Zachary Taylor analogies
Politico has an article describing the effect the candidacy of Zachary Taylor had on the Whig Party in 1848. Hint: not good, not good at all.
Many have called Donald Trump’s unexpected takeover of a major political party unprecedented; but it’s not. A similar scenario unfolded in 1848, when General Zachary Taylor, a roughhewn career soldier who had never even voted in a presidential election, conquered the Whig Party.
A look back at what happened that year is eye-opening””and offers warnings for those on both sides of the aisle. Democrats quick to dismiss Trump should beware: Taylor parlayed his outsider appeal to defeat Lewis Cass, an experienced former Cabinet secretary and senator. But Republicans should beware, too: Taylor is often ranked as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history””and, more seriously, the Whig Party never recovered from his victory. In fact, just a few years after Taylor was elected under the Whig banner, the party dissolved””undermined by the divisions that caused Taylor’s nomination in the first place, and also by the loss of faith that followed it.
I think such candidacies tend to be symptoms rather than causes, although they can exacerbate the already-existing riffs. I won’t bore you by quoting myself once again from 2012, where I predicted that the Republican Party would tear itself apart. Not really a very difficult prediction to make, since it’s been doing some version of that for much of my lifetime, particularly the “Rockefeller Republican” wing versus the conservative wing. Now they’ve been joined by a disaffected populist, nativist wing doing a fair amount of the rending.
But what I really want to point out is the resemblance of Zachary Taylor to an elderly Charlton Heston:
I said it wasnt and found worse examples even from the founders… but who cares about history that doesnt exist to them as they dont know the history?
besides, zack never had to deal with things like this:
For the past several weeks, big chunks of French life have been paralyzed with a cascade of strikes by what was known in the pre-Thatcher era as “flying pickets”. These are units of specially trained tough guys recruited and trained by the general Confederation of Workers (CGT), the trade union wing of the French Communist Party (PCF). Their mission is to prevent employees of sensitive sectors of the economy from reaching their place of work, thus, imposing a wave of disruptions on the nation through ripple effect
We aren’t France or even Canada (yet).
The only time we had a “Zachary” and a “Millard” heading a major party ticket.
Gen. Taylor managed to solve his governance problems by being the second President to die in office, of gastroenteritis after overdoing it on iced milk and cherries on a hot day.
If I were casting him now, I’d go with Corbin Bernsen (with contacts).
Sooner or later this sort of Delphic delving into the minutiae of our presidential history in order to find yet more ooga-booga omens of the present will wear itself out and we can get on to the exciting business of the actual future crafted in the dubious present.
I too think that Trump is symptomatic of the break up of the Republican party, rather than causal and, that Trump is certainly exacerbating the existing fault lines between the GOPe and the party’s conservative base.
That said, there is a larger issue, the cultural and political break up of America. We have “a house divided” and the differences are I fear, irreconcialable. Living under the left is proving to be increasingly intolerable and the left’s ideological fanaticism will settle for nothing less.
” There is the world dimensional for
those untwisted by the love of things
irreconcilable …”
— Hart Crane.
No, I’m not excited about the future, and I don’t know if that comment was just lacking the /sarc. This will doom the GOP, the only thing that has any power whatsoever against the Left. It was like tearing down a wall because it wasn’t doing a sufficient job of holding something at bay – leaving a pile of rubble that can’t stop anything.
All we can do is hope that the narcissistic @sshat will be worth it.
neo makes an especially disturbing analogy, since the sequel to the Whig Party tearing itself apart was the country tearing itself apart. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation: I hope we aren’t spending down our reserves too far.
“since the sequel to the Whig Party tearing itself apart was the country tearing itself apart.”
A civil war over slavery at least had a credible rationale (lamentable though it was in every way).
What issue these days would have enough moral and social weight to serve as a cause for actual war?
Even unbounded illegal immigration doesn’t make the cut.
A show-down between the Jihadis, and their Islamicist enablers, and the defenders of American liberties might.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has something to say on the subject.
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/In-defense-of-dissidence-8438
y81,
We shall be torn asunder. It is just a question of what is the time frame. Obama/Hillary-Trump are joined at the hip in a Godzilla-Mechagodzilla manner with Bernie as a Mothra comedic sidekick. Expect much destruction beyond anything experienced by Tokyo. Seriously.
Barry was totally unaware of the unintended consequences of his “fundamental transformation”.
AesopFan,
There are many fracture lines, too many to list, but IMO the primary fault line has 4 components. The socialist totalitarians, the stubborn clingers to the rule of law under the Constitution, the Beltway dandys, and the I don’t want to think about practical matters just gimme what I want. It seems to me Trump has demonstrated, unintentionally, there is no possibility of an eventual reconciliation.
Actually, only the jihad gang, with relentless attacks on the homeland, with tens of thousands of victims, can serve as the alarm clock.
a roughhewn career soldier who had never even voted in a presidential election
Surely in 1848 very few Americans had voted in a presidential election. Then as now the President was elected by the Electoral College, and then members of the Electoral College were appointed by State Senates without any popular vote. Or so I thought.
Caedmon:
You appear to be confusing the original method of election of Senators (appointment/election by State legislatures, changed to direct election early in the 20th century) with the Electoral College. The original idea was that the voters would elect a slate of Electors who would then proceed to make independent decisions, but it pretty quickly evolved into a system where voting for a particular set of Electors meant that those Electors were pledged to elect a specific candidate. So yes, American presidential elections have been quasi-direct for some time.
What? The country wasn’t destroyed when Taylor was elected?
What issue these days would have enough moral and social weight to serve as a cause for actual war?
Slavery was never settled entirely in CW 1. Hence Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Acts.
CW II, just like WWII, has to conclude the original conflict.