If Abe Lincoln were to come back for a ghostly visit, many aspects of the current US political scene might look familiar to him. Among other current political similarities to the decade of the 1850s, the decade of his historic rise from country lawyer to president of the United States, he would certainly be familiar with the dissolution of political parties who fail to find a coherent voice on the most toxic issues of the time (unsurprisingly it was slavery in the 1850s) and the establishment of new political parties, from the remnants of those that failed, which had faced up to those issues and found a voice on one side or another.
Perhaps the grimmest example was Lincoln’s first party, the Whig Party, which had formed in the early 1830s, primarily to oppose President Andrew Jackson, led by some of the most respected political figures of that era like Henry Clay. It grew rapidly to become the second party of an incipient two-party political system. In general, the Whigs might be described as the spiritual political descendants of the Federalist Party of Washington and Adams, the nation’s first two presidents. They had early success in presidential elections. But the party could never come to grips with the issue of slavery and collapsed over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the extension of slavery beyond the confines set by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Lincoln joined the anti-slavery nascent Republican Party along with most of the Whigs from the North.
Many of the pro-slavery Whigs joined the relatively new American Party, which was commonly known as the Know Nothing Party, which had a short run as America’s dumbest political party. The Know Nothings had begun to coalesce by 1850 around conspiracy theories about immigrants, pulling together refugees from other parties who found its xenophobic and nativist nature attractive. In particular, its adherents were driven by a fear of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany fleeing the Irish famine of 1844 and the revolution of 1848. They believed that there was a papalist plot to take over the US and turn it into a Papal state. On the main question of that decade, slavery, the Know Nothings were split in half, and remained mum. It was a secret society to begin with, and its popular name came from its instruction to its adherents to reply “Í know nothing” to questions about the specifics of its beliefs.
The slavery issue became more acute as the decade rolled on and those parties unwilling or unable to take a stand on one side or the other began to see their adherents abandoning them for parties that did. The Know Nothing party imploded in 1855, over the same issue, slavery. That the Know Nothings failed the test was to be expected and cheered, but to see a major party like the Whigs disappear almost overnight because its experienced, serious, and stable leaders were unable to deal with the slavery issue was a bad sign for the future, an indication of a split so severe in the polity that on both sides only secession or violence would resolve it.
The Republicans continued to gain strength because of the party’s position on slavery, and by 1856 hit the big time by running is first presidential candidate. Lincoln rose through its ranks and became nationally celebrated through the series of brilliant debates he had when running for the Senate seat from Illinois in 1858. He became the Republican Party’s second candidate for president in the 1860 election. Readers know the rest of the story.
It took almost 160 years for another American party to reach the Know Nothings’ level of professed and revealed ignorance. Ironically, it was Mr. Lincoln’s party after several years of trying that finally achieved that accolade. Last week, the Washington Post did a survey of the 249 Congressional Republicans to find out how many believed that the November 3 election had elected Joe Biden. At the time of the survey, five weeks after the election and four weeks after the result was certain, the vast majority of those Republicans could not or would not say in public that Biden had won or that he would be a legitimate President and leader of a legitimate government. On the question of who won: 27 said Biden, 2 said Trump, and 220 wouldn’t answer the question. On supporting Trump’s continued efforts to overturn the results: 9 opposed; 8 supported; and 232 wouldn’t answer. On when the electoral college votes on December 14 and the results are fully official, would they accept Biden as the legitimate President of the US: 32 said yes; 2 said no; and 215 wouldn’t answer. Even if one accepts that much of the silence is fear of retribution by Trump, the reticence on the third question bodes ill for a Biden Presidency. How can he succeed if the other party in Congress as well as a significant part of the public are persuaded, he is not a legitimate President? One key to the level of his success is whether the Democrats control the Senate. And that won’t be settled for another month in the two runoff elections in Georgia where both of the State’s senate seats are up for grab. In a traditionally Republican state in which Biden is the first Democrat to break through Republican solidarity for several decades, and the Republicans are in control and practiced at voter suppression, winning both seats will be, as I have said before, like drawing two cards to an inside straight. Don’t bet on it.
