On August 6, 1880, Republican presidential candidate James A. Garfield gave one of his most famous speeches. Then a congressional representative from Ohio, Garfield was in New York City to make peace with Roscoe Conkling, a Republican kingmaker who hated him and his insistence on clean government.
Every chance they get, modern-day Republicans will invent new ways to strip us of the value of our vote. Case in point:
This week in Ohio, there is a Special Issue-Based Election that will change the rules by which the people can change the state Constitution, because there is a ballot initiative in November to protect abortion rights in the state Constitution, thereby spoiling their 6-week abortion ban. This is the same state legislature who banned August Special Elections, because it was too difficult to get voters to the polls; but they made this last exception. Why? Well the measure changes the threshold to pass a ballot initiative from a simple 50%+1 to 60%, which is statistically improbable, given ballot initiatives of the last 20 years, (none have passed 59% majority). So now, approximately 25% of Ohio’s voting population is going to make all Ohioans pay by closing the door of democracy in their state.
We all must vote - in every election, for every candidate, and for every ballot initiative and ballot question, without fail. The trixters lie in wait, to catch us sleeping.
To govern by the consent of the governed is what stands out in a democracy. I think that the reason that so many lawyers and historians consider this latest indictment to be the most serious is that TFG’s actions strike at the heart of the consent—that when someone is voted out of office, they concede and transfer power to the person that has the consent of a plurality of those governed. Garfield and Johnson recognized this and took action. Our elected representatives need to put the needs and wishes of the governed ahead of their (the representatives’) wishes.
Thank you so much for your wonderful ability to put the current madness of the Republican Party into a historical context. I write this as a former Republican voter whose eyes were opened in 2016. I’m so glad I voted as I did and am hugely grateful for your writings that have under pinned what we have witnessed since.
What a lovely way to bring us from Garfield to current times. The contrast between Garfield and Trump - in fact, Garfield and way too many political leaders - is stark. The What Ifs had Garfield lived remind us to get active and engaged in civic affairs now, at any level of governance that moves you. There are many James Garfields out there -- let's hope one of them steps up and speaks up soon.
Garfield was glossed over in my American history classes, because he was assassinated after serving only a few months. I had no idea he was so progressive in his attitude. Thank you so much for sharing such a magnificent speech with us before adding the contrast with our current situation.
It is too bad that Garfield had such a short life. His ideals were so progressive. Heather, I don’t know if you have had time to listen to Rachel Maddow’s podcast called “Deja News” but she and her co-writer, Issac-Davy Aronson, zeroed in on Johnson’s speech in their last episode. Such an important speech during yet another tumultuous time in our lives.
The right to vote and have one’s vote counted sounds so obvious and logical.
And the 2020 election complete with Covid and whole lot of ‘mailed in votes’ nationwide was assessed as the most error free and excellent presidential election ever….
In many states because of Covid folks didn’t want to ‘congregate’..that mailed ballot already used in Oregon and a few other states was embraced far more broadly….
We know it works…and folks who really don’t want free and fair elections are hugely opposed to these simple decent voting styles.
They are the enemy..make absolutely no mistake….they are racist/sexist and every other ‘ism’…they ARE the enemy of every black, brown and female person in this country….
Where else but from Letters from an American would we even know how our history speaks to us in this, the 21st Century. I am so grateful for having found these Letters!
LBJ found his conscience. JFK was dead. Assassinated by a skinny creep in Texas. Jack Ruby killed the skinny killer. And he died. Texas was notorious for racism and LBJ knew it. “Nigger don’t let the sun set on you” was the banner that crossed Beaumont Texas Main Street in June 1960. I saw it. That town was a Sundown Town. My brother Roger married there. SUNDOWN Towns is the name of the book that spells it out. Buy it. Study it.
If Texan LBJ can find his conscience, why not Gov. Abbott the cripple?
What’s changed? Simple. Half black President Obama’s two terms frightened the White Trash of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and everywhere else. Two step forward, one backward.
Racist America doesn’t care.
LBJ cared. And he took charge. Then he got trapped lying about Vietnam.
What campus president has spoken out?
Name one that has labeled Trump a fascistic racist.
Let us be clear: feckless john roberts wrote the Shelby decision - joined by scalia and alito (both of whom enjoyed expensive vacations they could not afford, but for their rich friends generosity), and concurred with by clarence (who too received excessive gifts). Did I mention roberts wife receiving huge referral fees for strategic lawyer placements?
How utterly devoid of character - these vagabonds of gifts and graft and injustice.
