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Abraham Lincoln

Teaching the Bible in Public Schools

July 7, 2024
by Peter Feinman

As of June 27, the Oklahoma state superintendent of public instruction now requires all public schools to teach the Bible in grades 5-12. The decree is not directed to home school, private voucher schools, and parochial schools presumably because they already teach the Bible! He expects “immediate and strict compliance” to this new policy (see “Oklahoma Moves to Require Teaching the Bible in Public Schools,” (NYT June 28, 2024, front page and “In Culture War Volley, Oklahoma Tests Limits of Bibles in Its Schools, NYT July 1, 2024 print).

Republican Ryan Walters justification for this proclamation is:

“The Bible is an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone. Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation which is why Oklahoma educational standards provide for its instruction…

Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.”

He did not specify what biblical instruction would be. Possible areas include history, civilization, ethics, and contemporary religion. Of particular interest [for the Bible and the Ten Commandments] “is for their substantial influence on the nation’s founders and the foundational principles of the Constitution.”

His has a reputation as a “bombastic figure in Oklahoma politics and an unapologetic warrior in education.”

“In Oklahoma, we are very proud to lead the country on pushing back on the leftists trying to rewrite history and say, No we will teach from the Bible.”

Although he is a member of the Protestant Church of Christ, he said he would not favor a particular version of the Bible.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a statement in response. “This is textbook Christian Nationalism: Walters is abusing the power of his public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else’s children.”

The Oklahoma Education Association said in a statement that Walters “cannot usurp local control and compel education professionals to violate the Constitution.” The group pointed out that the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently decided that school districts have the right to choose which books are available in their libraries and classrooms and “a memo from the State Department of Education does not change that ruling.”

Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, told The Associated Press that Oklahoma law already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and lets teachers use them in instruction.

“…indispensable historical and cultural touchstone” and “to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation”

Let’s ignore issues of freedom of religion and separation of church and state and instead focus on contextualizing the historical and cultural issues that seem to concern the Superintendent.

In his Second Inaugural, Lincoln said both the Union and the Confederates “Both read the same Bible,” his sentiments may have been noble but his facts were in error.

If both sides read from the same Bible, how come they arrive at such different interpretations on slavery? Presumably, classroom teachers will have to deal with students having different interpretations regarding the same passages and words. How are they supposed to respond? What teacher training programs will be developed so teachers can handle differences of opinion?

In addition, not everyone read from the same Bible. In the north there were plenty of Irish (and German) Catholics who did not read from the same Bible as Protestants. This difference had been a bone of contention starting in the 1840s in the Philadelphia school system. Battles were fought, sometimes physically, over which Bible to use in the classroom, Catholic or Protestant.

Even then, there were differences with Jews and Mormons not having the same Bible as Protestants. Since Lincoln’s time, one could add the Eastern Orthodox Bible as the demography of the United States changed. Then there are people who read from no Bible at all or who do not belong to the “People of the Book” or the “Abraham people.”

HISTORY

Let’s narrow the focus to history. Back in the 1600s, the Massachusetts magistrates sought a legal code for governing the new Puritan colony founded in 1630, ten years after the Plymouth Bay colony in 1620 and around the same time Puritan New Haven Colony was formed. They wanted a legal code based on the Bible which could serve as the legal code of the colony.

In 1636, Reverend John Cotton produced such as document. It was published in 1642 as An Abstract of the Lawes of New England.  Since Cotton’s opus rested on the Bible, John Winthrop called it “a model of Moses his judicials.”  Massachusetts never formally adopted this biblical-based law code for the colony. By contrast it remained the legal foundation for New Haven until 1662 when the Cromwell-supporting colony was absorbed by Connecticut.

These earlier colonial efforts represented the most significant effort to make the Bible, especially the Pentateuch, the law of the land. It should be noted that there are 613 laws within the Five Books of Moses, a number which far exceeds the mere ten of the Ten Commandments.

How or will this effort into biblical law as political law be taught? How will teachers be trained in this part of American history? How will the curriculum be changed?

SUNDAY SCHOOL

There is an unsung and frequently overlooked effort to standardize the teaching of the Protestant Bible in Protestant Sunday Schools.  In 1865, Methodist John Heyl Vincent drew on his involvement in Sunday School teaching and his interest in biblical geography to propose the Uniform Lesson Plan in Chicago which he subsequently published in the Sunday-School Teacher in 1866 as “Two Years with Jesus.”  As editor of the Sunday School Quarterly and superintendent of the Department of Sunday School for the Methodist Episcopal Church, he had a forum from which to promulgate his ideas. (Vincent also would found Chautauqua in 1874, “the most American thing in America” according to Teddy Roosevelt.

The Uniform Lesson Plan removed from the local school of teacher the decision-making about the subject and sequence of the lessons to be taught. By uniform lesson, it did not mean that everyone of all ages was taught identically. The uniformity was in the topic or verses from Scripture selected for study. Vincent certainly recognized the need to differentiate the actual lesson based on the different capabilities of the students.  He proposed a four tier system: infants age 3 to 6, primary age 6 to 10, third grade age 10 to 16, and senior grade over 16 including adults all learning the same lesson on the same Sunday simply geared towards their age group.

The idea of uniform lessons soon assumed national importance.  That plan was adopted at the 1872 Sunday School Union conference at the insistence of B.F. Jacobs who had reinvigorated the organization after having been recruited by evangelist Dwight Moody. According to one observer in 1911, Jacobs (of Puritan and Huguenot descent) and Vincent had been “brought together by the good providence of God”.  Once again, Divine Providence had acted in history.

The lessons covered a six-year cycle. They allowed for individual denominations to set the content while the national plan set the schedule for scriptural passages.  One of the challenges was to combine the lessons which had been developed from competing plans into a single unified lesson system.  The compromise solution in 1871 created a composite plan that drew on three sources, two already in existence and third to be developed under the auspices of the new program.  The compromise uniform document was approved at the National Sunday School Convention in 1872 which actually included representatives from Canada, England, and India, hence the International Lesson System.  The adoption process recognized that “our scholars are migratory” and that the new plan would enable them to continue with their studies with the help of their parents and the Sunday-school publications no matter where they happened to be.

During the Gilded Age, Sunday Schools were in their golden age.  Their success as a weapon of war was undeniable.  In the Yale Lectures of 1888, Henry Clay Trumbull, editor of The Sunday School Times who had chaired the original committee of the Uniform Lesson Plan at the 1872 National Sunday School convention, voiced this triumphalism:

“In the latter third of the 19th century, Bible-study and Bible-teaching have a prominence never before known in world’s history, and vital godliness is shown and felt with unprecedented potency in the life and progress of mankind.  This change is due to God’s blessing on the revival and expansion of the church Bible-school as His chosen agency for Christian evangelizing and Christian training.”

During the first three cycles, 1872-1893, there were 1,031 lessons with 130 from Acts, 79-97 from each of the four gospels, and 64 from Genesis. Over the 52 years of the program from 1872-1925, the call of Abraham was studied 37 times. Certainly anything controversial during this time of Higher Biblical Criticism was to be avoided.

In 1890 the Uniform Lesson series commanded a global army of over 10,000,000 teachers and students, later to increase to 15,000,000 by the turn of the century and 16,000,000 by 1910).  Students were to be converted to Christianity through biblical instruction. By 1905, 17,000,000 scholars participated in the program. There were choices to be made about what biblical passages to teach.

As the 20th century continued, the challenges to the Uniform Lesson Plan increased. Holding together science and religion in the wake of continuous archaeological discoveries and new theories of biblical writing proved more and more challenging.  The publication of biblical commentaries, dictionaries, and encyclopedias which incorporated the results of archaeology and Higher Criticism complicated the task of selecting passages that avoided controversy.

A 1925 Yale dissertation still fought the battle against the Uniform Lesson Plan.  In this study, Willard Uphaus reviewed every single lesson since the inception of the program.  His overall conclusions about the program reveal the messages which the program delivered whether consciously or not.

1. Based on the verses selected for Daniel and the Book of Revelation, the Sunday School lessons emphasized miracles and symbolism “that has contributed greatly to the unsatisfactory adjustment of many Sunday school pupils to the scientific temper of the present (thus revealing the preferences of the author)(Uphaus 53).  He considers that the failure

to teach correctly the intricate symbolism of the closing chapters of Daniel and all of Revelation has left unguided Bible readers with a literalistic interpretation that is largely responsible for the apocalypticism so prevalent in recent years.  It is this imperfect and partial treatment of apocalyptic literature that has turned the eyes of Christians to an imaginary realm beyond, often cultivated impatience with this life and blinded their vision of a possible kingdom of God here on earth (Uphaus 53).

