McCain was interviewed this week on the O’Reilly show and it was a telling interview. He is the best candidate in the race, which is not saying much, but O’Reilly took him to task on his issues. The two points on the first night of the interview that will disturb conservatives was his stance on immigration and energy. McCain has strengthened his stance on immigration since McCain Kennedy, but he has far to go. He also said he supports cutting the gas tax for the summer, which if you read this blog you know my feelings on that. He also said he will not drill for oil in Anwar, which I believe is a mistake. His reason for not drilling at the Pole was because he said he is an environmentalist. Do we really need to keep the poles pristine for all the people who live there? But what I really want to comment on was his statement that he is copying his hero Teddy Roosevelt who was also an environmentalist. O’Reilly reminded McCain that Hillary also cited TR as her political hero, to which McCain responded, yes but he was a Republican. As long as new politicians are going to through out names of old politicians as hero’s we need to understand something about my specialty, the history of politics.
Without going into the complete story of the history of political parties (a two semester class) to understand TR you need to know something about his political landscape. TR became President in 1901 after the death of Pres McKinley. TR’s presidency ushered in a political time known as the progressives. Up till then we had been living in the Gilded Age. During the Gilded Age, we did have Republicans and Democrats, but we would not recognize them with our current beliefs. My main goal in my class is to show how much the parties have changed over the past 100 years. During the Gilded Age the top plank for the Democratic platform was that they were the party of white supremacy. The Democratic party dominated the Southern state under this platform. They were also the party of small government, or the government that governs the least is the best. Because of this most of their power in the North came from immigrants who did not want the government telling them their business. The Republican party was the party of Union war veterans, northern blacks (blacks in the south did not vote), business men, and moral reformers who wanted big government to decided moral issues for the nation (anti-drinking laws). As you can see this is much different from today’s parties, where Democrats want big government and are the party of minorities and the Republicans want small government and dominate the southern states. When all that changed are subjects for other blogs, but the point here is when politicians look at presidents around 1900 and say yes but they are Republican, they may have the same name, but not the same party.
Now look at TR. He was the first Progressive president, meaning he was the first US president to actually think the government should be part of Americans lives. During the first 100 years of this nation, most people had few dealings with the federal government. The only things the Federal government did that affected the average person was give pensions to Union Civil War soldiers, pass tariffs to help the economy, sell cheap land out west, and occasionally send in the army to break up strikes, other than these they did nothing. When TR took over the White house, he launched the nation into a series of reforms and made the government the biggest it had ever been. Only two other presidents had made the office of the president as big as TR, Andrew Jackson and Lincoln, and neither of them went as far as TR. So for a Republican today, who wants small government, to say they want to be like TR does not make sense. As far as being an environmentalist, yes TR was one. He loved the outdoors and wanted to save some wilderness and created many of our national parks today. But what is not talked about was the land given to major companies to use their resources. He believed some land needed to be set aside for future use, not just to hike in, but eventually use their resources. I do not know, but I believe under our current energy crisis, TR would have no problem drilling in Anwar, the benefit to our nation would way out do any environmental impact.
There will always be certain historical figures that all politicians want to compare themselves too, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR, FDR, and JFK, but at times they might want to understand exactly what they stood for or what their parties stood for. Lincoln was the first Republican president, but he was liberal enough to make most Democrats happy today (he freed the slaves, you can not get more liberal than that). Ex speaker of the House, Trent Lott, would have been smart to have a historian read his speech before he said to the world that we would have had a better country if Strom Thurman had won in 1948. Thurman ran on the platform of white power and segregation, if Lot would have paid more attention in history he might have remained Speaker.
So my suggestion to all politicians is that before they speak about the past, they first need to understand the past. I believe understanding our political past is vital to understanding our political future. I would recommend everyone read about past presidents, they are not only entertaining, but can be informative about our future. Or move to South Texas and take my political parties class.
Without going into the complete story of the history of political parties (a two semester class) to understand TR you need to know something about his political landscape. TR became President in 1901 after the death of Pres McKinley. TR’s presidency ushered in a political time known as the progressives. Up till then we had been living in the Gilded Age. During the Gilded Age, we did have Republicans and Democrats, but we would not recognize them with our current beliefs. My main goal in my class is to show how much the parties have changed over the past 100 years. During the Gilded Age the top plank for the Democratic platform was that they were the party of white supremacy. The Democratic party dominated the Southern state under this platform. They were also the party of small government, or the government that governs the least is the best. Because of this most of their power in the North came from immigrants who did not want the government telling them their business. The Republican party was the party of Union war veterans, northern blacks (blacks in the south did not vote), business men, and moral reformers who wanted big government to decided moral issues for the nation (anti-drinking laws). As you can see this is much different from today’s parties, where Democrats want big government and are the party of minorities and the Republicans want small government and dominate the southern states. When all that changed are subjects for other blogs, but the point here is when politicians look at presidents around 1900 and say yes but they are Republican, they may have the same name, but not the same party.
Now look at TR. He was the first Progressive president, meaning he was the first US president to actually think the government should be part of Americans lives. During the first 100 years of this nation, most people had few dealings with the federal government. The only things the Federal government did that affected the average person was give pensions to Union Civil War soldiers, pass tariffs to help the economy, sell cheap land out west, and occasionally send in the army to break up strikes, other than these they did nothing. When TR took over the White house, he launched the nation into a series of reforms and made the government the biggest it had ever been. Only two other presidents had made the office of the president as big as TR, Andrew Jackson and Lincoln, and neither of them went as far as TR. So for a Republican today, who wants small government, to say they want to be like TR does not make sense. As far as being an environmentalist, yes TR was one. He loved the outdoors and wanted to save some wilderness and created many of our national parks today. But what is not talked about was the land given to major companies to use their resources. He believed some land needed to be set aside for future use, not just to hike in, but eventually use their resources. I do not know, but I believe under our current energy crisis, TR would have no problem drilling in Anwar, the benefit to our nation would way out do any environmental impact.
There will always be certain historical figures that all politicians want to compare themselves too, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR, FDR, and JFK, but at times they might want to understand exactly what they stood for or what their parties stood for. Lincoln was the first Republican president, but he was liberal enough to make most Democrats happy today (he freed the slaves, you can not get more liberal than that). Ex speaker of the House, Trent Lott, would have been smart to have a historian read his speech before he said to the world that we would have had a better country if Strom Thurman had won in 1948. Thurman ran on the platform of white power and segregation, if Lot would have paid more attention in history he might have remained Speaker.
So my suggestion to all politicians is that before they speak about the past, they first need to understand the past. I believe understanding our political past is vital to understanding our political future. I would recommend everyone read about past presidents, they are not only entertaining, but can be informative about our future. Or move to South Texas and take my political parties class.
2 comments:
I learned more from listening to O'Reilly's interview as well. I do realize why these political figures stay away from serious journalistic interviews, b/c they really need to know their themselves inside and out or they get called on the carpet. I think they also rely on the fact that many of us aren't "Smarter than a 5th grader" like Jeff Foxworthy says. I appreciate your blog for insight that I either a)never learned in school or b)never read on my own! I would love to take your class!
Thanks for the history lesson. It was a great read. I don't remember learinging that in school but I'm sure I could have and I just wasn't paying attention. Thanks for the info.
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