This week, news broke that as a guest on the right-wing Real America’s Voice media network in 2020, Republican candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon said that the Democrats have planned for decades to topple the United States because they have not gotten over losing the Civil War.
Also a native Michigander. I was there a week ago visiting my brother in western MI. The ads were much worse than those here in MN. To laugh, I kept asking who, in right mind, would name their daughter, Tudor - is she the reincarnation of Henry VIII?
It was a Ford model. Perhaps the R candidate is a Ford heirss. “ The Ford Tudor (pronounced two-door) was a coupe marketed by Ford in the fifties. Despite its name, the Tudor was not named after the British Tudor family, but rather just a play on the fact that it had two doors. Accompanying it was the Ford Fordor.”
- from a website whose link I can’t get my phone to let me paste here
Elizabeth Ford’s naming a car Tudor was not as bad as Chevy’s Nova, which had special trouble in Latin America. Of course in Spanish No Va means ‘no go.’
I'm going to have to read this a few more times to understand all the twists.and turns of how it evolved. However it sure doesn’t fit neatly into a TV or newspaper ad!
That's what I just said!!! And it doesn't. But maybe Heather's ending could be turned into a question: How did it happen that members of a party that once defended civil rights, now make white power rants on public media? I'm going to try this on twitter!
I lived it all from 1934 to the present, in the South until 1997. It’s really exactly as told. From WWII onward the twists and turns were even more complex than at any point after the 1861 war. What do we call that war these days? The Civil War? There was nothing civil about it. The Brady photographs tell all. Our history is a bloody mess; the dream of democracy is what has made us special as long as we held onto it. If we have lost it through greed and stupidity, we will know by mid-November. Vote and vote blue!
Thank you, Sandra. Watching Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, remembering photos of her with her sister and their parents walking in bombed out parts of London, reminded of her being “out” in the British equivalent of the WAACs, I recognized that both of us had been formed by WWII. And in my public school in a poor district during and after WWII, I had Virginia history, world history, American history, and civics. My civics teacher, a truly rare lady, told her classes that if they did not vote in every election they were entitled to vote in, she would come back to haunt them. Forty years later, at a high school reunion, she was the only teacher mentioned. Between her and my father, I grew up and grew old working on many elections and voting.
Any political party that aspired to be a national party had a northern anti-slavery and a southern pro-slavery wing. this was true of the whigs, the democrats and the republicans. the northern and southern wings of these parties were constantly compromising. in recent times northern and southern democrats could barely keep the party together, but there was no break up, even under fdr. the south voted for everything he wanted as long as he wasn't too pro-naacp. they still curse him in dixie, but if it weren't for fdr the south would probably not have electricity yet. and all the small forts in the south are huge military installations now, thanks to fdr. they'd better pray down there that the federal gov't doesn't get out of their lives anytime soon. the dem party broke up during the civil rights era. in other words, over race. the northern wing supported civil rights, and that's all it took. the republicans gladly allied with the south because it made their party stronger. northern dems and repubs always think they can control their southern wings, but the south is so solid that the tail always ends up wagging the dog. "southern slavery is an institution that is in earnest. northern freedom is an institution that is not in earnest." and just read that stupid 13th amendment that everybody moons over in that ridiculous s. spielberg cartoon, lincoln. did the north not realize that white southern juries would simply convict black men on trumped-up charges and send them to jail, where they would work for no pay? in other words, as slaves? you'd think abe lincoln had never been a lawyer.
So much education and clarity in so few words, as is always the case with your daily newsetter. You are too classy to mention the book you wrote on this subject, but I will. "How the South Won the Civil War." A must-read, folks.
Am reading it now. I only wish that more Americans would take the time to know our history the way Heather has laid it out today. Because it is repeating itself.
I think there are too many Americans who don't believe that America could slide back to a time where democracy was secondary to hate, racism and class warfare. They are too busy ignoring the political mudslinging - it's so disgusting, why wouldn't one want to turn on that big TV and stare at social media nonsense on a fat phone?
Because we are in the process of losing the very essence of the nation that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) risked their lives for. We are close to becoming the Italy and Germany of the early 20th Century.
I was a history teacher before retirement and had the good fortune of being able to actually teach history - rather than that watered-down thing called "social studies." One of my biggest concerns is that so many on the MAGA right manifest a remarkable ignorance of the history of their own country that they profess to be so patriotic about. Tudor Dixon's foot-in-mouth moment (she's also blissfully ignorant about THAT) is a perfect example. I think it would be very telling to find out how many on the right, including such congressional notables as Kevin McCarthy. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert, were actually exposed to history during their schooling. My bet: Nope. "Social Studies"
History and English major here. From these two disciplines I learned not only about our country and the world - past and present - but I also learned how to think, how to reason and how to come to rational conclusions about events, both past and present. The ability to think, to discern, and to learn is what is sorely lacking today, and that is woefully obvious in the halls of Congress.
Marg Yea verily and forsooth for the disciplines of History and English. These served me extremely well in diverse careers (with the fillip of a MS from MIT). Being able to think three dimensionally is essential in our modern-day world. One dimensional thinking is a hallmark of Trumpublicans for which we all. Are suffering.
I can’t “heart” your comment for some reason, Keith, but I do love your use of verily and forsooth. Bet Raphael and his ilk don’t even know those words exist!
Marg Verily and forsooth from your humble and obedient servant (back in the 18th century this could be followed by execution or imprisonment, but in a most gentile manner.)
Isn't Raphael "our" guy? And, in response to Keith's comment below, being executed or imprisoned in "a most gentile manner" doesn't sound good at all. Back to reading class.
Also important to learn how to read (carefully), which should happen in history and English classes. (Also math classes, but a different sort of attention needed.)
I remember that, when I was a high school student, many of my classmates did not pay attention in our history class or do any of the required reading. They only did the minimum to get by and that did not result in much of an understanding of the material. They just weren’t interested. I had traveled the country with my family visiting historical, patriotic, and governmental sites, so I had a context in which to fit the history lessons and was fascinated by it all. I think of of those disconnected students when I see the MAGA followers.
Susan, you have it right. Travel does indeed “broaden” one. I was lucky enough to have a Fulbright scholarship to France so felt perfectly able to return there as often as I could afford to. Recognizing the brain work required for a second language, I have written to Americans who don’t “get it,” that Ukrainians can learn the complicated weapons they receive in some part because they learned at least two languages and two alphabets in primary school. And have we noticed the excellence of the spoken English of so many Ukrainians on TV?
