “Cocaine,” from 1976.  

“She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...cocaine.”  

That's the main lyric. But, of course, cocaine does lie. It's always lied. It lied to John Pemberton (who included it in his original formula for Coca-Cola) and it lied to Sigmund Freud (who thought it therapeutic). It was lying to Eric Clapton when he recorded the song – he has since claimed that it's subtly anti-drug. (That's right, and Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the USA” was an anti-Reagan song. The music means what the public decides it means, not what the artist intends.)

Guns are a lot like cocaine. We know they're dangerous, but in a dangerous time those who are addicted insist they're not. Every week, little kids are dying from finding guns in parents' drawers and playing with them, just like crack babies died in the 1980s.

As a drug, guns are in fact more lethal than cocaine, than LSD, than heroin, because they instantly kill people who have nothing to do with them. For instance, a waitress near the New Jersey border with Pennsylvania was hit in the back by a .22 caliber bullet while working on the bar's deck. Just one of 45 incidents compiled by David Waldman by googling through newspapers.

A University of Pennsylvania study in 2009 showed gun owners more than 4 times as likely to be shot, and more than 4 times as likely to be killed, by guns, as non gun owners. You could say the same thing about cocaine 40 years ago – users were probably that much more likely to die young than non-users.

Arguments for guns sound increasingly like arguments against drug prohibition, with the added lunacy that the Second Amendment is “absolute.” (No amendment is.) They also sound increasingly irrational. But what do you expect when it's those who are addicted to something who are doing the arguing for it.

The solution here is not in the hands of the state, and it's not in the hands of non-gun owners. It's in the hands of gun owners. Prohibition didn't end alcohol addiction in the 1920s, and gun laws won't end gun addiction in our time.

The way forward is the same sort of 12 step program alcoholics go through. Admit you're an addict, find a higher power, make an inventory of the gun addiction and then start trying to make amends. You live without guns one day at a time. It's the only way.

What will it take for this to happen? What will it take for people to “just say no” to guns?

Based on history, it's going to take time. The drug culture raged throughout the 1970s, in large part, because people chose that culture over a mainstream culture that had rejected them.

When people dropped out of politics in the 1970s, they ceased caring of things outside themselves, and they found solace in physicality of all sorts – sex, drugs, rock and roll, even running. Most of those who dropped out had been liberals, they'd been against Nixon and against the war, they'd been for civil rights. But their views were rejected, soundly, repeatedly, and they dropped out.

The numbers on drug addiction, of course, didn't start trending decisively downward until the society began to age out. Addiction is, by and large, a young person's game. They can handle it, and they can lie to themselves that the damage they see in the mirror isn't real.

It's also, mainly, a man's game. Yes, there are female addicts. But most women I know who went into addiction followed a man there.

The same is true for gun addiction. Gun addicts increasingly realize that society is rejecting them. Their politics are increasingly unpopular. Hiding behind gun addiction is one great way to ignore all that, and claim it's not happening.

But it's a lie. Addiction of all kinds is a lie you tell yourself.

How someone reaches the bottom here is unclear to me. Is it when their kid is killed after finding one of their guns, or when the cost of buyng guns and ammunition starts taking away from other things? Or does it happen slowly, as the gun owner realizes how much money is being wasted, and slowly tapers off?

I don't know. I do know that this is not something I, a non gun-owner, can solve. It's not something the state could solve, even if all guns were prohibited tomorrow. It's something only a gun owner can solve, by putting down the weapon, by separating it from its ammunition permanently, and eventually by walking away.

Hopefully, our nation's past experience with alcohol and drug addiction will accelerate that process. But I'm not holding my breath. When the solution to a problem lies in people changing, the only thing you can do is walk away, and wait.

 

The Riding Goes Deep

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 28 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Back in April I wrote about the 4^th Riding of the KKK mainly in terms of the Republican leadership.

But leaders don't go where their followers won't. This riding of the Klan, like all previous ridings, is based in the grassroots.

The first riding was based on a real fear that blacks were taking over the government. Reconstruction made white voters ineligible to vote in the 1860s, so blacks did take over, and the purpose of the riding was to put blacks back in “their place,” a virtual slavery to replace what was now illegal.

The second riding, which coincided with the fall of populism early in the last century, was designed to enforce Jim Crow laws, and pushed millions of blacks into the new industrial ghettoes of the north, which had a brief golden age in the 1920s.

The third riding, starting in the 1950s, was in reaction to the Civil Rights movement, and was designed to minimize the gains of Dr. King and his followers. That movement eventually metastacized into an uneasy racial peace, with whites becoming Republican and suburban while blacks were given the crumbling cities.

Consolation Prize

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 27 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Let's see what's at the cinema:

• After Earth  – A father-and-son find they can only rely on one another after everyone else has been forced to abandon it.
• Man of Steel – Superman turns out to be a farm boy who must choose to fight for Europe against his own people.
• This Is The End – Rich Hollywood stars, and Hollywood, get the apocalypse they deserve. (right)
• World War Z – Only one man can save us from the zombie apocalypse.
• White House Down – A black President and his White House must be saved by a white tourist.
• The Lone Ranger – This time, Tonto tells the tale. And the white guy is still the good guy.
• Red2  – The CIA saves the world from nuclear disaster. 

 

Notice what all these films have in common? They're generally about rugged individuals saving a complex civilization through the use of their rude simplicity. When liberals appear, they're the butt of the joke.

They are all, fundamentally, conservative.