We look to the past for lessons only to discover we haven’t learned much or that we have forgotten a lot. After a recent rummage, up from old files came items that recall stark similarities in past and present. Among them:
‒ Voter shackles:
In late 1943, President Roosevelt returned from a demanding series of meetings with allied leaders in the Middle East and called Washington a “squirrel cage”. While he was away dealing with a world war, southern Democrats at home were trying to form a new party. The trouble was a fight over what was called the “soldier vote.”
Men and women in the armed forces were able ‒ in theory ‒ to cast absentee ballots in the 1942 elections, but less than one percent participated. With an eye on ’44, Roosevelt wanted legislation to empower an authentic soldier vote. A half-dozen states, however, held no absentee balloting; moreover, absentee voting was considered a threat to the poll tax in the eight states that enforced it.
Southern Democrats also worried that absentee voting would encourage Black suffrage. They were in league with Republicans determined to keep new citizens out of polling places. The debates raged on, anger building, until a senator from Pennsylvania introduced a resolution to abolish the Electoral College, the South’s fount of power.
‒ Forgotten plan:
On August 9, 1974, an America on edge saw Richard Nixon resign the presidency, a cap to the Watergate scandal. Televisions and radios in America and over the world were tuned in. Even those most remote from politics watched or listened.
But in Washington something else was happening and no one noticed. At the Department of Commerce, weather scientists had prepared for an afternoon meeting with other executive agencies. They were trying to devise a plan to bring the long-range problems of climatic change to the attention of a new president.
“…the next President, or the next few Presidents, might have a 50-year plan in which to make ready this civilization for the changes that climate might force on mankind,” wrote Theodore H. White in “Breach of Faith,” his book about Nixon’s fall. It was published in 1975.
The scientists stepped away from their work to watch with the rest of the nation as the president resigned, and as the helicopter carrying him and Mrs. Nixon lifted away from the White House lawn.
No one is sure about what happened to the scientists’ report or to that afternoon meeting nearly 50 years ago. What we are sure of, is that not enough has happened since.
‒ A character referendum:
On the eve of our 2020 presidential election “The Guardian,” a British newspaper, asked the writer Martin Amis how the covid pandemic had affected the American psyche, Donald Trump, and the political currents of the American election season. (Amis, who died last year, was an acclaimed British novelist, essayist and story writer whose homes included ones in New York and Florida.)
“When the pandemic really presented itself, I thought: ‘Surely Trump can’t lie ten times a day now? Because this is life and death,’” he said.
Nothing has changed, Amis said. Covid had exposed the shrewdness with
which President Trump understood his followers.
“He realizes that there’s no meaningful hypocrisy, any more,” he said. “People are proud of being dishonest, sharks and vultures; they care as little about marital fidelity as they do about the deficit.
” This election is going to be a referendum on the American character, not on Trump’s performance.”
John, this salient essay could easily be part one of many more parts to follow. But as you say, history has too often failed to be an impactful teacher. So, here we are…..