You were indeed fortunate. Your family's travels broadened your interest and understanding of the relevance of the storied on those history book pages.
Most Republican pols who spout quackery and conspiracies certainly know history. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Blake Masters, Ron DeSantis - all Ivy League and/or Stanford grads, most of them with a law degree. To be a successful Republican politician you have to proclaim ignorance for the ignorant voter base, but make no mistake, they are not themselves ignorant.
JR DeSantis was a history major at Yale. My understanding is that he was in the less rigorous general history major program. In contrast I was an intensive Yale history major in 1955. There the faculty provided an intense education to a limited number of history majors who chose to work hard to learn. More than half of the 37 initial intensive history majors dropped back to the easier track, where DeSantis started. Still, he should be ashamed of himself for his historical false fantasies..
Being intelligent is quite different from being book smart. Just about anyone can be accepted to an Ivy or any other university, do the class work, get the grades, graduate, on move on to a career. What is lacking in the cohort listed above is intellectual curiosity .
I had a friend in high school who had a straight 4.0 GPA all through school (highest possible at the time). She went on to a fine state university and graduated early with academic accomplishment. Her problem was once she took the class and got the A, she just moved on to the next course, just checked it off her To Do list. She took a quarter long course reading and studying James Joyce’s Ulysses. As an English major, I expressed my admiration for tackling such weighted material and tried to engage her in a conversation about the book. It didn’t make dent. Read the book, got the grade, moved on. No more interest in Joyce than she showed in any of her other subjects. No intellectual curiosity. My mom nailed it. “Susie is as deep as a pie tin.” Thankfully, she never ran for elected office.
Marg Loved “Susie is as deep as a pie tin.” As a professor I encountered students who tried to memorize, spew forth on tests, grab an A, and go on to the next academic hurdle.
I foxed such folks by having a THINK essay to write at the start of each class with the grades on the THINK essays (dropping one or two) comprising about 50% of their grade.) Some memorizers were pissed, while others learned. To THINK. Reminds me of the IBM ad: THINK or swim.
Spot on. Sad situation for too many students. You can always pick them out later on. Just try to have a chat with them about something 'significant.' Andy Borowitz has a new book out that includes this topic.
You reminded me of my English teacher - who was a history buff (even more so than my history teacher). Lloyd Feisel - a real mensch. I remember I was in his class when JFK was shot.
I was actually an English major, at UVA, but had an incredible professor for U.S. Diplomatic History, Norman Graebner. Everyone who had to take a humanities course but was not a history or even humanities major wanted to take his course. It was peppered with what a liberal arts education is supposed to provide: lots of "Ah, ha!" moments. "I never knew that! Wow." It was during the Vietnam War, and we read such eye-opening primary sources such as Ho Chi-minh's message to President Truman in '46 pleading with the head of our Republic - which had thrown off an earlier colonial master - to help Vietnam block French re-assertion there after WW II. https://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/640657324945620993/letter-from-ho-chi-minh-to-president-harry-truman
To think of how different history would have been had Truman sided with international justice for an Asian people instead of bowing to the wishes of our cultural cousins in France (who soon enough got their comeuppance from Ho Chi-minh at Dien Bien-phu). So, to make a long story short, I became a history teacher rather than an English lit. one. Gladly.
I studied business. I hate business, but it was because I am so terrible at math (I never mastered basic algebra) that I was packed into a mold common for girls in the 1970's living in small towns all over America - it was decided that I should study to be an Executive Secretary, whatever that was. but I always loved history and literature, reading about so many things that high school never covered. Eventually, I wrote investigative reports, newsletters, even legal documents for the people I worked for over the years, and then I went to the middle east and taught English until I retired.
We can all look back and wonder, "what if"? What if the Cuban missile crisis exploded? What if the US had never gone to war in Vietnam (I just bought Pol Pot's biography by Philip Short)? And what if Al Gore had become president instead of Bush? Today, I contemplate the long history of the decline of the American conscience, a price we pay for American greed.
I was 6 years old and sitting on my school bus waiting to go home when our school principal came and told us JFK was shot. Ever since, I've been aware of the constant creation of history all around me. It's always been my favorite subject.
That had to be incredible. I was 5, and could not understand why all the grownups were in the living room watching TV and crying. I was banished to the back of the house with my "Quick Draw McGraw" album for the week.
I subsequently had long talks with my folks about that time, and how devastated they were by that event; later, we could discuss the assassinations of 1968 (MLK and RFK) in a much more impactful manner.
I was married with two kids - one in school, & the other a toddler at the time - sitting on a hassock watching the Kennedys driving thru Dallas - it was awful - watching in real time - seeing Jacky leaning way out over the back of the car to pull the SS guy in. I still wonder - exactly who really was responsible. Especially with the hate towards JFK.
The ignorance of history remains astounding to me, but less so than their abject lack of curiosity. So many are not interested in what actually happened. As explained to me by a philosophy professor, this is the misappropriation of Galbraith's "conventional wisdom," where the root of "conventional" was actually "convenient."
Peter I was a community colleague professor from age 58-to-80 and was unrestricted in what I could teach, ranging from similarities/ differences early Judaism, Christianity, Islam and societal discrimination from patriarchy to ‘race’ to the present.
I retired in 2013 rather aghast at what high school graduates didn’t know about our Constitution, the hard road for Blacks, Native Americans, women, sand immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia (also, Irish—in Boston—NINA—No Irish Need Apply).
I shudder to think what history is being taught in many US states. Some of the Republican blow hards know better, but they don’t care.
After how many years of hearing white supremacist crap, I am not convinced that people like this candidate are ignorant. I think there is a deliberate and cynical manipulation of history by these candidates to support their racist views. Do the masses care? I don’t think so—what they want are these destructive and hate-filled candidates to defeat the “elites”. What their candidates say is irrelevant so long as the libs are outraged. Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for reminding us of the real history of the Republican Party.
I didn't know about the R-D switch until I took American History in college. Do you have to be an AP History high school student to get this information? Definitely sharing this HCR letter.
