As ever, the tide comes up and the tide goes down, and the sun will rise again tomorrow. I'll see you then, better rested and ready to carry on. [Photo by Buddy Poland.]
Opinion: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.
By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
November 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Listen to political scientists, pollsters and well-meaning elected officials, and you’ll likely hear a lot of chatter about “polarization.” That characterization of our current political environment misses the point — and is dangerous.
You know the argument: America is divided into warring camps. The center has collapsed. Compromise is impossible. We have become uncivil and angry.
While it’s true that the country is more deeply divided along partisan lines than it has been in the past, it is wrong to suggest a symmetrical devolution into irrational hatred. The polarization argument too often treats both sides as equally worthy of blame, characterizing the problem as a sort of free-floating affliction (e.g., “lack of trust”). This blurs the distinction between a Democratic Party that is marginally more progressive in policy positions than it was a decade ago, and a Republican Party that routinely lies, courts violence and seeks to define America as a White Christian nation.
The Republican Party’s tolerance of violence is not matched by Democrats. Nor is the Republican Party’s refusal to recognize the sanctity of elections. Democrats did not call the elections they lost in 2020 and 2021 “rigged,” nor are they seeking to replace nonpartisan election officials with partisan lawmakers. Republicans’ determination to change voting laws based on their insistence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is without historical precedent.
The GOP’s willingness to force a default on the debt is likewise indicative of a party that has fallen into nihilism. And Republicans’ refusal to give a sitting president’s Supreme Court nominee a hearing followed by the effort to push through a nominee of their own party during an election shows the party lacks any modicum of restraint and respect for institutions.
Only one party conducts fake election audits, habitually relies on conspiracy theories and wants to limit access to the ballot. A recent study from the libertarian think tank R Street found: “In Republican states, legislation tended to scale back the availability of mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes and to provide more uniform, if not shorter, early voting windows. Meanwhile, in Democratic states, legislators sought to increase the availability of early voting not only by expanded voting windows but also by instating universal vote-by-mail.”
Beautiful! I live on CapeCod,and the fact that I can go to the beach and see that the tide continues to come in and go out is always a comfort when the rest of the world feels out of control. I love the photos you send out. Thank you! Sleep well.
Sleep well, and know we are grateful for your wisdom and your work. We are more informed, and in a better place to articulately communicate on these major issues that you follow, because of your historic lens and excellent writing. Thank you so much, Heather. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Dr. Allen Guelzo is a distinguished American historian who boldly marches to his own drummer. He has written widely-acclaimed books on Lincoln, Gettysburg, Jonathan Edwards, and, most recently, Robert E. Lee/ Speaking about THE JOY OF HISTORY, he has succinctly expressed his personal credo on his joy and responsibility in writing history:
"No history can ignore how easy our lives have been made, compared to the lives of our great-grandparents. Bear in mind, though, that we developed all of this, sitting right beside Jim Crow, the limitation of the franchise to males (mostly white), the predations of the robber barons, and [feeble] protections for free speech.
Finding meaning in history does not compel you to tell one story which is all beaming with goodness and light, or to play constant games of beggar-my-neighbor by only telling another story full of misery and oppression."
He relates this to his recent book on Robert E. Lee. He regretted Lee's failure to speak out against slavery. He lamented that by joining the South Lee dishonored the flag and the Constitution he had served for thirty years as a U. S. Army officer. On balance, he writes well of Lee. For Guelzo, good history writing never lets us put out the sunlight: it finds, side-by-side, generosity and courage and tragedy, and it never allows us to indulge meanness or contempt.
Guelzo spoke of history's unhealthy state. In many schools the study of history has sharply declined as have college history majors. He is troubled by conspiracy history. History can be done badly. It can be the product of poor craft and unreadable writing; worse still, it can be perverted from the search for meaning in the past to the service of suspicion and conspiracy-mongering in the present. He observed that we are suckers for history around suspicion because we are habitually suckers for suspicion.
Guelzo believes that conspiracy theories are particularly risky because they are self-reflective; in their passion to explain everything, they cannot admit any detail which might falsify them, and anyone who intrudes an objection is held to be in on the fix. He referred to Richard Hofstadter's seminal book on the paranoid style.