In an August 2 article in The Atlantic, "Trump's Threat to Democracy Is Now Systematic", Ronald Brownstein questions whether Republicans will ever accept the outcome of an election they don't win. He writes:
"Trump may constitute a unique threat to America’s democratic traditions. But he has always connected his claims of pervasive electoral fraud to the widespread anxiety among white, Christian conservatives that they are losing control of the country to a racially diverse, secular, and LGBTQ-friendly Democratic coalition centered in the nation’s largest cities. As Trump put it during one 2020 rally before a predominantly white, rural audience in Georgia: “This is our country. And you know this, and you see it, but they are trying to take it from us through rigging, fraud, deception, and deceit.” Whether Trump is convicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election or not, voters who accept that argument will remain the most powerful force in the GOP coalition. And they will continue to demand leaders who will fight the changes that they believe threaten their position in American society.
"Those other Republican leaders may not attempt to overturn an election as brazenly as Trump did with the conduct Smith catalogs in his indictment. But . . . for the foreseeable future, they are likely to pursue other means “toward the same end: that majoritarian democracy cannot be tolerated under any circumstances if the outcome is not what you wanted it to be.”
We must not expect this problem to be solved in the next election. We must prepare, as President Kennedy urged, " 'to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle ... against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.' " He had just begun to confront the tyranny of racism in the summer before he was murdered. President Johnson used his considerable political skills to pass the Civil Rights Act go 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. And on the evening he signed the VRA, he told his aide Bill Moyers, "Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime – and mine."*
And so we continue the struggle against tyranny both here at home and around the globe.
Thank you Dr Richardson, we seem to get one step toward equality to see it trampled down by bigotry. We thought after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights we were on the road to equality for all. But we relax a little too much and find we are facing the same battle all over again. The bigots and racists are a minority in the US, so how does this travesty keep recurring? I think even if we were to carve out a chunk of the US and give it to them to live happily ever after in bigotry, fascism, and racism; they still would not be content. If we could educate their children to analyze and think, perhaps we could have a future, but they'd probably find a way to continue their selfish useless lives.
“... the right to vote, and the right to have that vote counted....” is a precious treasure, that we all must protect and fight for...Thank you, Heather, for another inspiring letter.
Every chance they get, modern-day Republicans will invent new ways to strip us of the value of our vote. Case in point:
This week in Ohio, there is a Special Issue-Based Election that will change the rules by which the people can change the state Constitution, because there is a ballot initiative in November to protect abortion rights in the state Constitution, thereby spoiling their 6-week abortion ban. This is the same state legislature who banned August Special Elections, because it was too difficult to get voters to the polls; but they made this last exception. Why? Well the measure changes the threshold to pass a ballot initiative from a simple 50%+1 to 60%, which is statistically improbable, given ballot initiatives of the last 20 years, (none have passed 59% majority). So now, approximately 25% of Ohio’s voting population is going to make all Ohioans pay by closing the door of democracy in their state.
We all must vote - in every election, for every candidate, and for every ballot initiative and ballot question, without fail. The trixters lie in wait, to catch us sleeping.
To govern by the consent of the governed is what stands out in a democracy. I think that the reason that so many lawyers and historians consider this latest indictment to be the most serious is that TFG’s actions strike at the heart of the consent—that when someone is voted out of office, they concede and transfer power to the person that has the consent of a plurality of those governed. Garfield and Johnson recognized this and took action. Our elected representatives need to put the needs and wishes of the governed ahead of their (the representatives’) wishes.
Thank you so much for your wonderful ability to put the current madness of the Republican Party into a historical context. I write this as a former Republican voter whose eyes were opened in 2016. I’m so glad I voted as I did and am hugely grateful for your writings that have under pinned what we have witnessed since.
What a lovely way to bring us from Garfield to current times. The contrast between Garfield and Trump - in fact, Garfield and way too many political leaders - is stark. The What Ifs had Garfield lived remind us to get active and engaged in civic affairs now, at any level of governance that moves you. There are many James Garfields out there -- let's hope one of them steps up and speaks up soon.
Garfield was glossed over in my American history classes, because he was assassinated after serving only a few months. I had no idea he was so progressive in his attitude. Thank you so much for sharing such a magnificent speech with us before adding the contrast with our current situation.
It is too bad that Garfield had such a short life. His ideals were so progressive. Heather, I don’t know if you have had time to listen to Rachel Maddow’s podcast called “Deja News” but she and her co-writer, Issac-Davy Aronson, zeroed in on Johnson’s speech in their last episode. Such an important speech during yet another tumultuous time in our lives.
The right to vote and have one’s vote counted sounds so obvious and logical.
