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American Revolution 250th: Can Bush and Obama Save It?

August 30, 2024
by Peter Feinman
The Bushes and Obamas to the Rescue

There has been big news on the American Revolution 250 front. Two former Presidents and First Ladies were named honorary co-chairs on August 1, 2024. Before turning to that event, let’s put that announcement in perspective starting with a blog in 2020.

The American Revolution 250th and Joe Biden: An Historic Opportunity

November 6, 2020

JOE BIDEN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 250TH

The 250th anniversary of July 4, 1776, will not occur in the upcoming term but what President Biden does will shape what happens. Just because everything is on hold now [due to COVID] as it is for the Pilgrim quadricentennial doesn’t mean anniversaries aren’t already occurring (Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770). Biden will have choices to make about how to proceed. It may not seem like the most pressing issue for him to address right now, but I would say given the divisions further exposed in the election, now is the time for him to seize the moment and put his stamp on his vision of America. May I recommend the following:

1. Appoint Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama to co-chair the existing commission for the American Revolution 250th.
2. Also appoint them to cochair and revise the existing 1776 Commission to a broader call to develop a new national narrative for the 21st century.
3. Our shared story is one that

celebrates that the world is a better place because of the existence of the United States of America

confronts the ugly actions which have occurred in American history

calls for continuing the journey to fulfill the vision and ideals expressed at our creation.

Biden has only one opportunity to make a first impression as the unity President of the United States who can talk the talk and walk the walk. Let it be an historic one.

Obviously that did not happen. Instead the United States Semiquincentennial Commission remained mired in controversy which was the title of my blog near two years later in 2022.

Controversy at the United States Semiquincentennial Commission

July 1, 2022

My suggestion that Joe Biden name George Bush and Barack Obama as co-chairs of the federal commission seems better and better. For now, local and state organizations should think about Plan B. Nationally, it seems like we are on the Titanic with the iceberg dead ahead in broad daylight and we are aimed at it.

Nothing happened although things did improve. Now, this month over three and a half years after my initial recommendation, looked what happened.

Aug 1, 2024, 2:15 PM

America250 is excited to announce that President George W. Bush, Mrs. Laura Bush, President Barack Obama, and Mrs. Michelle Obama will serve as Honorary National Co-Chairs of the national effort to celebrate and commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the United States.

 As Honorary Co-Chairs, President and Mrs. Bush and President and Mrs. Obama will lend their voices to the nationwide effort to mark this historic milestone.

 The momentum behind America250 has never been greater. We look forward to working with the presidents and first ladies to ensure that the 250th is a celebration for all Americans, from sea to shining sea.

 President Bush and President Obama are leaders with unique American experiences. Collectively, their platforms, voices, and stories will inspire Americans across the country to join together in celebrating America’s 250th.

 As Presidents and First Ladies of the United States, their stories are foundational to the American story. We hope that their unique voices will help encourage everyone to participate in this pivotal commemoration.”

 -Rosie Rios, Chair, America250

They are honorary co-chairs so I do not know how deep their involvement will be. It might range from being figureheads on a letter head to active engagement with the project. Only time will tell.

Speaking of time, the clock keeps clicking. There is less than two years now to the big event in Philadelphia on July 4, 2026. So what do these appointments mean in this context? Obviously nothing will be done in this legislative session. As for the next one, it would probably be necessary to wait until at least February if not March until all the election dusts settles. That would 16 months before July 4, 2026, and the looming cessation of the federal commission.

Is there an infrastructure set up to handle the distribution of funds through the state 250th commissions?

Are there funds to be disbursed?

Do all states even have a fully active staffed and funded 250th commission?

Based on an online 250th program I recently participated in, there are states which have nothing in place. Given that this is an election year, the odds are any action will be deferred to the new governor and legislatures. That means with 15 months to go, we may start seeing some action.

During the bicentennial, many new historical societies were created. That will not happen this time around. Maybe there is no need for any new ones; all the ones that need to exist already have been created. In fact, sometimes the people who created these small history organizations after the bicentennial may still be there. Getting the next generation to step in and step up has proved a challenge.