Guelzo is heartened that local historical societies have blossomed, history non-fiction outsell fiction titles, and producers clamber over one another to produce history programs and documentaries (including two new Lincoln documentaries on which Guelzo is involved).
Guelzo believe that perhaps history can do its best service by offering us moral models-examples of human behavior either to embrace or to avoid, and the ironic truth that both can sometimes inhabit the same skin. Guelzo cautions that if we allow ourselves to become indifferent to our history of republicanism, then that will involve a system failure of civic education and self-knowledge at every level. He states bluntly that if we do not tend to our history, the flame of our civil community will gutter-out.
George Orwell 1984: WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE; WHO CONTROLS HE PRESENT CONTROLS THE PAST.
I'm currently reading Erik Larsen's The Splendid and The Vile, the chronicle, of Churchill's perseverance against Hitler in the span of one year, 1940 - 1941. The phrase "carry on" crops up more than once. Back then, the good people of the world did carry on and eventually quashed Nazism, yet here we are again standing against a tide of hatred. We are creatures who do not learn our lessons easily.
I wish I lived inside of Buddy's photos. Thank you both for your generosity. Sleep, rest, carry on.
I am sitting down in Maricopa Arizona enjoying the cold Winter weather of the seventies.
I do want to commend you Prof. Heather for comparing the Wall Street provoked recession to the more recent Pandemic recession.
The difference in each can be found in how a President and Congress react to stem the severity of a recession. In 2008, Main Street paid for Wall Street's dalliance. The President Barack Obama was blocked from creating a economic stimulus package which would have eased the fallout created by the collapse of Wall Street and Banks. McConnell and Republicans were more interested in making Barack Obama a one term president over applying a greater stimulus package to save their constituency.
In 2021, we find ourselves much better off, the results of which come from a President and a Democratic Congress more attuned to the needs of all of the constituency regardless of political beliefs. Where Barack was blocked, Joe Biden was supported. We can see the results.
We sit on the verge of a large stimulus package to rebuild the infrastructure of this nation. One in which will alleviate some of the strain we are experiencing today with a supply chain lacking capacity to carry the needs of the people from overseas to the nations cities much of which comes by train out of California.
Congress needs to enact a fairer system promoting truck drivers and fair wages on routes much of which was eliminated during President Carters deregulation of the industry. Indeed, independent truckers are being laden with debt as sold to them by leasers of used trucks. To resolve some of this Congress has proposed licensing 18-21 year-olds to drive cross country in rigs after a short training period. They have a much higher accident rate than old truckers.
As a result of the financial burden on independent truckers we often see them driving 60-70 hours a week to pay for their rigs, leases, fuel, and a livelihood. Most recently I wrote on this topic,
Again, I commend you on the comparison of 2008 to 2021 government reactions to the nedds of the constituency. More should be said.
Dear Dr. Richardson, if I could be your mother, I would encourage you and Buddy to have two photo days per week. Energy is finite, plus I'm selfish and I need you to be able to carry on with these essential Letters.
I enjoy (if that is the right word for getting clarity on an unfolding disaster) your letters and also, the wonderful photos of where you live. I also live in a beautiful location (overlooking Florence Italy) and I find that beauty is a great aid to resilience. Not a distraction from the perils of the world but a reminder of why it matters to push back. I reread Keats’ Endymion (“a thing of beauty is a joy forever”) where he discusses this very thing. If you read it all you would think he was writing for today! So thank you for the knowledge and insight you share (historical ignorance is really scary) and the uplift from Buddy Poland’s wonderful photos. I grew up on the ocean (Vancouver BC) and there is nothing like a water view to soothe the soul. Stay well! :)
the stars come nightly to the sky
the tides unto the sea
nothing deep nor high
can keep my love away from thee
be well & not overwhelmed, everybody
Opinion: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.
By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
November 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Listen to political scientists, pollsters and well-meaning elected officials, and you’ll likely hear a lot of chatter about “polarization.” That characterization of our current political environment misses the point — and is dangerous.
You know the argument: America is divided into warring camps. The center has collapsed. Compromise is impossible. We have become uncivil and angry.
