The swift-boating of John Kerry.
The whisper campaign that John McCain fathered a daughter with a black woman.
From Jill Lepore's book, I come to understand that rare was a really truthful moment in American politics and elections. Sure, Lepore could be a narrating the story with her progressive bias. But, it is not as if she is working with "alternative facts."
Consider, for instance, the election of 1934, in which Upton Sinclair, "an eccentric and dizzyingly prolific writer still best known for The Jungle ... decided to run for governor of California." As a prolific writer, Sinclair had established quite a paper trail. And that's where his problems began.
Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter, who later became a couple, "like most California Republicans, were horrified at the prospect of a Sinclair governorship." So, they huddled themselves in a room, and selected sentences from Sinclair's writing.
Newspapers were partisans (faux news is not all that new!), and the "Los Angeles Times began running on its front page a box with an Upton Sinclair quotation in it"--the quotes, of course, taken completely out of context. Sinclair lost.
Lepore writes, "as Sinclair argued, voters were now being led by a Lie Factory."
Whitaker and Baxter continued to fine-tune this new art of negative campaigning, especially lying, which seems to be a part of being a Republican! They wrote the book on this, as they say.
Every campaign needs a theme. Keep it simple. ... Never explain anything. The more you have to explain, the more difficult it is to win support. Say the same thing over and over again. ... Simplify, simplify, simplify. A wall goes up when you try to make Mr. and Mrs. Average American Citizen work or think."Like trump's MAGA; Drain the swamp; Build the wall; Lock her up; Repeal Obamacare; No collusion; Fake news; ...
In all the lying and cheating in order to get elected, the powerful whites could not be bothered about the plight of blacks. Not even about lynchings! For all the things that we credit FDR for, his "New Deal programs were generally segregated, and Roosevelt failed to act to oppose lynching." And when FDR refused to support an anti-lynching bill in 1933 , because he needed the Southern Democrats votes in Congress, "the anti-lynching bill died."
Across the Atlantic, in the continent from where the European settlers came and wiped out the natives and then imported humans from Africa in order to dehumanize them as slaves, a powerful populist also effectively used lying and negative campaigning--particularly about minorities.
On Tuesday, the president will use the stage in Congress in order to further engage in lies, damn lies, and fear-mongering, in the grand old white American way :(
3 comments:
I have been following your writing with great interest. I have a question: What makes America great?
My daughter - a very bright 12 year old - is being taught history by a gifted teacher who told them a history of the United States very much in line with the Lepore thesis that you have explored in this blog.
So I asked her: if America is all this, then what makes it great?
Perhaps you can answer this question?
I would love to read what your daughter says/writes in response to your question, "What makes America great?" ... email me, if you think that will be alright: AmDrKhe@gmail.com
After my internally rage-filled teenage years, I came to an understanding that nobody (including me) nor any country (India, US) is perfect. Life then was about making myself less imperfect, and making my life in a place that had set about to make itself less imperfect. Fortunately for me, this life plan has worked out.
It is a challenge to answer your question in a blog-response. A challenge even in a full-length book.
So, let me answer this way. I have never believed that parents are great just because they are my parents. I don't think Tamil Nadu is great just because I was born a Tamil ... all these are accidents over which I had zero input. Such a view of greatness is awful jingoism for which I have nothing but distaste.
What appeals to me more and more about America, and about Oregon in particular, is how much people are interested in making a better tomorrow--not merely for themselves, but for their communities and country. And we do this not by pretending that we never were bad in the past. We apologize over and over about the past mistakes. At many public meetings in Oregon, for instance, we begin with acknowledging the native people to whom the land belonged. We never shy away from the explicit racism that was Oregon. We try to create a better society with the utmost consciousness of the wrongs that were committed in the past. We are trying to make ourselves less imperfect.
Of course there are trump and his racist millions of voters, including people in my own neighborhood. But, they are a dying breed,and this is their last fight. They represent a horrible deviation from the path that we have been on over the past 50 years. trump and trumpism is a nasty disease that won't easily be cured. But, and especially as the 50-plus generation begins to fade away and die, this disease will be a mere minor irritant. The recent sidelining of the racist Congressman from Iowa is an example. Despite their best attempts, trump and his 63 million racist voters will bring out the best from the rest of us.
I suppose it is this hope that tomorrow could be better, and that we can work to make it better, is perhaps what makes America one of the less imperfect countries.
Hey, more on this in this post:
https://sriramkhe.blogspot.com/2019/02/can-you-hear-me-now.html
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