For events after July 4, 2026, these appointments probably mean nothing. The commission is not geared up to function then anyway.

As to the growing groundswell in support of the 250th, that may be a pipe dream. Neither political party has weaponized the 250th yet. Here we are in the middle of a presidential election with talk of democracy being on the line and still no mention of the 250th by either candidate or the current president. Perhaps a member of the press might ask them about it.

H-Early-America Call for Papers: Remembering the American Revolution at 250

The academic list-serve H-Early America has put out a call for papers that raises some of the questions which our honorary co-leaders of the 250th might ask.

There will be a host of events throughout the country to commemorate this momentous milestone, but also deep soul searching about the meanings of the revolution, independence, and liberty, and the proper way to commemorate such an event. To participate in these conversations, H-Early-America invites essay submissions for Remembering the American Revolution at 250, a peer-reviewed publication hosted and freely available on the H-Net Publications Platform. Published essays will appear online on an open-access model, ensuring a broad readership.

One may question how much “deep soul searching about the meanings of the revolution, independence, and liberty, and the proper way to commemorate such an event” will occur. Jefferson historian Annette Gordon-Reed writes:

We approach 2026, the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding , with legitimate reasons to question whether the American experiment — always an imperfect and fragile work in progress — will survive in a recognizable form that, at least, maintains that the will to believe in a notion of progress toward a more perfect union. It has been disheartening me and, judging from the comments I receive from people across the country, to many others, to realize that so large a part of our citizenry has seemingly given up on the experiment and now seems to prefer the cultural values and strongman style of government one sees in authoritarian regimes in places such as Eastern Europe (“Harris Earned Her Place in History,” NYT August 25, 2024, print).

A more likely event is July 4 celebrations as usual only bigger. Be that as it may, here are the five topics in the call for papers.

1. Global Revolution: How are the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Founders remembered overseas? What are the stories of George Washington statues in Europe? How have states that joined the Union after 1776, such as Florida and Louisiana, remembered the revolution?

2. Texts of Revolution: How do we remember and interpret various, especially lesser-known, documents from the American Revolution? How have resource projects enhanced the availability and accessibility of these documents? How can we use these documents in our teaching?

3. Revolution–-or Not? : How did those indifferent or antagonistic to the American Revolution or who viewed the British as the side of liberty view and remember the events? How have African Americans processed the tension between their remembrances of freedom and enslavement and national remembrances of independence and the Revolution? How did families with divided loyalties work through their differences?                                                                                                               

4. Remembering Revolution: How have we remembered the American Revolution? What aspects of the Revolution have we willfully forgotten because they were unpleasant or inconvenient? How have books, historians, and popular media contributed to the remembering or forgetting of the American Revolution?

5. Revolution for a New Century: How do we adjust the teaching of the American Revolution as we face new challenges from political leaders? How do historic sites address the need to include a broader set of voices? How do we communicate the history of the Revolution to the U.S. public in the 21st century?

Even if one does not submit a 5-8000 word research essay, these topics provide plenty of opportunity for discussion in historical societies, libraries, social studies classes, teacher workshops or wherever one gathers to have deep soul searching discussions.

For questions contact:

Abby Chandler, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Darcy R. Fryer, The Brearley School
Patrick Luck, Florida Polytechnic University
Niels Eichhorn, VP of Research and Publication, H-Net
Contact Information: america250@mail.h-net.org

1774 AND THE 250th

Finally we need to keep in mind that the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution has already started. The year 1774, the year of the First Continental Congress, has been the subject of multiple blogs.

Here are some 1774 events that I happen to be aware of.