2. “Taking the lessons as a whole, there was too much emphasis on the miraculous and otherworldliness, and not enough on the practical teachings of the Bible that would throw light upon the immediate and perplexing problems of the growing Christian” (Uphaus 92).  This author was a strong advocate for the graded lesson system that adjusted for the age of the students and blamed the excessive dropout rate it on the inadequacy on the uniform lessons (Uphaus 104).

3. The lessons do not teach the “social aspects of the gospel” that relate to the problems of youth (Uphaus 105).  The Bible was still being taught the old-fashioned way that made it increasingly irrelevant to the needs of the young in the present preparing for their future.

4. “The Uniform Lessons did not give the older students any conception of the gradual development of law as social and economic conditions required (Uphaus 25).  Here the critic expresses the tenets of Higher Criticism and Comparative Religion which he considers not have filtered their way into the curriculum.  Uphaus was dismayed because he viewed such an omission as contributing to the lack of awareness by “so many folk” of the Bible as a “progressive revelation of God in the life of man” (Uphaus 26).

5. Uphaus was disturbed that prophecy “which contains the highest religious conceptions of the Old Testament” are given short shrift in the Uniform Lessons (26).  Prophets become important solely for what they foretell about Jesus and not for their message in their own time to their own people and the social conditions of their present … which has significant implications for how people approach problems in the American present (Uphaus 37-38).

99 years later could the same criticisms be levied in Oklahoma?

How will it be decided what passages are taught?

What training will teachers receive?

How will objections or disagreements with the teachings be handled?

Again, besides the legal issues over the teaching of the Bible in public schools, there are questions to be raised over whether a particular brand of Protestantism will be preached over whether the Bible will be taught.

For suggested readings on Sunday School see:

Carter, Robert Lee, The “Message of the Higher Criticism”: The Bible Renaissance and Popular Education in America, 1880-1925, (University of North Carolina, unpublished dissertation Ann Arbor: UMI, 1995).

Crandall, Robert Andrew, The Sunday School as an Instructional Agency for Religious Instruction in American Protestantism, 1872-1922, (University of Notre Dame, unpublished dissertation Ann Arbor: UMI, 1997).

Lankard, Frank Glen, A History of the American Sunday School Curriculum, (Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1927).

Noll, Mark A., In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017).

Sampey, John Richard, The International Lesson System: The History of Its Origin and Development, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1911).

Shalev, Eran, “The United Tribes, or States of Israel”: The Hebrew Republic as a Political Model before the Civil War,” in American Zion: the Old Testament as a political text from the Revolution to the Civil War, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 50-83.

Uphaus, Willard, A Critical Study of the International Sunday School Lesson System, (New Haven: Yale University, unpublished dissertation.1925)

Vincent, John H.

“Appointing Sunday School Teachers,” The Sunday School Teacher I 1866:193-195.
“Two Years With Jesus,” The Sunday School Teacher I 1866:13-23, 42-50,81-84.
“The Sunday School Teacher and the Church,” The Sunday  School Teacher II 1867 60.

Wardle, Addie Grace, History of the Sunday School Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, (Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern, 1918).

Wolosky, Shira, “Biblical Republicanism: John Cotton’s “Moses His Judicials” and American Hebraism. Hebraic Political Studies 4.2 (Spring 2009): 104–127

Peter Wehner versus Steve Bannon: The Battle Is Engaged

June 23, 2024
by Peter Feinman
God's Anointed (https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1373822500)

There are so many civil wars going on it is hard to keep track of them. And that is just the civil wars in the United States. As a resident of the 16th Congressional District in New York State, I live at Ground Zero for the battle for the future of the Democratic Party. The amount of money being spent for the Democratic primary in a reliably Democratic district is off the Richter scale. After June 25, peace and quiet should return to the shire. The reverberations of the battle will last for weeks, months, and years to come.

In the meantime, the battle for the soul and votes of the Republican Party continues full throttle. It also will continue to do so for months if not years to come until one side throws in the towel and perhaps creates a new political party. After all, that is how the Republican Party first emerged in the era of the Third Party System. As the Whigs disintegrated over slavery, a multitude of parties emerged including the Republican Party with Abraham Lincoln as the candidate for President. Quite an auspicious start.

Now let’s see how Peter Wehner and Steven Bannon are faring in the battle for the Republican Party today.

THERE IS A WAY OUT OF MAGA DOMINATION

So read the headline of an op-ed piece by Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch in The New York Times way back on April 10, 2024 (print). In the piece, they approvingly quote former Vice President Dick Cheney:

‘There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.’

Presumably he was referring to domestic threats but quite possibly he meant any threat including foreign and Confederate.

Wehner and Rauch acknowledge that the Republican Party is thoroughly MAGA and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. They also note that there still remain registered Republicans who do not support the MAGAs but who are not prepared to shed their political identity and become Democrats.

Their proposed solution is to create a Republican Party in exile. They call it a counter-establishment dedicated to recapturing the party from the outside. Given the MAGA control of the Republican Party infrastructure, even a defeat in 2024 will not cause MAGAs to relinquish control of the party. Berman and Wehner don’t mention it but even the lawsuits over the 2024 elections plus those which have been delayed to after the election will keep MAGAs fuming for years to come.

How would a Republican Party in exile work?

First, accept the exile status.

Second, proclaim the Party in Exile to be the true Republican Party of Lincoln. It is the MAGAs who lack political legitimacy. Rauch and Wehner don’t say so but it is the MAGAs who are the true RINO’s.

Third, create agenda(s) for the post-MAGA future. Obviously this can be difficult in practice. Once one goes beyond being anti-Trump, what then holds the Republican Party in Exile together? The agenda that lost in 2008? Lost in 2012? Was swept away in 2016?

Fourth, the goal must be to overthrow MAGA. This blunt goal states there can be no compromise with a lawless, moral anarchy, conspiratorial thinking assault on-the-Constitution Party. Take no prisoner.

Run candidates where you can and set the stage for bringing back the Republican Party from defeat.

STEVE BANNON    

How realistic is the plan by Rauch and Wehner for regaining control of the Republican Party? “Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement‘s Ground War to End Democracy,” by Isaac Arnsdorf (Book review by Jennifer Szalai, NYT May 26, 2024, print), presents an alternative path to power.

By now people are familiar with the grass roots’ effort literally taking place at the ground level in American society. I am referring to the school board meetings, the election workers, the precinct committee leaders, the normally invisible people who keep the government running. Oftentimes, it is difficult to recruit people for these positions. The result is some people hold them for life. The 2020 effort by Trump to steal the election was stymied by just such people.

The MAGAs have learned the lessons well from 2020. Voter suppression isn’t enough. There also are counting the vote and certifying the vote. Such workers have been retiring/quitting in droves.The combination of suppressing the vote and rigging the count complicate the validity of the polls being taken.

REPORT FROM THE BATTLE LINES

The battle for the future of the Republican Party is being fought right now. Here are some examples.

“In a Texas G.O.P at War with Itself, Hard Right is Gaining,” (NYT May 31, 2024, print)

“A County Clerk’s Lonely Stand Vs. Die-Hard Election Deniers (NYT June 9, 2024, print

This two-and one-half page article carried over from the front page of the Sunday paper, is a report that just as easily could have been filed from Gaza or Ukraine without the violence. Here is the plight of the Real Republicans in face of the onslaught by the MAGAs:

“This is actually insane. This is how democracies end. There must be some way to reason with a few of these people” – Angela Clark, Deputy Clerk

“It’s like talking to a wall right now. I‘ve give them every fact and document known to mankind, and none of it matters. They are too busy chanting their mantras to stop and listen…. A lot of these people [on the recall petition] really know… me…What in the world happened to these people? What kind of person could actually believe this nonsense? – Cindy Elgan, County Clerk

As Elgan defended the system, Mary Jane Zakas upped the stakes. The recall should be not just for Elgan but the county auditor and district attorney. Zakas wanted a complete and total house cleaning.

She is quoted as saying, “Who would have believe that Cindy – sweet Cindy, our Cindy – could be connected to the deep state umbilical cord?”

Zakas was now connected to a vast conspiratorial world of covid, covid vacines, and Trump the anointed. There was no turning back now. MAGAs were battling for another county far removed from the center of power in even the smallest of rural counties.

“House G.O.P Spending Chief Faces Primary Fight from Right” (NYT June 17, 2024 print)

For hours upon hours people like Zakas are fed a barrage of MAGA messages not just from Foxhub but from Bannon and other apostles of the anointed one. It gives them a sense of belonging. They are part of a larger community. The world really does make sense once you see the truth. There is no “come let us reason together.” Felon convictions simply prove the demonical world is out to destroy the anointed one.

Here we may observe the incongruity of the situation.

On the one hand, there is a renowned con artist skilled in the ways of scamming people.

But on the other hand, there are people who desperately need to believe the con. If you take away a people’s faith then what do they have left?

