#Buchanan Administration

[deadpresidents]

James Buchanan's Advice to Abraham Lincoln

John Hay was one of America's greatest diplomats. He served overseas during the Administrations of Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, worked in the State Department of Rutherford B. Hayes, and held the nation's top two diplomatic posts -- Ambassador to the Court of St. James and Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Hay also may have been one of 19th Century America's most prolific and talented writers, an astute observer of everything and everybody. Late in life, he and his close friend, Henry Adams, became such institutions of Washington, D.C. society that today the Hays-Adams Hotel is literally one of Washington, D.C.'s great institutions.

But in March 1861, the 22-year-old Hay was in the nation's capital for the very first time, and he was there as one of the two private secretaries (along with John George Nicolay) to Abraham Lincoln, who was about to be inaugurated as President of a rapidly fracturing United States. Even at that young age, however, Hay's gift of observation were apparent -- and one of the reasons why Lincoln had brought the young man with him to Washington from Illinois.

On March 4, 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated as President, and Hay was nearby when Lincoln met with the outgoing President James Buchanan. With Southern states seceding and Civil War approaching, Hay was curious to hear what advice or words of warning President Buchanan might have for his successor. As Hay later wrote, "I waited with boyish wonder and credulity to see what momentous counsels were to come from that gray and weather-beaten head. Every word must have its value at such an instant."

Buchanan had spent decades in Washington and was arguably the most experienced person to ever be elected President when he won the 1856 election to succeed President Franklin Pierce. Despite his vast experience, however, Buchanan's Presidency had taken place in the midst of one of the most difficult moments in American history -- a moment that Abraham Lincoln was now sharing. As John Hay listened carefully, the 15th President, with his head cocked to the left to compensate for the fact that one of his eyes was nearsighted and the other was farsighted, spoke to the 16th President.

What Buchanan said to Lincoln was indeed memorable to Hay, albeit not very momentous: "I think you will find the water of the right-hand well at the White House better than that at the left." Hay would recall that Buchanan "went on with many intimate details of the kitchen and pantry. Lincoln listened with that weary, introverted look of his, not answering, and the next day, when I recalled the conversation, admitted he had not heard a word of it."

[rabbitcruiser]

Skagway, AK (No. 2)

Skagway is the English adaptation of sha-ka-ԍéi, a Tlingit idiom which figuratively refers to rough seas in the Taiya Inlet, that are caused by strong north winds. Literally, sha-ka-ԍéi is a verbal noun which means pretty woman. The verbal noun was derived from the Tlingit finite verb theme -sha-ka-li-ԍéi, which means, in the case of a woman, to be pretty.

The story behind the name is that Sha-ka-ԍéi or Skagway ["Pretty Woman"] was the nickname of Kanagoo, a mythical woman who transformed herself into stone at Skagway bay and who (according to the story) now causes the strong, channeled winds which blow toward Haines, Alaska. The rough seas caused by these winds have therefore been referred to by the use of Kanagoo's nickname, Sha-ka-ԍéi or Skagway.

The Kanagoo stone formation is now known as Face Mountain, which is seen from Skagway bay. The Tlingit name for Face Mountain is Kanagoo Yahaayí [Kanagoo's Image/Soul].

Source: Wikipedia

[sharkspez]

🇺🇸 American Candidate: Joe Biden 🫏

👴🏻 As the oldest person ever elected president, Joe Biden faced immense challenges. But would his 🕰️ decades of experience be enough to guide the 🇺🇸 nation through 🌊 turbulent times?

[woestruckalex]

uuuuugggghhh j'arrive pas à me concentrer waaaaaeuuuggh

[krytus]

daniel's student being the one to hurt johnny's student in a way that was almost mortal, despite everything daniel taught him, because right there at the end, right when it mattered, daniel failed him. he was harsh and short tempered, because he's not a saint. he never was. once again daniel shaped box miyagi shaped hole. eoughhh we could have done so much. unforchies. well. you know.

girl the way robby could have been itt character Desperate for a father figure because his own sucks but the only way he can get one is by Lying (even though he didn't need to lie, the man he approached was Desperate for a surrogate son (because his own sucks)) the way daniel was given his lessons out of Love and wanted to pass them down out of love too but Uh Oh its all a trick (yes it is no it isnt) unforchies they casted the least charismatic guy of all time as mister keene </3

[fatehbaz]

Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. Endangered South Asian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. European companies claim the ecosystem. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite, so their monoculture approach of eliminating companion species was self-defeating. French perfumes and the creation of "Sandalwood City".