Orangetown Resolutions

On July 4, 2024, about “80-plus rabble-rousers celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Orange Town resolutions at the ’76 House in Tappan.” The restaurant is better known as the “prison” of John André whose capture in 1780 occurred after the federal commission will have expired. According to the Orangetown Crier from the Orangetown Historical Museum and Archives, the Orangetown Resolutions, coincidentally adopted on July 4, 1774, were read aloud. They expressed the great anger at the audacity of the British Crown to impose its unfair taxes on us. The Tappantown Historical Society and the Historical Society of Rockland County joined in the celebration.

Suffolk Resolves

Here is a notice about an event which occurred on September 9, 1774 and is being celebrated on Aug 31, 2024.

RESOLVED!

This Saturday, August 31, 2024, the Milton Historical Society, in partnership with the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Freemasons, the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, the Massachusetts Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Children of the American Revolution and the Old North Bridge Society, will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Suffolk Resolves.

The Suffolk Resolves, primarily authored by Dr. Joseph Warren, was a bold declaration in 1774. This document outlined the Bay Colony’s grievances and a strategy for resisting oppressive British policies in response to the Intolerable Acts imposed by Parliament earlier that year. The Resolves were a precursor document to the Declaration of Independence and marked one of the first official acts of the Continental Congress.

The Suffolk Resolves House, originally known as the Daniel Vose House, is where the Suffolk Resolves were approved and signed on September 9, 1774. Paul Revere delivered the document on horseback to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Today, this historic site is preserved by the Milton Historical Society.

In response to the Suffolk Resolves, King George III gave a speech to Parliament on November 30, 1774, condemning Massachusetts, accusing the colonies of rebellion, and declaring the colonists “open and avowed enemies.”

Such events should be held in municipalities throughout the country and not limited to the original 13 states or Massachusetts. We are fast running out of time to remember 1774 two hundred and fifty years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V-Zero Day: We Have Prevailed Over COVID-19!

May 19, 2020
by Peter Feinman
"We have met the moment and we have prevailed,"

Did you celebrate V-Zero Day? Did you celebrate the day when we finally prevailed over Covid-19?

Ever since the White House Council of Economic Advisers delivered its Happy Talk message showing deaths dropping precipitously to the point of zero by May 15, I have been counting down the days on my blogs.

We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2! We’re Number Two: Trumpicans Rejoice

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: in 3 days!!!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus again: in 13 days!!!!!!!

“The Trump Presidency Is Over:” Peter Wehner Is Wrong and Living in an Alternate Reality

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: TOMORROW!!!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus again: in 11 days!!!!!!!

As the first promised day drew nearer the excitement mounted. Given the track record of success in White House predictions of miracle cures, it will just go away, and 15 to zero, I anticipated front page coverage of this historic event. I chose not to issue a blog Friday night covering the celebration and I guess I missed the fanfare. On Monday, Rachel Maddow did devote a segment to this auspicious achievement…and heralded the upcoming triumph on May 25. The countdown continues.

REVENGE AGAINST THE NERDS

How popular were nerds in 7th grade, the emotional age of our President? Nerds tended not to be the most popular kids in the class. They knew science. They knew math. They could read books. Remember even non-nerd Tom Hanks when he became big could read a book and understand algebra (see Tom Hanks versus Our Immature Child-President 08/08/17).

For Little Donnee Waney, it is unlikely that nerds were his favorite people. The seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck was superb at insulting and demeaning people. It would be nice to know more about why Fred Trump placed his son in military school in the vain hope that Macho Macho boy would man up.

By coincidence there was a recent book review on And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School by Judith Warner (NYT 5/10/20). Reviewer Shannon Hale wrote:

Warner shows how for so many of us, our “narrative identity” is greatly affected by what we suffered in middle school, and since our perceptions during those years are undoubtedly distorted, so too might be our sense of self. How many of us are walking around with the unhealed emotional wounds inflicted in junior high?

 Warner recommends “compassion.” She does so both for actual middle schoolers and middle-aged adults who still are middle-schoolers inside and “even now feeling somewhat wrong, inferior and unfinished.” Or as I have written: it is not fair to judge Little Donnee Waney by adult standards since he isn’t one.