The challenge to Berman and Wehner isn’t simply a political one, it is a religious one. They need a compelling message of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or Ronald Reagan proportions for the 21st century if they are to succeed in taking back the Republican Party and so far they don’t have one. Talking points and facts won’t work against God’s anointed.

 

Presidents Are Not Above the Law: Our Lord and Savior Is

January 23, 2024
by Peter Feinman
The Greatest American President (LordsArt Trump Rushmore by Jon McNaughton)

Besides slavery, another way the Civil War has become part of the current political discourse is with the figure of Abraham Lincoln. In the Union, he is a revered figure. His Memorial at the nation’s capital has been the site of political gatherings, most famously the “I Have a Dream” march with Martin Luther King. He is renowned throughout the Union with schools, streets, parks, and cities named in his honor.

By contrast, in the Confederacy, Lincoln remains a forbidden person. The statues, parks, streets, named after Civil War figures are not named after him. When it comes to Lincoln we are not a “house divided” but two separate houses barely tied together. The social fabric that binds these two peoples grows weaker every day. One wonders how much longer the mystic chords will join the two parts before they are rendered asunder and the two separate peoples can each go their own way. In the meantime at least until the 2024 presidential election, we trudge on as if we will still be a single country a year from now when the President takes the oath of office in 2025.

TRUMP ON LINCOLN

When describing the Civil War, Trump brings an odd perspective to the discussion. The conflict was “so horrible, but so fascinating… [S]o many mistakes were made….That was a tough one for our country,” Trump said.

But then he reveals what really is important to him. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that.” He later added, “Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”

In response Liz Cheney wrote on X: “Which part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?” She continued: “Question for members of the GOP — the party of Lincoln — who have endorsed Donald Trump: How can you possibly defend this?”

What is being overlooked here is that everything he says always is about him. To understand these comments one must put aside his preference for the Confederate side and racism and instead ask, “What’s in it for him with these derogatory comments about Lincoln? Remember after 9/11 Trump bragged that he now had the tallest building in lower Manhattan. If Lincoln had negotiated the war, we wouldn’t even know who Lincoln was. He would not be considered America’s greatest president. He would not be on Mount Rushmore.

Now we are getting to the heart of the Lincoln disparagement.

TRUMP ON RUSHMORE

According to South Dakota Republican Governor and non-Vice-Presidential candidate in 2020 Kristi Noem, she was told straight-faced in 2018 by the current President that his dream was to become the fifth face (“Mount Trumpmore? It’s the president’s ‘dream,’ Rep. Kristi Noem says,” Sioux Falls Argus Leader, April 24, 2018).

“I shook his hand, and I said, ‘Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.’ And he goes, ‘Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’ I started laughing. He wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.”

Apparently she even gave him a miniature Rushmore with a fifth face on it! There is a certainly irony in this dream or nightmare. He actually had the opportunity to be a Mount Rushmore caliber president (Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It? June 5 2020). When one considers the coronavirus, economic collapse, George Floyd, and China, he has had abundant chances to display leadership on a heroic scale. If he had the mental necessities, cognitive skills, courage, and strength of character to rise to the occasion, he would qualify as a Mount Rushmore quality president. But how can a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old (per Mary Trump) ever be worthy of a 60 foot carving? (The Five Faces of Mount Rushmore August 10, 2020)

Just two months earlier, I had written the following Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It? June 5, 2020.

With America’s Third Civil War, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate (in 2016) made no attempt to be President of We the People. He made no attempt to be an e pluribus unum President. He saw that America was not a house divided but two houses. He did not divide America, he exploited the divisions which existed. The longtime pretend Democrat and Clinton supporter realized he had no future there just as he had none with the New York elitists whose approval he craved and never received. Instead he became a fake Republican, heard the call of Sarah Palin to take back the country from you know….those people, and answered the call. As long as Trumpicans think he is fighting for them against the terrorists, they will continue to accept him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name no matter what else happens. He is meeting expectations and still fighting as the battle is not yet over.

Obviously it is only because of Divine Providence, that at this moment of existential crisis, that our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here as President of the United States. He saved the economy once, he will do it again. He saved the country from the coronavirus. He will take back the country for real Americans. Truly we are blessed that at this moment of existential crisis, we have a President equal to if not superior to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. And if you don’t believe me, just ask him.

For all his talk about having the greatest first year of a President ever,

For all his talk about having the greatest first two years of a President ever,

For all his talk about having done more for black Americans than any President except Lincoln,

He had a legitimate opportunity in the real world to become one of America’s greatest Presidents if only he knew it and was capable of rising to the occasion.

These words from 2020 are still relevant today.

He shares the Confederate disdain for New York elitists who look down on him.

He shares the Confederate disdain for Abraham Lincoln since he is America’s greatest president.

He agrees with the MAGA belief in him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name.

Now he stands revealed as the true savior who will reap divine retribution on the vermin and the disloyal RINOs, those who oppose him once he is back in the White House where he belongs. He is America’s greatest President. He belongs on Mount Rushmore.

TRUMP ON JESUS

Mount Rushmore is no longer sufficient of contain the ego of the immature child indicted former president. In his “So God made Trump” video, we now see him revealed in all his divine glory. The more his mental necessities deteriorate, the grander the self-image of who he is becomes. Now he stands revealed as the pretribulationists premillennial Savior (Mike Johnson’s Bible and America: Which Bible?) not that he knows any of those terms. As he vanquishes all within his party who would rise up against him and even his would-be foes jump on his band-wagon, we see the truth of who he is: Donald Trump is the Christ, the Savior of America. The day of retribution is coming.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1373822500

 

Did the Confederates Win the War of Northern Aggression?

January 14, 2024
by Peter Feinman
Kevin Seefried carries a Confederate flag as he protests in the Capitol Rotunda, Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

America’s second Civil War has been in the news as of late. Even as we begin the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s first Civil War as part of the American Revolution and fight the third Civil War right now in the presidential election, the second Civil War remains a flashpoint in American political life.

Two recent events by Republican presidential candidates highlight the ongoing importance of the second Civil War. The first concerns a puffball question about the causes of the war which the candidate muffed. The second involves the unsolicited comments by the former president on the negotiating skills of the alleged greatest president in American history which will be addressed in a future blog.

While there has been a great deal of press coverage regarding slavery question, it still needs to be put in context to borrow a phrase from some former Ivy League school presidents.

STATES’ RIGHTS

The traditional official answer by the winning side has been that the war of northern aggression was over slavery. No attention or credence was given to the designation of the war as the war of northern aggression or the issue of states’ rights. Here we may observe a double example of the winners writing history and of the loser bearing a grudge for over 160 years. It’s another example of elitists not listening to the people in the flyover states or taking them seriously.

Now consider these issues:

Abortion
Covid
Covid vaccine
Food aid for children
Gerrymandering
Gun control
Immigration (Texas)
Medicaid Expansion
School vouchers
Voter Suppression.

How many of these issues were issues back before the Civil War? How many of them involve slavery (not racism but slavery)? How many of them involve a states’ rights component?

The federal government back then was not the federal government today. It was not as involved in the daily life of citizens as the government is today. There was mail delivery. There were tariffs. Sometimes there was Sabbath laws. But by and large, the federal government did not intervene at the state or individual level the way it does today.

Up until the Civil War, slavery was the main way the federal government and northern abolitionist elitists had of trying to alter the way the Confederates did things. Abolitionists then weren’t call “woke.” Instead they were called “Damn Yankees,’ a derogatory term referring to the manner of discourse by condescending arrogant visible saints, the elect of God, mentally and morally superior people who had no hesitation in expressing that superiority. They were seeking to redeem the Confederacy as a whole and the Confederates individually from their sinful ways. There was no “come let us reason together” and perhaps none was possible. It was a zero sum dialog where sooner or later the result would be physical war. The election of Lincoln was the straw the broke the Confederates’ back. Starting with South Carolina, home of the true origin of racism and systemic slavery in this country, leading the way, the secession began.

Here we are over 160 years later and the Confederates are still fighting for states’ rights. How do Confederates feel about the:

Department of Education
FBI
Fed
IRS
Obama Care?

They are always trying to defund and/or destroy these national initiatives along with all safety net programs. Slavery may be gone but racism remains. So does states’ rights. In addition, Confederates would rather play Russian roulette with their own lives than admit that Covid is real and that vaccines work. These actions show a fairly deep commitment to not allowing elitists telling them how to lead their lives that goes beyond the issue of slavery.

2024

Now Confederates stand on the brink of taking control of the federal government. The flag-waving Confederate in the Capitol on January achieved more than Robert E. Lee ever was able to any military campaign. Only after the war at Arlington would he be so close to the Capitol.

