Expecting a politician to give an answer that will cost her more votes then it gains her is....novel.
I rarely see a politician stand for anything in particular, and this is a clear example where she didn't come up with a good out. I still think she calculated fairly accurately. Saying it was about slavery would cost her more votes than it gains her. As sad as that statement is, I think it's true.
Although, of course, she could take the now standard approach of simply answering a different question, so yes I think this did show some degree of incompetence on her part.
But I agree with everything else you said.
Just referring to the fact that many southerners actually refer to it that way, which gives you a sense of what they take away from their "history" lessons.
I don't think it will be a disqualifier, and I suspect over time it will be be forgotten.
In the primary, if there is one person that was going to vote for her over Trump that now is going to shift back to Trump then that person was never going to vote for her in the first place.
In the general election against Biden, there aren't many centrist/independents who were going to vote for Haley over Biden that this would change their minds. If moderate Republicans, and independents who are going to vote for her are going to do so because they've lost faith in Biden, this won't change that
nominee, the slavery comment has the potential to drive up African-American turnout.
Against Trump. She needs to show momentum and make it a 2 person race against him. This kerfuffle makes a 2nd place finish in Iowa harder. It makes it harder to win NH with a McCain 2000 strategy.
Trump has a huge lead in SC and she needs to come in with a lot of momentum to have a chance.
In sports terms she's going into the last 2 minutes of a college bball game double digits. Normally one turnover doesn't matter in the scheme of things, but she needs a perfect game to win.
She doesn’t have the numbers.
She didn't say what she said because that's who she is, she said what she said because that's what GOP/MAGA voters want her to say. I don't think it will matter at all in Republican primaries. It might solidify her bonafides.
It is without any evidence whatsoever. Especially because this very week the Trump camp trashed her and said there is absolutely no place for her in their administration.
It's the reason he didn't enter the race. He saw no way to the top and is hoping they can win and trump can't serve it out.
He was having weekly meetings with his old colleagues and funding people at Carlyle planning out his race. They resolved his best path is as VP. Whether trump and he agree to terms is another story.
I like Youngkin. In his primary he tried to appeal to the MAGA crowd, but then swung to the middle in the general election. By many accounts, he's been a fine governor and has compromised with the other side of the aisle on multiple issues.
Assuming Biden wins in '24, I was hoping he would run in '28.
Good Lord - Did he not see what Trump just did to Pence? Nothing good comes from joining that man's camp. It could very likely bring a swift end to Youngkin's (promising) political future.
game. So yeah, I don't think they're fans.
...she'd play by, and encourage others to play by, the rules, i.e, the Constitution. The other ways in which she's "normal" is that she exudes mediocrity, like 99% of politicians: in her style of speech, her exhibited depth of intellect, her display of firmly held principles, and in her ability to communicate a plan of action for the most pressing problems we face. A kind of B-minus student. I'd also note that she is a self-proclaimed tea-partier, so I don't know how moderate she really is.
If she were POTUS, I would expect the country to move along just as it did under all our other postwar, pre-Trump presidents--leaders who weren't out to break what we have.
Most of the time politicians feed us pablum of their choosing, often based on careful attempts by consultants to craft some kind of a message. From time to time things slip out, extemporaneously, that give us a better glimpse into the person. From that perspective I'd disagree with IrishApache that this was an inconsequential occurrence. It could very well have consequences for the future conduct of her campaign.
Nor is she a B-minus student. I think she’s actually pretty sharp and knowledgeable about world affairs and the issues. She doesn’t hold a candle to geniuses like you (and I mean that sincerely), but if you were the standard for every person in any role in society, only a handful would qualify. Nikki made a mistake and I was disappointed both at the nature of the mistake and her unwillingness to own it and make a sincere correction. It wasn’t disqualifying for me, but I probably won’t have a chance to vote for her anyway.
..."normal" and "abnormal." I didn't give her a C! (And thank you for the unwarranted compliment--I wouldn't pretend to be able to administer a state, a job that Haley has taken on.)
My assessment of her was rather glib, I'll admit, but I have viewed several of her speeches and looked at her website and can't find any white papers that logically and persuasively lay out her plans; instead, she has 3- to 10-line (or so) nuggets of text touting her achievements. One of these was to extend concealed carry rights into bars and restaurants, a cause that was just crying out for correction, I'm sure.
My assessment of these politicians goes back to my high school debate scoring sheet, where you were rated on topics such as:
--How well-organized your argument was
--How effectively you used logic and evidence to support your argument
--How well you demonstrated a grasp of the issues and evidence
--How well you rebutted the adverse argument (see the three points above)
--How well you delivered your argument (rhetorical aspects)
Her public presentation is not on a par with Reagan or Bill Clinton, for example; she's more on a par with HRC and Amy Klobuchar, each of whom I thought were not exactly brilliant speakers. Bolloxing up the answer to a public forum question about what caused the Civil War is kind of on a par with goofing up what HRC meant to say about coal mines. Being able to think on your feet and give cogent answers is impressive; floundering, not so much so (I give Joe Biden about a B- as well).
