That old 1850s feeling

The more the gears of government shudder and creak under the weight of our various economic and political crises, the more I've been thinking about America in the 1850s. During that time, the two polar factions in American government reached their moment of maximum potency before the Union fell apart. However, the Civil War didn't simply arrive overnight. It took the entire history of our country up until then for conflict over slavery to generate enough vehemence, radicalism, and factionalism to generate the strength of sentiment to break the American government.

Similarly, I think we're beginning to see the end game of America's long war on socialism. The right-wing did not rise to this level of power recently. It didn't even rise to power under Reagan. This conflict has always existed, from the labor conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, to the Red Scares, to the economic propaganda of the Cold War. Last week, I found myself listening to the old records by Ronald Reagan from the 1960s. Even back then, the right-wing in American politics was planning, plotting, and laying down the seeds for future conflict.

But now, looking at our budget, our government, and the way the Right has radicalized to the point of openly agitating for the destruction of American government, I get that feeling we are witnessing the stiff breeze before the whirlwind. For me, there seems to be this momentum in our politics and economy that has no soft landing at the end. There won't be any patches or fixes or time for more delays. It seems, in the next decade, our government and politics will reach another breaking point - and it will break. If we default, this could be our economic Bloody Kansas.

And, like the 1850s, I feel we're faced with mediocre politicians and Presidents. President Obama is increasingly evocative of a Pierce or Buchannan figure. He means well, but he's just not the man who is going to fix this. Perhaps external events and the polarization of our politics are too far along. (Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce">the wiki on Franklin Pierce, and you'll see just how strongly Obama's presidency echoes these two men). I'm beginning to feel the transformational figure we hope for will be whoever comes after this breaking.

All of this isn't to say I believe another Civil War is coming. I don't honestly believe the American people have it in them, and I certainly don't believe the U.S. Military would ever countenance it. I do, however, believe we're about to experience a period of turbulence and discord we haven't experienced in our politics and government in a long, long time.

America is starting to get that taut feeling around the chest one feels when a danger suddenly because visibly, unmistakably apparent. For the past 30 years, I don't think we've understood the depth of what is about to happen. But I think we're beginning to.

And I think we're too late.

I've been unsuccessful at Googling the clips and news stories, perhaps they've been scrubbed, but the GOP talked openly about this in the year or two before W was selected by his dad's friends on the Supreme Court. "Massive social upheaval," "significant pain," "sacrifice," these were all the standards of the time. The GOP, including (especially?) Grover Norquist, were happy to talk about history, and how all great (meaning big, not good) changes in a society could only take place after massive pain and turmoil. They pointed to the Civil War, the muckraking years, the Black Plague. This wasn't just about America, it was about societies in general. People become complacent. Even if things suck a little bit, if they're basically content then everything is okay. The premise is that you need to stir the pot. Rile them up. Throw some shit at the walls in order to get people off their asses to affect change. And they want change. Big, serious change. So they're throwing the shit at the walls.

The reason for the Bush tax cuts, and the GOP recalcitrance in reverting to a fairer system, is because the few that are in charge want it this way. They want uprisings by the peasants -- they have the for-profit prisons all ready to take us in. This is the big, massive societal upheaval they've been saving their tax cuts for. They'll survive fine behind the compound walls, while the rest of us duke it out with neighbors and pigeons for scraps on the curb. It's what the GOP WANTS. Because they're rich and it won't touch them. They'll get cheap labor, no unions, no education, the elimination of "FDR," we'll become just another Charles Dicken's novel.

And that's all swell with them. And it's a shame that Obama, of all people, is helping them accomplish this.

.

I truly think the purpose of the Republican Party in 2011 America is to destroy the federal government so they can build a new one from scratch in their own image. This has always been their goal, but their means have never been quite so pointed. I think they believed Reagan was going to starve the beast from within - and damn if he didn't give it his best shot. But once Clinton came in and revitalized federal government to some extent, the right-wing went all in.

I worked in banking during the Bush presidency, and I can honestly say those banks knew exactly what they were doing. They knew it was high risk, they knew the American consumers were going to be fleeced, and they knew that once it all collapsed, they would get trillions out of the Treasury. The financial collapse wasn't a bug - it was the entire point. They wanted to take as much as they could get while the opportunity was ripe. And whatever happened to the economic husk concerned them not at all. The Fed would always and forever have their backs.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall will go down in history as the single greatest act of economic duplicity in a century.

:(

...stuck with another Springfield Illinois state house hack, with next to no experience at the federal level, promoted over his head, under constant fire from his own left -- and constantly compromising, forever bending over backwards dancing another minutet with the other side, in some crazy, half-assed attempt to make sure the other side fires first.

I wonder what happened to that guy?