Peter Tenney: Rather than just “Social Studies” (actually a poor choice of a title. It’s real function was to introduce isolated Americans to the cultures of other nations.); what we have lost is found in the study of History, Literature, and the Arts. That is: how does the individual fit in (or not) their larger society. And, when they don’t fit in, how can that be remedied (or not)? We used to call that “Humanities”. Not only did “Social Studies” get a bad name from conservatives, “Humanities” as a topic is no longer taught widely. It is simply a study of how History, Literature, and the Arts express the values of a time and how they change (or not) with the experiences of the society that generates them. We have other language difficulties, such as “Global Warming”. While it might explain the process, it doesn’t explain the effects of that process -- as we can see every time it snows!
I’m going to go out on a limb here to inject a bit of humor...I’m a bit of a trivia buff and one of my favorite sources of minutiae are the Uncle John’s Bathroom series books. I know, humor me...many salient points of interest have been made in this series, lots of fun stories, and also historical asides. And some inclusions are just bats*ht crazy, which sometimes makes what we’re living with today seem almost normal. Let’s all take a long deep breath or two and look ahead to what we hope will be a brighter and better future.
I wouldn't disparage "social studies" as invaluable. Look deeper into the cabal who decided decades ago that we ought not let those we didn't consider 'qualified' to learn too much about any of the 'social studies' including history, political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Didn't want too much actual thinking, critically or otherwise, about these issues. Might have them wanting 'change' and you know how dangerous THAT is... (tongue partially in cheek) It's not an accident that these people don't know history or why it's important. And then just let 'em run around with guns... yeah, that's the ticket.
People are turned off by history because in the past education centered on the memorization of dates and facts. There was also an awful lot of distortion of the real events.
I'd make that "too many *white* Americans," and I might add "Christian" too. For many Americans it's not a matter of sliding *back* because we never really slid *out* of that long period where our "democracy," such as it was, was secondary to racism, sexism, and corporate interests.
Professor Richardson has done a couple of "chats" on Facebook twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) since the beginning of the pandemic. They are archived to YouTube shortly after they are done live. If you go back to the very beginning of them, the first dozen or so (I'm guessing here) are, conversationally, about "How the South Won the Civil War").
I liked learning the stories of the past in history class. HOWEVER, I have learned so much vital history of America since I began reading this newsletter. Many thanks to HCR!
Agreed. “How the South Won The Civil War” is a must read. We must tie our barbaric, cruel, colonialists history to the poor state of health we are in today! We are a nation of collective historical traumas. The damage to our bodies and souls has been inequitable, and inevitable, and is passed down from generation to generation with indigenous and Black peoples being predisposed to stress-related health conditions, and more vulnerable to premature death and death, as the Pandemic showed, due multigenerational trauma; inequities. (Inequity/injustice is trauma.) Just as the damage to the ability to build and transfer wealth has affected Native American and Black, Brown and other people of color the most, the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY. We tie all of this together with public health data at PACESConnection.com, where we have been hosting a series on Historical Trauma in America with a webinar focused on each region about every-other month for the last 18 months. This is our passion and mission, to share the science of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of 1998, and the hundreds of subsequent studies correlating the devastating health consequences of toxic childhood stress to adult health outcomes. We also focus on the newer science of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and their buffering impact, hence PACEs for positive and adverse childhood experiences. On the ACEs side there is toxic childhood stress in the home (sexual, physical, emotional abuse and neglect, parental addiction and/or mental illness, incarceration of a family member, domestic violence of the father attacking the mother), community toxic stress (poverty, food and housing insecurity, racism, inequity across education, healthcare, nutrition, employment, opportunities, and on and on to include historical or generational trauma) and environmental ACEs, including environmental racism, pollution, climate change, the pandemics and epidemics, catastrophic weather events -- wildfires, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, droughts -- and more.
There is much more to share on this, so I am going to save what I have here and come back and drop in some links. So glad we can edit these posts now!
And so grateful for Heather Cox Richardson and her writings. Our dream is to have her join us for our Historical Trauma in America series someday, of course! The nexus historical trauma and public health and culture is a vital area of study. These truths, we hope and believe will help build understanding, empathy, and compassion, toward healthier, more compassionate communities.
I agree, instead of living in a society that provides security, economic support, and aspirations on an equitable basis across the land - for individuals, families, schools, workplaces, communities - we are stuck with a society oriented toward profits for corporations and discounting or exploitation of about 50% of Americans through racism, low wages, and lack of social supports.
Growing out of expanding knowledge of the tragic lifelong harms of child maltreatment, PACES knowledge has expanded to comprehend the persistent, intergenerational toxicity of racism and poverty. The current fabulist paranoia gripping so many Americans is boosted, but not created, by fake news and would be authoritarian politicians. It is the end result of decades of neoliberal economics (promoted by both major parties) which power boosted economic growth while ignoring people needs. This created the current state of massive income inequality which is destroying democratic society.
PACES wisdom is an underappreciated science/activity proven to rebuild and rehabilitate individuals, families, and communities from the ground up creating strengths and resilience in the midst of a failing and flailing society. It remains to be seen if it can part of a movement strong enough to stem the flood of decline and the loss of democracy. It also remains to be seen if interventions based on empathy, compassion, moral values and justice have the capacity to impact a political system now based on raw power.
Thanks, Jeoff. We have to use this knowledge as best we can. It is like sitting on the preventative for cancer, crime, poverty, hatred, depression, toxic polarization — and NOT sharing it. The solutions come from the awareness of the problems: violence, greed, greed, inequity, greed and did I say greed? A system that rewards greed and inequity, that prevents hardworking people from creating generational wealth, that provides healthcare and a decent education to some but not all fosters the toxic polarization of the haves vs the have nots which is ridiculous. We are in abundance if our laws and policies were not created and perpetuated to stack things for the wealthy.
“ the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY.”
IMO, as a retired doc and public health officer, spreading the word on “epigenetics” is crucial to getting past older “social/behavioral” models for understanding the true structural harm our society has caused BIPOC people (and whites raised in toxic environments.) As we better understand that regulation of the body, health, longevity has MUCH more to do with epigenetics than inherited DNA, we realize the direct physical harm caused by children being raised in inequitable environments and how the very real damage is trans-generational.
Thanks for further opening my eyes, Carey. I’ve only been peripherally aware of research on ACE - and plan to study it further, including reading the PACESConnection.com site.
This will give you some of an overview. Would love to see you join us and spread the word about the event among your friends who may want to know more!