She may know a lot, and to the extent she's an international policy wonk that could offset her only passable public presentation style; but she has to show the world how smart she is.
She said yesterday that she would pardon Trump if she were president. DeSantis says he would fire Jack Smith on day one.
Thank goodness that there is the Georgia case.
The bottom line truth is that the GOP of the 20th century no longer exists. It is the Trump party. People keep hoping that Trump is just a passing fad and that the sober responsible conservative party of old will return. It is folly.
The fact that the two main challengers to Trump are unwilling to directly challenge him or even suggest that he should be held accountable for gross mishandling of national secrets, or blatant obstruction of justice, or conspiring to subvert a presidential election, or inciting an insurrection demonstrates his hold on the majority of the GOP. No one with a real desire to win the GOP nomination or a place in a Trump administration dares to offend any segment of his supporters. Hence, Haley’s dancing around a question on the Civil War for fear of angering the bigoted members of Trump’s supporters.
This is a silly, inconsequential story.
And it sure doesn’t seem inconsequential from the coverage it’s getting.
I’m back to thinking she’s running for vice president. She bends over backwards not to offend MAGA.
Her gaffe was being too non-specific in a meandering answer. Slavery is the ultimate deprivation of freedom, and she blathered a bit about the basic freedoms that are denied.
The horror!
There was a barb in that question and, as a candidate, she needed to see the hazard better. But to suggest, as you did, that this erases her body of work as a candidate and somehow puts her square in the MAGA camp is absurd.
That this is getting the level of press reporting that it has is neither surprising and unique seeing how the media - like some posters here - loves any story where it can insinuate “Bad GOP is racist!!!” But Republican voters - including us “establishment types” who dream of Trump being vanquished - have grown quite immune to these histrionics, and it will not make the slightest difference in the primaries.
And because Haley is not prone to making these gaffes, in the highly unlikely event that she does win the nomination, this gaffe will be long forgotten by everyone who is not an employee of MSNBC, and can be easily deflected if resurrected in a debate.
I never said she’s in the MAGA camp, because I have never thought she was. But she’s doesn’t want to offend MAGA or their leader. And that’s no way to beat him.
And that is what I was pointing out from the beginning. I don’t think she’s racist and have never said so. I even pointed out that she was the governor who had the Confederate battle flag taken down from the capitol.
I don’t like how she doesn’t want to offend MAGA or Trump. That’s a loser strategy. MAGA is voting for Trump anyway. Show some damn guts.
Also, if you don’t think that, in the unlikely event she were to win the nomination, that the Democrats will hang this albatross around her neck, well, you’ve got another think coming.
Romney’s binders full of women.
Ha, you know I love ya Sprack.
Trump is the GOP now.
I was hoping she'd be the nominee, and obviously not because I agree with her on much of anything, but just because she's normal and wouldn't be a dictator. But she's not going to win it and never was. This just shows us all again that she has no principles.
The most disappointing thing of all will be when she rolls over and endorses Trump, giving permission for the normies to vote for him.
That in my lifetime (I am 49) there will never be a woman POTUS.
I'm with you. I don't agree with her on much of anything, but she is normal and wouldn't be a dictator.
But our system is still, in 2024, set up for White men to be in power. The Republican party has been taken over by MAGA, and MAGA is racist and sexist. And women running as Democrats are viewed as "too soft."
So here we are, in 2024, with Trump v. Biden. I really wish that Gretchen Whitmer would run, and make everyone think a little harder.
She walked it back but it was a pretty big fuckup.
Are we really screening candidates based on events from 160 years ago?
Can someone ask about The Monroe Doctrine or Andrew Jackson’s actions in Spanish controlled Florida?
especially in evaluating the war's legacy but to a degree even in its causes. It was painful to read her dance around states' rights without quite using the phrase.
It's entirely appropriate to ask those questions. I'm embarrassed at how little I knew about Wilson's racism. How many of us had ever heard of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921? Even George Will admitted there was something deficient about our conventional education if something like that slipped under the radar. I do not buy radical revisionism on the order of the 1619 Project. But I think there's a lot we still need to learn -- and even more important, to teach.
horrific and malignant racism by historians and those who design history curricula is disgusting and destroys their credibility.
Wilson’s name should not be on a single bridge, road, or building in this country, anywhere.
His racism meets or even exceeds that of Trump.
JFK asked. "We suggested that he was, after all, the only professor to achieve the Presidency," Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote.
Wilson is a stain on their house.
The war was the war. It ended a long time ago. Reconstruction failed and we are still dealing with the fallout today.