In the House of Representatives, weak Republicans have been pushed aside. True the Republican Party is now the MAGA Party or the Trump Party, but there is a strong Confederate base foundational to those developments. It was sad listening to some people in Iowa act as if the Republican Party was still the party of Lincoln.

Republican leaders [in Iowa] are conscious of the critiques and eager to push back on any characterization that the party has shifted from its abolitionist roots.

“Quite frankly, I’m getting damn tired of the re-interpretation of history that I hear from Democrats,” Iowa Republican Party chair Jeff Kaufmann said at the state party’s annual legislative breakfast Tuesday. “The Republican Party emerged because Democrats would not give on slavery.” Republicans were founded “because somebody needed to take a bold, uncompromising stand on human rights and civil liberties. That is not woke. That is a fact,” said Kaufmann, the Iowa GOP chair. “We are the party of Abraham Lincoln. We have always been the party of Abraham Lincoln” The Civil War keeps coming up for Republican candidates. It reflects tensions inside the GOP (Matt Brown, AP, January 13, 2024).

Abraham Lincoln was a “last best hope of humanity,” built the transcontinental railroad, launched the Homestead Act, and supported the Land Grant colleges. All of these were big federal programs for their times.

Many of these northern Republicans are descendants of people who died in the Civil War. Robert E. Lee is not their hero. Statues to honor generals who killed their ancestors are not a priority to people who admire Lincoln. Nor is the Confederate flag. Yet one does no hear much about them in the battle for the Republican nomination. They have been swept up into the MAGA maelstrom … unless you were to take away their agricultural subsidies, social security, Medicare, and take away their ability to hire the workers they need to work their fields and operate their plants. But this part of the Republican Party, people who sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic, are casualties of the Confederate and trump takeover of the Republican Party today.

There is no place for Lincoln in the current Republican Party no matter how much the Lincoln admirers claim the party is still the party of Lincoln.

Trump versus Lincoln: The Battle Is Engaged

August 3, 2023
by Peter Feinman
The Mount Rushmore President and the Mount Rushmore Wannabee (https://ctmirror.org)

Finally. Finally. Finally. After years of talk about the civil war in the United States, it has now officially arrived. The events about to unfold in the trials of Trump and the 2024 election will determine what kind of America will exist when we celebrate the 250th birthday of the country on July 4, 2026.

Right now there is no way to know which side will prevail in the war. The details of what it means to “win” in this remain also will be a point of contention. Given how often pundits use the term “unprecedented” for the actions of or related to Donald Trump, one may reasonably anticipate the same term will apply to the outcome of the war. But make no mistake about it, we are engaged in a conflict to determine if the United States can long endure of if we have reached our expiration date.

WHERE’S THE MILITARY?

Where is the military in this war? When I first started writing about political action thrillers on January 3, 2021, I had the military in mind. Generally, such thrillers involved the military in some way. Coups or attempted coups automatically bring to mind the military. Think of the current events in Niger or Sudan as examples.

The attempted coup here did consider bringing in the military. One way was the long-known proposal to seize the voting machines in areas (meaning Democratic cities in battleground ground states). That initiative never went anywhere in practice. But the very fact that it could be reasonably considered by the Commander in Chief demonstrates how seriously this unconstitutional action was taken.

The second way is more recently exposed. This would be the application of the Insurrection Act whereby the President of the United States would be authorized to deploy military forces against Americans, specifically Americans who would rioted against the seizure of power by the Loser Incumbent. Again it never happened. And again, people very very close to the Commander in Chief were casually recommending it as a course of action to be taken.

One notices that both recommendations were coming from civilians. Contrary to the traditional political action thriller, the real military was nowhere to be seen in such deliberations. The loyalty of the military was to the Constitution and not to a coup plotter. Presumably the same would be true in 2024 should a similar circumstance would arise which is unlikely given the current President.

WHERE’S THE WAR ROOM?

One of the fixtures of the attempted insurrection was the infamous war room. How many times have you seen the clip of Bannon admonishing us to strap in because the next day is going to be like nothing anyone expected. We need to keep in mind that the original plan was for the President of the United States to crash the Capitol meeting with his possibly armed followers. It was only because the Secret Service declined to draw him there that the intrusion did not occur. Remember the President grabbing the steering wheel and agent in the attempt to make this drive.

The war room planning for this event included among others Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Mark Meadows by phone, and possibly some Congressmen. So far, no of them appear to have been included in the indictment.

My recommendation, which counts for nothing has been that the indictments be divided into parts:

Interference with the state legislators
The fake electors
January 6.

The indictment so far covers the first two but not the third. We know that the unnamed co-defendants will be indicted at some future date. It is still possible that the sedition indictment is an ace up the sleeve waiting for the dust to settle on the existing indictments before being revealed.

THE LAWYER COUP

The attempted coup was perpetuated by lawyers of all people. It was not to occur due to tanks rolling the streets but to supposedly legal actions through the courts and legislatures. At this point we know that all the legal machinations failed. Instead the lawyers who participated in such court proceedings look like legal fools.

Some lawyers decided to take it to next level. In these instances they sought to influence the legislatures in battleground states with direct appearances that crossed the line on what is legal. They sought to weaponize the Department of Justice in clearly illegal ways to intimidate the battleground state legislatures to do what needed to be done to reverse the vote in their states. These efforts failed and these people are now co-defendants. That means they will be charged in the future once the main case against the Boss is underway.

The lawyer coup as opposed to a military coup does show it a strange way that we are a nation of law. Think back to the Brooks Brother brigade in the 2000 presidential election. Now we have lawyers who are the prime actors in the coup whereas once upon a time priests may have been the ones involved in the battle for power at the capitol.

The presence of lawyers at the center of the attempted coup (plus one political consultant) attests the place of lawyers in American culture. Think of the Devil and Daniel Webster where an individual is more than a match against Satan versus the more traditional match between priest and Satan in the The Exorcist. Clarence Darrow in history and fiction in Inherit the Wind looms large in American culture as does Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mocking Bird. Of course these are all lawyers for the defense like Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, not lawyers who sought to perpetrate a crime. Even the Dream Team lawyers who helped O.J. get away with murder did not actually participate in the murder itself.

In this case the lawyers were the prime movers in the assault on America. They had to be restrained by Team Normal in some very contentious meetings. Still the presence of these lawyers at the pinnacle of extra-judicial power telling the moron child what he wanted to hear shows how perilously close we came to there being a successful coup.

WHERE’S LINCOLN?

When the indictments were first announced, I saw and heard Chris Hayes, MSNBC, passionately speak out on behalf of Lincoln. He recited parts of the Gettysburg Address, one of the most sacred texts in American history. He reminded us today that Lincoln knew of the fragility of the American experiment, of how the current generation in his time was being tested to determine if it could long endure just as we are now being tested. In so doing, Hayes raised the stakes (or rather recognized that they had been raised) to the level of an existential threat to the continued existence of the United States.

While Hayes was right in what he said, what he omitted also is important. Hayes was acting if all Americans recognized and accepted the validity of the message Lincoln delivered at Gettysburg. Even in his own time, Lincoln did not represent the views of all Americans. Even in his own time, Lincoln did not represent the view of all northerners. To this very day Lincoln is not a hero in the Confederacy. The Lincoln Memorial is a union memorial where Union people hold great events. Mount Rushmore Lincoln is in the north, Stonewall Jackson is in the Confederacy.

What Hayes omitted was something else Lincoln said about a house divided not being able to stand. We are that house divided. True the multiple trials may cumulatively undermine the passion to put one’s life on the line for Trump, but it does not change the fact that we are a divided country.

WHO LOST GEORGIA?

All the fuss over the votes the Loser implored the Georgia state officials to find obscures the truth of the voting in the state. Republican candidates did win sufficient votes in the down-ballot elections. What happen was over 30,000 people voted for Republican candidates except for the one at the top. These people may be prepared to do the same again in 2024 provided the down-ballot candidates are not also stolen election denying MAGAs. The same polls that show the size of the MAGA base in the Republican Party also show the number of Never Trumpers and pursuables in the Party.

Here are some questions to ask Republicans who are open to moving on.

If Trump is such a fighter, how come he never takes the stand to defend himself?
If the Department of Justice has been weaponized, how come all the people testifying against him are Republicans?
Who would testify on his behalf? Jim Jordan? Scott Perry? Roger Stone? Steve Bannon?

If the civil war is to end peacefully in 2024, it is essential that these Republicans make their voice heard. Back in 1861, people had plenty of time to prepare for what they would if Lincoln became president. Similarly, in 2025, the same would be true if Biden won again.

When the Confederate states seceded upon Lincoln’s inauguration, not every adult in the state had the right to vote. Any state, even Alabama, which rejects a Biden victory if he should win, will discovered a strong Union minority that does accept the result and wants to remain part of the United States. All the bluster “not my President” and secede may come to naught not simply because of the number of Democrats who do not want to secede, but because of the Republicans in the Confederacy for whom secession is a line too far to cross.