I think Pierce is a more apt comparison because of just how hard he went out of his way to compromise with the South - long after they revealed themselves as radicals who would stop at nothing until their ideology was enshrined from one end of the country to the other.

Would Lincoln have suspended Frederick Douglass, giving him a gag order to shut him up?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4940308

Pierce & Buchanan were more or less in the pockets of the slaveocracy that was driving the 1850s crisis. They intended to do nothing about the crisis. Filmore at least tried to strike a grand compromise during his short tenure, although the opposite faction creating the crisis kept pulling further and further away from the Compromise of 1850 until the final result that got passed was such a disaster that the crisis eventually crashed.

But you're right; this time they'll only crash the economy. There won't be war. There probably won't even be bread riots.

He did try to find that middle way and balance between the two factions. And, like today, the failure of that compromise was two-pronged: There was no way a radicalized South was ever going to settle for a compromise, and Fillmore was trying to find a middle ground between the right side and a deeply historically inevitably wrong one.

You can't compromise with people hellbent on imposing a radical ideology, and I think Obama is slowly starting to realize what he's dealing with. The Right won't stop until it all breaks down. And then, then we'll have something else, whatever that may prove to be.

"There was no way a radicalized South was ever going to settle for a compromise That is true, but the radical abolitionists were never going to compromise either.

The election of 1860, like the election of 2008, demonstrated to the entrenched interests that political power was shifting away from them, and that they were rapidly losing the ability to protect themselves, and their interests, through normal political means. In 1860 seperating from the rest of the country seemed a realistic solution to the south. My fear is the the entrenched interests today see chaos, followed by facism as the solution.

At this point in time, I think the entrenched interests still feel somewhat protected because the politicians are relentlessly moving to protect them from the consequences of their decisions. Corporate welfare is providing this comfortable insulation for the time being.

What I'm curious to know is how the scales will finally tip over. Part of me thinks it will be sheer populist revolt due to economic crisis and continued unemployment. But the American populace continues to be so docile that I'm having difficulty imagining what single event or series of events will bring that to pass. What would bring, say, a Teddy Roosevelt to power? (and even his was an accidental presidency at first)

:hi:

On a positive note regarding Fillmore---after leaving office he rejoined the middle class. Can't say as much for Clinton and Obama. They REALLY like the rich guys.

I always forget about Fillmore for some reason. I think it's Dave Berry's fault. In one of his books on American history, he had a list of highlights of the Millard Fillmore administration. It read, in its entirety:

"The earth did not crash into the sun."

My brain remembers accordingly =)

been saying this for three years now...

Around 2004/05, I started witnessing the first shudders within the financial community. And even then, I couldn't really figure out how we could possibly pull ourselves out of what the banks wrought. The wound ran too deep and spread too wide. That's why I thought the stimulus fight was such a failure. The politicians either don't understand or don't care (or simply don't have the foresight beyond the immediate demands of the next election).

When my co-workers and I started getting these streams of people with bad mortgages coming into our offices, we all went "Uh oh." We knew. The banks knew. And I'm sure the politicians knew. But by then, it was too late. I really think Glass-Steagall was the Rubicon.

I really wanted Obama to be that transformational figure. I thought Bush was so terrible and his policies so wretched for the country that Obama would have a unique opportunity to steer us away from the cliff just enough to make the difference. I certainly didn't think he'd stand by while the Republicans shoveled coal into those destructive engines.

Yet here we are.

Fillmore's inclination to compromise was the beginning of the end of the Whigs as a political party. There was great rancor in the ranks and it split into the Republicans and the "Know Nothings"

Of course the growing big issue of those times was slavery; and Fillmore gave off the perception of weakness in that he was the "great compromiser". Hard to figure out what he believed in.

I will have to read up on Pierce and Buchanan, now. Both, as I remember, always seemed mundane and not the right person for the times.

I keed, I keed!
but funny how we both latched onto the Millard thing
If you believe in historical cycles, that means we'll still have to go thru two more failed presidencies before someone comes along to fix this mess.

As a student of history I know it repeats itself, but it's never quite the same. I think you're right. There will be no soft landing. I sensed this during George Bush's destructive tenure.

I admit Obama gave me hope that while it wasn't going to be a soft landing, maybe we could get through it in as wise and careful a way as possible.

I no longer have that hope. The next decade will be a rotten one.

Curious in a growing dread sort of way. I've never been a "We're all doomed!" type of person, but there's definitely a menacing undercurrent in these political times that lends itself to unease. There's anxiety, and then there's anxiety where you can feel the bile rising in your throat. I'm starting to feel that way about our politics for the first time in my life.

Rent it. Buy it. Learn it. It's coming.

Thanks for making me LOL!

I know exactly how you feel. I've never been a doom-and-gloomer, and very rarely speak like this outside of my postings at DU. But there's a reason I battle esophagitis and live with painful bouts of gastritis.