---

Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

---

Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

---

Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

---

Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

---

The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917,��it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

---

Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Volume 51 (2014), Issue 1, pages 41-70. First published online 10 March 2014. DOI: 10.1177/0019464613515533 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

A Letter From An Ex-Conservative To Her Parents On November 6th, 2024

Mom and Dad,

     When Trump got shot this summer, I remember you saying that this was all because the Left wouldn’t stop calling him Hitler. How we needed to “turn down the temperature” and stop “inciting violence.” I don’t think you understand that when people compare Trump to Hitler, it is not, in fact, just because they do not like him, but because he uses Hitlerian rhetoric on a regular basis. Obsessing over an imagined past version of a country that never truly existed. Saying that (insert frequently dehumanized other) is “poisoning the blood of the nation.” Before Hitler began the Final Solution against Jews, what did he say he planned to do? Deport them, until he realized it was too costly. I don’t think you understand that Hitler did not start putting people in death camps the second he came to power. Trump is currently in about the same position Hitler was in in the 1930s. Is it going to take him putting undocumented people in gas chambers for you to believe me? 

     You might think that I’ve only come to my current conclusions about Trump because of the lies of “the mainstream media”, which, as I’ve said numerous times, I don’t even watch. But it’s actually been largely due to the things Trump himself has said. I understand that you don’t like Biden calling Trump’s voters “garbage”, but the language Trump uses to describe his political opponents is at least as disturbing. He’s disparaged fallen soldiers as “suckers and losers.” He’s proudly boasted about being the president who got Roe V Wade appealed, regardless of the estimated thousands of women who are dying because the medical treatments they need fall too close to the legal definition of abortion. A massive portion of his campaign advertisements are explicitly anti-trans. He thinks Palestinians should be moved off their land because it would make “great beachfront property.” He regularly speaks positively of and rubs elbows with the most disturbing members of the alt-right, such as Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes. He’s a bully. (you voted for a bully. Remember when I was bullied?) And if Kamala’s plans are incoherent, which admittedly some of them are, Trump’s are even more so. He doesn't have a plan. America is just another failed business to him. 

     I don’t think you’re bad people. But I do think your party is bad. This is far more than just one guy. My journey has been less one of changing any of my beliefs than realizing that the Republican Party never represented those beliefs to begin with. It is the party of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, of stripping the oppressed of their means to succeed and then asking them to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” Your precious Reagan was a racist. There’s recorded evidence. His policies were racist. He enabled denial and misinformation about AIDS until it was too little too late and millions had died. And you proudly display his book on your shelf, right next to Rush Limbaugh and Pat fucking Buchanan. Your son is a gay man. How could you. 

     Being a conservative, whether you think so or not, is inherently about preserving the status quo, about making sure things stay the way they are, that the people who are down stay down, and crushing anyone who tries to make things better. I didn’t vote Democrat because I am one. I voted Democrat because it would be easier under one such administration to push this country in the direction of equity and liberty. Project 2025 was intended for the next conservative administration. Trump may deny involvement, but the foreword of one of the sections was written by none other than his own vice president. And with the House, Senate and Supreme Court all red now, it’s going to be easier than ever for him to pass any portions of it he likes. 

     I’m writing you this letter so that you know that if a nationwide abortion ban gets put in place, if schools and parents who support their children’s gender affirming care (which does NOT mean surgery) start getting investigated (which some already are), if Israel continues bombing Gaza until there’s nothing left, if billionaires continue to take up larger and larger percentages of the nation’s wealth, if immigrants who’ve lived and worked in this country for years start getting deported in droves because they couldn’t get the right paperwork, that it’s on you and people like you, even as you continue deny the very real damage done in Trump’s first presidency, the awful, awful people who felt empowered because of him. I tried for a while this summer to see if I could change your minds, but all it did was screw up my mental health and make me realize something truly painful: that you aren’t the people I thought you were. Not when your reaction to police shooting students the same age as your own daughter with rubber bullets because they don’t want their university to be complicit in a genocide is “well, what are they supposed to do? They’re the police.” Not when a man can say immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation and you still vote for him. 

     It breaks my heart that you and so many people I love have been so deeply conditioned to vote against their own best interests, to think that a government that actually helps its people without actively harming others is a childish, fanciful expectation. I think I truly believed to the depths of my soul until last night that this wouldn’t happen. That we were better than this. That we wouldn’t reelect someone who objectively ran a terrible campaign, who conducts himself with boorishness and indignity, who genuinely, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, represents everything that made me scream "Fuck America" out Laura’s car window this summer. But why should I be surprised America likes fascists? My own parents certainly seem to.

     But I hope you’re happy with your lower grocery prices, I guess. Which we probably won’t be getting anyway, because that’s not actually what Trump’s policies are going to do. 

     You sold out my friends, and entire marginalized communities, for cheaper groceries. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for that.

Lauren

[flotuslover53]

Hey.. I'm that quora guy from earlier, I was scrolling for a little while before i found stuff that I think will pique your interestxdd

What did JFK think of Richard Nixon?

Congressmen John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1947.

JFK is age 29 (one month shy of 30). Nixon is age 34.

JFK liked and admired Nixon. Their friendship continued throughout JFK’s life.

“On New Year's Eve 1959, two days before he announced his candidacy for the presidency, Kennedy made an admission to his neighbor, journalist Charles Bartlett, that was so startling Bartlett wrote it down the following morning: "Jack says if the Democrats don't nominate him, he's going to vote for Nixon."