Please join pacesconnection.com. It’s free. We curate and send a Daily Digest MTTF and a Weekly Roundup on Wednesdays. These emailed publications have the latest news pertaining to the learnings, policies, challenges, opportunities, events and more. Our YouTube channel has more than 100 free webinars; we dove into the pandemic with webinars as a way to connect our reeling membership of then some 50k people. We’re now more than 57,430 members. Many are pediatricians, educators, people with lived experience, judges, social workers, people in city, county and state governments who are coming to realize the upstream benefits of creating “trauma-informed” schools, clinics, businesses, courtrooms, government entities and more. My email is csipp@pacesconnection.com and I would be delighted to send you an invitation. We are an inclusive anti-racist organization led by educators, journalists, people with public health backgrounds and more. A nonprofit we were originally funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. I believe you will find like minded and amazing humans there who will welcome you. We also have some 440 or so cross-sector geographic communities and about 40 interest-based communities, and a LibSource resources center full of free materials and every PACEs-related publication we can find.
We have policy partners, too, in our efforts to track states that have passed trauma-informed legislation and are working to help our communities learn how to advocate for trauma-informed practices and policies.
This is a movement, not unlike a labor movement or the ACT UP movement to create awareness, understanding, and resources necessary to fight and end AIDs.
It’s a long-haul to change public policy and create awareness of the damage we do to everyone when we don’t protect our children from the toxic stress of violence, poverty, racism, inequity, injustice, climate change, environmental racism, hatred.
I am so incredibly anxious about the upcoming midterms that I am finding it hard to focus on anything else. I have been following campaigns of several candidates outside of my state for awhile now. That, and the fact that one of my adult children has been brainwashed by a legalistic Baptist church, makes these elections feel very personal to me.
I'm so sorry, Miselle. I completely understand your concerns. I believe, however, that the majority of Americans are rational, intelligent, and morally strong. The democracy depends on it. VOTE.
I love that system of required voting. It is pathetic how few people vote here. Pay taxes and vote that’s what you should have to do here if you’re lucky enough to be a US citizen.
I wish I could count on rational, intelligent, and morally strong fellow Americans. Unfortunately, the pandemic showed another side to the America I thought I lived in. Petty grievances, self-centered, and easily mislead…
Wish I had your belief. I have thought many times “we aren’t that stupid.” Only to be proven wrong. However, I still believe that, but the propaganda works and it is louder than the majority’s sanity. Will anything burst Rupert’s balloon??
I would love to believe that. None the less worried as hell. The cost of living (which as very little to do with Biden) is more important too many Americans than civil rights (women's rights ++) and democracy its self.
Very true. I have a right wing friend in Texas that tries to bring me over to his side. When I give him my list of why I see the Republican party turning towards fasicism all he can come back with is the economy and gas prices. Quite frankly he has absolutely no idea what fasicism (or socialism is for that matter) even is and doesn't want to know. He would be perfectly content if the last election was "nulified" and Trump installed. I think he thinks that's "democracy".
So much of this goes back to longterm structural limitations built into public education regarding history and civics, by right wingers especially in the South who wanted those subjects to convey their political and cultural indoctrination, not the truth. Consider the outsize dominance on the content of public school textbooks by the Texas state Board of Education, simply because they’re such a huge market that publishers found it expedient to concede to their demands, and economical to publish only one edition of each history textbook for the whole country. https://education.msu.edu/green-and-write/2014/texas-textbooks-and-the-politics-of-history-standards/
(I will copy this comment to a more central spot on today’s comment thread.)
And spread the word far and wide to #VoteDownBallot ! #VoteDemDownBallot !
People often ignore the smaller offices, judges etc and we can no longer afford to do so. If you don’t know who to vote for, then just guess and go Dem down the line!
I believe we are as well, though the crazy cult 45 base drowns us out. Michael Moore mentioned (as did "Beau of the Fifth Column") that it will be the Independent, or infrequent voters who will decide the election. So I channeled that worry into 220 letters and 60 postcards to voters.
I never even knew I could do this from home until frequent contributor here, Ellie Kona, mentioned it. Kudos to her! I wish I could know how many of the voters I "adopted" will actually vote.
I think we are truly kindred souls. What was your source for the letters and cards? I have a daughter getting married, so I don't think I'll have time to send any - but even talking like we've done, and having people comment or express appreciation, is an important step toward stopping this nightmare. WE CAN DO THIS. Good WILL prevail.
Tremendous summary of a complicated issue
Thank you
And if you are from Michigan, this brings even greater clarity to why we are fighting so hard to re-elect Governor Gretchen Whitmer!
I’m from Michigan. Even my non political wife yells at Dixon when her ads appear on TV
Grew up there. On east coast for 30 years. I can’t even fathom how Dixon is considered a viable candidate.
Betsy DeVos money, thats how
I live in MI. Even though President Biden won here, it is awash with MAGAs. Dixon believes and promotes the Big Lie.
Yes, Laurie, I agree.
Also a native Michigander. I was there a week ago visiting my brother in western MI. The ads were much worse than those here in MN. To laugh, I kept asking who, in right mind, would name their daughter, Tudor - is she the reincarnation of Henry VIII?
It was a Ford model. Perhaps the R candidate is a Ford heirss. “ The Ford Tudor (pronounced two-door) was a coupe marketed by Ford in the fifties. Despite its name, the Tudor was not named after the British Tudor family, but rather just a play on the fact that it had two doors. Accompanying it was the Ford Fordor.”
- from a website whose link I can’t get my phone to let me paste here
Elizabeth Ford’s naming a car Tudor was not as bad as Chevy’s Nova, which had special trouble in Latin America. Of course in Spanish No Va means ‘no go.’
Even if you made it all up, love the story. Thank you.
“Tooter”?
I'm going to have to read this a few more times to understand all the twists.and turns of how it evolved. However it sure doesn’t fit neatly into a TV or newspaper ad!
Heather has written a wonderful history of the Republican Party that I highly recommend for it's clarity and fairness. https://www.amazon.com/Make-Men-Free-History-Republican-ebook/dp/B00L4FSSZY/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=1BNOMEWQ439CJ&keywords=heather+cox+richardson&qid=1667137429&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI0LjA2IiwicXNhIjoiMy43MSIsInFzcCI6IjMuNjgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=heather+cox+richardson%2Caps%2C66&sr=8-4
That's what I just said!!! And it doesn't. But maybe Heather's ending could be turned into a question: How did it happen that members of a party that once defended civil rights, now make white power rants on public media? I'm going to try this on twitter!
