Democrats

Lately I’ve been arguing with Trump supporters more often on Facebook, possibly a waste of time, who knows.  The most annoying trait they have is labelling all Trump critics as Democrats.  When you have an obvious non-Democrat like former Trump SecDef Mattis busting on Trump, the story is “some ulterior motive”.  Right, only Trump supporters are intelligent and non-biased.  Quite the contrary.

As noted in a prior blog, of the 8 Presidential elections from 1988 to 2016 (A.D.), I voted GOP four times (GHWB x2, Dole, Romney) and LPA four times (Browne, Badnarik, Barr and Johnson).  I have never voted Democrat at any level, from dogcatcher to President.  I default to Libertarian candidates, and in their absence I default to Republicans. 

I don’t really have a major beef or problem with Democrats.  To the extent I do, it would be their preference to solve all problems with “other people’s money” (OPM) and take credit for that vicarious generosity.  Plus their ill-advised fixation on gun control, an issue which puts me in the LPA & GOP camp consistently.

PC/SJW.  The "politically correct" & "social justice warrior" crowd also gets on my nerves.  Implying that these left-liberal opinions are somehow objectively correct is itself arrogant and objectionable.  The latter term is more likely to be used as an insult by their opponents.  It's not necessarily Democrat per se, but it is definitely on their side of the spectrum.  By that I mean this business of injecting political ingredients to non-political decisions, e.g. what type of food to eat, which restaurants and businesses to patronize, etc.  Instead of buying the products you enjoy most and eating the foods you like, you have to worry about the firm's employment practices and the politics of its higher echelon, including, but not limited to, its CEO.   Keeping track of all that is a major nuisance and pain in the ass, and added to this equation is the pedantic air of superiority these people bring to this whole thing.  Mind you, the conservatives did this back in the 60s, burning Beatles records in the Deep South (obviously not in New York City or San Francisco - affected smirk) thanks to John Lennon's famous remark about his band being "bigger than Jesus" (Japan had its turn when Lennon rated a Beatles concert a more worthwhile form of entertainment than watching sumo wrestling), giving the rest of us who go to church on Sunday a bad name; no, "religious" and "intelligent" aren't mutually exclusive.  Anyhow, if there's an issue which drives moderates off to the right side of the spectrum, it's behavior like this.

Communists.  Up until 1984, the CPUSA ran its own candidates, with Gus Hall being the most recent.  During the 1930s they actually preferred FDR but ran their own candidates to avoid openly supporting FDR and therefore discrediting him among non-leftists.  Nowadays they simply default to supporting Democrats.  Of course, that doesn’t mean Democrats are communists.

The far left of the Democratic Party, formerly Paul Wellstone and currently Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, could best be described as socialist.  And by that we don’t mean “dictatorship of the proletariat” socialist, but “Denmark & Sweden” socialist.  Both of those European countries have private property, a market economy, etc. and are light years away from China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, the remaining “communist” countries.  They’d be more accurately described as capitalist countries with substantial socialist elements.  Giving everyone free health care is going to cost a lot, and their tax rates are extremely high relative to ours, but they don’t have gulags or a secret police.   So in the unlikely event that Bernie Sanders somehow wound up as our President, with AOC as his VP, AND somehow Congress wound up controlled by Democrats both in the House and Senate, our worst case scenario is Sweden, paying $$$$ taxes but not having to worry if we get sick, as the government itself is our health insurance.  A far cry from Stalin’s Russia.

Note that the reality of both parties running in red & blue states means that red state Democrats might skew, ideologically, to the right of blue state Republicans, and vice versa.  This makes both red state Democrats and blue state Republicans (e.g. Mitt Romney and Gary Johnson) particularly viable candidates for president. 

While I’m on the topic, let me talk about some recent Democrats.

Obama.  I didn’t vote for him, choosing Bob Barr in ’08 and Mitt Romney in ’12.  But he was born in Hawaii, and his mother is American, so even if he was born in Kenya he’d still be a US citizen at birth, so this whole business of accusing him of being ineligible for being born in Kenya is colossally stupid.  I’m not thrilled with ObamaCare or this whole business of drones, but aside from those I don’t have any major problems with him and don’t consider him the Antichrist.

