History may LITERALLY Be Getting Ready To Repeat Itself

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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it   George Santayana

I have used this quote so often I can’t even count, although I have also used the Winston Churchill paraphrase. Donald Trump tends to have the tendency to do this shit to you. I have also often quoted the Mark Twain riposte, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. And y’all have suffered through it like troopers.

But now I’m starting to think that we may just be beginning to see an actual example of history literally repeating itself. On The Week, with Joshua Johnson tonight on MSNBC, Joshua had on a college history professor to talk about the similarities of the Whigs in the 1850’s, and the current day GOP. I didn’t catch his name, but the name isn’t important, just the content.

Many people think that the controversy of the slavery issue in the 1850’s broke the then Whig party into two, with the GOP becoming ascendant. Nothing could be further from the truth. The breakup of the Whigs in the 1850’s in fact spawned two parties. One is what is now the current day iteration of what we know of as the Republican party. The other one was officially christened as The American Party. But in short order, it became known by a less savory sobriquet, The Know Nothings.

The nickname was well earned. Nickname. The American Party was a purely nativist party, and freely subscribed to every wild pro slavery conspiracy theory that made it appear that they had at least  passingly intelligent point of view. It didn’t work. It  became known as the Know Nothing Party because members swore ignorance to having ever even heard of such a thing. The Republican party won a series of elections from the mid 1850’s to early 1860’s that cemented it as the dominant party in opposition to the Democrats. Just in time for the civil war.

Here we sit today. There is literally no difference between the early 1850’s Whig party and today’s GOP. Both parties ran on badly flawed ideologies, and both paid the price at the ballot box. When they paid that price, rather than admit the mistake and retool, they both doubled down, requiring party fealty in order to remain in the party. And then denied that they were doing any such thing!

Come on guys and gals, are you seeing any obvious parallels here?!? The Whigs ran on a sick and twisted ideology, and got their heads handed to them. Rather than retool and try again, they dug their heels in and instituted a party purity pledge. We’re so embarrassed to admit who they were that they sank into obscurity.

Where is the difference? You tell me. The current GOP is falling all over itself to swear fealty to a doomed pedagogue who led them to disaster. Swearing it’s the way forward. Is the current traditional GOP resistance strong enough to smash the Trump version of the party, much as the 1950’s GOP smashed the Whigs? I don’t know, but either way, the Democrats had better damn well be ready to finish the job.

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31 COMMENTS

    • yeah, all the followers of the former guy are going to have to wake up and deal with reality not being the way they want.

  1. Hopefully you are channeling the history of the US, we could also be channeling the history of Germany post WWI with a growing fascist element in the US

    • The more I compare that history with ours (and my go-to point of reference remains William Shirer’s Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich), the more I’m convinced that is the laziest, most self-aggrandizing comparison anyone could come up with. The prior histories of both countries don’t match up even slightly and neither does the cultures, baggage included. Much like Chernobyl vis-a-vis how we think of authoritarian regimes, it strikes me more and more as a way to duck the truth of what we’re seeing. To wit, what we’re seeing is a bunch of aging, incompetent criminals have one last hurrah at our collective expense…and it goes against the whole continuum of thought that we’ve been telling ourselves since Reagan that a lot of us don’t know how to cope.

  2. It’s all goes as planned we the people will be running this country like it should be because you cannot trust anyone in the government they’re sick they’re twisted they’re liars they’re cheaters they betrayed us we have no use for them. Trump will clean out all the worthless, evil, twisted, undermining, lying, cheating, spawns of Satan that’s in there go Trump we got your six!!!!

    • Ah – another of the “only the best people, using only the best words” (albeit sadly lacking in punctuation) brigade speaks! (In case you or your cronies who seem to be taking more interest in this site don’t recognize it I’m being snarky and insulting you.)

    • Ah, yes. Tooballer says “you cannot trust anyone in the government” and yet where was Donald Trump for the past 4 years? He was “in the government.” And where does Trump and his supporters want Trump to be again? “In the government.”

      You can’t have it both ways, buddy. The very second someone “outside” the government gets elected to a political office, that person BECOMES the “government.” That’s why it’s so incredibly hard to understand why people keep wanting to elect these “anti-government” and “outside” people to office thinking they’ll somehow become elected versions of Schrodinger’s Cat (they’re both in the government and outside the government at the same time).

