Of Course It’s Legitimate Political Discourse
The Republican Proclamation of 2022 on January 6th — Part 1
The Era of Good Feelings
Let’s start with a definition.
[Trigger Warning: For those too sensitive at the mention of facts from US history, please stop reading here. This discussion is also not for school-aged children, fragile conservative whites on state campuses, and college students in Texas, as it would violate the current CRT laws of the state. The author asks you do not share it with those students.]
“Legitimate Political Discourse”: The violent uncivil centuries-long tactics of the Democratic-Republicans. For some history, first the Democratic-Republican Party of born in 1792, then become the Democratic Party of the 1828 and then morphing or evolving into the modern Republican Party or GOP.
Like, duh. Of course, loud violent protests are “legitimate political discourse” for the Republicans. I’m not even black and can tell you that. Maybe because I grew up in the pre-CRT era when textbooks had a history of American slavery and the supporting facts.
Here’s news for history buffs — which I’m not but happen to look up facts about sometimes — our nation has not always been united like it is now. Currently there are cries from politicians to unite our country, to heal our country, so it can become one again. But that split they are sensing that could happen and want to stop wasn’t always the case. A little history using dates, or basic “elemental” facts, helps clarify.
The first party was the Federalist Party born in 1789. They were the sole party for three years, so we had a natural sense of unity. But the “Great Rift” occurred by the creation of the founding of the Democratic-Republican Party in 1792, which planted the seed that ended one party rule. Despite this newly created party, the Federalists dominated American politics until 1801, 13 years. The rise of the Democratic-Republicans created that division and polarized the country in a radical way. But then the Federalist party collapsed in 1815, leaving the Democratic-Republicans as the single party under Madison. And this time was called the “era of Good Feelings.” It lasted a while, this peaceful unity of whites, and existed without the pressure from ‘minority’ groups like slaves, freed blacks, and women to reform “the system”, as such groups couldn’t be heard in the halls of power, since they weren’t there.
But pressure from white male abolitionists mounted, like the slaveless president Adams and his son. Free blacks and freed slaves, and even women in 1840, started getting vocal. The British outlawing slavery in 1807 in part by Britain passes Abolition of the Slave Trade Act then fully in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act throughout its empire. That type of international pressure didn’t seem to help the Americans, especially from an autocracy that once rule them, and they rebelled against based on “principles” and ideal of naturalist rights or inalienable right that all men are created equal.
Suddenly, these new Americans really seemed liked hypocrites and their values vacuous. This act was followed by the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. In Britain.
The following parties that were created kept have the original names, so by the 1850s a sense of unity was maintained: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Many older citizens must have felt a sense of calm afterwards, unlike today, that a sense of healing had occurred, another era of good feelings. It was more minimized than after the Great Rift that kept the country split before 1815, when the nation had two ‘real’ parties. These older Americans remembered the brands of Democrat and Republican came from the original Democratic-Republicans. In other words, there was a sense that America could have its cake and eat it, too. They now had two parties, but they appeared to come from one party, and both were controlled by white men.
This white non-woman sense of healing was helpful. These two parties, born from a united brand, gave a sense of calm and made “Americans” (those in power, white males) feel like whichever “side” they voted for, the outcome of unity would last. Generally, this was true and has held. Since the earlier 1850’s these two parties won every presidential election, and despite a few stray federal congressmen from third parties, together they maintained complete dual dominance in Congress, and the Supreme Court, since that time.
Thus, even after the Civil War, the country was able to unite again under the rule of these two white male parties because both parties appeared to come from the same origin, and thus unity was felt again. There was discord, disunity, and healing needed to be done after the first “Great Insurrection” so power could be maintained.
By 1876, Reconstruction ended as a sort of truce between the two sides of the white power structures could be made. The northern whites grew tired of babysitting the southern whites, who still used physical violence and repressive threats against blacks.
But what could the northern white males do except leave these southern whites to their ‘uncivilized’ ways?
As long as there was no real trouble or legal slavery, ‘just’ sharecropping, the majority of white males in power from the north could get on building their industries and wealth, and just let the southern gentlemen politicians and their ruffian tribes use threats, violence and lynching to repress the black vote and keep control. Hence the era of “legitimate political discourse” in the South thrived.
The two sides of whites maintained their power bases by agreeing to disagree, using their own tactics to dominate political control in their parts of the country. Together these tactics kept blacks out of federal government power until 1965, gaining another 100 years after slavery with a tacit agreement beneficial to “both sides.” There was still white male ‘agitators,’ within the federal government elected politicians true, pulled by forces of like the federal Brown decision in 1954 many black voices gaining moral ground in eroding Jim Crow outside the white male power structures. They seemed to push and push and get the first black person on the bench, Thurgood Marshall. But…that was only a slight crack in a very profitable system that kept the Congressional elections and Presidential elections white male.
Naturally, both parties maintained key differences for the sake of appearances, despite the rhetoric. The real pull was demographics. Up until 1996 they were almost completely white, with about 75% of Democrats being white and 96% of Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center. It wasn’t until 2019 that the Democratic Party fell to 6 in 10 people being white, or about 60 percent, threatening racial unity.
Or at least white unity across the aisle. Thus, the call for unity and a new age of ‘good feelings.’
End Part 1.