“Few men had observed Nixon's gifts - his ambition, his perseverance and his intellect - from the intimate vantage point afforded Kennedy. In early 1947, a civic group in the steel town of McKeesport, Pa., asked their congressman, Frank Buchanan, to invite the two congressional freshmen with the brightest futures to come debate the Taft-Hartley labor bill. Buchanan picked Kennedy and Nixon, both just elected after naval service in the Pacific.”

“On April 21, 1947, the first Kennedy-Nixon debate was held in the ballroom of the Penn McKeesport Hotel, with Kennedy getting the more sympathetic proposition. Some of the blue-collar steelers booed Nixon's warnings about encroaching union power.”

“Boarding the overnight Capitol Limited train back to D.C., the 29-year-old Kennedy and the 34-year-old Nixon drew straws for the lower berth. Nixon won, but the bed went largely unused as the awkward grocer's son found an unexpected common denominator in the handsome playboy heir to one of America's great fortunes.”

"We sat up late talking," Nixon recalled. "Neither of us was a backslapper, and we were both uncomfortable with boisterous displays of superficial camaraderie. He was shy, and that sometimes made him appear aloof. But it was shyness born of an instinct that guarded privacy and concealed emotions. I understood these qualities because I shared them."

“In 1950, Nixon planned his run for the Senate against Hollywood actress-turned-Democratic Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, longtime mistress of Texan Lyndon Johnson. During that campaign, Douglas branded Nixon with an epithet that would stick for life: Tricky Dick.”

“In the infamously mean-spirited race, Nixon got a psychological and a financial windfall from an unexpected source.”

“Kennedy dropped into Nixon's office and handed an envelope to administrative assistant Bill Arnold. "This man brought a personal check for $1,000," Arnold would recall. "He explained that the check should be used in Nixon's campaign for senator." Kennedy's contribution amounted to approximately one-third of the average American's annual income.”

“After Kennedy's 1952 election to the Senate, Nixon offered a different sort of help. The membership chairman of the exclusive, all-male Burning Tree golf club in Maryland got a letter from the new vice president: "I have known Senator Kennedy for a number of years as a personal friend and I feel he would make an excellent addition to the membership."

“In the Senate Office Building next to the Capitol, Kennedy was given Room 362. Nixon was right across the hall in Room 361. For eight years, there would be an easy camaraderie not just between Kennedy and Nixon but also between their secretaries. Kennedy's assistant Evelyn Lincoln would recall, "Rose Mary Woods and I were very friendly."

“In the summer of 1963, he took his wife and two daughters on a six-week overseas vacation. In a hotel room in Rome, Nixon picked up the ringing phone and heard the operator say that the president was calling. Five days after making his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, an ebullient Kennedy was in town.”

"Sounding happy and relaxed, he said that he heard we were in Rome and just wanted to say hello," Nixon said.”

“It was the last time Nixon and Kennedy spoke.”

Is it true? Thats beyond me XD But it's cool nonetheless.

Wow thank u for this!! I can confirm at least most of these are true.

The story about them sharing a bunk on the train after their first debate is from this article which I would recommend to everyone who is interested in the Kennedy/Nixon dynamic. They really had the most perfect meet-cute!!

It's also true that JFK gave Nixon $1,000 for his campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, as he says in this interview. The money came from JFK's father, but as Nixon says, he wouldn't have received the check unless JFK also supported him. (This video has some other very cute anecdotes in it, I've rewatched it so many times hehe)

Nixon and Kennedy did have offices directly across from each other, and as my source I'll just show this adorable cartoon Nixon gave to JFK:

I'm also extremely sure that the Rome story is true, and I'm also sure I've seen it mentioned in multiple sources, but for some reason the only source coming to mind right now is this fictionalised horror story about Nixon I read a few months ago where the phone call between them was included in one scene. (I'll look for a better source on this lol)

I love all these little anecdotes about the JFK/Nixon friendship, even though they may not have been the closest of friends it's fascinating to me that they had this longstanding relationship that lasted over a century and spanned just about the entire time that the two men were involved in politics. Truly they were drawn together by fate so many times!!

[pranklinfierce]

Obscure/lost media plays about the presidents is my favorite niche.

Buchanan Dying by John Updike? Very strange. Updike was not normal about Buchanan. Just read Memories of the Ford Administration and you'll see. Everyone refused to put it on because of how wordy and confusing it was. No one could be asked to memorize that much dialogue that no audience would understand about James Buchanan. I mean I understood it. But I'm hardly representative of the average would-be Buchanan Dying audience member.

The Tragedy of Woodrow Wilson by William C. Bullitt (and Sigmund Freud)??? The world isn't ready for that. And it's lost media now. Freud liked it, but it was rejected as too scandalous. If only. We can dream. They would have dragged him.

45 Plays for 45 Presidents? I heard about it on a ridiculously bad podcast and can't find anything about it playing anywhere. All I know is that Pierce's play is apparently a beauty contest judged by the "two likely gay presidents": James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln(!??!?) The world doesn't need to suffer through that. Although I've maybe discovered the scripts. If I can get past this sign up wall I'll read at least half of them.