Think of what it must have been like for Macho Macho boy to have been repeatedly upstaged by Fauci. Time Magazine’s Person of the Year is someone our immature child president never would have associated with back in junior high school. And now here is Fauci with far higher approval ratings claiming the center stage from the narcissist in-chief, the stage that was supposed to showcase how the war leader with the supergenious medical uncle was saving America. It had to be humiliating to have to stand there while this little nerd commanded the respect the immature child can only fake but never achieve. Think of how Bonespur Boy loved to trot out his Hollywood-cast uniformed generals. He loved playing with his action figure dolls and parading them with all their accessories for the world to see as if he were a real man. Now this little pipsqueak of a nerd was showing him up daily.

People have caught on to his act. Our previous adult President just said at a virtual high school graduation commencement:

Doing what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way — which is why things are so screwed up.

Barack Obama grasps the truth about Little Donnee Waney. At some level, it must infuriate the immature child to see the adult President behaving in a way he will never attain…even if there was no racial component.

This background helps explain the science recently demonstrated by the person with the maturity of the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. Consider these examples of logic and scientific reasoning by the President who is not Spock or Kirk either.

1. New York City raised the number of Covid-19 deaths by over 3000. Given the uncertainty and chaos of the early days, it is easy to understand why the death totals might not be accurate. People were dying at home as Fauci pointed out. Coroners didn’t know what to look for at first…or have the means to test for it. The volume was overwhelming. Even a normal 7th grader could understand that.

But not the narcissist in chief. Since it is always about him, the reason for the discrepancy could only be due to one thing: the Deep State plot to undermine his presidency by inflating the number of dead on his watch.

2. If he couldn’t handle the increase in death count of over 3000, what are the odds he could accept The New York Times analysis showing up to 20,000 more deaths. The study compared the number of deaths this year during the worst weeks with the death totals from the same time period in previous years. A nerd could understand this, an immature child could not. Our President genuinely lacks the mental necessities to understand this analysis. His uncle may be a super genious who could have but his nephew has been wearing the proverbial dunce cap for decades.

How did he respond to these numbers? The answer is exactly the same as when he is forced into an adult conversation and realizes that he cannot function at that level. In a press conference exchange with adults, the nasty cutie pie always resorts to his seventh-grade persona when the going gets tough because that’s what he really is. The temper tantrum via tweet or verbal putdown is the only weapon in the arsenal of Macho Macho boy. In this case of the number of Corvid-19 deaths that means the numbers are false. The unhappy talk numbers are part of the Deep State attack on him. Given his middle-school mind, what other possibility is there?

3. His lack of reasoning skills has been on full display. After all, if we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases of Covid-19, right? If President Joe Biden institutes a robust national testing program and the number of cases increases dramatically, what would that mean? Right now the mortality rate is averaging 6% of the infections. That is fairly high, in fact, 60 times the mortality rate for flu and 6 times the projected rate of 1%. Is that infection rate valid? If the number of infections also was six times the present number, then the mortality rate would decrease to a less scary 1%, still 10 times worse than the flu but much less terrifying than the present numbers. Unfortunately the very stable genius is far from being the smartest person in the room. By his calculations, that increase in infections would mean that as soon as Biden became president, the number of cases skyrocketed because Biden was a failure as President. That is the level of his thinking. STOP THE TESTING TO STOP THE NUMBER OF INFECTIONS!

So what can we look forward to?

“By Memorial Day weekend we will largely have this coronavirus behind us.” Just ask him.

After Memorial Day, there will no longer be any need to take hydroxychloroquine. Just ask him.

How many lawsuits will there be against the President on behalf of people who take   hydroxychloroquine and have adverse effects? Just ask him.

Note 1: Tubby-wubby is not “morbidly obese.
Note 2: How many of the 3 Foxettes are taking hydroxychloroquine?

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

ATTENTION WASHINGTON POST: IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO TRACK HIS 16,000+ TRUMPS, TRACK HIS PROMISES TOO.

