March 31 - Politics and History Chat

How Justice Scalia paved the way for Trump’s assault on the rule of law
Unitary Executive Theory: "As Barr described that theory, which he enthusiastically supports, every power exercised by the executive branch 'must be exercised under the President’s supervision.' "

Nondelegation Doctrine
"The non-delegation doctrine is a principle in administrative law that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to other entities. This prohibition typically involves Congress delegating its powers to administrative agencies or to private organizations.."

Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism In American Life reviewed
"Of the many forces arrayed against intellectualism, Hofstadter returns most often to evangelical religion—an almost constantly strong influence through all of American history—and business, especially the cheerleading tendency in business that produces the enthusiastic type Hofstadter calls the 'hundred percenter.' Education, the main institutional countervailing force to anti-intellectualism, has been continually invaded by anti-intellectual ideas"

Regulators
"The Regulators were backcountry settlers who banded together in 1767 in response to a wave of crime that swept their region in the aftermath of a disruptive war with the Cherokee Indians (1759–1761). Bandit gangs, including women as well as escaped slaves, roamed the country with little fear of capture. Lacking local sheriffs, courts, or jails and frustrated by the distance and leniency of the colony’s judicial system, Regulators took the law into their own hands."

The many great awakenings in American life
Robert Fogel's opinion: "To understand what is taking place today, we need to understand the nature of the recurring political-religious cycles called 'Great Awakenings.' Each lasting about 100 years, Great Awakenings consist of three phases, each about a generation long. A cycle begins with a phase of religious revival, propelled by the tendency of new technological advances to outpace the human capacity to cope with ethical and practical complexities that those new technologies entail. The phase of religious revival is followed by one of rising political effect and reform, followed by a phase in which the new ethics and politics of the religious awakening come under increasing challenge and the political coalition promoted by the awakening goes into decline. These cycles overlap, the end of one cycle coinciding with the beginning of the next."

The origin of the Republican Party in the 1850's
"The Republican Party was founded in the mid-1850s following the fracturing of other political parties over the issue of slavery. The party, which was based on stopping the spread of slavery to new territories and states, arose out of protest meetings that took place in a number of northern states. The catalyst for the founding of the party was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the spring of 1854. The law was a major change from the Missouri Compromise of three decades earlier and made it seem possible that new states in the West would come into the Union as slave states."

Civil Rights in James Garfield’s Era
"Garfield boldly and directly addressed civil rights. 'The elevation of the Negro race from slavery to full rights of citizenship,' he stated, 'is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people.' Many southern whites surely recoiled at this statement, and Garfield was already creating an uphill battle for himself to win any southern states in his presumed 1884 run for reelection. “There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States,” he continued. 'Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.'

Party Realignment And The New Deal
"The realignment of black voters from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party that began in the late 1920s proliferated during this era. This process involved a 'push and pull': the refusal by Republicans to pursue civil rights alienated many black voters, while efforts—shallow though they were—by northern Democrats to open opportunities for African Americans gave black voters reasons to switch parties."

The Dixiecrats
"The Dixiecrats were a political party organized in the summer of 1948 by conservative white southern Democrats committed to states' rights and the maintenance of segregation and opposed to federal intervention into race, and to a lesser degree, labor relations. The Dixiecrats, formally known as the States' Rights Democratic Party, were disturbed by their region's declining influence within the national Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats held their one and only convention in Birmingham."

Eisenhower and McCarthy
"Dwight Eisenhower found Joseph McCarthy's demagoguery reprehensible. As a military man he had been able to distance himself from petty political crusades in the name of the greater cause. But in 1952, as a first time candidate for the office of the presidency, he found it would be a good deal more difficult to maintain his political purity. When McCarthy delivered a blistering attack against former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, calling him "a man steeped in falsehood," candidate Eisenhower was faced with a dilemma. A popular member of his own party was publicly disparaging a man Ike considered a valued mentor. Eisenhower's personal and political instincts came into conflict during a campaign stop in McCarthy's home state of Wisconsin. Eisenhower was prepared to deliver a defense of Marshall, praising him "as a man and a soldier," and condemning the tactics of McCarthy as a "sobering lesson in the way freedom must not defend itself." But noble intentions gave way to political reality. Aware of McCarthy's huge base of support and not willing to risk losing votes in a crucial state, Eisenhower delivered his speech minus the defense of Marshall and the condemnation of McCarthy. It was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life."

A Choice Not An Echo (1964), by Phyllis Schlafly
A complete edition of Schlafly's book can be downloaded at the Eagle Forum's website. The Eagle Forum, founded and chaired by Schlafly for many years, became one of the most influential Religious Right organizations in history.

The Transformation of American Conservatism
This is Jerome Himmelstein's 1990 book on the topic. From the introduction: "The story has been told often enough of the multiple crises that beset American society in the late 1960s and the 1970s and rendered the existing political direction—whether called liberalism, political capitalism, or the growth coalition—increasingly troubled. A sputtering economy; a world order less and less amenable to American influence and interests; growing domestic conflict over family, gender roles, and basic values; radical social movements that questioned basic features of American society; and a state the demands on which outran its resources—all these factors contributed to a general crisis of confidence in American institutions and created a political opening for possible alternatives. Given the historical limits of the Left in America, this alternative naturally came from the Right, which presented itself in the late 1970s as a 'revitalization movement'.

Donald Trump and the Southern Strategy
"Prior to the 1950s, conservative thought leaders who lived outside the South had no special love for the region or for its version of apartheid. Leading right-wing writers like H.L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock decried lynching and saw the South as a shameful backwater. One of America’s leading conservative thinkers, the German refugee Eric Voegelin, wrote a pioneering debunking of scientific racism in 1933. That all began to change with the emergence of National Review in 1955. The magazine was launched in opposition to the moderate Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower, who was seen as being soft on communism and all too willing to compromise with liberals. And among the policies National Review objected to was Eisenhower’s enforcement of civil rights laws. In a famous 1957 editorial written by National Review founder William F. Buckley, the magazine argued that the South 'must prevail.' Is the white community in the South, the editorial asked, 'entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically?' Buckley did not flinch from providing a blunt answer. 'The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because for the time being, it is the advanced race.' "

Seven Things About Ronald Reagan You Won’t Hear at the Reagan Library GOP Debate
This article discusses the infamous speech Reagan used to launch his 1980 general election campaign with a speech lauding states’ rights outside Philadelphia, Mississippi — the site of the notorious Mississippi Burning”murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.

Trump and Signing statements
This site maintains links to Presidential signing statements going back to 2001. Signing statements are controversial because they can be a means for Presidents to not follow parts of legislation.

Theodore Roosevelt Cared Deeply About the Sick. Who Knew?
"As president, Roosevelt was aware that the governments of Germany, France and Britain had set up programs to help their citizens stave off the financial catastrophes associated with old age, illness, injury, unemployment and loss of a breadwinner. He was embarrassed that the United States had nothing comparable. The idea of using the government’s strength to assist those unable to fend for themselves seemed to him a mark of national greatness. And there were few things he coveted more than Europe’s recognition of American greatness. Unable to make any legislative progress on this front, Roosevelt resorted to other tactics. He issued dozens of executive orders creating federal wildlife refuges on public land, a move that protected animals and reduced pollution. He also made liberal use of presidential commissions. The Inland Waterways Commission was established in 1907 to manage the nation’s lakes and rivers and to develop their potential as a transportation network. The ostensible goals were economic, but the plan also called for flood control, soil reclamation and pollution abatement — all boons to public health."