When I was in high school in the mid-90s history ended with WWII. I didn’t learn about Vietnam until I took a second level history course in college.
To me, Tulsa doesn’t fit into a general history course. It falls into a course on the failures of reconstruction and the civil rights movement (I view the civil rights movement as a natural response to the failures of reconstruction).
Almost every major historical event is complex in its origins. Slavery existed from the birth of our nation. If the issue was so contentious, why did the 13 original colonies agree to form a union? Why didn’t we partition into free and slave states then? Why did it take 70 years for the issue to bubble up and cause war? Why did we engage in war, when other countries emancipated their slaves peacefully? Why did the Union take up arms: To free the slaves or to preserve the union?
A response of “slavery” is too simplistic in my mind. And, ironically, it goes to your point that we fail to learn about context and history at a deeper level. Instead, the answer is just slavery or you are a member of the lost cause or a southern apologist.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”
Very true of the Civil War in the sense that views about what happened then are correlated with folks’ views on race and other issues now.
She didn’t get a date or a name wrong. She fumbled to provide an answer without using the “S” word. She may be correct that it was a question “planted” to trip her up. If so, mission accomplished.
I mean I don’t need her to know Antietam or Picketts charge but I expect the President of the US to pass the civics portion of the Naturalization test. Shit, what type of expectation levels have we sunk to?
She didn’t have to get into how the Kansas Nebraska Act or Uncle Toms Cabin played a role, all she had to do was know that slavery was the main catalyst. It was a simple question with a simple answer.
Do we want a president who doesn’t know why we went to Vietnam or where Germany is on a map?This is Sarah Palin territory.
And yeah, the President definitely better know about the Monroe Doctrine.
What about any general history question?
I agree that she fumbled her response. I’m still unclear about why someone would ask about the civil war? What was the purpose of the question, other than to she if she would fumble it?
She’s the governor who ordered the Confederate battle flag to be taken down from the South Carolina capitol building. Confederate statues are being taken down all over the country. The names of Confederate generals are being taken off military bases. Schools are being renamed. This isn’t some out of the blue unfair question for a former southern governor.
Because knowing the cause of the Civil War is going to be crucial to Haley's ability or lack thereof to be Chief Executive.
Regardless of how poor her answer was, it was a bullshit gotcha question.
She swung at it and missed.
Today she’s doing damage control.
Economic factors made the war inevitable.
James G. Randall and Avery O. Craven argue that extremists from both sides inflamed popular passions, which lead to war.
Ultimately, there are two camps: fundamentalist and revisionist. The former built on the work of WEB DuBois (and more recently McPherson and Foner) and the latter on being influenced by Stampp and Potter. There are other sides, and each focuses on a different aspect of the pre-war period.
Haley is correct when she says that the issue is complex. Hell, there is a huge difference even within the south: upper south and Deep South were two different worlds.
The question is pointless unless the person answers “slavery” because any attempt at nuance will be labeled as racist or an attempt to be a southern apologist.
race? Maybe I don't understand the category.
Slavery is the only response to a fundamentalist.
The Ayers article that I linked below digs into the differences between the two schools of thought.
I started reading Foner’s book on reconstruction. It was too much for me at the time (too much information and complexity) so I switched to an easier read. I’ll go back to it soon. (I also have DuBois’ book on reconstruction to balance things out.)
And the dominant one in civil war histiography. Each school was named by its detractors.
Kind of like calling people anti choice or pro death.
Everyone agrees slavery was the proximate cause, but the arguments are over whether politics polarizing around it was inevitable, exactly why the south seceded w Lincoln's win, etc.
At least according to this revisionists pre 1960 were generally lost causers and lost, recently they've had a comeback but are still a minority.
I agree that we are talking about different schools of thought, and I said so in my post.
I like your link. It does a more thorough job of explaining what my position is with respect to the multiple schools of thought.
“I know slavery is the simple answer, but I think it’s more complex than that”. Thats fine, she can then quote Vickers' "Work in Essex County," page 98, and we can be on our way. But she didn’t. She fumbled the answer because she couldn’t give the most simplest, obvious answer. If she didn’t know the answer she is a moron, if she was trying to get around saying slavery to appease some red neck base of the south, well then, I think I rather have her as a moron.
Why were there economic differences? Slavery! The South didn’t industrialize. Cotton was shipped north to the textile mills in New England and “old” England.
Why was there a difference between the Deep South and the Upper South? Slavery! No cotton plantations in Appalachia - and in fact the majority of soldiers from places like eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina fought for the Union. Eastern Tennessee almost seceded from the rest of the state. West Virginia did secede from Virginia proper.
It was slavery. At the root of all of it.
for the revisionist, slavery is buried beneath layers of white ideology and politics." - Edward Ayers.