April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 5 2020: “There is tremendous hope as we look forward and we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT YET?
May 8 2020: “Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon.” WHEN IS SOON?
May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: WE HAVE PREVAILED!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus again: in 6 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal economy
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now: “We will transition into greatness. That’s a phrase you’re going to hear a lot, because that’s what’s going to happen.”
July 4 2020 Supreme Court rules Republican President is above the law; American experiment ends short of 250th anniversary
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
Fourth Quarter 2020: economy will be tremendous
October 2020: announce vaccine cure in election day surprise
November 3 2020: Deploy army of real Americans to suppress vote of…you know…those people – Vote Suppressors to become a TV reality show
November 3 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
November 3 2020: Democratic coronavirus hoax magically disappears and all lockdowns and restrictions end
January 1, 2021: begin distribution of miracle vaccine
January 20 2021: Nancy Pelosi becomes President
January 20 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers

Who Is a Real American?: Why the Needle Has Not Moved

December 29, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Who Is a real American? Who is not? (www.youtube.com)

As the year draws to a close, I end with a confession. I was as wrong anyone can be. I was so wrong that I am not even going to provide the link to the blog where I was so wrong. I really believed there would come a time when Republicans stared into the ugliness of Donald Trump and would be so repelled that they would abandon him in shock, revolted over having being conned by a scam artist of such minimal mental necessities who was incapable of telling the truth.

I share the feelings of Michelle Goldberg who wrote:

At the start of this administration, many who are horrified by Trump thought that at some point the Republican fever might break, leading to conservatives in Congress to check a dictator-worshipping buffoon for the sake of the Constitution. I’ve become ashamed of my naïveté… (The New York Times, December 22, print).

To be fair to Little Donee Waney calling him a “dictator-worshipping buffoon” ignores the reality that he is an immature child who never was able to man up but desperately wanted to. His worship and submissiveness is not based on any political beliefs or values. The explosion of hissy fits tweets during this current interlude between impeachment and trial is testament to the threat the immature child feels as the adult world closes in around him. He is not fit psychology to function as an adult and the more he his forced to operate in the adult world, the more off the rails he will act.

It should be noted that some Republicans have acted against the longtime Democrat and Clinton supporter who subsequently hijacked the Republican Party in a brilliant exploitation of Republican fears and insecurities. But the efforts of Rick Wilson and George Conway (in the world’s strangest marriage) are not likely to prove fruitful. The Republican Party died a long time ago [R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016) from March 12, 2016]. It exists merely in name. Republicans have been transformed into Trumpicans, the path they were already on, before the con artist had the skill to exploit it for his own needs. [A case study on the Republican and Trumpican parties in New York will the subject of a future blog.]

So what then were Trumpicans concerned about? Eventually I did realize what Little Donee Waney knew in his gut. The answer is that Trumpicans see THE DONALD as America’s last best hope against the Politically Correct, the triumph of identity politics, and the control over Real Americans by, you know, those people.

Skeptical-about-Trump conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage asked his listeners about their support for Trump. Here is one response:

Dave in North Carolina asked how anyone could blame Mr. Trump when he is fighting so many enemies at once. “He’s not just fighting the Democrats. He’s fighting the deep state. He’s fighting the cabals. WITHOUT HIM, WE HAVE NOTHING (capitalization added).” (NYT, June 19, 2019).

The idea that Savage represented a “a small crack in the foundation of Trump loyalists” seems absurd over six months later. It’s like thinking an editorial in a Christian evangelical publication represents another small crack as well. [Will white evangelicals see the light will be the subject of a future blog as well.] The excited urgency and passion of the caller Dave speaks to belief in the LORD AND SAVIOR, THE CHOSEN ONE, BLESSED BE HIS NAME.