I lived it all from 1934 to the present, in the South until 1997. It’s really exactly as told. From WWII onward the twists and turns were even more complex than at any point after the 1861 war. What do we call that war these days? The Civil War? There was nothing civil about it. The Brady photographs tell all. Our history is a bloody mess; the dream of democracy is what has made us special as long as we held onto it. If we have lost it through greed and stupidity, we will know by mid-November. Vote and vote blue!
Thank you Virginia, such a perilous time.
Thank you, Sandra. Watching Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, remembering photos of her with her sister and their parents walking in bombed out parts of London, reminded of her being “out” in the British equivalent of the WAACs, I recognized that both of us had been formed by WWII. And in my public school in a poor district during and after WWII, I had Virginia history, world history, American history, and civics. My civics teacher, a truly rare lady, told her classes that if they did not vote in every election they were entitled to vote in, she would come back to haunt them. Forty years later, at a high school reunion, she was the only teacher mentioned. Between her and my father, I grew up and grew old working on many elections and voting.
I’m with you. I still have a hard time grasping it…I also do not understand the filibuster, and the electoral college………………….
I'm with you Sandra. I feel like I have to chart it while I'm reading it. I'm very confused right now.
Agreed!
Any political party that aspired to be a national party had a northern anti-slavery and a southern pro-slavery wing. this was true of the whigs, the democrats and the republicans. the northern and southern wings of these parties were constantly compromising. in recent times northern and southern democrats could barely keep the party together, but there was no break up, even under fdr. the south voted for everything he wanted as long as he wasn't too pro-naacp. they still curse him in dixie, but if it weren't for fdr the south would probably not have electricity yet. and all the small forts in the south are huge military installations now, thanks to fdr. they'd better pray down there that the federal gov't doesn't get out of their lives anytime soon. the dem party broke up during the civil rights era. in other words, over race. the northern wing supported civil rights, and that's all it took. the republicans gladly allied with the south because it made their party stronger. northern dems and repubs always think they can control their southern wings, but the south is so solid that the tail always ends up wagging the dog. "southern slavery is an institution that is in earnest. northern freedom is an institution that is not in earnest." and just read that stupid 13th amendment that everybody moons over in that ridiculous s. spielberg cartoon, lincoln. did the north not realize that white southern juries would simply convict black men on trumped-up charges and send them to jail, where they would work for no pay? in other words, as slaves? you'd think abe lincoln had never been a lawyer.
So much education and clarity in so few words, as is always the case with your daily newsetter. You are too classy to mention the book you wrote on this subject, but I will. "How the South Won the Civil War." A must-read, folks.
Am reading it now. I only wish that more Americans would take the time to know our history the way Heather has laid it out today. Because it is repeating itself.
I think there are too many Americans who don't believe that America could slide back to a time where democracy was secondary to hate, racism and class warfare. They are too busy ignoring the political mudslinging - it's so disgusting, why wouldn't one want to turn on that big TV and stare at social media nonsense on a fat phone?
Because we are in the process of losing the very essence of the nation that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) risked their lives for. We are close to becoming the Italy and Germany of the early 20th Century.
I was a history teacher before retirement and had the good fortune of being able to actually teach history - rather than that watered-down thing called "social studies." One of my biggest concerns is that so many on the MAGA right manifest a remarkable ignorance of the history of their own country that they profess to be so patriotic about. Tudor Dixon's foot-in-mouth moment (she's also blissfully ignorant about THAT) is a perfect example. I think it would be very telling to find out how many on the right, including such congressional notables as Kevin McCarthy. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert, were actually exposed to history during their schooling. My bet: Nope. "Social Studies"
History and English major here. From these two disciplines I learned not only about our country and the world - past and present - but I also learned how to think, how to reason and how to come to rational conclusions about events, both past and present. The ability to think, to discern, and to learn is what is sorely lacking today, and that is woefully obvious in the halls of Congress.
I also learned how to do very well on Jeopardy! 😉
Marg Yea verily and forsooth for the disciplines of History and English. These served me extremely well in diverse careers (with the fillip of a MS from MIT). Being able to think three dimensionally is essential in our modern-day world. One dimensional thinking is a hallmark of Trumpublicans for which we all. Are suffering.
I can’t “heart” your comment for some reason, Keith, but I do love your use of verily and forsooth. Bet Raphael and his ilk don’t even know those words exist!
Marg Verily and forsooth from your humble and obedient servant (back in the 18th century this could be followed by execution or imprisonment, but in a most gentile manner.)
Isn't Raphael "our" guy? And, in response to Keith's comment below, being executed or imprisoned in "a most gentile manner" doesn't sound good at all. Back to reading class.
Also important to learn how to read (carefully), which should happen in history and English classes. (Also math classes, but a different sort of attention needed.)
I'm replying to myself here: reading is even more important than math. (I'm a retired mathematician, so my word is law on this topic.)
I remember that, when I was a high school student, many of my classmates did not pay attention in our history class or do any of the required reading. They only did the minimum to get by and that did not result in much of an understanding of the material. They just weren’t interested. I had traveled the country with my family visiting historical, patriotic, and governmental sites, so I had a context in which to fit the history lessons and was fascinated by it all. I think of of those disconnected students when I see the MAGA followers.
Susan, you have it right. Travel does indeed “broaden” one. I was lucky enough to have a Fulbright scholarship to France so felt perfectly able to return there as often as I could afford to. Recognizing the brain work required for a second language, I have written to Americans who don’t “get it,” that Ukrainians can learn the complicated weapons they receive in some part because they learned at least two languages and two alphabets in primary school. And have we noticed the excellence of the spoken English of so many Ukrainians on TV?
Yes, I have noticed how many Ukrainians speak English. This is true for all of the western European countries, it's part of their education programs.
You were indeed fortunate. Your family's travels broadened your interest and understanding of the relevance of the storied on those history book pages.
Most Republican pols who spout quackery and conspiracies certainly know history. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Blake Masters, Ron DeSantis - all Ivy League and/or Stanford grads, most of them with a law degree. To be a successful Republican politician you have to proclaim ignorance for the ignorant voter base, but make no mistake, they are not themselves ignorant.