The most interesting post-Trump questions are about the Republican Party. First, while it seems quite certain that Trump wants to remain in control of the party, it is not clear that will be possible. Generally, when Presidents leave office, they lose a lot of power. Trump is clearly operating on the assumption that automatically he will be in charge of the party if he wants to be. The question of whether he will probably depends on whether his “base” remains fanatically enamored of him as it still seems to be. But when he is out of power and not an everyday news item, will the base remain so attached? Moreover, he faces a lot of legal trouble with at least the States of New York and New Jersey who are likely to drag him into court, as well as private suits for defamation and other transgressions which will not only consume his time, energy, and resources but play out in a way unlikely to be very complimentary. The test may come when he tries to exert power and influence on the party’s platform and candidates in the 2022 election.
If Trump fades from the political scene, either because he is in jail, or because he has lost much of his magic with the base, what kind of party will the Republicans be? We have to remember that most Congressional Republicans still not willing to admit publicly that he lost the election, possibly a sign of their cowardice, but maybe also a sign that, some at least were sympathetic to his clearly authoritarian aims of making a coup from above—secretly hoping that he could remain in power by hook or crook. But beyond that, the Congressional Republicans are a toxic mixture of deniers: many deny science, be it public health and the current pandemic’s danger (now out of control in the US because of the Trump administration’s mismanagement) or global warming or both; that medical care is a human right; that every citizen has the right to vote; that there should be a safety net for the disadvantaged; that immigration has historically been of great benefit to the nation, and so on. It is a historical irony that the party of Lincoln is, in fact, one of the main sources of nostalgia for a “golden age,” though few of its members could define when that was. It is at times a mouthpiece for what Trump himself seemed to embody, a disdain for democracy, a toxic combination of nationalism, white working-class nostalgia for a non-existent past and grievance. I get the impression that history is working backwards—the Republican Party is turning into the Know Nothing Party.
Can a know nothing party survive in our democracy? I wouldn’t think so. But as some of my favorite analysts have observed, there are other Republicans who are much more sophisticated and abler than Trump who take up his mantra that American elites and experts are not to be trusted to understand the needs of the white working class. In other words, Trumpism may be too deeply embedded in the party to allow the Bush-Romney internationalist faction to turn it back from its authoritarian creep, which crept scaringly close to destroying democracy at the end of the Trump administration.
The writer is a diplomat, and is Senior Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
Perhaps the grimmest example was Lincoln’s first party, the Whig Party, which had formed in the early 1830s, primarily to oppose President Andrew Jackson, led by some of the most respected political figures of that era like Henry Clay. It grew rapidly to become the second party of an incipient two-party political system. In general, the Whigs might be described as the spiritual political descendants of the Federalist Party of Washington and Adams, the nation’s first two presidents. They had early success in presidential elections. But the party could never come to grips with the issue of slavery and collapsed over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the extension of slavery beyond the confines set by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Lincoln joined the anti-slavery nascent Republican Party along with most of the Whigs from the North.
Many of the pro-slavery Whigs joined the relatively new American Party, which was commonly known as the Know Nothing Party, which had a short run as America’s dumbest political party. The Know Nothings had begun to coalesce by 1850 around conspiracy theories about immigrants, pulling together refugees from other parties who found its xenophobic and nativist nature attractive. In particular, its adherents were driven by a fear of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany fleeing the Irish famine of 1844 and the revolution of 1848. They believed that there was a papalist plot to take over the US and turn it into a Papal state. On the main question of that decade, slavery, the Know Nothings were split in half, and remained mum. It was a secret society to begin with, and its popular name came from its instruction to its adherents to reply “Í know nothing” to questions about the specifics of its beliefs.
The slavery issue became more acute as the decade rolled on and those parties unwilling or unable to take a stand on one side or the other began to see their adherents abandoning them for parties that did. The Know Nothing party imploded in 1855, over the same issue, slavery. That the Know Nothings failed the test was to be expected and cheered, but to see a major party like the Whigs disappear almost overnight because its experienced, serious, and stable leaders were unable to deal with the slavery issue was a bad sign for the future, an indication of a split so severe in the polity that on both sides only secession or violence would resolve it.
