Welcome to the 21st Century version of the 1880s
If they knew then – in the 1880’s – what we know now we would have never gotten past it. The last 150 years would have been theirs. The times would have been very different indeed. Nonetheless, they were relentless. They tried. They came up with clever and innovative ways of getting what they wanted: Political and capital power in the hands of heterosexual White self-proclaimed Christian men. They pretty much got what they wanted – and came across as the saviors of 20th century civilization. They knew that “we the people” was never meant to mean “all” the people. They knew perfectly well that “we the people” meant pretty exclusively their type.
The short experiment of the post Civil War Reconstruction era, where Black men could be elected to public office and aspirationally seek some degree – albeit limited – of equality came to an abrupt end with the repressive institutionalization of Jim Crow laws and the emergence of the KKK. The late 19th century also saw the coming of the strong-armed chest-pumping Jingoism foreign policy and the increasing concentration of capital power in the hands of a few industrialist barons (what today we would call oligarchs). Women still could not vote, civil rights was but a dream, social security was not on the agenda. Faith groups took care of the destitute, academia served the purpose of indoctrination, and the legal profession was nascent.
Most critical: The government as an institution was minimal and dysfunctional, existing mostly at the whims of those that held political and capital power. Corruption was rampant, coercion was the order of the day. Political and capital power was concentrated in the hands of a few who manipulated the economy to ensure their self preservation.
And that world of the 1880s, my friends, is the world that today’s “they” – the MAGAs with their corporate and oligarchy leaders – want us to go back to. Except this time around they have the added tools of pervasive and ever present surveillance, the wherewithal to manipulate the media, and they are well on their way to decapitating the independent judiciary branch of government.
They have already frightened academia and law firms into complicity. They have already created a media ecosystem where people self censor by choice, giving credence only to the fountain of information hand-picked by their authoritarian leader. They have already relegated the application of due process to only those they deem worthy. They have already redefined science to appease their pseudo-science constituents. And, they have already begun to manipulate public data to show only what they want you to see.
And oh how rich they are becoming! Having turned foreign policy into a tool for self enrichment, their leader has made financial deals with other nations using the power of his authoritarian presidency to directly benefit himself and his family. He manipulates the stock market giving advance notice to the few he wants to ‘make a killing’ of the erratic ups and downs in the markets.
All of this in less than four months in power. Imagine what three and a half more years of this will do to America. What is next on their short-term agenda? Three ‘predictions’:
- Massive distractions with irrelevant topics; i.e.: Completing a Greenland ‘deal’, proposing conducting a massive parade.
- More outlandish disregard for existing laws; i.e.: Turning the Real I.D. into a national i.d., suspending due process, ‘whitening’ America through draconian expulsion of immigrants and selective importing of ‘persecuted’ Whites.
- Bigger international financial deals and more market manipulation to benefit themselves; i.e.: Accessing Ukraine’s national resources, receiving the “gift” of a new Air Force One from Qatar, sharing inside knowledge of tariff announcements.
Of course, all of this is predicated on their increased Federal control of academia, the media, and law firms. And of course, all of this will lead to the inevitable rewrite of how the 2026 elections are conducted and certified to ensure they stay in power in perpetuity.
We are living through a dismantling of existing Federal institutions that they will then build back up in a much smaller infrastructure. But, that will be a governance infrastructure that is easily controlled and manipulated by the Executive Branch for the sole purpose of enriching the new oligarchy under the leadership of the one MAGA king, the one mafia boss. All in the name of ‘efficiency’. But the real purpose is singular: To cement minority rule in the US, owned and operated by heterosexual White self-proclaimed Christian men.
Welcome back to the 1880’s.
But don’t despair!
Remember that it was those trying days that also sparked a revolution in the civic spaces, giving rise to many of the organizations that provided a place for the advancement of discourse and collaborative and communal goodwill. This included the likes of the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs and professional associations like the American Bar Association. It also included the rise of the labor movement and women’s suffrage movement. And later came the creation of the League of Nations (the first attempt at the United Nations), and the Civil Rights movement. We saw fit as a nation-state to pursue a safety net that includes Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. All of these advancements they want to destroy – and rebuild, but only to the extent they can control them. They see these advancements as the antithesis of where they want to take America; i.e.: back to the 1880s.
Those dark days of the 1880’s also saw the rise of new philosophical critical thinking and theological discourse. In a recent ‘in-the-news’ development that cannot be lost on us and is clearly a ‘sign of the times’ for aspirational inspiration, we now have Pope Leo XIV leading the Catholic Church. It was the last Pope Leo (the XIII) who in 1891 released Rerum Novarum, a papal encyclical that sparked an unparalleled age of Catholic social justice advancing the rights of workers, the dignity of immigrants, and preference for the poor. This was an encyclical that spoke truth to power. It’s time for major faiths to do the same again. May Pope Leo XIV take us there.
I realize that we of my generation – I am almost 68 years old as I write this – were lulled into believing that our work during our lifetime had laid the unbreakable foundation for continuing forward advancement towards the broader common good. But, oh, how foolish we were thinking that ours would be the generation that set forth a reversible trajectory towards a more egalitarian society where goodness prevailed! Well, it seems obvious that the foundation we helped build was not strong enough to withstand the vile, vindictive, plain old mean MAGA revolution and their oligarch funders. It seems obvious that a critical number of Americans were disgusted with a society that welcomed all and sought fairness. It seems that the White America many of them yearned for is simply not ready to yield to the inevitable demographic shift that will make them a minority. They were ok with some limited shared power. But no way were they going to transition power. They are hell bent on going to any length to ensure that political and capital power remains in the hands of heterosexual White, self proclaimed Christian men. (Oh sure they have their token – in their words – Oreo cookie, good hombre, and toy woman in position of power. But make no mistake about it. This is only tokenism at work).
In conclusion, when it seems like we can not make sense of what President Trump is doing, just remember that there is only one metric by which he measures his actions. There is only one thing he cares about. Only one. Nada mas. Nothing else.
His destruction of the sensible – if imperfect – governance model we’ve tried to build over the last century and a half is a first step. Next is rebuilding a much smaller, leaner bureaucracy, legal system, academic indoctrination machine, and media ecosystem that exists exclusively to enrich him and his type. Nada mas. End of story.
Therefore, fight we must. People power works. It has worked through the centuries. It will work again.
I – for one – will not sit idly by and watch the dismantling of the aspirational democracy that has emerged over my lifetime. It was far from perfect. Boy, o boy, does it need plenty of tweaks and some redo! Maybe we did not move fast enough. Maybe we were too timid in accepting early signs of system failure. Maybe we should have done it differently. But we kept at it, making incremental progress and at times enlightened forward movement. How you do these tweaks and redos matter. Who benefits when you do these tweaks and redos matter. Who leads these tweaks and redos matters. To do it as they are doing it, chaotically, led by self-interest oligarchs, and without regards to the pain and suffering the process causes is cruel – and yes, ineffective and inefficient.
The road ahead is difficult. They are in power, we are not. They are supported by nearly half of voters in the County. They have the capital, we do not. They are consolidating control of information fountains, the schools, and the legal system. Still. Still fight we must.
Learn from the past, yes. Repeat its failures, no.
We will not go back to the 1880’s.