JR DeSantis was a history major at Yale. My understanding is that he was in the less rigorous general history major program. In contrast I was an intensive Yale history major in 1955. There the faculty provided an intense education to a limited number of history majors who chose to work hard to learn. More than half of the 37 initial intensive history majors dropped back to the easier track, where DeSantis started. Still, he should be ashamed of himself for his historical false fantasies..
Being intelligent is quite different from being book smart. Just about anyone can be accepted to an Ivy or any other university, do the class work, get the grades, graduate, on move on to a career. What is lacking in the cohort listed above is intellectual curiosity .
I had a friend in high school who had a straight 4.0 GPA all through school (highest possible at the time). She went on to a fine state university and graduated early with academic accomplishment. Her problem was once she took the class and got the A, she just moved on to the next course, just checked it off her To Do list. She took a quarter long course reading and studying James Joyce’s Ulysses. As an English major, I expressed my admiration for tackling such weighted material and tried to engage her in a conversation about the book. It didn’t make dent. Read the book, got the grade, moved on. No more interest in Joyce than she showed in any of her other subjects. No intellectual curiosity. My mom nailed it. “Susie is as deep as a pie tin.” Thankfully, she never ran for elected office.
Marg Loved “Susie is as deep as a pie tin.” As a professor I encountered students who tried to memorize, spew forth on tests, grab an A, and go on to the next academic hurdle.
I foxed such folks by having a THINK essay to write at the start of each class with the grades on the THINK essays (dropping one or two) comprising about 50% of their grade.) Some memorizers were pissed, while others learned. To THINK. Reminds me of the IBM ad: THINK or swim.
I think I would have had a love/hate relationship with you as a prof, and I did with several of mine. Always the best relationships!
Spot on. Sad situation for too many students. You can always pick them out later on. Just try to have a chat with them about something 'significant.' Andy Borowitz has a new book out that includes this topic.
History teachers were some of my favorite instructors.
You reminded me of my English teacher - who was a history buff (even more so than my history teacher). Lloyd Feisel - a real mensch. I remember I was in his class when JFK was shot.
I was actually an English major, at UVA, but had an incredible professor for U.S. Diplomatic History, Norman Graebner. Everyone who had to take a humanities course but was not a history or even humanities major wanted to take his course. It was peppered with what a liberal arts education is supposed to provide: lots of "Ah, ha!" moments. "I never knew that! Wow." It was during the Vietnam War, and we read such eye-opening primary sources such as Ho Chi-minh's message to President Truman in '46 pleading with the head of our Republic - which had thrown off an earlier colonial master - to help Vietnam block French re-assertion there after WW II. https://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/640657324945620993/letter-from-ho-chi-minh-to-president-harry-truman
To think of how different history would have been had Truman sided with international justice for an Asian people instead of bowing to the wishes of our cultural cousins in France (who soon enough got their comeuppance from Ho Chi-minh at Dien Bien-phu). So, to make a long story short, I became a history teacher rather than an English lit. one. Gladly.
I studied business. I hate business, but it was because I am so terrible at math (I never mastered basic algebra) that I was packed into a mold common for girls in the 1970's living in small towns all over America - it was decided that I should study to be an Executive Secretary, whatever that was. but I always loved history and literature, reading about so many things that high school never covered. Eventually, I wrote investigative reports, newsletters, even legal documents for the people I worked for over the years, and then I went to the middle east and taught English until I retired.
We can all look back and wonder, "what if"? What if the Cuban missile crisis exploded? What if the US had never gone to war in Vietnam (I just bought Pol Pot's biography by Philip Short)? And what if Al Gore had become president instead of Bush? Today, I contemplate the long history of the decline of the American conscience, a price we pay for American greed.
I was 6 years old and sitting on my school bus waiting to go home when our school principal came and told us JFK was shot. Ever since, I've been aware of the constant creation of history all around me. It's always been my favorite subject.
That had to be incredible. I was 5, and could not understand why all the grownups were in the living room watching TV and crying. I was banished to the back of the house with my "Quick Draw McGraw" album for the week.
I subsequently had long talks with my folks about that time, and how devastated they were by that event; later, we could discuss the assassinations of 1968 (MLK and RFK) in a much more impactful manner.
I was married with two kids - one in school, & the other a toddler at the time - sitting on a hassock watching the Kennedys driving thru Dallas - it was awful - watching in real time - seeing Jacky leaning way out over the back of the car to pull the SS guy in. I still wonder - exactly who really was responsible. Especially with the hate towards JFK.
The ignorance of history remains astounding to me, but less so than their abject lack of curiosity. So many are not interested in what actually happened. As explained to me by a philosophy professor, this is the misappropriation of Galbraith's "conventional wisdom," where the root of "conventional" was actually "convenient."
A sense of curiosity is, I believe, ever so much more important than even a good History class. The need to find out "what really happened".
Peter I was a community colleague professor from age 58-to-80 and was unrestricted in what I could teach, ranging from similarities/ differences early Judaism, Christianity, Islam and societal discrimination from patriarchy to ‘race’ to the present.
I retired in 2013 rather aghast at what high school graduates didn’t know about our Constitution, the hard road for Blacks, Native Americans, women, sand immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia (also, Irish—in Boston—NINA—No Irish Need Apply).
I shudder to think what history is being taught in many US states. Some of the Republican blow hards know better, but they don’t care.
After how many years of hearing white supremacist crap, I am not convinced that people like this candidate are ignorant. I think there is a deliberate and cynical manipulation of history by these candidates to support their racist views. Do the masses care? I don’t think so—what they want are these destructive and hate-filled candidates to defeat the “elites”. What their candidates say is irrelevant so long as the libs are outraged. Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for reminding us of the real history of the Republican Party.
I didn't know about the R-D switch until I took American History in college. Do you have to be an AP History high school student to get this information? Definitely sharing this HCR letter.
As best I could, I taught this "lesson" to my talented 8th graders, and I hope for many it "stuck."
Peter Tenney: Rather than just “Social Studies” (actually a poor choice of a title. It’s real function was to introduce isolated Americans to the cultures of other nations.); what we have lost is found in the study of History, Literature, and the Arts. That is: how does the individual fit in (or not) their larger society. And, when they don’t fit in, how can that be remedied (or not)? We used to call that “Humanities”. Not only did “Social Studies” get a bad name from conservatives, “Humanities” as a topic is no longer taught widely. It is simply a study of how History, Literature, and the Arts express the values of a time and how they change (or not) with the experiences of the society that generates them. We have other language difficulties, such as “Global Warming”. While it might explain the process, it doesn’t explain the effects of that process -- as we can see every time it snows!