This past July 4 was not without a politically correct scandal either. It seems that Kate Smith in her pre-“God Bless America” day, sang popular songs on the vaudeville circuit that were demeaning to blacks. As a result she has been yanked by the Yankees. In response, the Kate Smith Commemorative Society (I did not know there was one) issued the following statement in opposition to an action it characterized as

yet another example of the harmful excesses of the questionable concept of ‘political correctness,’ and the unfair and all-too frequent tendencies to judge events of the past by the standards and sensibilities of the present. (NYT, July 4, 2019).

A few days later on July 7, The New York Times printed some responses to a survey taken of Trump voters as to their preferences in 2020. Here are some of the responses.

1. Based on the debates, Democrats have learned nothing in the last two years. Democrats believe that identity politics is a winner. Wrong.

2. I did hear (from the Democratic candidates) about decriminalizing lawlessness [meaning immigration] (and) a healthy dollop of identity politics.

3. The Democrats want to give illegals just about anything they want. What part of illegal do they not understand?

On the other hand, some Trump voters had seen the light.

1. Mr. Trump was preaching as if he supported populism and “draining the swamp.” He failed to live up to both miserably.

This person would support Sanders, Yang, Warren or Gabbard. The Democrats should be able to capitalize on Swampbuilder having the most corrupt and incompetent Cabinet in American history. [One should note that competent Secretaries may implement policies you detest but that does not make them corrupt or inept.]

2. I absolutely will not vote for Donald Trump again. I regretted it as soon as he started up with the inauguration nonsense. If his mouth is open, he’s telling lies….Our institutions and democracy are at stake, and four more years of Mr. Trump will be disastrous and ruinous. Mr. Trump has to go.

This response provides Democrats with two possible avenues of attack:

1. Can You Count? – Can you count the number of people in the inauguration parade? Can you count that 63 million is less than 66 million? Can you count that 306 Electoral College votes are not a landslide?

2. The American Revolution 250th – How can we celebrate the anniversary of removing a king from rule over us when we have a President who wants to rule over us as a king above the law and with no checks and balances?

Here’s what renowned Trumpican Maureen Dowd wrote on July 28, 2019, in an op-ed piece entitled “Spare Me the Purity Racket”:

The progressives are the modern Puritans. The Massachusetts Bay Colony is alive and well on the Potomac and Twitter.
They eviscerate their natural allies for not being pure enough…The politics of purism makes people stupid. And nasty.

In an article on “How Lying and Mistrust Could Take a Lasting Toll,” Robert Shiller wrote:

In talks with strong supporters of Mr. Trump, I have found that they are often willing to admit that he has “rough edges.” They suggest that all politicians have to play politics, and like Mick Mulvany, the acting White House chief of staff, they sometimes say we need to “get over” that. Being caught in lies seems to them to be no great shame. The greater picture, they say, is that the president has freed himself from the constraints of “political correctness” to state unpopular truths, and to fight for the interests of forgotten Americans. That view seems to show no diminution of a basic sense of the importance of honesty. (NYT 11/10/19)

My ongoing series of blogs on Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day are part of this same conflict. The weaponization of terms like “native” and “indigenous” by politically- corrected people were acts of war. Non-college-graduate whites were able to figure out that they were the target of this alternate vocabulary.

As long as the Trumpicans accept the con that Little Donee Waney is really THE DONALD fighting for them against the Politically Correct they will stand by their immature child president. Saudi Arabia knows that THE DONALD is an act but Trumpicans have not yet been exposed to that truth.

I was enlightened to the truth of the concerns of the Trumpicans in response to my recent blog on a “Prayer for America.” I have posted that blog before but this time I added “Prayer for Pelosi” to the title. Just prior to my posting and partly a cause of my resending it, Nancy Pelosi had stated she had prayed for the President. Subsequent to my posting it, he had responded disputing her claim to have prayed for him. Obviously Pelosi’s praying for the President does not mean she is a partisan of the President. Readers of my prayer blog sometimes were unable to understand that and/or did know Pelosi had said she had prayed for him. The mere appearance of “Pelosi” in the title with the word “Prayer” was enough to ignite Trumpicans.

