"Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say to you that it is not America." - Adlai Stevenson, Speech in Los Angeles California (27 October 1956), as quoted in The New America (1971), edited by Seymour E. Harris, John B. Martin, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., p. 249
Unfortunately, Nixonland is as American as the Ku Klux Klan. What Stevenson meant, for he was a very intelligent, idealistic and gracious man, is that this should not be America.
They're coming to take me away. A Ha-Haaa - As in the last decade, it is the GOP ideal, it is its aspiration to "drown government in a bath tub", as Grover Norquist once said. Senator Jim "Dr." DeMento, who has a dream to replace Mitch McConnell as his Party's leader in the Senate. did lately announce that his goal for the Senate is "complete gridlock" and that he wants to stop every program that violates his anti-Big Government ideology. In the meantime, there are various Senate candidates, like Sharron Angle although she is by no means the only one, who just want to line the folks with whom she disagrees and shoot them.
As has been usual since Eisenhower, the Republicans have no plan for governing the nation unless it involves invading some other nation. At least Ike wanted to build some roads, to vaccinate some kids, to make certain the nation's power grid was up to the job and to ensure that there were plenty of golf courses.
I won't catalog every major Tea Baggie type Movement toward Nixonland that we have endured. They predate the adoption of the US Constitution. Such major embarrassments to the body politic have erupted like giant zits at least once every generation. After all, religious fanatics whose religion is modeled on monarchy and empire with their constant bowing down and "Hallelujahs," "Masters," "Lord of Lords," "Kind of Kings." and "Our Will Be Thines" are not the most promising material upon which to build democratic republics Talk about building a house on sand.
But, I want write a few words about The Know-Nothings This is the one they should teach about in sixth grade. The Know-Nothings are the original anti-anchor baby, anti- Muslim Catholic movement. Let's face it, the first anti-anchor baby movement on this continent probably occurred about 8000 BCE in Alaska when the Americas' first human immigrants became concerned that there might not be enough room for all the people crowding in from the old country. However, the Know Nothings were the first well documented US movement. It was an anti-immigration political movement of the 1840s and 1850s, empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Despite the fact that Germans made up at least a third of the population of the thirteen colonies at the time of the Revolutionary War and that the Irish also made up a substantial portion of the colonists in the south, the passing of the Age of Enlightenment into the Romantic Age seemed to drain more than a substantial number of points from the national IQ. This second wave of German and Irish immigrants was regarded by the fearful as being hostile to WASP American values because the immigrants were obviously controlled by the Pope in Rome.
The Know Nothings were mainly active as a political entity, known as the American Party, between 1854 and 1856. Membership was limited to Protestant males of British descent over the age of twenty-one. The movement was largely middle-class and, obviously, entirely Protestant. As soon as it tried to flex political muscle, it fragmented over the issue of slavery just as today's Tea Baggies will likely tear apart over issues of social justice. Most Know Nothings ended up joining the Republican Party by the 1860 Presidential election. However, Southern pro-Slavery Know Nothings joined the Democratic Party. They did not join the Republican Party until 1970.
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin Exactly who is coming to take whom is very much up in the air. We do not need an modern American Kristallnacht to add to the many regrettable incidents in our history. Being against a GOPee takeover of Congress is a good reason to vote for and even work for their opponents, even if those opponents are not quite one's cup of java. It does not mean those opponents get blind, blanket approval or a free pass on their more egregious shortcomings. When a better, electable person can be found to replace a particular individual, let the games begin. However, let's not put the cart before the horse. More importantly, before anyone talks about his lack of enthusiasm and decides to sit things out or register some sort of protest vote, remember what happened from 2001 to 2006 because so many people decided to sit things out or register protest votes in 2000.
Keeping a working majority in the Senate is far more important than idealogical purity. FDR knew that. That's the reason he fired Henry Wallace. Wallace was a fine person, an excellent executive and an administrator of the first rank who made an enormous contribution to the War effort among other things. But, his arrogant self-righteousness made so many political enemies within the Democratic Party and among our war allies that FDR chose to replace him as his Vice-President with Harry Truman in 1944.