When Did Lincoln Become a Democrat?: Inauguration 2021

January 22, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Tom Hanks at the Lincoln Memorial (https://www.fangirlquest.com/travel/happy-birthday-forrest-gump/)

Inaugural Day is a day for Presidents. January 20, 2021, was no different. There were Presidents physically in attendance. There were Presidents there in spirit through mentions of them in speeches. There was a President who provided the backdrop for a celebration of America. Truly it was a day for Presidents.

Of all the Presidents, the one who loomed most prominently over the proceedings was Abraham Lincoln. I make this claim based on no scientific study of the speeches but simply based on my aural and visual impressions of the day. It was a day for Lincoln.  In some ways, that should not be surprising given the Civil War references to the current situation. The biggest change was the reference to a war between the Red and the Blue instead of the Blue and the Gray. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Lincoln was a Republican president and the people celebrating his life were Democrats; the Confederate-based Republican Party never sings his praises.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s examine the Presidents and the setting for Inaugural Day.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE FOUR PRESIDENTS WHO WALKED INTO….

“Peaceful transfer of power” was one of the phrases that We the People have heard frequently in the past few weeks and months. It refers to something routine in the United States and rare in the world. It refers to one person in power freely relinquishing that position not simply to another person but to a person in political opposition. We take this action for granted so much so that it rarely is commented on until this election.

George Washington stepped away from power twice. Even once would have been remarkable but he did it twice. The first occurred when the “Indispensable Person” to the victory in the American Revolution stepped down from power and returned to his farm. He immediately was compared to the Roman Cincinnatus. King George III who was on the losing side was in shock and stated:  “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

But Washington was not through. A few years later he became the first President of the United States of America. After two terms, he stepped down. A few years later, his Vice President who had become President stepped down and peacefully transferred power to his bitterest rival after a contentious election. Later then became lifelong pen pals. They both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the birth of the country they had created. So besides the upcoming 250th anniversary, it also will be the bicentennial of that momentous day.

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have had a peaceful transfer of power?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have an over 200-year tradition of a peaceful transfer of power? 100 years? 50 years? 10 years?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nation, how many have had ceremonies with the current leader and three predecessors (four if it hadn’t been for the pandemic)?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have five predecessors who are even alive?

We take much for granted. We take for granted what George Washington did in setting this country on course to being a constitutional republic and not a monarchy, banana republic, or dictatorship.

We take much for granted in how our Presidents become members of a very small club.

George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter January 7, 2009 (Photo by David Hume, Kennerly /GettyImages)

How George Bush the father became a surrogate father to William Clinton who had no father growing up he could call his own.

George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Sully, Kennebunkport on June 25, 2018.
(Evan F. Sisley / via Associated Press)

How First Michelle Obama and George Bush the son could so casually and without artifice stand together.

Michelle Obama hugs George W. Bush, Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

We are reminded of what we take for granted by the behavior of the sore loser who did not participate in this inaugural ritual. The person who wanted to be President for Life unlike the far wealthier George Washington whom he mocked for not naming anything after himself.  The person who only considered the votes of “real Americans” to be valid and worked for weeks to steal the election. The person who instigated a coup attempt and as always did not have the courage of his convictions because he has neither courage nor convictions. The person who sulked in the corner out of sight when he couldn’t be the center of attention and would have to peacefully transfer power to the winner.  His behavior will become part of the historical record in contrast to Washington and so many others, a testament to how the immature child failed to live up to the adult responsibilities of the job.

THE EYES OF THE WORLD ARE UPON US  

The eyes of the world continue to be upon us. When people who are not free wish to free, they do not think of China or Russia. The global symbol for freedom remains the Statue of Liberty.

In the span of a mere two weeks, another symbol of the United States, the Capitol, experienced two of the widest swings in imagery possible. Today we live so much in the moment that it is hard to realize how much has happened in those few days. One President of the United States instigated an insurrection so he could steal the election and remain in power. The House of Representatives then impeached that President for a second time. A new President was inaugurated. He took his oath of office at the very site of the American carnage perpetrated by his predecessor. In a few days, the Senate, in that same building will take up the trial to convict the former President. While the former party of Lincoln will not allow that conviction to occur, at least the actions will become part of the official record of the country for posterity and all the world to see.

On January 6, 2021, the world was in shock in what it saw happening in the United States. On January 20, 2021, the world was in relief that the peaceful transfer of power had occurred.  One day, when there once again will be tourism, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall, and Lafayette Square will become even more visited sites than they were before American experienced the twin disasters.

THE PARTY OF LINCOLN

Since my first blog on the end of the Republic Party as the party of Lincoln appeared in 2016, I am not surprised that now it is becoming official. Even prior to January 6, various elected Trumpicans had openly proclaimed that the Republican Party was now the party of Trump.

The Trumpicans who helped incite the insurrection were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans who sought to steal the election by disqualifying electors were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans in the House who voted in support of the President of the United States’s attempt to steal the election through an insurrection were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans in the Senate who will vote not to convict the President of United States for his attempt to steal the election through an insurrection will not act in the spirit of Lincoln.

The abrupt and expected flip-flop of Kevin McCarthy documents the political calculation that there is more to gain from being the Trumpican Party than the Republican Party. Next year when the pandemic is over, the economy has recovered, and more and more of the truth of Trump regime and his life have been revealed, the wisdom of forsaking Lincoln for Trump will be tested.

In the meantime, January 20, 2021, was a day of Lincoln and the country is better for it.

What Will Never-Trump Republicans Do After the Elections?

September 15, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Lincoln Has Fallen: What Will Never-Trump Republicans Do?

Over four years ago, on March 2016, I wrote a blog entitled R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016). At that time, I did not know the Republican Party would become the Trumpican Party. I did know that the Republican Party was no longer the party of Lincoln. His name was rarely invoked. Even today it rarely is by the President of Malice except when he favorably compares himself to America’s greatest President.

Still, the legacy of Lincoln lives on among the few Republicans left who have not succumbed to becoming Trumpicans. Within the Party, their resistance is futile. They have made themselves known through ads which effectively exposes the shortcomings and dangers of the current President. However those ads will not reclaim the Republicans who have become Trumpicans. Any deprogramming efforts will require substantially more resources, time, and effort than a mere commercial provides…including the desire of the Trumpican in the first place to become a Republican once again.

Ironically, the showcase for the Never-Trump Republicans was the Democratic National Convention. On that virtual stage, these Republicans were welcomed. However in a time when all the Republican presidential nominees in the 21st century are persona non grata in the Trumpican Party, it is difficult to know where these Never-Trump Republicans will align themselves after the elections. Will they continue to support Joe Biden and the Democrats for the next four years? Will they start a third party?

Back on February 29, 2020, I wrote

Rick Wilson, Richard Conway, John Kasich, and Bill Weld can struggle all they want to regain control of the Republican Party but it is not going to happen. At present Lincoln Republicans have no political party. Neither do admirers of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, or even the Bushes. So how will they vote? What will they do now that the Republican Party despises them? (The Socialist versus the Trumpican Smackdown: What Are Democrats and Republicans to Do?)

Now we know how they will vote. Bu we don’t know what the plans are for the future.

In a well-meaning op-ed column, David Brooks wrote:

My guess is that if Trump gets crushed in the election, millions of Republicans will decide they never liked that loser and jerk anyway. He’ll get relegated to whatever bargain basement they are using to hold Sarah Palin (Where Do Republicans Go From Here?, August 9, print).

There is a lot of wishful thinking in those guesses. Think of what has happened in the short interval since those words were first printed. Now think of the impact all those events have had on his popularity. Try “unchanged” since last year at this time.

The one possible glimmer of hope for Brooks is the idea of “loser.” If, and it is an “if,” Trumpicans lose the White House and the Senate and fail to retake the House and if there isn’t a national melt down and Joe Biden does become President, then Trumpicans will be faced with the prospects of Democratic control. Will Trumpicans be content to remain loyal to the loser through 2024 even while he is being prosecuted and perhaps jailed? In my last blog, I asked the question of what Sean Hannity will do if confronted with a Democratic sweep and only a loser to oppose them. At that point will Hannity’s desire to stop the Democrats trump his loyalty to a loser? No one knows now but it is possible to support some Trumpican ideas without supporting the person who has no power future political future.

