This sounds like history repeating itself

[LibraryLady2]

In 1884, Americans turned against the Republican Party because it had abandoned its support for ordinary Americans in favor of the industrial leaders who put money into Republican lawmakers’ political war chests, as well as into their pockets. Voters put Democrat Grover Cleveland into the White House, the first Democrat to hold the presidency since James Buchanan was elected in 1856.

Horrified, the Republicans flooded the country with stories of how Democrats were socialists who would attack the rich by ending the legislation that protected businesses. If Democrats continued to control the government, Republicans said, they would destroy America. In 1888, they suppressed Democratic votes and created modern political financing as they hit up businessmen for major donations. Despite their best efforts, voters reelected Cleveland by about 100,000 votes, but Republicans managed to eke out a win for their candidate, Benjamin Harrison, in the Electoral College. Harrison promised a “BUSINESSMAN’S ADMINISTRATION,” and indeed, in office, he and his men did all they could to cement the Republican Party into power so it could continue to defend business (among other things, they added six new states to the Union to pack the Electoral College).

But voters still didn’t like the Republicans’ platform, which seemed more and more to funnel money from hardworking Americans upward into the pockets of those men who were increasingly portrayed as robber barons. In 1892, they voted for Cleveland in such numbers they couldn’t be overridden in the Electoral College. Voters also put Democrats in charge of Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

And that is the moment I cannot help thinking about today. Faced with a legitimately elected Democratic government, Republican leaders deliberately sabotaged the country. They swamped the media with warnings that Democrats would destroy the economy and that men should pull their capital out of stocks and industries. Foreign capital should, they said, go home or face disaster. Money began to flow out of the country and stocks faltered. When financiers begged the Harrison administration to shore up the markets in the face of the growing panic, administration officials told them their job was only to keep the country afloat until the day of Cleveland’s inauguration.

They didn’t quite make it. The economy collapsed about ten days before Cleveland took the oath of office, saddling the new president with the Panic of 1893 and very few ways to combat it. Republicans had deliberately sabotaged the country in order to discredit Cleveland, then demanded he honor the demands of financiers to stabilize the economy. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Cleveland tried to work with moneyed interests to combat the depression and promptly split his own party. The country roiled as out-of-work Americans despaired, some of them marching on Washington, D.C., to demand the government do something to address their plight.

The Republicans went into the 1894 midterm elections blaming the Democrats for the crisis in the country. They won the midterms in what remains the largest seat swing in the history of the House of Representatives. Then they claimed that, with Republicans back in power, the economy was now safe. They papered the country with media announcing that the panic was over and people should reinvest. The panic was over, and a Republican president won in 1896, once again insisting the Democrats were socialists, but this time adding that the past four years had proved the Democrats could not run the economy.

There is no excuse for the silence of Republican lawmakers as their president attacks our democracy. But there might be a precedent.

[Mark]

Please provide the byline and the link for this.

These are the musings of a delusional idiot.



It is an absolute FACT that today's Democrat party is controlled by Marxists/Socialists/Communists.

Yes, the Republican party sucks. The Democrat party sucks worse.

President Trump is nearly universally hated in Washington because he has exposed both parties for what they are.

President Trump is also the only one in Washington standing for the nation in the face of this massive election fraud.

[LibraryLady2]

It is from an email of a friend who really gets into things.

[GFB]

It is from an email of a friend who really gets into things.

The President is the only one fighting FOR democracy.

Your team just cheated and stole an election..it’s all out now.

[LibraryLady2]

It is from an email of a friend who really gets into things.

The President is the only one fighting FOR democracy.

Your team just cheated and stole an election..it’s all out now.

???? Republican judges in several states say there is no evidence...so your sentence is odd.

[GFB]

It is from an email of a friend who really gets into things.

The President is the only one fighting FOR democracy.

Your team just cheated and stole an election..it’s all out now.

???? Republican judges in several states say there is no evidence...so your sentence is odd.

Republican judges?

Tell me, have you seen the video from Georgia showing suitcases full of ballots being dragged out from under tables after poll watchers and the media were escorted out?

[GFB]

Amazing how easy it is for the media to keep facts away from the average Democrat voter.