Here is one response that I think goes to the heart of the divide in America:

Are you kidding me! What the hell is wrong with you sending out this email! Your prejudice is unbelievable. Do you realize 63 million people voted for President Trump. You are supposed to be a historical organization not a partisan hack org! I am going to post this email all over social media and expose your organization!

This reader opened the blog 39 times which I understand to mean it was forwarded 38 times to social media. A challenge to identify what in the prayer was partisan was unanswered.

Focus now on the use of the “63 million people who voted for President Trump.” Why mention a loser number? It was not the majority. It was not a plurality. So why call attention the loser number instead of the winner number of 306 Electoral College votes? The same may be asked of Congressional Trumpicans and Media Trumpicans who continually cite this number. What does this number mean to Trumpicans?

The answer in part goes back to Sarah Palin. She called on supporters to “take back the country.” To take it back from, you know, those people. In this scenario, who are the “we”? Who are the people for whom the country is being taken back? The answer is the 63 million in 2016 numbers. They are a minority of the voters but a majority of the Real Americans. It was at this point when longtime Democrat and Clinton supporter sensed an opportunity in his gut, a way to be the center of attention, a path to power. Barack Obama was a foreign-born Moslem. That claim rocketed the con artist to national standing. Real Americans were deeply afraid and emotionally distraught over the prospect of having their country being taken over…AND BY PEOPLE WHO WERE HERE ILLEGALLY BUT STILL TO BE TREATED AS IF THEY HAVE THE SAME IF NOT MORE RIGHTS THAN REAL AMERICANS. Real Americans needed a savior and Little Donne Waney was ready to fill that role. More than ready. And nothing that has happened since 2016 has changed that view because for these “Real Americans” the problem still exists and there still is no alternative to him.

Republican Party versus the Trumpican Party: The 2020 Elections

May 9, 2019
by Peter Feinman
"Thank you Istanbul": A victory poster shows Mr Erdogan (R) and mayoral candidate Binali Yildirim (BBC.com)

When did you first know that Individual #1 would not honor the 2020 election results if he lost?

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WINS POPULAR VOTE

Technically, that headline is not really a news item. In the baby-boomer era of the American presidency, the Democratic candidate routinely wins the popular vote. The lone exception is the post-9/11 election in 2004. Otherwise the Democratic victory in this facet of the electoral process can almost be taken for granted. Obviously winning the popular vote is not enough to win the presidency.

Nonetheless, the Democratic popular vote victory in 2016 while expected also should generate questions. Consider two commonly asserted claims that combined should have undermined the Democratic popular vote margin:

1. The turnout of black voters in support of the Democratic candidate declined from 2012
2. White Obama voters switched parties especially non-college educated ones.

One might think therefore the chances of a Democratic candidate prevailing in the popular vote would be correspondingly reduced. So if the margin was still nearly 3 million votes, then imagine what it would have been if Democrats had been able to retain these 2012 voters in 2016.

But there is a piece missing. It is not one that has garnered a lot of attention. It is not one that I recall hearing on the talk shows or reading about on blogs or in newspapers or magazines. I am not saying it has not been discussed, only that it seems to have done so minimally at best.

To begin with, although Trump is president whereas Mitt Romney lost in 2012, look at the vote totals.  Trump actually received a slightly smaller share of the vote than Romney did — 45.95 percent for Trump versus 47.15 percent for Romney.

Let’s look at Wisconsin as an example to determine what was going on. This is the state that one candidate famously never visited while it is alleged the Russian violation of the United States may have made a difference. The vote totals tell a more complete story.

In 2012 the Democratic candidate received 1,620,985 votes. In 2016 that number declined substantially to 1,382,536. One might think a 238,000 drop would result in big gain for the other side. Think again.

In 2012 the losing Republican candidate received 1,407,966 votes while in 2016 the winning candidate received 1,405,284, also a decline but of only 2700. However this roughly comparable total to 2012 was enough to win the state in 2016 due to the precipitous Democratic drop-off.