If, and only if, he is pushed off the stage or is confined to OAN broadcasting from Rikers, who, then, will fill the leadership void? Will the Never-Trump Republicans then be able to regain the support of the former Republicans? Such a prospect seems unlikely. More wishful thinking. One should keep in the mind that none of the multitude of Republican candidates in 2016 assuaged the angst the Republicans felt. All those candidates fell by the wayside. Nothing that has happened in the last four years indicates that Never-Trump Republicans can wrest the leadership position from the defeated and criminal loser or that the party members will follow them.  Everyone now is jockeying for position to be the successor who will save the party from ruin< Meanwhile he is not leaving the stage and still could win.  You don’t hear much talk about 350 Electoral College votes for Biden now do you?

To return to the Brooks column, in it he dutifully identifies four possible prospects for the future leadership of the Republican Party:

The post-2020, post-Trump Republican future is … is embodied by a small group of Republican senators in their 40s, including Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse. They all came of age when Reaganism was already in the rearview mirror. Though populist, three of them have advanced degrees from Harvard or Yale. They are not particularly close to one another. They may be joined by a common experience, but they are divided by ambition.

Brooks then proceeds to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. This analysis would be perfectly legitimate in normal times, but the one critical lesson of the last four years is that these are not normal times. It is not possible to develop a modified Trumpism to reach out to a larger share of the electorate when the main actor still hogs all the attention. No Trumpican can stand up to him. Besides, one should keep in mind that the Republican presidential popular vote electoral record in the baby-boom era is abysmal. If the boomer candidates leave the stage, there is no inherent reason to believe that next generation will do any better. Remember THEY ALL WILL CARRY TRUMP TAINT. They will have to explain their support as even more and even corruption and criminality is revealed in the ongoing investigations.

Strange at it may seem, there are some Republicans left in the White House. Consider the following excerpts from the acceptance speech at the Trumpican National Convention.

Because we understand that America is NOT a land cloaked in darkness, America is the torch that enlightens the entire world.

 Gathered here at our beautiful and majestic White House – known all over the world as the People’s House – we cannot help but marvel at the miracle that is our Great American Story. This has been the home of larger-than-life figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson who rallied Americans to bold visions of a bigger and brighter future. Within these walls lived tenacious generals like Presidents Grant and Eisenhower who led our soldiers in the cause of freedom. From these grounds, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on a daring expedition to cross a wild and uncharted continent. In the depths of a bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln looked out these very windows upon a half-completed Washington Monument – and asked God, in His Providence, to save our union. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt welcomed Winston Churchill, and just inside, they set our people on a course to victory in the Second World War.

 What united generations past was an unshakable confidence in America’s destiny, and an unbreakable faith in the American People. They knew that our country is blessed by God, and has a special purpose in this world. It is that conviction that inspired the formation of our union, our westward expansion, the abolition of slavery, the passage of civil rights, the space program, and the overthrow of fascism, tyranny and communism.

 In the left’s backward view, they do not see America as the most free, just, and exceptional nation on earth. Instead, they see a wicked nation that must be punished for its sins.

 We must reclaim our independence from the left’s repressive mandates. Americans are exhausted trying to keep up with the latest list of approved words and phrases, and the ever-more restrictive political decrees. Many things have a different name now, and the rules are constantly changing. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated, and driven from society as we know it. The far-left wants to coerce you into saying what you know to be FALSE, and scare you out of saying what you know to be TRUE.

 Our country wasn’t built by cancel culture, speech codes, and soul-crushing conformity. We are NOT a nation of timid spirits. We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American Patriots.

 We are a nation of pilgrims, pioneers, adventurers, explorers and trailblazers who refused to be tied down, held back, or reined in. Americans have steel in their spines, grit in their souls, and fire in their hearts. There is no one like us on earth.

 I want every child in America to know that you are part of the most exciting and incredible adventure in human history. No matter where your family comes from, no matter your background, in America, ANYONE CAN RISE. With hard work, devotion, and drive, you can reach any goal and achieve every ambition.

 Our American Ancestors sailed across the perilous ocean to build a new life on a new continent. They braved the freezing winters, crossed the raging rivers, scaled the rocky peaks, trekked the dangerous forests, and worked from dawn till dusk. These pioneers didn’t have money, they didn’t have fame– but they had each other. They loved their families, they loved their country, and they loved their God!

 When opportunity beckoned, they picked up their Bibles, packed up their belongings, climbed into covered wagons, and set out West for the next adventure. Ranchers and miners, cowboys and sheriffs, farmers and settlers – they pressed on past the Mississippi to stake a claim in the Wild Frontier.

 Legends were born – Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davy Crockett, and Buffalo Bill.

 Americans built their beautiful homesteads on the Open Range. Soon they had churches and communities, then towns, and with time, great centers of industry and commerce. That is who they were. Americans build the future, we don’t tear down the past!

 We are the nation that won a revolution, toppled tyranny and fascism, and delivered millions into freedom. We laid down the railroads, built the great ships, raised up the skyscrapers, revolutionized industry, and sparked a new age of scientific discovery. We set the trends in art and music, radio and film, sport and literature – and we did it all with style, confidence and flair. Because THAT is who we are.

 Whenever our way of life was threatened, our heroes answered the call.

 From Yorktown to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima, American Patriots raced into cannon blasts, bullets and bayonets to rescue American Liberty.

These are not the words of a Trumpican, they are the words of an anonymous Republican in the White House. That writer shows Never-Trump Republicans a way forward. It is not possible to regain leadership in the Republican Party by replacing Trumpicans. It is not possible to expand the electoral reach by being Trump-lite. It is not possible to be a positive force for America’s future simply by stopping the malice. To regain control of the Republican following an electoral ruin, a Lincoln for the 21st century is needed or else the country will remain divided into two houses that can’t live together.

Kamala Harris and Marjorie Taylor Greene: A/The Preview of the Future

August 13, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Monsters Are Everywhere (https://www.123rf.com)

The unsung August 11, 2020, has unexpectedly become a preview into America’s future. On that day, Jamaican-Indian female heterosexual Kamala Harris became the Vice Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and possible next President of the United States of America after Joe Biden. Also on that day QAnon Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican Congressional primary runoff in the safely Republican 14th Congressional District in Georgia to the acclaim of the current President of the United States. In this blog I wish to address the role of monsters in American politics.

MONSTER UNDER THE BED  

When you are a child, there are monsters under the bed. There are monsters in the closet. There are monsters in the bathtub drain. There are monsters that rattle windows, shake doors, and walk in attics. They are everywhere. Eventually, the child grows up. Eventually the child gains the maturity and cognitive skills to recognize that those monsters don’t exist except in the child’s mind. They are real in the world of the child, they are not real in the world of the adult. At least, not normally.

All children do not grow up. Some people remain children all their lives. Little Donnee Waney is one such example. The media persists in analyzing his actions and decisions as if he were an adult. It is as if Mary Trump never wrote anything or doesn’t know what she is talking about. If you accept that she is correct about his being a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old, then his fixation on conspiracies should be analyzed on that basis.

Now in the eighth decade of his life, he still lives in his child-world of monsters all around him. He calls them conspiracies. Sometimes he call them MS-13. On August 11, while these other events were unfolding, our Scared Child in Chief was on Hannity describing how he had saved America from monsters. His big beautiful completed wall that the media doesn’t talk about had proved itself already. “Thousands” of MS-13 had been stopped, returned to their home country, or imprisoned. The wall was working to keep America safe from the monsters that were ever threatening to invade the country. Naturally, Fox didn’t perform any fact-checking. One presumes the Trumpicans watching believed that their President and Commander in Chief was successfully hard at work protecting them. He had their loyalty, their devotion, and their vote. Hence the immovable 41% in the polls.

HOW THE POLITICALLY-CORRECTED PEOPLE TERRORIZED THE PARTY OF STUPID  

 Simply because he is a scared little child doesn’t automatically equate to his fears resonating with Republicans. After all, the Republicans of Reagan were not scared. Back then, which isn’t that long ago, Republicans were a Party of optimists about Morning in America, about defeating the Evil Empire, about America being a City on a Hill. Some of those Republicans are still alive today. Yet the Party now is one of Mourning in America, carnage at home, withdrawal from abroad, and no desire to be a City on a Hill or advocate of American Exceptionalism.

Something happened to intimidate them into being the scared party of stupid. That something was the Politically Correct. Year after year they preached the gospel of the invasion of the alien other who were going to take the country away from native-born whites. A minority/majority people would be become the new dominant political and cultural power in the United States. White privilege would end. White people would be sent to the back of the bus unless they were Woke in which case they would be tolerated and forgiven their trespasses of being white. If you tried with all your might, all your soul, and all your heart to deliver a message better calculated to terrorizing white people into thinking they had had no future in America, or at least, no future they would want, you could not have done a better job than the PCPs did. They were absolutely relentless in telling white people that in the years to come they would confined to the dump heap of history, powerless strangers in their own land.