The Clintons.  Bill Clinton was a popular two term president.  He was impeached in his second term but not convicted.  That whole business proved to be a waste of time.  NAFTA was fine, but he banned AR15s – no big deal, as I bought mine before the ban went into effect.  Despite all the noise about “Vince Foster” and “Whitewater”, neither Bill nor Hillary wore an orange jumpsuit for those.  For that matter, despite all the noise about “Benghazi”, Hillary was acquitted by a Republican Congress.  D’oh!   I don’t know what they got away with in Arkansas, but neither do I care.   Despite vociferously hostile political forces, neither has been convicted of anything, and neither currently holds any office.  I still find them both to be considerably less slimy than the current president.

Jimmy Carter.  He’s the oldest Democrat I can remember, though I was too young to vote in 1976.  Kudos for getting Begin and Sadat to shake hands at Camp David, but he messed up the Iran hostage deal.  I can’t really say I like or hate him either way.  He does seem like an honest man, which is a huge difference vs the current occupant of the White House. 

Joe Biden.  Although he isn’t yet the official nominee, his nomination will be rubber stamped at the convention.  We’ll see who he picks as VP.  Normally I’d consider him the epitome of mediocrity, who maxed out as Obama’s VP, but seeing as Trump has set the bar so low as to be subterranean, I can’t think of Biden winning in November as a bad thing.  

He does share the dubious distinction of being a Democrat whose view on marijuana seems to date back to 1937, and even stranger, appears to be sincere.  If he does win, and the Senate flips over to the Democrats, possibly he could be persuaded to sign off on pro-MJ legislation.  That remains to be seen.  I will not be voting for him, though:  Jo Jorgenson has my vote unless Jesse Ventura runs.

Al Gore.   “A lockbox…” & petulant huff/eyeroll.  In a perfect world, Al Gore died of prostate cancer in 1994 and Frank Zappa is still alive and well, and presumably convinced to run as President due to the current occupant of the Oval Office being so colossally incompetent as to induce this man to step forward.  Alas, that’s not what happened. 

Gore had his own share of sliminess.  He got my uncle knocked out as FEMA director because the guy talked back to him at a hearing.  He went to Vietnam in a journalist unit which would not see combat, so he could say he went without risking his life; this may have been why my uncle, a combat veteran of WWII and Korea, and not big on "people skills", saw fit to be a bit direct with Mr. Gore.  He likes to take credit for authoring the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 – because it eventually resulted in the Internet - but bristles at being accused of trying to take credit for creating the Internet. 

Earlier Democrats were Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt, to name a few, my favorite being Grover Cleveland.  Of these, I’ll note the following:

1.         Johnson.  My mother was his personal nurse, and I have a framed birth announcement, signed by both Lady Bird Johnson and LBJ himself, dated on my actual birthday.  LBJ was from Texas and his legacy was sending US troops to Vietnam in 1965.  Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White from “Breaking Bad”, did a great job portraying him in a recent biopic.

 

2.         John F. Kennedy deserves credit for defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, otherwise none of us would be here today.  I was not around to experience it, but by all accounts we came perilously close to a nuclear war with the USSR.

3.         FDR I commented on earlier, on a blog about him and his cousin Theodore https://formula57l.blogspot.com/2020/02/theodore-franklin.html.

4.         I also covered Grover Cleveland in a prior blog https://formula57l.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-tothrow-another-curve-ball-at.html.

There you have it.  No demons or communists, just a bunch of guys who were fairly similar to their Republican competitors. 

The American Revolutionary War

“Revolution” seems a bit of a misnomer: we had to fight a war for independence and then set up our own form of government after that.  War is a better word.  This is an early post, with July 4 coming up close at hand.

The whole thing began in New England in April 1775 with the battles in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.  Rebel militia, if not defeating British Redcoat regulars, at least inflicted punishing losses.  Over the winter of 1775 the sides were stalemated, until March 1776 when the rebels brought up cannon, forcing the British to evacuate Boston.

Our own invasion of Canada – a campaign lasting from September 1775 to June 1776 – failed.  Blame Canada.

The British, remarkably enough, did not have conscription or a draft (except for limited press-ganging for the Royal Navy).  They relied on volunteers and when those fell short, German mercenaries, most of which were from Hesse, thus “Hessian”.   They also expected Loyalists (Americans loyal to the King) to help in bigger numbers, but consistently overestimated that help.  A substantial number of Americans actually stayed neutral, and Loyalists, in addition to being less numerous than expected, were also of little assistance unless substantial British regulars were nearby to protect their families back at home from harassment by rebel sympathizers.  That is, the Brits could only recruit Loyalist troops from areas under their control (e.g. New York and other coastal areas). 