The article linked below does a great job elaborating on the two mindsets that I mentioned above, and provides the nuance and context that I think is necessary to answer the question at hand. The simple answer of slavery is not enough, in my opinion. After all, the South fought to form their own country, based on the utilization of slave labor. The North however, fought to preserve the union, not eliminate slavery. So in a battle between two sides, slavery represents the motivations of one side, not both sides.
There was a hundred years of the opposite, the “Lost Cause” myth.
In any case, I think the argument that the North was not interested in eliminating slavery is a) hair-splitting and b) is treating northern opinion as a monolith.
He’s not a southern apologist. Although, that is the response that I was expecting.
But it doesn’t mean I have to agree with him.
I appreciate your posting a thoughtful article, I really do. We just have a different opinion.
their cause was slavery plain and simple. As such, an answer that fails to lead with such a statement is indeed one framed to not piss off mouth breathing southerners who can't get over the fact that they lost in an immoral war.
That said, I agree with you that slavery was not what caused the Union to fight because Lincoln was entirely motivated to preserve the Union. The abolitionist movement may have been part of the context but was not the precipitating cause. Instead, as you state, Lincoln and the Northern states sought to preserve the Union.
There is ample evidence showing that Lincoln was open to continued slavery in the South and had to walk a tightrope to keep neutral slave owning states such as Kentucky out of the fight. He also had slave owning northern states to keep in the fold.
Finally, the emancipation proclamation wasn't signed until 1.5 years into the war. It's a common mistake to associate its signing with the start of the war. It's also interesting to see the motivations for signing it were only partly rooted in abolition. Many other factors such as foreign influence played a part.
I don't get how smart trivia people like sprack also forget that Maryland still allowed slave ownership at the start of the civil war...
https://www.loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/articles-and-essays/abraham-lincoln-and-emancipation/#:~:text=Although%20Lincoln%20personally%20abhorred%20slavery,where%20slavery%20was%20still%20legal.
In that last part? I agree with just about everything you wrote, and then you take a shot at me and completely misrepresent what I think?
I am fully aware that Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri were slave states that didn’t secede. I am also fully aware that Lincoln’s number one goal was preservation of the Union by any means.
It doesn’t mean that slavery wasn’t at the root of secession, which is what we’re talking about here. To argue otherwise is preposterous. Read the damn Cornerstone Speech. It’s also written in the secession documents of multiple states.
Also, the “House Divided” speech indicated he wasn’t for a half-slave, half-free Union long term, and the Southern leaders knew it - because of the man’s own words and the platform of the Republican Party.
Because you have one with me and I think Eric cartman. Perhaps if you hadn’t responded to him as you did I wouldn’t have tossed in my comment. I genuinely wasn’t following your post and I know you are a god like trivia master…
Was to admit free western states and tip the balance of power to eventually get rid of slavery. The party was founded on the Slavery issue which tore the Whigs apart. Lincoln was a political realist and knew he needed to appeal to white people who only cared about slavery inasmuch as it threatened their economic prospects.
If we didn't have a civil war, the move to get rid of it in totality was probably 20 years away, but the Republicans wanted to eliminate the institution and the South knew it.
the southern objective was to expand slavery into areas where it was not allowed. The single reason for this was that slavery was extremely profitable. The arrival of the industrial age with Whitney's improved cotton gin and the steam looms in huge factories drove that profitability. There was a vast increase in the value of slavery between 1787 when it was economically marginal and 1860 when it was awesomely profitable.
When the southern aristocracy concluded that they would not be effective in expanding slavery as a part of the Union, they decided to leave the Union to achieve their objectives in the West, North, Mexico, and even (possibly) Cuba. That was all going well with legislatures and conventions voting to stay (Virginia did) or leave (e.g., South Carolina). Those that left told the Union that its possessions (e.g., forts, post offices) had been confiscated and ordered them vacated.
It was going smooth as silk.
Lincoln said "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, lies the momentous issue of civil war. We shall not assail you." Whether he felt that force was justified to compel the seceding states return to the Union or not, we shall never know. He was being very careful with an explosive political situation.
Then the hotheads in Charleston decided that the Union garrison in Fort Sumter was taking too long to leave and, despite the fact that Major Anderson had made clear that his supplies were running out, it was time to start shooting.
The rest, as they say ...
who was urging for emancipation action, is a good summary of his position early in the war.
". My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."
Talk about tight- roping.
...(all of which I completely agree with, FWIW), why is Lincoln considered OK for having had to "walk a tightrope" as airborne said, but Haley's efforts to walk that same tightrope seem to be cause for disqualification by some?
If I get the chance to vote for her, I definitely will.
her fealty to Trump that made me feel she wasn't presidential timber. It wasn't walking a tightrope, it was all-in.
Of all the folks running for the GOP nomination, I put her in first or second place. Since she appears to be the most likely alternative to Trump, and she appears to have stopped drinking the Kool-Aid, maybe there's hope.