The party of stupid responded by cowering in fear. The whining party of stupid desperately sought a savior who would rescue them and their country from a fate worse than death. At no point did the party of stupid fact-check the claims of the PCPs. At no point did the party of stupid challenge the prognostications of the PCPs. Instead it fell for the PCP scam hook line and sinker, curling up into a scared ball of fear. The monsters are coming. Help us take back our country. Save us.

I was reminded of this con in a recent article on the census in my local paper via the Associated Press. It stated that non-whites and Hispanic were a majority of people under the age of 16 now. The death rate non-Hispanic whites surpasses their birth rate. The number of non-Hispanic whites is declining. In 25 years, non-Hispanic whites would be a minority. On and on the article went about non-Hispanic whites as a diminishing people in the country.

What about Hispanic whites? At no point did the article mention Hispanic whites. You would think that such people didn’t exist. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Latin America settled by many people from Europe just as the United States was. Don’t people in Latin America know if a person is of European, African, local Indian, or mixed descent? Aren’t countries in Latin America culturally and politically organized based on those distinctions? Yet somehow when the people come to the United States they are all lumped together.

That tactic has worked wonders in terrorizing native-born white people. Once upon a time Germans weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. Once upon a time Irish weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. Once upon a time Italians weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. If Germans, Italians, and Irish still weren’t considered white people, think how small the percentage of white people in America would be today. Now if a German, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Cornish, etc. first goes to Latin America and their descendants come to the United States, suddenly they are no longer white again. We probably are the only country in the world where the descendants of Nazis can be classified as Hispanic.

But the party of stupid is content to let PCPs define Caucasians from outside Europe as brown people. You only have to listen or watch PCP’s gleefully forecast the impending minority status of white people to realize what the response might be. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to the persistent PCP prophecies of decline for white people is exactly what you should expect it to have been: a desire to be saved from the PCP monster.

QAnon  

QAnon represents the most extreme example of the terror that has overwhelmed Republicans as  they contemplate their future. They accept as true the con the PCPs have inflicted upon them. The ultimate response is to invoke the monsters of monsters, Satan her/himself. Divine assistance is needed to thwart the nefarious plans of the hated PCP Socialists. Fortunately our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here to do precisely that. Therefore he must be re-elected despite the rigged election against by the Deep State. He must be able to continue the fight however long it takes.

WHITHER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY  

 The Republican Party as the party of Lincoln has been dead for years [R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016) March 12, 2016]. Right now it is dedicated to becoming a third party in a two-party system where it is as irrelevant on the national level as it is on the state level in California.

Even a repeat of 2018 in 2020 would not be enough to change the trajectory. It would only leave more QAnon and Tea Party in Congress and fewer Republicans. There was no Howard Baker during the impeachment. There is no Howard Baker during the campaign. There will be no Howard Baker after the elections. It is not only that no one in White House can tell Putin’s Pence what Russia is up to; no one in the White House can tell him that the flu epidemic was in 1918/1919.

JOE BIDEN CHALLNGES TUBBY WUBBY TO A BIKE RACE FROM YO! SEMITES TO THIGHLAND.

He’s not leaving the stage if when he will be thrown in prison.

As long as Lincoln remains persona non grata in the Republican Party it has no future. When Lincoln said, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers…,” he knew that his audience included immigrants with no biological ties to 1776. Yet he included them as Americans. When George Bush the son, spoke of compassionate conservatism and received 44% of the Hispanic vote, he showed that the Lincoln option still worked. When Jeb Bush with his Mexican-American wife ran in 2016 he showed that the Republican post mortem from the 2012 election might still work. But the low-energy candidate was no match for the party that had abandoned not only Lincoln but Reagan. It wanted a candidate who played to their fears generated by the PCPs and not one who offered hope. The PCPs more than Putin were responsible for 2016 election results and now over 165,000-and-counting Americans are dead. And still the Republican Party remains the whiny party of stupid.

Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It?

June 5, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Macho Macho Boy Twins (Photo: AP)

In American history, there have been three existential moments when the fate of the United States was at risk: creation, secession, and depression.

CREATION

At the birth of the country, there was no guarantee that it would be successful. There was no guarantee that the fledgling states would successfully constitute themselves. One person made a difference and earned the reputation as the indispensable person. We will never know if without George Washington, the United States would have been created or not. What we do know, it is not simply by chance that he was in that position. People picked America’s first action hero to command the American forces and people wrote the Constitution with the expectation that he would be President. He fulfilled expectations.

SECESSION

At the secession, one may reasonably posit that the election of Abraham Lincoln triggered the event. But the idea that America was a house divided already was known. If it hadn’t been Lincoln’s election that immediately led to the Second Civil War, it would have been something else. It is easy to imagine that America’s Second Civil War could have ended with two separate countries as we are today except not legally. No one anticipated that Lincoln would become America’s greatest president outside the Confederacy. He exceeded expectations.

DEPRESSION

At the depression, one may reasonably posit that the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a direct result of the failure under Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt was elected to save America. No one knew that there would be a second and unrelated threat looming just years away –World War II. Similarly, Roosevelt’s success in the 1930s during the depression did not necessarily mean he was right person to be the wartime leader. Roosevelt first fulfilled and then exceeded expectations when the second threat arose.

Today, if one would to identify the three greatest American presidents, outside the current White House and the Confederate states, the answers would be Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Historians can play the “what if” counterfactual one on do times make the person or does the person make the times. The other Roosevelt is likely to be a favored choice for Presidents who could have risen to the occasion to save the country had the opportunity existed. It is a lot easier to select Presidents who would have failed miserably had they been President during these crises or whose shortcomings precipitated the crisis in the first place.

MOUNT RUSHMORE OPPORTUNITY

At this moment in time, America experiences multiple threats. The times cry out for a Mount Rushmore President to lead us from the calamities facing us. It seems as if fate is piling it on, confronting America with one challenge after another. We are facing:

1. the attempt by the Middle Kingdom to wrest world leadership from us

2. America’s Third Civil War

3. the global coronavirus crises

4. the global economic recession if not depression

and, of course, below-the-radar, climate change which hasn’t disappeared from the real world even as it recedes from the news media due to all the other events.

To some extent, during the 2016 election We the People given our Electoral College system picked a President to deal precisely with most of these issues.

With climate change, the choice was simple. The candidate who denied that climate change existed and who claimed it was a Chinese hoax won. As one might expect, the anti-science values of his supporters carried over into other science-related issues. He has meet expectations.

With China, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate was one who had no interest in America’s role in human history or position in the world. Everything was transactional. Everything was a zero-sum game. There were no allies, only transactional relationships. We pulled out of the anti-China alliance the previous President had put together. The new President did so because he vowed to undo whatever Obama had done. The new President did try to apply his transactional zero-sum values to trade the Middle Kingdom but so far without much to show for it. Now he is trying to blame China for the coronavirus crisis and turn China into Mexicans and Salvadorans. That will work with Trumpicans again in the election but has little substance in the global arena. He has not met expectations but is still trying; plus the game has changed due to the new circumstances.

With America’s Third Civil War, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate made no attempt to be President of We the People. He made no attempt to be an e pluribus unum President. He saw that America was not a house divided but two houses. He did not divide America, he exploited the divisions which existed. The longtime pretend Democrat and Clinton supporter realized he had no future there just as he had none with the New York elitists whose approval he craved and never received. Instead he became a fake Republican, heard the call of Sarah Palin to take back the country from you know….those people, and answered the call. As long as Trumpicans think he is fighting for them against the terrorists, they will continue to accept him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name no matter what else happens. He is meeting expectations and still fighting as the battle is not yet over.

With the coronavirus, that was unexpected. Just as Roosevelt had been elected for one crisis, the depression, and then had to face another one, so to now there was a second crisis unrelated to the first. The winning candidate was elected to save real Americans by taking back the country, not to fight a virus. Whereas Roosevelt proved successful in dealing with the unexpected, the same does not apply now. Success if fighting against immigrant people does not translate into success in fighting against an immigrant virus. Still, he has claimed success, asserted he wouldn’t have changed anything, and declared himself a “10.” The wartime President against the invisible enemy has won and saved over 2 million American lives in the process. By November, the coronavirus crisis will be over if it isn’t already and who will remember the problems of the spring.

With the depression, again the unexpected occurred. The United States economy already was on its way back in 2016. The one action taken to help rich people get richer did not contribute to a more successful economy. Now we are on our way back. By November we will be back and who will remember the problems of the spring.

To recap, the winning candidate did do what he pledged to do…up to a point. He did wreak havoc with the international arena. He did ignore climate change. He did fight immigration. He did insult, demean, and mock the politically correct, the news media, and the Republicans who did not accept the new Trumpican order. He did not end Obamacare. He did not return manly manufacturing jobs to the United States. He did not return manly coal mining jobs to their former number. He did save America from the coronavirus and did rebuild the economy. So despite his dishonesty, ignorance, narcissism, above-the –law behavior, and conduct as a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck, he had and still has a legitimate chance win the Electoral College again.