[charlesoberonn]

List of US Presidents and how many future presidents were born during their administrations

Before Independence: 8. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson, William Harrison

Before Presidency: 2. Van Buren, Taylor

Washington: 3. Tyler, Polk, Buchanan

Adams: 1. Fillmore

Jefferson: 3. Pierce, Lincoln, Johnson

Madison: 0.

Monroe: 2. Grant, Hayes

Quincy Adams: 0.

Jackson: 3. Garfield, Arthur, Harrison

Van Buren: 1. Cleveland

Henry Harrison: 0.

Tyler: 1. McKinley

Polk: 0.

Taylor: 0.

Fillmore: 0.

Pierce: 2. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson

Buchanan: 1. Taft

Lincoln: 0.

Johnson: 1. Harding

Grant: 2. Coolidge, Hoover

Hayes: 0.

Garfield: 0.

Arthur: 2. FDR, Truman

Cleveland: 0.

Harrison: 1. Eisenhower

McKinley: 0.

Teddy Roosevelt: 1. LBJ

Taft: 2. Nixon, Reagan

Wilson: 2. Kennedy, Ford

Harding: 0.

Coolidge: 2. Carter, H.W Bush

Hoover: 0.

FDR: 1. Biden

Truman: 3. Clinton, W. Bush, Trump

Eisenhower: 0.

JFK: 1. Obama

LBJ: 0.

Nixon: 0.

Ford: 0.

Carter: 0.

Reagan: 0.

H.W Bush: 0.

Clinton: 0.

W. Bush: 0.

Obama: 0.

Trump: 0.

Biden: 0.

[elipheleh]

David Wojnarowicz - Photo

Continuing my series of learning about things referenced in the book, I'm looking at things Alex references when he talks about engaging with queer history. These are all tagged #a series of learning about things that are referenced in the book, if you want to block the tag.

This post will cover the AIDS pandemic, which means there will be discussion of an incredibly large number of deaths, as well as government neglect of AIDS patients due to homophobia. There will be talk of the grief from the queer community & the ways it was weaponised to protest in an attempt for fundamental change. This is not a light topic, please take appropriate care when reading. As this post is going to have a few different topics in, so I decided to actually start with a read more, rather than arbitrarily place it partway down, I'd do a list of what is covered in this post & then have it all behind the cut.

So, in order, this post covers: David Wojnarowicz; AIDS; ACT-UP. In the additional reading section is a section subtitled "NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt". This is worth looking into if you aren't already aware.

David Wojnarowicz is the man in the photo shown above, and referenced by Alex in the book. He was an AIDS activist, artist, writer, and filmmaker - among other things. He drew on his personal experiences with AIDS for his art & his political activism. In 1988, Wojnarowicz wore the leather jacket pictured above, with a pink triangle underneath text reading "if i die of aids - forget burial - just drop my body on the steps of the f.d.a." This jacket, and his similar sentiment from his book Close to the Knives, inspired David Robinson who - in 1991 - dumped the ashes of his deceased partner on the grounds of the White House in protest. These protests came to be known as "Ashes Action". Wojnarowicz died in his Manhattan home on July 22, 1992, aged 37, from what his boyfriend, Tom Rauffenbart, confirmed was AIDS. His ashes were scattered on the White House lawn in 1996.

-----

The AIDS epidemic in the US dates back to around 1970, but it wasn't until 1981 that cases started to come to light. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) published a report about 5 gay men becoming infected with a type of pneumonia only seen in people with compromised immune systems. As these men were healthy, this was unexpected. A year after, the New York Times published an article about a new immune system disorder, affecting over 300 people and killing over 100. Officials coined it GRID, gay-related immune deficiency, as it appeared to only be affecting gay men. It became officially known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) by August 1982, but was referred to as "gay plague" and many other derogatory terms for many years. Ninety-five and a half per cent of those diagnosed with AIDS between 1981 and 1987 died.

At the time, Ronald Reagan was president. He has been widely criticised for his reaction to the epidemic, for good reason. He didn't mention the word "AIDS" in public until 1985, by which time there had been 5636 deaths due to AIDS in the US. His first speech about the disease was delivered to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia in 1987, by which point there were more than 36,000 Americans living with AIDS & more than 20,000 had died. In the documentary When AIDS Was Funny (linked at the bottom), audios from press conferences in the early 1980s show how little the Reagan administration cared. Not only do they refer to AIDS as "gay plague", but joke around about it. It shows just how much the epidemic was derided - the people in charge of the country were so flippant about something so devastating, reflecting the general opinion of AIDS. Reagan's public support came overwhelmingly from the 'religious right', with Rev. Jerry Falwell using his political action group (the Moral Majority) to encourage homophobia aimed at gay men, especially those diagnosed with AIDS. Pat Buchanan, the White House Communications Director from 1985 to 1987, described the crisis as nature “exacting an awful retribution against gay men” in 1983.