As it turns out, there is more to the story than the presidential election alone. In the Senate election, the Republican candidate won with over 50% and over 3% margin compared to the miniscule presidential margin of .7%. This winning candidate had 1,479,471 votes, over 74,000 more than the presidential tally. That means 74,000 people went to the polls voted for the Republican senatorial candidate but did not vote for the Republican presidential candidate. By contrast the Democratic presidential candidate had about 2000 more votes than the Democratic senate candidate.  When the Democrats went to the polls they voted for both the Democratic presidential and senate candidates; when Republicans went to the polls they did not. Where did the missing Republican presidential votes go?

The issue of the missing Republican voters was addressed in an article entitled “Trump Is Driving Out Precious Voters” (NYT 2/17/19 printed edition). The authors are:

Sean McElwee, Data for Progress
Brian F. Schaffer, Tufts University, political scientist
Jesse H. Rhodes, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, political scientist
Bernard L. Fraga, Indiana University, political scientist.

The article opens with the well-known commonly accepted truths noted above: the Democratic problem with the Obama-to-Trump voters and the loss of popular vote by the Republicans in six of the last seven elections.  The authors then state a caution:

It has flown under the radar a bit [EXACTLY!!!], masked perhaps by the switch of millions of Barack Obama voters into Mr. Trump’s column, but in 2016 Mr. Trump did not receive support from a large segment of voters who pulled the lever for Mitt Romney in 2012.

In fact, the Wisconsin example reported above shows even people who went to the polls and voted for a Republican senator did not vote for the Republican presidential candidate.

The authors suggest based on their data that 5 percent of the Romney vote in 2012 stayed home in 2016. Another 5 percent voted Democratic. They provide no figures for people who voted Republican for some offices but abstained from voting for a presidential candidate. The implication of the numbers the authors provided is the 10% drop-off in Republican voters from 2012 to 2016 was compensated for by the better-known Obama-to-Trump shift by uneducated whites.

Are these shifts temporary or do they reflect the beginning of a permanent realignment. The congressional elections of 2018 witnessed a nearly 9% difference between the total house vote of the two parties. That is a huge amount if extended to the presidential election in 2020. According to the analysis, the authors hypothesize that based on the 2016 and 2018 elections, the Republican Party may have lost more than 40% of the Romney voters born after 1976. Ironically given the front runner status of Joe Biden and the continuing popularity of Bernie Sanders, it is the Republican Party that increasingly becoming the party of old white males!

The authors then ask: “Can Republicans solve their demographic problem?”

They express some doubt. They do so by comparing the political positions of the lost Romney voters with the 2016 and 2018 voters and detect a gap that probably cannot be bridged. Such people might still vote for Republicans at the local level as indicated in the Wisconsin Senate vote but even that becomes problematic when at the federal level all, or almost all, Republicans have abandoned being Republican.

Which of the following actions since the 2018 elections seem likely to win back the missing Republican voters in 2020?

Trump’s shut down of the government.
Trump’s obstruction of justice at least 10 times according to the Mueller report.
Trump’s nullification of checks and balances and assertion of rule above the law.
Trump’s exposure as the biggest financial loser in American history.
Trump’s North Korean lover building more bombs and firing more missiles.
Trump’s claim that winning trade wars is easy is exposed as fraudulent.
Trump’s thriving in insulting and demeaning people.
Trump’s laughter at the “joke” of shooting illegal immigrants.

The Panhandle has replaced Peoria. The old claim of as goes Peoria so goes nation has become as goes Panhandle so goes just enough of the nation to win in the Electoral College without winning the popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was not the intention of the Electoral College winners to lose the popular vote. In fact, in 2016 the winning candidate was just in it for narcissistic marketing reasons and did not expect to win at all. The circumstances have changed. Now for the first time in American history, a candidate in a two-major-party election is not even seeking to win a majority of the popular vote or even a plurality. Instead the focus is on the Electoral College. Individual #1 has no interest in winning back the lost Republican voters. That’s because at the federal level, there is no Republican Party, just the Trumpicans.