What is important to realize is that the immature child playing imaginary games where he makes up the roles genuinely believes he has succeeded as a wartime general and that Trumpicans accept his version of the truth as communicated via Tweets and Fox.

WARTIME GENERAL FOR AMERICA’S THIRD CIVIL WAR

The same considerations apply to the ramped up Third Civil War in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Bonespur Boy is seeking to replicate his wartime victory over the coronavirus over the thugs and terrorists.

“We will end it now.”

“If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

“My administration will stop mob violence, and stop it cold.”

“These are terrorists. These are terrorists. And they are looking to do bad things to our country.”

“Only I can save our country because I am a very stable genius, the smartest person in the room.”

You want empathy? Try weak wimpy sleepy Joe Biden. I will dominate the streets. I won the battle of Lafayette Square (The Battle of Lafayette Square: The Greatest Victory in American History). Real men don’t wear masks. Real men don’t go into bunkers (except to inspect them!). I am Macho Macho Man like Putin, ruler for life as I should be, too.

Obviously it is only because of Divine Providence, that at this moment of existential crisis, that our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here as President of the United States. He saved the economy once, he will do it again. He saved the country from the coronavirus. He will take back the country for real Americans. Truly we are blessed that at this moment of existential crisis, we have a President equal to if not superior to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. And if you don’t believe me, just ask him.

For all his talk about having the greatest first year if a President ever,

For all his talk about having the greatest first two years of a President ever,

For all his talk about having done more for black Americans than any President except Lincoln,

He had a legitimate opportunity in the real world to become one of America’s greatest Presidents if only he knew it and was capable of rising to the occasion.

The Battle of Lafayette Square: The Greatest Victory in American History

June 4, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Prequel to "The Mouth that Roared: The Battle of Lafayette Square" (Amazon)

There have been many famous battles in American history, ones of great significance not just to this country but to the world.

Saratoga

The Alamo

Gettysburg

D-Day.

These battles reverberated through American history. They helped define who we are as a country and a people.

But I suggest when the future histories of this country are written, one battle above all others will stand out: the battle when America’s greatest warrior took our country back in the Battle of Lafayette Square.

Think of the situation Little Donnee Waney faced. There he was hunkered and bunkered deep in the bowels of the earth. He was trapped in an area no American sees except in movies like White House Down. Outside surrounding the real White House were heavily armed terrorists. There were terrorists by the thousands, terrorists by the tens of thousands, terrorists by the hundreds of thousands. Bonespur Boy had promised he would fight for real Americans. Now the moment of truth had arrived.

Showing no fear, the immature child playing imaginary games where he makes up the rules, rose up out of the earth to vanquish the forces of chaos armed to the teeth prepared to destroy him. Never before in American history had anyone seen such a courageous act as when this President confidently strode across Lafayette Square eyes fixed on his destination – a photo-op in front of a historic church where he would brandish a Bible upside down and destroy those who would destroy him.

Songs will be song.

Stories will be written.

Tales will be told.

Movies will be made.

“The Mouth That Roared.” Coming to a theater near you now that the coronavirus crisis is over and we can sit in theaters once again.

His exploits have complicated the design of the Unpresidential Library. In my original vision, at the entrance to the library would be a statue of him bent over with Stormy Daniels swatting with a copy of Forbes Magazine with him on the cover. The statue would say “I’m kissing my ass. I’m kissing my ass. I’m kissing my ass.” Then the statue changed to one of Little Donnee Disinfectant holding a bottle of disinfectant. Clorox and Lysol would pay big money to ensure their product wasn’t the one the very stable genius was holding. Now, I am thinking the entrance to the Unpresidential Library should have a statue of our Lord and Saviour, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, holding the Bible as the minions of Satan were swept from the land in a confrontation worthy of Armageddon itself. One small step at Lafayette Square, one giant step towards taking back the country.

SHOCK AND AWE BY THE MILITARY

The military reacted in shock and awe at this display of courage and heroism at the Battle of Lafayette Square. They were stunned by this raw display of power. They thought they were just going out to inspect the troops following the inspection of the bunker. They had no idea they were about the witness the greatest act of sheer bravado in the history of the country. They could be seen trembling in awe at what they had witnessed.

Former Marine general and secretary of defense James Mattis was privileged to witness something he had never seen before not even in a dream James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

He recognized that this President was trying to do something no President previously had tried to accomplish.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.

Mattis even went so far as to call for another witch hunt into the Constitutional violations perpetrated by the divider in-chief, unique in the history of this country.

We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.

So moved was Bill Barr that the Attorney General promised to investigate as soon as he completed the exoneration of America’s greatest warrior president from the Russian collusion and Ukranian extortion charges and indicted Obama and Biden.

Mattis even acknowledged that America’s greatest President was one for the ages. He was on par with Abraham Lincoln having devoted his life to the exact same values:

we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite. Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

These are the very words which have guided our heroic President and genius history scholar all his life. These are the values he comments on endlessly when he is not insulting, mocking, and demeaning people as scum. They are the values that have led him to this great victory. It seems like only yesterday, when Little Donnee Disinfectant was the laughingstock of the world. But now after his televised victory at the Battle of Lafayette Square, he stands tall with Trumpicans. Surely another Red Wave reminiscent of 2018 will sweep Trumpicans to victory in the House, the Senate, and the White House. All the polls show it.

It seems like only yesterday (it was June 2!), when I wrote

And what makes you think the generals will obey a command from the Commander in-chief to send troops into American states to suppress American people?….The American military is not the Department of Justice. The generals are more likely to be loyal to the Constitution than the individual who happens to be President. If Bonespur Boy tries to intimidate the military into playing his game of domination, he may be in for a surprise. Generals are not Trumpican Senators who have sold their soul and will roll over like obedient dogs at whatever whistle he blows, command he issues, or photo-op he desires. Borg to Hong Kong: Resistance Is Futile (Not in America)

Little did I know what was coming!

TRUMPICAN SCOTT JENNINGS INADVERTENTLY SHOWS BIDEN HOW TO WIN

CNN contributor Scott Jennings probably still is a Republican although he toes the Trumpican line. He is an adult who lives in the real world. He ventures off the Fox Reservation to appear on FakeNews outlets. He works very hard at not degenerating to the level of Kellyanne Conway but he has not followed the example of George Conway, George Will, or Rick Wilson in asserting a Republican identity instead of a Trumpican one. As might be expected, Jennings offered a trumpican perspective on the Battle of Lafayette Square. But in so doing he detailed exactly how Joe Biden could leverage that victory into a defining moment for his own presidential campaign. Obviously that was not Jennings’s intent and it is quite possible Biden will let this opportunity slip away.

Jenning wrote a piece for CNN entitled Trump’s law and order message strikes a chord. He stated:

If it takes a deployment of the US military to do it, because governors and mayors cannot get control of the situation in their jurisdictions, I think the President will find public support for it.

The military may not support it, but Trumpicans will. Jennings admitted his befuddlement with the actions at Lafayette Square and then commented on what Joe Biden could now do to seize the moment.

I was not sure what to make of his march to St. John’s Church across Lafayette Square as I watched it unfold live on Monday. I wish he could have taken one step further and stepped into the church and opened the Bible he held. I wish he had invited faith and civil rights leaders to go there with him. And I wish he would have sat in the front row for a church service aimed at praying for peace, calm and unity.

Churches and Bibles are not props; they are tools for the faithful to spread the Word of God and to unify people around God’s teachings. And churches, perhaps more than any other place, can be powerful places from which to broadcast expressions of sympathy and calm.

Are you listening Joe? The advice of this political operative is to go into the church and have a unity memorial service. There are four former Presidents who are preaching for unity, Democratic and Republican presidents. Invite them to the service. Have them open the Bible and read the passages that helped them through there moments of trauma and despair. Do that for yourself as well. Invite the ex-military generals too who have spoken out against turning cities into battlegrounds. Have the service Jennings says should have been held in the first place.

Listen to what others have said and what you have said.

Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde the Episcopal bishop of Washington who oversees the St. John’s Episcopal Church, said:

[Trump just used a Bible and a church of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said:

We need our President, and all who hold office, to be moral leaders who help us to be a people and nation living these values. For the sake of George Floyd, for all who have wrongly suffered, and for the sake of us all, we need leaders to help us to be “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”

You, Joe Biden said:

The country is crying out for leadership, leadership that can unite us.

You have been given the opportunity to provide that leadership. Have the memorial service for unity that should have been held at St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square. Transform the battlefield to a City on Hill. Seize the moment.

P.S. And don’t forget to say “thank you” to Jennings for showing you the way.