Larry Kramer, when recalling the attempts to get help from public officials said:

You learn very fast that you’re a faggot, and it doesn’t make any difference that you went to Yale and were assistant to presidents of a couple of film companies, and that you had money. [source]

-----

On the 13th August, 1998, the Bay Area Reporter paper published a headline "No obits". For the first time in 17 years, there was finally a week without any deaths due to AIDS in the area covered by the paper - they are clear that there were deaths elsewhere, and they may have belated obituaries the following week, but for now this was a positive change. They had previously had up to 30 obituaries at points. Derek Gordon was quoted in the article as saying:

"I remember my grandfather said he knew he was getting near death because he used to scan the obits," he told the B.A.R. "I used to think how tragic because I was doing the same thing at 30."

-----

Wojnarowicz's jacket features a pink triangle on it. This was being used as a signal, as the pink triangle had been reclaimed by gay activists - originally in early 1970s Germany - to be used as a memorial to past victims & to protest continuing discrimination following its use by the Nazi Party to identify queer men in concentration camps. ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) adopted this icon, and turned it the other way up (so the point was at the top) and continue to use it to this day.

ACT-UP was formed in 1987, in New York City, and is now an international political group. It is working to end the AIDS pandemic using direct action, medical research & treatment, and trying to influence legislation. They debuted in October 1987, at the second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, not only by participating in the march but also with civil disobedience the day after. In the following October, ACT-UP shut down the F.D.A. (Food & Drug Administration) for a day in a demonstration against their drug approval process. The image of Wojnarowicz was taken that day, by William Dobbs. Activists shut down the F.D.A. by blocking the doors & walkways that would allow staff to get into the building. Some lay on the floor with faux-headstones, reading “DEAD FROM LACK OF DRUGS” and “VICTIM OF F.D.A. RED TAPE”. They attached a banner to the front of the building with ACT-UP's slogan - SILENCE = DEATH, bracketed by two pink triangles.

ACT-UP utilised different tactics from other groups - not only did they carry out (entirely non-violent) civil disobedience actions, but they also had the knowledge to be able to argue their demands successfully. The demonstration at the F.D.A. and their precise demands led to the F.D.A. listening to them and including them in decision making - and a year later their demands had started to come to fruition, with easier access to experimental drugs for those living with AIDS.

One 'Action' ACT-UP coordinated, was coined 'Ashes Action', as mentioned above. In 1992, ACT-UP marched to the White House fence to scatter the ashes of loved ones who had died due to AIDS onto the lawn of the White House. Inspired by Wojnarowicz's memoir, ashes were poured over the fence, demonstrating to the government explicitly the physical result of the AIDS policies. 'They had drums play a funeral cadence. They chanted—Bringing our dead to your door / We won't take it anymore and Out of the quilt and into the streets / Join us, join us. Unlike other protests, the Ashes Actions were not only meant to shock an uninterested public into empathy—they were meant as releases of grief for the activists themselves. "There was lots of room to scream and yell," Butler said, "but it wasn't always conducive to the work of mourning. I knew none of the people whose ashes we were carrying, but I remember when the ashes went over the fence of the White House. I just don't remember convulsive grief like the grief I felt in that moment."' [source]

sixteen, ashes of your forerunners rest on the lawn of the White House because SIXTEEN, THEY HAVE ALWAYS WATCHED US DIE. -SpondeeSoliloquy - Seventeen things (alternate link)

-----

I had to cut down a lot of the information here, so I would really appreciate it if you took the time to have a look through the additional reading below, there was a lot of things I would have added if I had the space.

-----

Sources: Wikipedia - David Wojnarowicz Guardian - David Wojnarowicz: still fighting prejudice 24 years after his death NY Times AIDS Timeline 1980-1987 History.com - History of AIDS Wikipedia - History of HIV/AIDS vox.com - The Reagan administration's unbelievable response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic US Studies Online The AIDS Crisis and the US Presidency SFGate - Reagan's AIDS Legacy / Silence equals death Washington Post - Pat Buchanan's Greatest Hits Wikipedia - Moral Majority Bay Area Reporter - No Obits Wikipedia - Pink Triangle Wikipedia - ACT UP New Yorker - How ACT UP Changed America Vice - Why the Ashes of People With AIDS on the White House Lawn Matter Pioneer Works - The Jacket

Additional Reading: When AIDS Was Funny - Documentary Film (cw for images of very unwell aids patients) LA Times - Police Arrest AIDS Protesters Blocking Access to FDA Offices Youtube - ACT UP Ashes Action 1992 Washington Post - AIDS ACTIVISTS THROW ASHES AT WHITE HOUSE Wikipedia - How to Survive a Plague Wikipedia - The Normal Heart (originally a play), 2014 film BBC - The drama that raged against Reagan’s America Wikipedia - Silence=Death Project Brooklyn Museum - Silence = Death Wikipedia - And The Band Played On - Randy Shilts NPR - How To Demand A Medical Breakthrough: Lessons From The AIDS Fight ACT-UP oral histories ClassicFM - Sobering black-and-white image of a gay men’s choir reminds of loss of life during AIDS epidemic Snopes - Does a Poignant Photo of Gay Men's Choir Show Devastating Impact of HIV/AIDS? Why We Fight - Vito Russo NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt Wikipedia - NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt national aids memorial - quilt history Cleve Jones interview (specifically: How he came up with the idea for the AIDS Quilt) View the NAMES AIDS memorial quilt online

[deadpresidents]

"The President has been weighed down by the vast load he carries; his sagacity, firmness, and patriotism have given way under the appalling condition of the country and the violence in his Cabinet. He argues too much, becomes inconsistent, and does vastly more harm than good. His propositions of compromise, as stated, he must know to be impracticable."