Down. She is a first generation American. It’s silly to ascribe confederate sympathies to her. She’s a serviceable candidate.
Become important when they highlight issues or problems the candidate already has. This hilights a lot of her issues. Being prone to pandering, needing to appeal to MAGA types while keeping old school republicans/independents united with her.
The slavery issue also serves as a signal for issues of race and how one sees racial issues in the past and present. It's why people are still fighting over monuments and military bases dedicated to Confederate generals.
understand this. Time and time again they declared their position to be thoroughly idenified with slavery. They had plans to expand it.
While other reasons existed, this is like looking at a coronary report and bringing up 3 papercuts as equal to the gunshot wound between the eyes.
Economic differences are a red herring -- the south wanted to go to war because the North was generating more industry, more customers & competitions for cash crops, and a stronger nation overall? The North wanted to... do what the south?
Are rooted in slavery anyway. It’s all a big circle jerk. At the end, it’s still all about slavery.
The economic divide that concentrating wealth in the north and slavery in the south - an economic non-starter over the long-term - made the situation somewhat inevitable. As long as the South continued to allow it, it would be likely to happen - it was just a matter of when.
I thought the John Adams miniseries did a decent job of explaining this, and the choices that the founding fathers had to make when it came to long-term economic and civil health versus gaining independence.
But I remember the invention of the cotton gin really accelerating that difference. Prior to that there was a general move away from slavery. And in parts of the south that couldn't grow cotton well slavery was decreasing (or at least the slaves were Bing sold to planters in the deep south)
It’s called the “Cornerstone Speech”. Skip down to the ninth and tenth paragraphs for the gist.
Stephens, for those that don’t know, was the Vice President of the Confederate States of America.
In paragraph ten:
”Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwHQYDqf6c
mistakes? Both are better than Trump.
I think she was trying to wordsmith her way through the answer in a way that would not have offended some of the Republican base. I find this answer equally as bad as some of Trump's remarks. And worse than a Biden slip. I hope most Americans are horribly sickened by her answer.
The deeper question I have is, how many of my fellow Americans would have been bothered if she would have said, "Holy smokes, it is recognized that the issue of slavery was a huge part of the whole treasonous event." Why can't this be said? And why are we allowing this type of normalization to creep into our lives?
Obama as "articulate and bright and clean".
Targeted toward black voters using the quote.
Reading this thread I feel very simillar to reading about cancel culture. If one agrees with the person it is cancel culture. If one disagrees it is being held accountable. In this case it is instructive politically to point out vast numbers of Republican voters won’t like that answer which was probably the point of the person who asked the question.
I believe Haley thinks the answer is slavery and I think she has said as much in her follow up answers. The idea it was over personal freedom is laughable except the personal freedoms to own
a chance of beating Trump in the primaries. That means she will have to grovel on some things to win the primary. My fear is that Biden is in bad enough decline that Trump will beat him in the general.
Of course she’s better than Trump. But she’s sure got a funny way of showing it with such an abjectly awful answer. How would that answer help her win the primary?
She’s expressing the wishes of a sizable amount of GOP voters who believe in the Lost Cause. Especially those from her home state, the cradle of the confederacy.
She has demonstrated time and time again she craves power above all. She compromised to work with Trump once before, she knows she has the moderates locked up now it’s time to jump to the right again. Deplorable.
kind of lunatic to want to run for office. It's bad enough at the local level. I imagine that it is many orders of magnitude worse at the national level.
Barring a sea change that I don't expect to happen, the country will remain polarized with politicians pandering to donors, special interest groups, and the extreme elements on each side. It's disheartening.
Who’s “we”?
Assuming that things aren't that bad, why are we not getting better candidates? Or, is your contention, which I don't disagree with, that we are getting good candidates to run, but we are not voting for them?
for office. The time and effort to do so was not insubstantial. Nor was the impact upon immediate family members (spouse, children). Having to rebut exaggerated or plainly invented stances was a drag, which unfortunately comes with the territory. I met some great people along the way, but it's not something that I would eagerly do again.
That's why I say we get who we deserve. The process is extremely unpleasant and in my opinion results in good people (to be clear, infinitely better than I, low bar though that may be) declining to run.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. The idea that only good people are scared off from running for office - and winning - is abject nonsense.
The social news media general lack of judgement , loss of institutional memory (due to being in a failing business model) and their awful instinct to weigh unequal things equally has led to smaller and more mentally ill candidate pool for elected office.
Why would a successful / intelligent person subject themselves to some 24year old moron combing through the last 10-20 years of their private and public lives to find any silly misspeak or hint of an opinion that is no longer “in vogue”? Successful and qualified people have better options. The virtue audit of Oldspeak by a young journalist looking for clicks and outrage is really an enema that anyone with an option will avoid. Also yeah news media was bare knuckled throughout history but there were only a couple papers and magazines with a national reach and those papers had journalists and editors who exercised their judgement. Fewer outlets , better journalists ( with diverse viewpoints) and longer news cycles allowed for discretion and a better candidate pool.