I’m going to go out on a limb here to inject a bit of humor...I’m a bit of a trivia buff and one of my favorite sources of minutiae are the Uncle John’s Bathroom series books. I know, humor me...many salient points of interest have been made in this series, lots of fun stories, and also historical asides. And some inclusions are just bats*ht crazy, which sometimes makes what we’re living with today seem almost normal. Let’s all take a long deep breath or two and look ahead to what we hope will be a brighter and better future.
Peace out.
Marg I like the Hornblower series and currently imagine Trumpublicans on the poop deck, while I struggle to avoid their excrement.
I wouldn't disparage "social studies" as invaluable. Look deeper into the cabal who decided decades ago that we ought not let those we didn't consider 'qualified' to learn too much about any of the 'social studies' including history, political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Didn't want too much actual thinking, critically or otherwise, about these issues. Might have them wanting 'change' and you know how dangerous THAT is... (tongue partially in cheek) It's not an accident that these people don't know history or why it's important. And then just let 'em run around with guns... yeah, that's the ticket.
People are turned off by history because in the past education centered on the memorization of dates and facts. There was also an awful lot of distortion of the real events.
I'd make that "too many *white* Americans," and I might add "Christian" too. For many Americans it's not a matter of sliding *back* because we never really slid *out* of that long period where our "democracy," such as it was, was secondary to racism, sexism, and corporate interests.
And excellent online history class series based on it, done during pandemic. Still available ... incredibly worthwhile and valuable learning.
Link please?
Professor Richardson has done a couple of "chats" on Facebook twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) since the beginning of the pandemic. They are archived to YouTube shortly after they are done live. If you go back to the very beginning of them, the first dozen or so (I'm guessing here) are, conversationally, about "How the South Won the Civil War").
Mike, I think this is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Tz4awyyNU
Also, I highly recommend the book "How the South Won the Civil War" by HCR.
Thanks for the link! I just sent a request to the President!
Thanks, Liz, and yes, it would be.
Done!
Also - done!
Mike, this is a better place to view talks by HCR about the book—How the South...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2dS6uX1RkUw2AWBqq_nEtAj1HpF8U-yw
Arthur
Many thanks.
Perfect for my homeschool. Thank you!
I liked learning the stories of the past in history class. HOWEVER, I have learned so much vital history of America since I began reading this newsletter. Many thanks to HCR!
Agreed. “How the South Won The Civil War” is a must read. We must tie our barbaric, cruel, colonialists history to the poor state of health we are in today! We are a nation of collective historical traumas. The damage to our bodies and souls has been inequitable, and inevitable, and is passed down from generation to generation with indigenous and Black peoples being predisposed to stress-related health conditions, and more vulnerable to premature death and death, as the Pandemic showed, due multigenerational trauma; inequities. (Inequity/injustice is trauma.) Just as the damage to the ability to build and transfer wealth has affected Native American and Black, Brown and other people of color the most, the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY. We tie all of this together with public health data at PACESConnection.com, where we have been hosting a series on Historical Trauma in America with a webinar focused on each region about every-other month for the last 18 months. This is our passion and mission, to share the science of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of 1998, and the hundreds of subsequent studies correlating the devastating health consequences of toxic childhood stress to adult health outcomes. We also focus on the newer science of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and their buffering impact, hence PACEs for positive and adverse childhood experiences. On the ACEs side there is toxic childhood stress in the home (sexual, physical, emotional abuse and neglect, parental addiction and/or mental illness, incarceration of a family member, domestic violence of the father attacking the mother), community toxic stress (poverty, food and housing insecurity, racism, inequity across education, healthcare, nutrition, employment, opportunities, and on and on to include historical or generational trauma) and environmental ACEs, including environmental racism, pollution, climate change, the pandemics and epidemics, catastrophic weather events -- wildfires, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, droughts -- and more.
There is much more to share on this, so I am going to save what I have here and come back and drop in some links. So glad we can edit these posts now!
And so grateful for Heather Cox Richardson and her writings. Our dream is to have her join us for our Historical Trauma in America series someday, of course! The nexus historical trauma and public health and culture is a vital area of study. These truths, we hope and believe will help build understanding, empathy, and compassion, toward healthier, more compassionate communities.
I agree, instead of living in a society that provides security, economic support, and aspirations on an equitable basis across the land - for individuals, families, schools, workplaces, communities - we are stuck with a society oriented toward profits for corporations and discounting or exploitation of about 50% of Americans through racism, low wages, and lack of social supports.
Growing out of expanding knowledge of the tragic lifelong harms of child maltreatment, PACES knowledge has expanded to comprehend the persistent, intergenerational toxicity of racism and poverty. The current fabulist paranoia gripping so many Americans is boosted, but not created, by fake news and would be authoritarian politicians. It is the end result of decades of neoliberal economics (promoted by both major parties) which power boosted economic growth while ignoring people needs. This created the current state of massive income inequality which is destroying democratic society.
PACES wisdom is an underappreciated science/activity proven to rebuild and rehabilitate individuals, families, and communities from the ground up creating strengths and resilience in the midst of a failing and flailing society. It remains to be seen if it can part of a movement strong enough to stem the flood of decline and the loss of democracy. It also remains to be seen if interventions based on empathy, compassion, moral values and justice have the capacity to impact a political system now based on raw power.
Thanks, Jeoff. We have to use this knowledge as best we can. It is like sitting on the preventative for cancer, crime, poverty, hatred, depression, toxic polarization — and NOT sharing it. The solutions come from the awareness of the problems: violence, greed, greed, inequity, greed and did I say greed? A system that rewards greed and inequity, that prevents hardworking people from creating generational wealth, that provides healthcare and a decent education to some but not all fosters the toxic polarization of the haves vs the have nots which is ridiculous. We are in abundance if our laws and policies were not created and perpetuated to stack things for the wealthy.
Don’t forget the lack of understanding of these issues brought on by the constant din of right-wing propaganda and mis-education.
“ the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY.”