-- Former Vice President George Mifflin Dallas, then serving as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, on President James Buchanan's disastrous final months in office as the country slid towards Civil War, diary entry, December 19, 1860.

[madameaug]

Promise Me || Bucky x Black Reader

Synopsis: This occurs maybe about a year after the events of Captain America: Civil War. The reader is a black woman and should be imagined as such :) Bucky is 37, and the reader is ideally 32/33.

Very angsty (reader and bucky are getting a divorce). Not edited at the moment. First non-BTS imagine/fic so I'm super nervous. I love Marvel too <3

I didn't think forever for us would end so soon. Four years seemingly going down the drain. Two years of dating, eight months of engagement, and barely a year of marriage. I felt like I was giving up. Quitting. Like I wasn't honoring my vows.

Til death do us part.

But when I took those vows I believed I was giving them to James Buchanan Barnes. Who I lovingly refer to as Bucky. A man a slightly older than me, but didn't look a day over thirty. He was the man that I envisioned as a little girl marrying.

A man who was tall, easy on the eyes, with a look of danger, but a heart of gold. Bucky had the perfect mix of both. A veteran turned firefighter. He risked his life daily, saving those in a life-or-death situation. He was second chances, personified for these people. He was a light of hope in the darkness of succumbing to a burning fate. He was a hero.

A hero.

A hero more in the literal sense than what I could have possibly imagined.

Bucky Barnes wasn't a thirty-seven-year-old man who was technologically challenged. Not a man who liked listening to music artist from the 1930s. He was sophisticated and romantic.

Doll was his favorite name to call me. Initially, I thought he was just trying to hard not to use generic pet names like 'baby' or 'bae'. Or that maybe his fascination with the olden days carried into his pet names for his girlfriends. But now I wish the truth was that easy and simple to understand. It didn't involve decades of high-profile assassinations and the bringing down of governments.

One man could bring down an entire government regime.

And that man, is my husband?

My James?

My Bucky?

The man sitting across from me in this stuffy monochrome conference room. Well the conference room was quite large. It's just the tension was sucking out any air circulation.

When I took my vows to James Barnes, I hadn't realized I said them to this 'Winter Soldier' to. A man wanted by hundreds of countries for international crimes that date back to the Kennedy administration. A man hunted down by the Black Panther for killing the king of the most powerful nation.

No, surely there was a mistake.

But I would be foolish to argue with evidence. Pictures of his stalky figure I curled up to several times at night. Blue eyes were the portals to his true thoughts. Shoulder-length hair I raked my fingers through mindlessly when listening to him recount his twelve-hour shift at the station. His wardrobe wasn't anything special, which explains why he could slip under the radar for so long.

That was him. He was responsible but not at the same time. Fourteen hours after being interrogated by Maria Hill, I better understood the double life Bucky The Winter Soldier had been living. Believed to be dead by the Allies, he was held hostage by Karpov, who brainwashed him and tortured him until he became the Winter Soldier. Breaking his mind, and piecing him back together to become he perfect killing machine in human form.

Helmut Zemo managed to get his hands on the book containing the words that activate the Winter Solider. He awakened the monster and manipulated him into the bombings that killed King T'Chaka. He used the Winter Solider to effectively divide and dissolve the Avengers. Zemo was responsible for taking away the Bucky that I knew. The hero.

"I'm glad you and your client could be civil and agree to our demands." Your lawyer, Jennifer Walters, spoke. You and Bucky's lawyer had been talking for twenty minutes, but you couldn't focus on their legal jargon. You were tuned out, tracing your steps on how you and Bucky were sitting in this office. On the opposite end of the table, staring at each other as if we'd become opponents. No longer players on the same team.

Bucky's eyes dragged across to scan Jennifer's face. In his heart he held no misplaced hatred for the woman. She was a professional doing her job, representing the interest of her client. He didn't spend long reading the lists of things that you wanted from the marriage.

The house was yours, he wouldn't dare try to live in that house if you weren't there. It wasn't good for him to stay in open spaces, for too long it freaked him out.

Most of your demands were reasonable and he put up no fight. He didn't want to fight with you. When he finally got his head on straight, he wanted to explain his disappearance. He wanted to be the first person to tell you about the Soviets and the Winter Soldier Program. He wanted to tell you about the bad things that he's done, but his memory was a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. He wasn't sure if you would believe him, until he had all the pieces. When he did come across a piece, he was scared that it would show more harm than he did.