[GFB]

“President Trump's legal team's efforts to urge state lawmakers to override the results of the election and appoint their own electors is "furthest along" in Georgia, attorney Rudy Giuliani told “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Other efforts are ongoing in Michigan and Arizona, Giuliani said. The former New York City mayor pointed to video from State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which he said gives a “pretty good idea” of how cheating took place. State officials have said that nothing irregular happened when poll watchers departed and election workers continued counting ballots into the early morning hours of Nov. 4.”

“They spent the rest of the night counting the secret ballots, clearly secret phony ballots in which they excluded all Republicans, all Democrats, all law enforcement,” he said. “And I think that ended up being about 148,000 to 7,000; 148,000 for Biden, 7,000 for Trump.”

“Giuliani claimed that Georgia has seen other forms of election fraud, including backdating, ballots being uninspected and people voting illegally from out of state, voting as illegal immigrants or as the deceased, though those claims of widespread fraud have yet to be proven in a court of law.”

“According to Giuliani, Georgia’s state legislature is “disgusted” by the evidence being put forward and, as a result, has started a petition to hold their own session – the first state legislature to do so.”

“This is a constitutional role that the Founding Fathers gave to our legislatures,” he said. “They're the ones who are supposed to select the president, not the governors, not the Board of Elections. They're the ones who have the constitutional obligation to decide on the electors. So in Georgia, they're going to do that.”

“Michigan and Arizona are also considering taking these same steps to action, Giuliani said, and could “very well” be joining Georgia to decide on their electors.”

[GFB]

More info for people who believe the “but..but..there’s no evidence” media.

“Attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr appeared on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” to discuss recently revealed evidence of possible voter fraud in Georgia, and explained the possible processes for how the Trump campaign could use it in their effort to reverse the result of the presidential election in that state.

Starr, who rose to fame as the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton, pointed to information presented to Georgia state senators last week, including video that purportedly showed ballots being counted without supervision. While Georgia officials have insisted that the video simply shows “normal” ballot counting procedure, Starr said Georgia legislators “seemed to be really troubled” by the video and other evidence presented to them.”

“There certainly is probable cause for investigating and looking further,” Dershowitz said. “Giuliani has made very serious accusations. The question is which institution is designed constitutionally to look into it. Is it the state legislature? Is it the courts? Is the clock running in such a way that there won’t be time to look into this?”

“Trump campaign attorney Ray Smith had called on Georgia state legislators to step in and choose electors instead of following the election results. Dershowitz said that it is not a given that they have the power to do this. Should they try, Dershowitz said, the issue could end up being decided by the Supreme Court.”

“Clearly state legislators have the power before the voters vote to pick the electors," Dershowitz said. "The unanswered constitutional question is do they have the powers, the legislatures, to pick electors after the voters vote if they conclude that the voters’ count has been in some way fraudulent or wrong. That is a constitutional question we don’t know the answer to, and the Supreme Court may get to decide that question if a state legislature decides to determine who the electors should be, and changes the electors from Biden to Trump.”

[GFB]

So clearly..this is not over. There are challenges going on in many states that no one knows how they will end up..not even the experts.

[jellowrestling]

I tried to post this earlier:

Here's another fact: it was the Enabling Act of 1889 that was passed by Congress and signed by Grover Cleveland which paved the way for the admission of Washington, Montana, and the splitting of the Dakotas into North and South.

Socialism was not a big issue in the 1888 election. Instead, it was tariffs and the issue of free trade, which Irish-Americans associated with the British. Republicans exploited this to capture the key swing states of Indiana and New York and won the election. Benjamin Harrison was specifically chosen because of his war record (to take advantage of Cleveland's opposition to Civil War pensions) and because he was a former Senator from Indiana.

Cleveland won by about 90,000 votes, but saying that doesn't account for the disenfranchisement of Blacks in the South, who voted almost entirely for Republicans.

It's true that voters returned Cleveland to office instead of Harrison, who is widely viewed as one of the least-successful Presidents. Voters were so enthralled with the Democrats that they didn't elect another one until 1912.

[Red Oak]

The Rat party us made of idiots and psychopaths, it becomes clearer everyday.

[Mark]

The Rat party us made of idiots and psychopaths, it becomes clearer everyday.

I was talking to an acquaintance (not really a friend) of mine at the local bar Saturday night. He's got the TDS really bad. He went on a long, rambling rant that made no sense whatsoever...