Discretion is why today no one knows who the fuck Lyndon H. Larouche is but Alex Jones is a well known celebrity…
So today the candidate pool that we are left with are the narcissistic, grifters and power hungry fascists office holders we all know. AOC and MTG are two sides to the same lunacy.
For those who want to blast me for a false equivalence I’d leave you with this fact. In 2016 Biden ran in part because a bunch of dipshits carried around tiki torches on a college campus chanting “Jews will not replace us” and in 2023 we have a bunch of dipshit HR created “leaders”who can’t seem to find the intestinal fortitude to denounce some asshole snot nosed kids on their campuses who are calling for the “genocide of Jews”.
is an AOC or MTG.
The extremes don’t prove your point.
The extremes are in fact the whole issue. We are in Weimar right now. By giving equal weight to trump vs the field in 2016 is what led to trumps presidency and ultimately Jan 6th. It also did real harm to our democracy.
To catch you up Trump was created by the media. He was one of the first reality tv stars and a known conman / grifter. It wasn’t a worry at the time because he was a celebrity playing a business man without any real power. Trump is massively entertaining and a tv star. The apprentice was the number 1 or 2 show for at least 5-7 years. During 2016 in an effort to improve their short term financial result, the news media waived any editorial discretion and chased ad dollars by cutting live to trump who people watched because he is a tv reality star and not a politician. He also said crazier and crazier shit that got more and more clicks. Trump summarily wiped the floor with all of the politicians and will again this time. Why am I so sure? Quite simply trump has an unfair advantage he has had over a decade of reality tv training. NBC pumped in millions of dollars of production, media training, marketing for and around trump and politicians without reality tv experience read inauthentic on tv. It’s like watching Ronald Reagan vs Dan Quayle. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel for Trump. The issue is when the media gives equal weight to a grifter reality star and established politicians then you are playing a dangerous game.
The winner of the apprentice gets 1m from nbc the winner of the electoral college gets the keys to the nukes….
the majority of people who run for office are seeking power rather than to serve, have something to gain from holding the office, or both. You see in primaries that more moderate candidates lose to those who are more extreme. I saw in the news that three politicians were swatted over the past week or so. Regardless of what one thinks about any of them, no one deserves that. Not all good people decline to run, but many do, and for good reason.
I don't have any bright ideas off the top of my head, and am on my phone at the moment, but I'll give it some thought and reply back a bit later.
I do believe that the quality of politicians has decreased in my lifetime. Not that they were saints in the past, but that the overall quality of candidates and therefore elected officials has gotten worse. I see it in the local, county, and state level elections here, not just at the national level.
Edit - I will leave the above as-is for context. Reading through the thread, better points were made by others - it's likely that politicians were not better, but that we had less visibility into every moment. I believe that the degree of scrutiny has caused many to decline to throw their hats in the ring.
Do you want to run for office at any level?
I sure as hell don't. I'm not about to subject my family to the kind of nonsense a political campaign would wreak.
She, her husband and her kids get SO much sh*t on a daily basis, including physical threats.
That's a hard no from me.
prior to any campaign, to be clear. I don't dispute that politics has always been a bare-knuckle sport. I do dispute the scale, speed, reach, and degree of things now, at all levels, not just targeting those at high levels. I think that your comment bears that out.
Edit to add - the assault didn't result in any injury but it was more than nothing, a few feet in a different direction may have resulted in a less pleasant outcome.
it’s not like politics was genteel back when Abe Lincoln was running for president. In fact, it was just as bad.
Saying we “get who we deserve” is fatalistic nonsense. And the “all politicians are alike” (hint: no, they’re not) attitude leads to populist charlatans like Donald Trump.
process and the baggage that comes with the role results in poorer options. In your opinion things are the same as they ever were. I disagree. I don't recall the number or degree of (my words) lunatics or bad actors when I was younger, but I accept that I likely was not paying attention or the publicity was less. But, I don't think that accounts for all of the difference.
The insiders might not have been any kinder to each other, but can you imagine Mrs. Biden getting away with running the country for two years as Mrs Wilson did, or the press refraining from showing Trump using a walker once his toe lifts stop working as they did with FDR?
Why are we treated to endless spoutings of Ocasio-Cortez, Goetz, Omar, and Taylor Green, when there are serious politicians like Spanberger, Gallagher.
politics, as if it were some kind of genteel debating society, and only good people ran for office and got elected.
in a wheelchair. Kennedy and his women. And that was only 80 and 60 years ago.
Look at the population then vs now. DC has grown from backwater swamp to one of the biggest/expensive metro areas in the country. We had thousands people tracking which cell phone Trump used when he tweeted.
