tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post948596271220508906..comments2024-03-26T22:16:26.572-04:00Comments on Terrierman's Daily Dose: A Letter from the Front in the Fight for AmericaPBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-34362878302609661202017-11-09T15:37:56.235-05:002017-11-09T15:37:56.235-05:00Indeed, the Northern Virginia counties are very ac...Indeed, the Northern Virginia counties are very active politically and have the ability to swing the Commonwealth and national elections. That said, if there are two Americas out there, there are also two Virginias here. Draw a diagonal line from some of the wealthiest counties in America just outside Washington to southwestern Virginia and Appalachian poverty. We need to do more in terms of Medicaid and other programs to assist and to change the lives of our less well off fellow Virginians. As to the Scotch-Irish -- read Jim Webb's book!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15719736695907785206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-10562342471753048172017-11-09T12:11:41.551-05:002017-11-09T12:11:41.551-05:00Thank you for this post. What a great day for this...Thank you for this post. What a great day for this country. It restored my hope. I find the most surprising effect of Trumpism is that of bringing together those traditionally from opposite sides of the political spectrum who identify not as partisan and more as American (e.g. CREW, Stand Up Republic, etc.). Previously hard to imagine, I’m sorry to say. Long overdue!<br /><br />Northam doesn’t do all that much for me, personally. Truth be told, I considered him a somewhat brighter version of Bush the Younger. Nevertheless, I distributed links to his ‘Listening’ ad far and wide. On my daily drive to and from work, I pass the Naval Observatory on upper Mass Ave. in DC. Prior to the election, a nearby homeowner had impaled a Northam sign in their lawn, two doors down, where Mike Pence’s motorcade was sure to pass it regularly. Since the homeowner couldn’t vote in Virginia, protest was its only purpose, or as I like to think of it, its highest and best use. I got a rush every single time I drove by. Once, I was stuck in traffic in front of the house, with the owner standing out front. We locked eyes. Big smile and a wink.<br /><br />What a great link to the Smithsonian Scots-Irish history of Virginia. I always liked Jim Webb, and think he is smart. I sometimes like to fantasize about how things might have been different if it was Webb on a ticket with Biden. Anybody else, really, other than what the Dems ended up with. I remember Webb patiently explaining to Bernie Sanders [during the Oct ’15 debate], that as much as liked him, he didn’t think the revolution was coming, since Congress wouldn’t approve the hefty price tags on his proposals. Today, the GOP is promoting a tax bill that is grossly irresponsible, abandoning of decades of struggle against deficits, in favor of what can only be self-preservation. The recent election results add an interesting twist to that proposition. The revolution is already taking place—just not exactly how Bernie described it in 2015. Yet.<br /><br /><br />Lisa<br /><br /><br />P.P.S. Your German friend might get more out of Preston Sturges than the Frank Capra or (John Ford) propaganda. The Reagan clip is really as good as it gets, for that sort of thing.<br />LRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12489475842507956497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-9874596188040592162017-11-09T08:33:00.453-05:002017-11-09T08:33:00.453-05:00What I find so disturbing is that most politicians...What I find so disturbing is that most politicians appear to have enormous loyalty to their "party" and very little or none to Constitution. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-29553361503503157922017-11-09T05:41:55.515-05:002017-11-09T05:41:55.515-05:00Bill Buckley changed the GOP and largely made it w...Bill Buckley changed the GOP and largely made it what it is today. <br /><br />Buckley's first book, God and Man at Yale, was published in 1952, and the National Review was founded in 1955.<br /><br />Most Republicans do not know the history of their party beyond the name. <br /><br />The critical turn occurred in 1912 when Republican Teddy Roosevelt, who was very much a liberal, founded the Progressive Part, now commonly referred to as "The Bull Moose Party". <br /><br />Oddly there is a long African hunting trip behind the cause of that! <br /><br />In an case, when the progressive Bull Moose Party was created, it attracted folks from both parties, leaving the racists and conservative Democratic party far more liberal than it had even been before, and leaving the free-the-slave liberal Republican Party far more conservative than it had ever been before. In short, the two polituical parties flipped their views, platforms, and most of their concerns. <br /><br />After this point (1912) we entered into WWI and then the Great Depression. Here the Democrats became "Big Government" folks that remade farms and fixed the economy (see Dust Bowl posts on this blog), while the Republicans became miserly apologists for child labor and keeping women from voting. The now-liberal Democrats won Social Security (opposed by Republican Alf Landon) and then Medicare and Medicaid (1965). <br /><br />Meanwhile the Republicans went full-tilt fear mongering in the 1950s over the "Red Menace," giving us the Hollywood Black list, Joe McCarthy, and overt pandering racism. <br /><br />Into this world came Bull Buckley, who preached a normative white male determinism as seen by someone who spoke with a lisping and affected mid-Atlantic accent and who saw the world across an oak desk as he fiddled with his gold cuff links and dropped references to Shakespeare and Herodotus. <br /><br />The KKK rose in the 1920s and the GOP gave them solace even as the Jim Crow laws were put in place and hardened across the South with the help of "Dixie-crats" who were the remnants of the racist and previously conservative Democrat party.<br /><br />After World War II, African Americans increasingly challenged segregation, and the Republican party saw this as an opportunity to "hive off" the old racist southern conservative "Dixie-crats" and get them into the Republican party. All through the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s the GOP has focused on wooning southern white racists, and their children, many of whom went west as the economy of the south crubled following WWI and getting out became easier thanks to trains, planes, and automobiles.<br /><br />So, to come back to it, Buckley really did make the GOP as we knew it in our youth (I am approaching 60), while the GOP of our grandparents era (prior to 1912) was more like the Democratic party today. From 1912 to 1940 was the grand (and confusing metamorphosis).<br />PBurnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-49070524973638268362017-11-09T04:45:53.887-05:002017-11-09T04:45:53.887-05:00Sorry, but the Republicans were a sensible party l...Sorry, but the Republicans were a sensible party long before Bill Buckley came along.dphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17744292896360465875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-41774658552060624712017-11-08T20:49:50.463-05:002017-11-08T20:49:50.463-05:00You continue to Republicans as the Republican Part...You continue to Republicans as the Republican Party, but do not accept that they are a "Party in Name Only"; they are deeply divided and likely headed towards a irreversible fission. You remember the Whigs?Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02814236966431915733noreply@blogger.com