The Republicans continued to gain strength because of the party’s position on slavery, and by 1856 hit the big time by running is first presidential candidate. Lincoln rose through its ranks and became nationally celebrated through the series of brilliant debates he had when running for the Senate seat from Illinois in 1858. He became the Republican Party’s second candidate for president in the 1860 election. Readers know the rest of the story.
It took almost 160 years for another American party to reach the Know Nothings’ level of professed and revealed ignorance. Ironically, it was Mr. Lincoln’s party after several years of trying that finally achieved that accolade. Last week, the Washington Post did a survey of the 249 Congressional Republicans to find out how many believed that the November 3 election had elected Joe Biden. At the time of the survey, five weeks after the election and four weeks after the result was certain, the vast majority of those Republicans could not or would not say in public that Biden had won or that he would be a legitimate President and leader of a legitimate government. On the question of who won: 27 said Biden, 2 said Trump, and 220 wouldn’t answer the question. On supporting Trump’s continued efforts to overturn the results: 9 opposed; 8 supported; and 232 wouldn’t answer. On when the electoral college votes on December 14 and the results are fully official, would they accept Biden as the legitimate President of the US: 32 said yes; 2 said no; and 215 wouldn’t answer. Even if one accepts that much of the silence is fear of retribution by Trump, the reticence on the third question bodes ill for a Biden Presidency. How can he succeed if the other party in Congress as well as a significant part of the public are persuaded, he is not a legitimate President? One key to the level of his success is whether the Democrats control the Senate. And that won’t be settled for another month in the two runoff elections in Georgia where both of the State’s senate seats are up for grab. In a traditionally Republican state in which Biden is the first Democrat to break through Republican solidarity for several decades, and the Republicans are in control and practiced at voter suppression, winning both seats will be, as I have said before, like drawing two cards to an inside straight. Don’t bet on it.
It is a historical irony that the party of Lincoln is, in fact, one of the main sources of nostalgia for a “golden age,” though few of its members could define when that was
The most interesting post-Trump questions are about the Republican Party. First, while it seems quite certain that Trump wants to remain in control of the party, it is not clear that will be possible. Generally, when Presidents leave office, they lose a lot of power. Trump is clearly operating on the assumption that automatically he will be in charge of the party if he wants to be. The question of whether he will probably depends on whether his “base” remains fanatically enamored of him as it still seems to be. But when he is out of power and not an everyday news item, will the base remain so attached? Moreover, he faces a lot of legal trouble with at least the States of New York and New Jersey who are likely to drag him into court, as well as private suits for defamation and other transgressions which will not only consume his time, energy, and resources but play out in a way unlikely to be very complimentary. The test may come when he tries to exert power and influence on the party’s platform and candidates in the 2022 election.
If Trump fades from the political scene, either because he is in jail, or because he has lost much of his magic with the base, what kind of party will the Republicans be? We have to remember that most Congressional Republicans still not willing to admit publicly that he lost the election, possibly a sign of their cowardice, but maybe also a sign that, some at least were sympathetic to his clearly authoritarian aims of making a coup from above—secretly hoping that he could remain in power by hook or crook. But beyond that, the Congressional Republicans are a toxic mixture of deniers: many deny science, be it public health and the current pandemic’s danger (now out of control in the US because of the Trump administration’s mismanagement) or global warming or both; that medical care is a human right; that every citizen has the right to vote; that there should be a safety net for the disadvantaged; that immigration has historically been of great benefit to the nation, and so on. It is a historical irony that the party of Lincoln is, in fact, one of the main sources of nostalgia for a “golden age,” though few of its members could define when that was. It is at times a mouthpiece for what Trump himself seemed to embody, a disdain for democracy, a toxic combination of nationalism, white working-class nostalgia for a non-existent past and grievance. I get the impression that history is working backwards—the Republican Party is turning into the Know Nothing Party.
Can a know nothing party survive in our democracy? I wouldn’t think so. But as some of my favorite analysts have observed, there are other Republicans who are much more sophisticated and abler than Trump who take up his mantra that American elites and experts are not to be trusted to understand the needs of the white working class. In other words, Trumpism may be too deeply embedded in the party to allow the Bush-Romney internationalist faction to turn it back from its authoritarian creep, which crept scaringly close to destroying democracy at the end of the Trump administration.
The writer is a diplomat, and is Senior Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.