Privacy then vs now is like Abner Doubleday's baseball vs now. Sure, people always cheated and did shady things, but it is all amplified.
Progressive era reforms reduced the presence of partisan press and laws consolidating/regulating TV/Radio/movies in the 30s got us to the FDR/JFK era of the press.
In the 1880s we'd have heard quite a bit about JFK's dalliances and FDR's physical limitations.
“Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?”
And perceived difficulty in dealing with the public predates social media.
If all the presidential children Chelsea Clinton probably had it the worst, and Clinton's 1st term started before the internet even really got going.
People who don’t care what happens to their kids?
about their pecadillos today. Sure, John Q Adams supporters sung about the Devil coming if Adams didn't win, and someone else had a song about their illegitimate child, but there wasn't a constant drumbeat on the population of every real or perceived fault. Nor were the politicians subjected to an endless barrage from all corners.
Put it this way - FDR had a piece on the side (as did Eleanor, probably). The press knew and said little. How long do you think the story of a Cabinet official propositioning train employees, or a Senator getting caught in a gay brothel lousy with foreign spies would stay "inside baseball" today? When was the last time the editor of a news outlet found a piece of dirt on an opponent too prurient to run?
It's not just personal failings that get sread around. Moderates who dare to talk to moderates of 'the other side' get raked over the coals. McCain, Romney are "RINOs". Spanberger got excoriated by one of the 'squad' for daring to mention that a Republican position was reasonable. The slightest whisper of considering the other side to be something other than the devil incarnate results in one side or the other broadcasting calls to put the congressman's office on 'blast'.
Until the little blue dress, the Wonkette, the Drudge report, outside of the DC area there was limited hard dirt on the transgressions of the big guys. Between not having privacy and having the depravity of the powerful broadcast constantly, what rational person would put up with it?
The “hands-off” press was mostly an early to mid-20th century phenomenon.
In 1884, in contrast, the biggest personal issue in the presidential campaign was how Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock. Interestingly, he survived the attack by doing something unusual: he told the truth and acknowledged it immediately. It took the wind out of the sails of the accusation.
As for FDR, the bigger coverup was his disability. The press really didn’t know anything about his affair, because he was very discreet about it.
thus "someone else had a song about their illegitimate child,"
Kids out of wedlock also came up around Van Buren.
Politics was quite partisan and nasty. In the era of reconstruction you had armed mobs working to suppress the black votes, mobs and fisticuffs outside of that area, and daily journalism focusing on politics (most news papers were founded as partisan organs).
The press around the 1800 election was hysterical with each side convinced the other was the doom of the country.
around the time the first Frigates were being built. I'm aware of the level of partisanship that existed around elections - one of the CDs we have sitting one room over is a collection of campaign songs from most of the US elections through the middle of the 20th Century (crossing the streams of folk music interest and history interest can be a dangerous thing). But a fever pitch every few years in the past, requiring people to opt in (ie buy the paper, vs it being the headline on a thousand media outlets), and the sheer scale of communications today vs the need for proximity in the past completely changes the equation.
Ie if I want to complain to John Quincy Adams, I have to write him a letter. Drumming up a thousand of my followers to harangue him takes time, money, and lots of paper. The reason political machines worked was because they could harness manpower, which was necessary to get anything concerted and coordinated to happen. Today, a letter to the congressman is quaint because hundreds of causes every day are 'reaching out' to their representative. Lighting up the switchboard is a common occurrence.
a candidate's every word, an internet where nothing could ever go away, indestructible online quotes from 20-30 years ago, hundreds of millions of dollars going to PACs whose sole purpose is to destroy the candidate (and potentially his family), selectively edited clips or statements that could make their way around the globe in a matter of hours, lobbying groups that have created an entire town around our capital buildings, and a 24/7 news cycle that absolutely takes sides and has no qualms lying or omitting important facts? Yes there was plenty of mudslinging and yellow journalism back then, and it certainly was a blood sport, but there's nothing like what we have today. I've read books about Lincoln's tenure and fully appreciate the attacks and vitriol he withstood, but we were also either leading into or in the middle of a civil war. Lincoln was able to withstand the abuse by taking solace in reading and writing, and was not harangued by an omnipresent media and online social presence demanding he respond to every perceived gaffe or misstatement or burp from a family member. It still was not like it is today. I know you want to make another "awful GOP" thread, but saying things are the same as they were during Abe Lincoln just doesn't make sense.
back then?
That is absolutely ridiculous.
READ A BOOK.
But nice "READ A BOOK" in all caps. As I stated I've read several, perhaps you should too, or at least try to stay up with current times. Yes there were those in the press and historians who read his every word, but they did not have the access, reach, or audience that those have today. It was far easier to ignore them back then than it is today. Your arguments don't hold water but keep digging.
