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Saturday, October 9, 2010

America's Political Ghost

Today America’s Midwestern Democrats, big city Democrats, “Reagan” Democrats, Southern Republicans, heartland independents, conservative Democrats, and conservative Republicans, sometimes, feel something is missing. Part of their spirit is someplace else. The spirit is often alluded to by the line- “It’s the economy, stupid”. Few realize there is an American ghost in their spirit. These struggling and politically ambivalent Americans are dominant in the Ohio Valley, Western Pennsylvania, the heart of the industrial Midwest, industrial cities throughout America, and Western states. They feel the presence of a real ghost. That ghost is nationalistic and hard working. It is a spirit of ambivalence. It doesn’t feel fully comfortable in either of today’s political parties. It is confused by the economic arguments on free trade, wanting only to see America working. It is confused by America’s international role. While highly nationalistic, it often questions war as unnecessary involvement in others’ affairs. It is more economic than global. It believes in American exceptionalism and revels in American success at all endeavors. It is proud. It wants to buy American but often shops at Wal-Mart to save money. It believes America should always be bigger and better than the rest of the world. It believes in bigness as an American icon and is disappointed when a taller building, bridge, ship, or airplane is built elsewhere. It is that of the American worker and industry. It hates big business’s greed but is proud of its industrial might. That spirit finds pride in working for America’s industrial giants, but deplores their methods at times. American Big Business is a devil but it’s their devil. It believes that if a devil must be in charge, then it should be an American devil.
The spirit today is an amalgam of our American spirit. It is part of a forgotten political party. It was a spirit that was forced to divide over years for various issues. It is an alloy that no longer can reflect earlier and more basic political views. Today’s American spiritual amalgam is forged like Damascus steel by folding and hammering layers of issues into a sword. It often is strongly partisan but can find common ground in nationalism, yet that very nationalism can blind it. It is American but does not fit neatly into either of the beliefs of today’s political parties. It is a mainstream spirit and thus has two choices but feels there should be another. The other choice is America’s ghost, and it is layered in the fiber of today’s spirit. This ghostly spirit often sees presidents- Reagan, Kennedy, Truman, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR as their presidents. That spirit has forgotten heroes of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, James Garfield, and William McKinley. Abraham Lincoln is a forgotten voice of that spirit. It is a ghost that haunts the steel valleys of Ohio and Pennsylvania, the coalmines of Illinois and West Virginia, the old factories of Michigan and Indiana, and the Connecticut Valley of New England. It has helped elect many of our presidents.
This restless and homeless spirit is that of America’s Whig Party. The Whig Party was born out of opposition to Andrew Jackson in 1832. Its platform, however, was economic bringing in a strange mix of opposites united by economic issues. This mix included Democrats, Anti-Jacksonians, Anti-Masons, “Know-Nothings,” abolitionists, and old Federalists. Similarly, its American economic approach fused diverse geographic regions such as New England, the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the South. It united class lines such as rich and poor, blue and white collar, and union and owners. It formed economic alliances with opposing religious, social, class, and philosophical factions. The Whigs were passionate about dinner table issues, but they lacked the fire of the dominant social issues of the time. Its ghost, however, is purely economic and nationalistic as was its founding. The ghost is that of “bread and butter” issues. It is a ghost that punishes political parties that stray too far the bread and butter issues. It is a ghost awoken in hard times.