And the 2020 election complete with Covid and whole lot of ‘mailed in votes’ nationwide was assessed as the most error free and excellent presidential election ever….
In many states because of Covid folks didn’t want to ‘congregate’..that mailed ballot already used in Oregon and a few other states was embraced far more broadly….
We know it works…and folks who really don’t want free and fair elections are hugely opposed to these simple decent voting styles.
They are the enemy..make absolutely no mistake….they are racist/sexist and every other ‘ism’…they ARE the enemy of every black, brown and female person in this country….
Where else but from Letters from an American would we even know how our history speaks to us in this, the 21st Century. I am so grateful for having found these Letters!
LBJ found his conscience. JFK was dead. Assassinated by a skinny creep in Texas. Jack Ruby killed the skinny killer. And he died. Texas was notorious for racism and LBJ knew it. “Nigger don’t let the sun set on you” was the banner that crossed Beaumont Texas Main Street in June 1960. I saw it. That town was a Sundown Town. My brother Roger married there. SUNDOWN Towns is the name of the book that spells it out. Buy it. Study it.
If Texan LBJ can find his conscience, why not Gov. Abbott the cripple?
What’s changed? Simple. Half black President Obama’s two terms frightened the White Trash of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and everywhere else. Two step forward, one backward.
Racist America doesn’t care.
LBJ cared. And he took charge. Then he got trapped lying about Vietnam.
What campus president has spoken out?
Name one that has labeled Trump a fascistic racist.
Let us be clear: feckless john roberts wrote the Shelby decision - joined by scalia and alito (both of whom enjoyed expensive vacations they could not afford, but for their rich friends generosity), and concurred with by clarence (who too received excessive gifts). Did I mention roberts wife receiving huge referral fees for strategic lawyer placements?
How utterly devoid of character - these vagabonds of gifts and graft and injustice.
Wealthy white males still running things. Thank you for underscoring the timeline Professor ⭐
When will we grownup and into the ideals on which this country was founded?
In an August 2 article in The Atlantic, "Trump's Threat to Democracy Is Now Systematic", Ronald Brownstein questions whether Republicans will ever accept the outcome of an election they don't win. He writes:
"Trump may constitute a unique threat to America’s democratic traditions. But he has always connected his claims of pervasive electoral fraud to the widespread anxiety among white, Christian conservatives that they are losing control of the country to a racially diverse, secular, and LGBTQ-friendly Democratic coalition centered in the nation’s largest cities. As Trump put it during one 2020 rally before a predominantly white, rural audience in Georgia: “This is our country. And you know this, and you see it, but they are trying to take it from us through rigging, fraud, deception, and deceit.” Whether Trump is convicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election or not, voters who accept that argument will remain the most powerful force in the GOP coalition. And they will continue to demand leaders who will fight the changes that they believe threaten their position in American society.
"Those other Republican leaders may not attempt to overturn an election as brazenly as Trump did with the conduct Smith catalogs in his indictment. But . . . for the foreseeable future, they are likely to pursue other means “toward the same end: that majoritarian democracy cannot be tolerated under any circumstances if the outcome is not what you wanted it to be.”
We must not expect this problem to be solved in the next election. We must prepare, as President Kennedy urged, " 'to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle ... against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.' " He had just begun to confront the tyranny of racism in the summer before he was murdered. President Johnson used his considerable political skills to pass the Civil Rights Act go 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. And on the evening he signed the VRA, he told his aide Bill Moyers, "Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime – and mine."*
And so we continue the struggle against tyranny both here at home and around the globe.
The future of freedom depends on us.
*https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/22/we-may-have-lost-the-south-lbj-democrats-civil-rights-act-1964-bill-moyers#:~:text=A%20brilliant%20political%20analyst%2C%20Johnson,the%20south%20for%20a%20generation.”
Thank you Dr Richardson, we seem to get one step toward equality to see it trampled down by bigotry. We thought after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights we were on the road to equality for all. But we relax a little too much and find we are facing the same battle all over again. The bigots and racists are a minority in the US, so how does this travesty keep recurring? I think even if we were to carve out a chunk of the US and give it to them to live happily ever after in bigotry, fascism, and racism; they still would not be content. If we could educate their children to analyze and think, perhaps we could have a future, but they'd probably find a way to continue their selfish useless lives.
“ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things" very true.
But this could also apply to Trumpism. Watch out America.
“... the right to vote, and the right to have that vote counted....” is a precious treasure, that we all must protect and fight for...Thank you, Heather, for another inspiring letter.
One of your gems, Heather!