NY & NJ.  The next phase took place mostly in New York and New Jersey.  In addition to Newport, Rhode Island, the British took Staten Island without a fight.  They swept Long Island until Brooklyn, at which point rebel resistance stiffened.  However, for some reason General Howe refused to finish off the rebels in Brooklyn – like Hitler’s mysterious halt at Dunkirk – and as at Dunkirk, the good guys managed to slip away to safety, in this case Manhattan.  The Brits chased Washington out of Manhattan, into New Jersey, where Washington managed to keep his army alive, conducting a fighting retreat, similar to Rommel in North Africa from October 1942 to May 1943.  At various points Howe had the opportunity to crush Washington’s army, but held off on doing so, even to Washington’s surprise. 

In December 1776 Washington crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania, but came back later that month to surprise the Hessians at Trenton, and stayed for the winter at Morristown, New Jersey.

1777 opened with the Brits taking two separate – and uncoordinated – campaigns.  Down south, Howe took Philadelphia – without a fight – but did not coordinate with Burgoyne coming down from Canada to attack Albany.  Without Howe’s help, Burgoyne was defeated near Albany in September and October, a climactic battle at Saratoga.  This put an end to Burgoyne’s campaign and essentially defeated half of the British army in America.  That left it up to the other half to get things done.

For the winter of 1777, Washington camped at Valley Forge, just outside Philadelphia.  In addition to nurturing his battered army, Washington got Baron von Steuben to give it a crash course in military training:  meaning the US Army which emerged from Valley Forge in 1778 was a disciplined, trained regular army for once, although Washington never had enough regulars to avoid relying on militias and guerillas for the rest of the war.

In 1778, the French, Spanish, and Dutch entered the war.  The French were willing to do so openly, while the Spanish and Dutch preferred to keep their assistance “under the radar”.   The timid and mostly ineffective General Howe was replaced in May 1778 with General Clinton, who abandoned Philadelphia to defend NYC.  Washington then marched back up to White Plains, but the British held on to Staten Island, Manhattan, and Long Island for the remainder of the war.

The British were also hampered in their war efforts in America by the need to defend their overseas possessions elsewhere, in the West Indies and in India.  A US attack on Newport in August 1778 failed, but by October 1779 the British had abandoned Newport anyway.  Over the winter of 1779 Washington’s army was again weakened, but British attempts to wipe it out were defeated by NJ militias.  Benedict Arnold defected in September 1780, but his last major act of any significance for the British was a failed attack on New London, CT in September 1781.

Their campaigns in PA, NJ, NY and MA failing, the Brits then attempted to gain some success down further south.  While they managed to take Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC, attempts further inland consistently failed.   Horatio Gates took over US forces, later to be replaced by Nathaniel Greene; Cornwallis commanded the British forces in this campaign.  He won several battles, but at costs which severely depleted his armies and forced him to retreat back to Wilmington, NC.   Thus by late 1780, only the coastal regions were securely in British control.

In early 1781 Cornwallis went up to Yorktown and established a base there, joined up by Arnold who had been raiding Virginia and received reinforcements from New York.  Washington sent Lafayette and Wayne down to oppose him.  The French sent a huge fleet to the Chesapeake – far larger than the British imagined or expected, effectively blockading Cornwallis from the sea.  With Washington facing him on land and the French blocking him from the sea, Cornwallis was trapped.  By October 19, 1781, he was forced to surrender.  In terms of active hostilities on land, the war ended at this point.

North’s Tory government in the UK resigned in March 1782, and the Whigs took over.  Initial peace treaties were signed in November 1782, with the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 finally ending the war and establishing American independence once and for all. 

Washington’s role is hard to overestimate.  He had to not merely command troops in battle, but also keep his army intact during retreats AND deal with a rudimentary government which had little power to assist him in anything.  America’s Fifth Column, its diplomatic efforts – e.g. Benjamin Franklin – also deserve immense credit.  Without help from Von Steuben in reforming the US Army, and direct (and indirect) help from the French, Spanish, and Dutch in keeping the Brits busy elsewhere and directly opposing them at Yorktown, the British may have been able to defeat the Americans.  Some credit also goes to Howe for being so timid in attacking US forces, basically the McClellan of this war. 

As an aside, check out A Transatlantic Tunnel! Hurrah!, an alternate history story by Harry Harrison (best known for The Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld) in which the British won the Revolutionary War, and a descendent of Washington helps design – guess what – a transatlantic tunnel from the UK to America, very much in a steampunk vein.  Enjoy.