IMO, as a retired doc and public health officer, spreading the word on “epigenetics” is crucial to getting past older “social/behavioral” models for understanding the true structural harm our society has caused BIPOC people (and whites raised in toxic environments.) As we better understand that regulation of the body, health, longevity has MUCH more to do with epigenetics than inherited DNA, we realize the direct physical harm caused by children being raised in inequitable environments and how the very real damage is trans-generational.
Thanks for further opening my eyes, Carey. I’ve only been peripherally aware of research on ACE - and plan to study it further, including reading the PACESConnection.com site.
https://www.eventbrite.com/x/paces-connections-collective-grief-collective-healing-conference-tickets-418163758057?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reminder_attendees_48hour_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemaileventremind
This will give you some of an overview. Would love to see you join us and spread the word about the event among your friends who may want to know more!
Thank you Peter!
Please join pacesconnection.com. It’s free. We curate and send a Daily Digest MTTF and a Weekly Roundup on Wednesdays. These emailed publications have the latest news pertaining to the learnings, policies, challenges, opportunities, events and more. Our YouTube channel has more than 100 free webinars; we dove into the pandemic with webinars as a way to connect our reeling membership of then some 50k people. We’re now more than 57,430 members. Many are pediatricians, educators, people with lived experience, judges, social workers, people in city, county and state governments who are coming to realize the upstream benefits of creating “trauma-informed” schools, clinics, businesses, courtrooms, government entities and more. My email is csipp@pacesconnection.com and I would be delighted to send you an invitation. We are an inclusive anti-racist organization led by educators, journalists, people with public health backgrounds and more. A nonprofit we were originally funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. I believe you will find like minded and amazing humans there who will welcome you. We also have some 440 or so cross-sector geographic communities and about 40 interest-based communities, and a LibSource resources center full of free materials and every PACEs-related publication we can find.
We have policy partners, too, in our efforts to track states that have passed trauma-informed legislation and are working to help our communities learn how to advocate for trauma-informed practices and policies.
This is a movement, not unlike a labor movement or the ACT UP movement to create awareness, understanding, and resources necessary to fight and end AIDs.
It’s a long-haul to change public policy and create awareness of the damage we do to everyone when we don’t protect our children from the toxic stress of violence, poverty, racism, inequity, injustice, climate change, environmental racism, hatred.
Thank you!
Peace!
Carey
Thanks for the heads up. I ordered it just now. HCR is such a great historian and
a readable writer. I hope to get a firmer grasp on this subject I've only had a fragmented understanding of.
Yes, a terrific book!
Or listen to on Audible!
Robert, agreed. "How the South Won the Civil War" is a must-read.
gonna read it....thanks Heather
Agreed.
I am so incredibly anxious about the upcoming midterms that I am finding it hard to focus on anything else. I have been following campaigns of several candidates outside of my state for awhile now. That, and the fact that one of my adult children has been brainwashed by a legalistic Baptist church, makes these elections feel very personal to me.
Breathe, please. ALL of us need to.
I'm so sorry, Miselle. I completely understand your concerns. I believe, however, that the majority of Americans are rational, intelligent, and morally strong. The democracy depends on it. VOTE.
You and Michael Moore have faith in ‘the people’ - see his substack; I wish I could feel less anxiety!
Voting from Australia- where voting is obligatory!
In Australia there is a fine for not voting.
Yes! One does not have to actually vote but a ballot has to be presented…eg could be blank
Wow. I didn’t know. What a good idea. So what % of the population votes?
I love that system of required voting. It is pathetic how few people vote here. Pay taxes and vote that’s what you should have to do here if you’re lucky enough to be a US citizen.
I wish I could count on rational, intelligent, and morally strong fellow Americans. Unfortunately, the pandemic showed another side to the America I thought I lived in. Petty grievances, self-centered, and easily mislead…
Propaganda works especially well with the “easily mislead.” Includes some that I thought were “solid.”
Wish I had your belief. I have thought many times “we aren’t that stupid.” Only to be proven wrong. However, I still believe that, but the propaganda works and it is louder than the majority’s sanity. Will anything burst Rupert’s balloon??
So true, Jeri, and well put: “We aren’t that stupid” or are we? Sad….
I would love to believe that. None the less worried as hell. The cost of living (which as very little to do with Biden) is more important too many Americans than civil rights (women's rights ++) and democracy its self.
Very true. I have a right wing friend in Texas that tries to bring me over to his side. When I give him my list of why I see the Republican party turning towards fasicism all he can come back with is the economy and gas prices. Quite frankly he has absolutely no idea what fasicism (or socialism is for that matter) even is and doesn't want to know. He would be perfectly content if the last election was "nulified" and Trump installed. I think he thinks that's "democracy".
So much of this goes back to longterm structural limitations built into public education regarding history and civics, by right wingers especially in the South who wanted those subjects to convey their political and cultural indoctrination, not the truth. Consider the outsize dominance on the content of public school textbooks by the Texas state Board of Education, simply because they’re such a huge market that publishers found it expedient to concede to their demands, and economical to publish only one edition of each history textbook for the whole country. https://education.msu.edu/green-and-write/2014/texas-textbooks-and-the-politics-of-history-standards/
(I will copy this comment to a more central spot on today’s comment thread.)
That's how we got Open Court reading program.
Aha! The “Nutshell” answer for what we are all complaining about!
-isms take thought for understanding. Gas prices temporarily take more cash in the grand scheme.
I’m so sorry.
That is so sad.
That fact makes our population one of the dumbest ever to claim rational thinking.
And spread the word far and wide to #VoteDownBallot ! #VoteDemDownBallot !
People often ignore the smaller offices, judges etc and we can no longer afford to do so. If you don’t know who to vote for, then just guess and go Dem down the line!
I believe we are as well, though the crazy cult 45 base drowns us out. Michael Moore mentioned (as did "Beau of the Fifth Column") that it will be the Independent, or infrequent voters who will decide the election. So I channeled that worry into 220 letters and 60 postcards to voters.
I never even knew I could do this from home until frequent contributor here, Ellie Kona, mentioned it. Kudos to her! I wish I could know how many of the voters I "adopted" will actually vote.
I mailed 100 post cards yesterday. I, too, hope they help get people out to VOTE.
I think we are truly kindred souls. What was your source for the letters and cards? I have a daughter getting married, so I don't think I'll have time to send any - but even talking like we've done, and having people comment or express appreciation, is an important step toward stopping this nightmare. WE CAN DO THIS. Good WILL prevail.