      • Your argument here is a bad faith argument because you are pretending you do not know what everyone means by “in the government.” It means people who have been corrupted by a career in politics. Someone “outside of government” may therefore feel less constrained by stuff like placating donors, etc. and take the business of governing seriously. Perhaps you mean that as soon as someone is elected to public office, their integrity immediately goes south. If you do, you are in effect admitting that you think think the “in the government” premise is true. No one is trying to claim an elected official is both in the government and outside the government at the same time.

        You have also evaded the troll’s main point. It can easily be rebutted by pointing out that the Trump administration is OBJECTIVELY the most “worthless, evil, twisted, undermining, lying, cheating, spawns of Satan” administration in US history. If the troll sincerely believes otherwise, he is not grounded the least bit in reality, and therefore his opinion on any matter is worthless.

  3. It’s more akin to the rise of National Socialism: recruit a gang of thugs and let them think they are in control (you turn on them later when their usefulness is over, but they will still follow you), get big business on your side (giving them monumental tax cuts, let them block any unionisation and generally screw over the workers). Later, eject any non-sycophants and people with political savvy (you don’t want them to be able to actually oust YOU).
    When all that is done, organise a putsch (like attack the government buildings, preferably when it’s in session). If that fails, claim it wasn’t a putsch at all but a demonstration of how unpopular the people inside during that actually are).
    Select a group of people to be ‘sub-human’ and organise pogroms (Latin Americans will do in a pinch). Then tell your followers that the targets are out to steal your jobs, wife, car – and your guns which will make your stormtroopers feel all warm and fuzzy as they kick an old non-WASP who looked sideways at them.
    Claim that you are the only legitimate government – organise a vote (carefully making sure that your oponents either don’t get to vote or be intimidated into voting YOUR way.
    Finally, get a law passed where the military has to swear allegiance to you and the office you hold and then round up all those ‘undesirable’ political opponents and non WAPs and send them off to a camp somewhere.
    If you think that will never happen – look around: the US is already halfway through that list

    • You are the quintessential liberal. Talking $hit but don’t realize everything single thing you are speaking of directly applies to the Democratic party and yourself! What a joke you are….thanks for such a great laugh clown!

    • Nice fairy tale. You must be one of those Dem Libturds that either agree with me and shut up or your a racist, white supremist of any other typecast you decide that degrades me to fit your dumbass narriative

      • Hmmm. I’ve got to ask this: Would I be wrong to believe that you ASS-ume Daithi, or I or others on this site that hold liberal opinions are turds (Libturd?) or dumbasses?

      • Nowhere in Daithi’s post do they discuss racism.

        Look…there are fourteen commonly accepted qualities that define what a fascist regime is and looks like. Trumpism exhibits all fourteen. You cannot form a political movement that looks like what we define a fascist regime to be and then expect people to not refer to it as fascist.

        Trumpism will be remembered throughout history as a white supremacist, fascist movement. That has already been decided.

        • Not decided by me.i think he was one of the best presidents we have had lately
          Had to dig us out of Obama’s mess and Biden the only ones running this country or ruining it are Kamala and pelosi. They tell Biden what to do and say

      • Well in order
        I’m not a member of any political party anywhere
        I don’t know what you’re talking about so I can neither agree nor disagree
        I’m not a racist, nor am I any sort of supremist (and the only real white people are albinoes and I’m not one of those either)

      • We only wish it was a fairy tale. However, the fact is the Trump and his supporters have accomplished most of the list. It is a matter of factual history now.

  4. I’m sorry, but Trump caused all of this. Unfortunately, he did it on purpose. It’s his goal to ruin us and make everyone vunerable so we will praise him. Remember when he claimed to be the chosen one? Well I do but he’s not been chosen by God, hre’s the Anti-Christ! Look in the book of Revelation and find the description of the Anti-Christ. He fits all of them. Pay attention to what’s happening in the world people. Things are changing, I know I’m ready when Christ comes back. Are you? Following Trump isn’t going to get you ready!

  5. I see the trolls have arrived. I wish their reading comprehension was as good as their speed in following forwarded links to places they’ve never been.

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