Who are you comparing him to, anyway? I don’t recall the press hassling the young daughters of George W Bush or Barack Obama. Can you even name Joe Biden’s adult daughter without looking it up?
media and on social media. Here is just one example. He also received death threats that have subsequently been prosecuted. This is also happening a lot at the state and local level, not just at the national level.
You don't remember Barbara & Jenna Bush being lampooned?
Granted, you'd have to go to a really crappy part of the Internet to see the Sasha & Malia crap, but I have it on good authority it was there.
And both the Bush and Obama daughters are doing quite well.
physical appearance. Bill Clinton's infidelity was exposed for the world to see, whereas JFKs, FDR's, and even Bush the elder's (I believe) were swept under the rug. The fact that the daughters of extraordinarily wealthy presidents are doing well isn't really the point...the point is that many people would not want to subject their families to such things, which now seems to be viewed as more and more "acceptable", particularly when you look at the cesspool that is social media and its billions of "journalists".
children to the public eye?
What the bloody hell are you talking about?
the place on this one, and consistently wrong. You seem to think that because the daughters of wealthy presidents are "fine" (something you personally would have absolutely no clue about from a mental perspective), things are better than they were.
Since you seem to be digging in your heels based on uneducated opinions, I'll just cut to the chase. My point (and the point of others in this thread that you keep telling to read a book) is that the media and election cycles are worse today than they were 100 years ago, and because of that we're going to continue to see lower and lower quality candidates as most normal people decide they don't want to put their families through this.
I don’t agree with your premise in your last sentence. Deal with it!
And how the kids are now doing now is 100 percent irrelevant to the discussion.
They seem to have parents who prepared them well.
And of course it’s my opinion.
We were at each other's throats within 5 years of passing the constitution with each side already having vastly different views of the constitution and convinced their opponents were going to destroy America. Hell, there were even sex scandals.
Taking the long view we're at a tough spot but we've made it through them before.
Before social media you would do speeches, debates and publish policies in the news or on a website. Reporters would interview you and you would attend community functions as a way to "get to know the people."
Now, every crackpot in the world can get an audience on Twitter and if the wrong thing gets said or done, it goes viral in an instant and the trolls and clickfarms magnify it to eternity. There's no reporter publishing a retraction and you're known for the gaffe or mistake forever.
So ya...no one wants to deal with that unless they are an activist or have a specific agenda they want to push which doesn't bode well for "working with the other side" when they only have one way of looking at anything.
Was nastier than our current press. Claims of sexual infidelity. Attacks on family members, etc. Were par for the course back then. Grover Cleveland was famously attacked with "Ma Ma Ma where's my parents pa pa" over his love child. Things like that were very common back then.
Not to mention in the lead up to the civil war you had open warfare in territories, brawling in the senate, etc.
Heck, small town newspapers were even gossiping over whether Mary Lincoln was flirting with men on innauguration.
Did they have the ability to broadcast foibles 24 hours a day and seven days a week?
Did Mary Lincoln have access to those "small town newspapers"? Did her kids?
It was in the newspaper every day. It’s what people followed.
William Randolph Hearst for all practical purposes started the Spanish-American War by whipping the public into a frenzy.
...is a once- or twice-a-day newspaper has the same depth and breadth of reach as Twitter. You think Tucker Carlson is the complete equivalent to William Randolph Hurst?
Tell you what -- I'm going to set up a camera outside your house. It's going to record a whole bunch of stuff. Anything recorded that is in any way possibly untoward to any size group of people will be broadcast to them in virtual real time, and within 60 minutes, not only will you know their response to those recordings in ways that are virtually unavoidable, but so will everyone else, which will give them the opportunity to respond in the same unavoidable ways.
Sound like fun?
If you don’t think Lincoln was attacked mercilessly - and personally - you are way, way wrong.
Seriously, read a book on the 1860 campaign and media attacks. People did read newspapers and magazines back then, you know.
state representatives? Those are the people that work their way up to the national offices and since the rise of social media, those people are attacked daily.
In 1860 kids were also attacked and bullied but when the school bell rang, they could go home and be safe. Today, kids are bullied all day long on snapchat, instagram and text message.
You can be snarky and think you're smarter because you "read a book" but your attack on me really just proves my point of how easy it is to make a point and be instantly attacked. Based on your logic, I should have waited for the next issue of ND Magazine to read about how you feel about my stance.
would dampen things. Madison talked about division being the antidote to factions, but division relies on time and distance to act as a counter to 'faction'. Neither time nor distance have much dampening effect any more.
I put it to you it was neither of those things.
No one is saying Lincoln wasn't attacked mercilessly. They're saying his family wasn't exposed to it on a daily basis.
His family wasn’t in a cocoon, they read the papers, and Mary Todd Lincoln was very stressed out if the historical depictions are accurate.
Also, as always, some people handle it better than others.