One of the most striking contradictions that came from his was when he claimed to be a libertarian, but said he voted a straight Democrat ticket to send a message to the establishment. Is there anything more insane than that.

This wasn't some uninformed kid. He's an old guy with a gray ponytail (maybe that's a clue?) that works for the local radio station. I suppose he could be called a member of the media. Maybe that explains it.

The uninformed electorate will be the death of this nation. The Left started their systematic takeover of our education system about a century ago, and the dumbing down of our citizens is in full swing now. Our public schools and universities produce 90% idiots now.

In an informed society, idiots like Biden and Harris couldn't get more than 10% of the vote.

[jellowrestling]

Let me interject a bit more actual history about the 1892 election. I mentioned before that Black Republicans were disenfranchised in the South. This meant that the number of people voting for the Republican candidate in Florida went from 28,031 to zero. In Mississippi, it went from 43,035 to 1,398. This pattern was repeated (although somewhat less dramaticaly) all across the South, as poll taxes, literacy tests, and other vote suppression measures were put in place. Although it's apparent that Cleveland would have almost certainly won without the cheating, it's clear that a large measure of the "popular vote" difference was due to the disenfranchisement of Republicans.

The original post also mentions the Panic of 1893. He is completely full of **** as to the cause. As is always the case, it is a complicated issue, but one of the chief causes was interference by Congress in the free market system. With the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, Congress created a situation where people could buy silver, then exchange it for gold-backed dollars, and then sell the gold dollars in the metals market for more than they paid for them. This depleted the Treasury's supply of gold until it ran out. At that point, the value of silver fell. This caused bonds to become worthless, then banks failed, which caused railways to fail, which led to the failure of businesses dependent on the railroads, and on and on.

The original post is just chock-full of misrepresentations and outright lies. It's just another Leftist Fairy Tale.

[Mark]

Amazing how easy it is for the media to keep facts away from the average Democrat voter.

The average Democrat voter is stupid.

[rusty]

Interesting and thought provoking essay.

I knew that right-wingers have been harping about the evils of socialism for 50 or 60 years, but I really didn't know that they've been harping about it for 150 years. If it hasn't taken over by now, exactly when do they think it will?

It's amazing to me that the average working stiff can think that big business looks out for their interests. You've got people living in shacks that still vote Republican because they've been led to believe that Republicans are looking out for them.

You have millions of people who don't care that Trump's corporate tax breaks are permanent while individual tax "breaks" are temporary.

You have millions of people that believe that tax incentives to big business, on the local level, are good for all of the citizens.

You have millions of people who don't care that the middle class has been rapidly shrinking for the past 50 years. And that deterioration is due to the Federal Government believes that corporate America's profits will "trickle down" to the middle-class. It didn't happen in the 80's, it's not happening now, and it won't happen in the future.

Not so arguably, the best quality of life yeara in the past 100 years for the middle class was the post WWII into the 60's, when the corporate tax rate was 50% and the highest marginal tax rate was 91%.

So even though many people paid more in taxes, they were able to buy homes, new cars, take vacations, etc. on a ONE wage-earner income. I know many people here are not old enough to remember that. I'm barely old enough. But facts is facts.

At the end of the 60's around 60% of all Americans would fall into what is considered the middle class. Today around 50%. And the trajectory is continuing in a downward spiral. And that's not even taking into consideration the wealth gap.

[planosteve]

the best quality of life years in the past 100 years for the middle class was the post WWII into the 60's, when the corporate tax rate was 50% and the highest marginal tax rate was 91%.

Your exactly right. But, we've lived under the same Constitution the whole time. What changed? My opinion is it was the establishment of the unconstitutional, privately owned Federal Reserve System and fiat money.

[jellowrestling]

Interesting and thought provoking essay.

So, the fact that large portions of it are historical nonsense is irrelevant?

[Mark]

the best quality of life years in the past 100 years for the middle class was the post WWII into the 60's, when the corporate tax rate was 50% and the highest marginal tax rate was 91%.

Your exactly right. But, we've lived under the same Constitution the whole time. What changed? My opinion is it was the establishment of the unconstitutional, privately owned Federal Reserve System and fiat money.

Nobody paid those rates.