While it’s true that the country is more deeply divided along partisan lines than it has been in the past, it is wrong to suggest a symmetrical devolution into irrational hatred. The polarization argument too often treats both sides as equally worthy of blame, characterizing the problem as a sort of free-floating affliction (e.g., “lack of trust”). This blurs the distinction between a Democratic Party that is marginally more progressive in policy positions than it was a decade ago, and a Republican Party that routinely lies, courts violence and seeks to define America as a White Christian nation.
The Republican Party’s tolerance of violence is not matched by Democrats. Nor is the Republican Party’s refusal to recognize the sanctity of elections. Democrats did not call the elections they lost in 2020 and 2021 “rigged,” nor are they seeking to replace nonpartisan election officials with partisan lawmakers. Republicans’ determination to change voting laws based on their insistence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is without historical precedent.
The GOP’s willingness to force a default on the debt is likewise indicative of a party that has fallen into nihilism. And Republicans’ refusal to give a sitting president’s Supreme Court nominee a hearing followed by the effort to push through a nominee of their own party during an election shows the party lacks any modicum of restraint and respect for institutions.
Only one party conducts fake election audits, habitually relies on conspiracy theories and wants to limit access to the ballot. A recent study from the libertarian think tank R Street found: “In Republican states, legislation tended to scale back the availability of mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes and to provide more uniform, if not shorter, early voting windows. Meanwhile, in Democratic states, legislators sought to increase the availability of early voting not only by expanded voting windows but also by instating universal vote-by-mail.”
Rest at: https://wapo.st/32n9ak7
Beautiful! I live on CapeCod,and the fact that I can go to the beach and see that the tide continues to come in and go out is always a comfort when the rest of the world feels out of control. I love the photos you send out. Thank you! Sleep well.
Thankful for your gentle reminders of the flow of life. Peaceful rest and sweet dreams ❤️.
You’re like Mom, teaching, giving, helping us understand the world, and then when time comes….you’re to say,‘sweet dreams, and good night moon!’
Sweet dreams to you and Buddy too!
Sleep well, and know we are grateful for your wisdom and your work. We are more informed, and in a better place to articulately communicate on these major issues that you follow, because of your historic lens and excellent writing. Thank you so much, Heather. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
THE GOOD AND BAD IN WRITING HISTORY
(take a gander and then ponder)
Dr. Allen Guelzo is a distinguished American historian who boldly marches to his own drummer. He has written widely-acclaimed books on Lincoln, Gettysburg, Jonathan Edwards, and, most recently, Robert E. Lee/ Speaking about THE JOY OF HISTORY, he has succinctly expressed his personal credo on his joy and responsibility in writing history:
"No history can ignore how easy our lives have been made, compared to the lives of our great-grandparents. Bear in mind, though, that we developed all of this, sitting right beside Jim Crow, the limitation of the franchise to males (mostly white), the predations of the robber barons, and [feeble] protections for free speech.
Finding meaning in history does not compel you to tell one story which is all beaming with goodness and light, or to play constant games of beggar-my-neighbor by only telling another story full of misery and oppression."
He relates this to his recent book on Robert E. Lee. He regretted Lee's failure to speak out against slavery. He lamented that by joining the South Lee dishonored the flag and the Constitution he had served for thirty years as a U. S. Army officer. On balance, he writes well of Lee. For Guelzo, good history writing never lets us put out the sunlight: it finds, side-by-side, generosity and courage and tragedy, and it never allows us to indulge meanness or contempt.
Guelzo spoke of history's unhealthy state. In many schools the study of history has sharply declined as have college history majors. He is troubled by conspiracy history. History can be done badly. It can be the product of poor craft and unreadable writing; worse still, it can be perverted from the search for meaning in the past to the service of suspicion and conspiracy-mongering in the present. He observed that we are suckers for history around suspicion because we are habitually suckers for suspicion.
Guelzo believes that conspiracy theories are particularly risky because they are self-reflective; in their passion to explain everything, they cannot admit any detail which might falsify them, and anyone who intrudes an objection is held to be in on the fix. He referred to Richard Hofstadter's seminal book on the paranoid style.