Confirming his belifs that he wasn't worthy of a second chance. That he could find happiness living a solo mundane life. Even with his slow aging, he could blend in his environment and live a good life. He would keep intact what little of his humanity he had left. But after Zemo got his hands on him again that little sliver of his humanity was gone. He was a tool designed for slaughter and destruction. Becoming a firefighter saving people wouldn't undo all the lives he took. Marrying you, the love of his life, wouldn't give him the normalcy he sought. He was reminded of that every time he looked down and saw the metal arm. The brute strength granted him the ability to kill with ease. The same metal arm that would now be a reminder of everything he was getting ready to lose with his wife.

The lawyers summarized the documents, and everything signed up to this point. The deed to the house, papers to change your last name, insurance paperwork, everything was discussed. Bucky even took it upon himself to hand you his 401k from firefighting.

Never had the lawyers seen a divorce proceeding go so smoothly. Usually, they have to clear out the rest of their calendars for divorce calendars. Would today be the day that they get out before the late lunch rush? Oh, let it be true.

Jennifer was smart in her word choice. Avoiding the emotional minefields that the couple has. The room was somber, as you shared your emotional hardships. Dealing with the sudden disappearance of your husband. Preparing for a funeral without a body, dreading adopting the label as a widower. Becoming behind on the mortgage and personal family issues flaring up.

Even though it was emotionally heavy, it was easy to formulate the words. You thought long and hard about what you wanted to say. However, you didn't truly have the words for the physical hardship, which was much more challenging to hide. Your right wrist in a sling. A fracture of the ulna and three smaller bones. The one place Bucky has been fighting with himself not to look.

From an instance of right place, wrong time. It would be your first time revealing the details of your broken wrist out loud. Even when Jennifer asked, you were short with your explanation. But looking at Bucky for probably the last time, you were moved by emotion. Emotions of hurt, frustration, and sorrow.

"I see that you haven't signed the restraining order." You gathered your tone to sound as unemotional and far removed as possible.

"Why?"

"I'm not signing it."

The tension in the room deepens as this is the first time you have directly spoken to Bucky. Your lawyers were doing a lot of the communicating for you.

He didn't want to word vomit his emotions and potentially mispeak. Widening the divide between the two. So he opted to sit in silence, letting his heartbreak in silence. Divorce from the only woman he ever loved was going to take a lifetime to heal. On top of that, a restraining order would send him to an early grave.

"What? I thought you agreed to all of our terms."

"That's why I wanted to talk in person. I cant get myself to agree to this. I can't."

Bucky sat across from you with a plea in his eyes. He didn't want to let go of the connection he spent four years building with you. His heart and mind fought each other for days when he got the divorce paperwork. His heart wanted to fight for the marriage. Fight for the sacred union yall made in front of your friends and family. Fight for the love he knew deep down that you still had for him. But his mind hit him with the harsh truth. You weren't safe around him. Having all these enhanced abilities, having this metal arm could protect you. That it wasn't a curse, but a blessing in disguise.

But that wasn't true. And his brain reminded him of that fact with a mental image of your arm in the sling.

It was before Steve managed to track down Bucky's coordinates to that apartment building. When he was still hiding in plain sight. You just happened to be there. Browsing different vendors, as it was the city was hosting a market.

Bucky was right beside you, you knew his scent from anywhere. And the fact that his head slightly turned in your direction, upon calling him confirmed it.

"Buck is that you?"

You raised a hand to touch his face. "It's me. Remember?" His metal hand gripped yours tightly. His hand clapped down on your wrist, leaving you at the mercy of his strength.

You attempted to snatch your hand back. Eyes swelled with tears, as the pain was escalating. Buck remained silent, as he twisted your wrist, to an almost 180 point.

"STOP IT! JAMES STOP!" Your shriek brought unnecessary attention to him. In a frustrated grunt, he huffed before completing the snap. He walked off into the crowd without looking back at you. Those eyes that were the portals to reading his mind was closed. There was nothing behind those eyes. Even in the presence of his wife, his eyes didn't change. I was a stranger. A stranger that he could very easily hurt with little provocation.

Holding onto your broken wrist you were soon comforted by a stand manager. He got you up on your feet and walked you in the direction of the nearest medical aid.

"Please, Bucky. Let this be a clean break. It's for the best."

"The best for who?" His voice a mixture of frustration and vulnerability. "I've been through a lot. We've been through a lot. I want to fight for us. This restraining order snuffs out any chance of us rekindling this."

"We've changed Bucky. The world has changed. I need a fresh start, and I think you need one too."

"You are my fresh start. Don't you see!?" Bucky couldn't go into much detail. His lawyer was unaware of his assassin's past. He was more skeptical than ever about what details he shared about his personal life. Lawyer, doctor, psychiatrist or not. There could be more Zemo's looking to play puppet master with his mind.

"Think about your safety."

The lawyers attempt to mediate. They could sense that something was being left out of the conversation. Something that was connected to your arm in the sling. You were standing firm in your position to sever any ties to Bucky. This was the best decision for the both of you.