Guelzo is heartened that local historical societies have blossomed, history non-fiction outsell fiction titles, and producers clamber over one another to produce history programs and documentaries (including two new Lincoln documentaries on which Guelzo is involved).
Guelzo believe that perhaps history can do its best service by offering us moral models-examples of human behavior either to embrace or to avoid, and the ironic truth that both can sometimes inhabit the same skin. Guelzo cautions that if we allow ourselves to become indifferent to our history of republicanism, then that will involve a system failure of civic education and self-knowledge at every level. He states bluntly that if we do not tend to our history, the flame of our civil community will gutter-out.
George Orwell 1984: WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE; WHO CONTROLS HE PRESENT CONTROLS THE PAST.
I'm currently reading Erik Larsen's The Splendid and The Vile, the chronicle, of Churchill's perseverance against Hitler in the span of one year, 1940 - 1941. The phrase "carry on" crops up more than once. Back then, the good people of the world did carry on and eventually quashed Nazism, yet here we are again standing against a tide of hatred. We are creatures who do not learn our lessons easily.
I wish I lived inside of Buddy's photos. Thank you both for your generosity. Sleep, rest, carry on.
Dear Heather and Buddy,
Thank you for real beauty, truth, and giving so many solace.
I am sitting down in Maricopa Arizona enjoying the cold Winter weather of the seventies.
I do want to commend you Prof. Heather for comparing the Wall Street provoked recession to the more recent Pandemic recession.
The difference in each can be found in how a President and Congress react to stem the severity of a recession. In 2008, Main Street paid for Wall Street's dalliance. The President Barack Obama was blocked from creating a economic stimulus package which would have eased the fallout created by the collapse of Wall Street and Banks. McConnell and Republicans were more interested in making Barack Obama a one term president over applying a greater stimulus package to save their constituency.
In 2021, we find ourselves much better off, the results of which come from a President and a Democratic Congress more attuned to the needs of all of the constituency regardless of political beliefs. Where Barack was blocked, Joe Biden was supported. We can see the results.
We sit on the verge of a large stimulus package to rebuild the infrastructure of this nation. One in which will alleviate some of the strain we are experiencing today with a supply chain lacking capacity to carry the needs of the people from overseas to the nations cities much of which comes by train out of California.
Congress needs to enact a fairer system promoting truck drivers and fair wages on routes much of which was eliminated during President Carters deregulation of the industry. Indeed, independent truckers are being laden with debt as sold to them by leasers of used trucks. To resolve some of this Congress has proposed licensing 18-21 year-olds to drive cross country in rigs after a short training period. They have a much higher accident rate than old truckers.
As a result of the financial burden on independent truckers we often see them driving 60-70 hours a week to pay for their rigs, leases, fuel, and a livelihood. Most recently I wrote on this topic,
Again, I commend you on the comparison of 2008 to 2021 government reactions to the nedds of the constituency. More should be said.
Regards,
Bill
Dear Dr. Richardson, if I could be your mother, I would encourage you and Buddy to have two photo days per week. Energy is finite, plus I'm selfish and I need you to be able to carry on with these essential Letters.
We thoroughly enjoyed your discussion of the history of Thanksgiving! Looking forward ot you and Joanne this week! Happy Thanksgiving!
I enjoy (if that is the right word for getting clarity on an unfolding disaster) your letters and also, the wonderful photos of where you live. I also live in a beautiful location (overlooking Florence Italy) and I find that beauty is a great aid to resilience. Not a distraction from the perils of the world but a reminder of why it matters to push back. I reread Keats’ Endymion (“a thing of beauty is a joy forever”) where he discusses this very thing. If you read it all you would think he was writing for today! So thank you for the knowledge and insight you share (historical ignorance is really scary) and the uplift from Buddy Poland’s wonderful photos. I grew up on the ocean (Vancouver BC) and there is nothing like a water view to soothe the soul. Stay well! :)
Thankful for your daily letters, and thankful you know when it's time for you to rest! Have a good night!
Thank you for all you do.
Thank you Heather for sharing Buddy's photo. It does show us there is calmness and beauty among the contempt this Nation offers.
Be safe. Be well.