Bucky didn't have to worry about his superhero work trickling into his personal life. Not having to worry if some vengeful villain would come searching for you, and harm you to even out the score with Bucky. It was just another concern that didn't have to cloud his mind.

While you wouldn't have to worry about Bucky not coming back home. Getting the news from SHIELD agents that Bucky had died protecting the world from some global threat. The heartache would be too much.

"This is getting us nowhere. Did you and your client really come here to waste our time?"

"Mr. Barnes is just as entitled to getting all of his demands met.

The lawyers started bickering. The couple with actual grounds of argue sitting in silence. You spoke up first, your raised voice silencing the room.

"I'm not asking you to change who you are. I know you've been through a lot. And it is a lot." You reached your hand out to grasp his. You wanted to convey that your heart was full of love for Bucky. You could see a broken and scared man in front of you. A man with more skeletons in his closet than you would like to imagine. But you loved him. And with that love, you had to make the tough choices for both of you.

"You need space and time to collect yourself. Fight those battles in your mind. Get better and heal."

A singular tear runs down your cheek and hits the wooden table as you continue spilling your heart out.

"I love you. I love all of you, and I forgive you. You were unwell and need true help. As much as I want to remove that pain from you, I know that I can't. My love isn't enough. Sometimes love requires letting go. Let me go. Please."

"Even when I was sick, I still had dreams of you. I couldn't make out your face, but I found myself reliving our dates. The time I took you to the drive-thru movies. You said I made you feel like you were in high school again. Or the time I accidentally used all your leave in conditioner on wash day.

Then I started dreaming of a family with you. Raising mini versions of ourselves away from the chaos my life brought. The woods were our backyard, and we were happy. With you I was happy. I still want to make that dream a reality. I'm willing to give up anything to ensure our future."

You listened to his plea. You could tell he was genuine. He would if he could give up his enhanced abilities to be with you. No doubt about it. However, you knew that Bucky was meant for something greater. When he was a soldier who fought the good fight. He was destined to be a hero. A would-be alongside Captain America, fighting threats the world doesn't know about. Ensuring that we live in a world, where us regular people wouldn't have to.

"I can't be the reason you give that up, Buck." You said gently. "It's a part of who you are. Even when you've made mistakes, I've seen you try to right your wrongs. That's the Bucky I know, the hero."

The room was silent again filled with emotion. Bucky had to come to terms that yall were on different paths. Two paths diverged into a left and right. That even under the premise of love, you were right. Bucky was too vulnerable. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened. The Winter Soldier was an ugly part of him that he had to live with. He has to make room for that identity instead of pretending it never existed.

He would be working with Steve and Sam Wilson on hunting down any of the remaining Winter Soldiers. He was thrusting himself into danger. Danger that he didn't want you to be apart of, danger that he felt responsible to end.

You leaned over to whisper in Jennifer's ears. Maybe the restraining order was too much. You were making a rash decision that you may come to regret in the future. Jennifer following the request of her client, placed the restraining order papers in the shredder.

"My client had a change of mind." She stood up packing up all the signed papers in her briefcase.

"Well all the paperwork is signed, our work is done here."

The divorce meeting came to a close and both parties went their separate ways. There you stood discussing the next steps with Jennifer. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Bucky alone. He waited at the bottom of the stairs.

Jennifer took her cue to dismiss herself. With your eyes low, you carefully walked down the courthouse steps to stand before Bucky.

"Promise me we will find a way back to each other."

"I can't promise that Bucky. And you shouldn't make promises you can't keep."

"I would keep that promise. I would stake my life on it." He brought your left hand to his chest. Your wedding ring still on your finger. You hadn't thought about when you would take it off.

"Promise me." His lips were a few inches away from yours. Your eyes were conversing in another language of their own. Saying their goodbyes, and final 'I love yous.'

You brought Bucky into your arms. Arms wrapping around his shoulder as you cried silently to yourself. Bucky tightened his arms around you, his warms rubbing circles in your back. A hypnotizing pattern that would put you to sleep. It was settling over the both of you that this could be the last time that you held one another like this.

You let go of the hug first. Your hand on his chiseled face again. This time not worried that he would harm you again.

"I love you." You laid a tender kiss on his lips. Capturing your affection and goodbyes.

"Promise me." Bucky spoke during the kiss. "Promise me Doll."

You placed your thumb over his lip. You looked deep into his eyes. He was hanging onto every word that you said. Bucky's phone rings, breaking the staring contest you had. To no ones surprise, Steve was on the other end. A bitter reminder of the double life that Bucky was apart of.

"I need to hear you say it."

"I promise."

Bucky leaves a passing kiss on your lips before walking away from the courthouse. He picked up the phone, walking with haste. In a few short seconds, a red-headed woman joined him on his side.

My hero.

My Bucky.

[fagdykefrank]

Hope you don’t mind me asking, but I found your post about the president spreadsheet

Who’s in the top 10? Worst 10?

Ok, so its not complete yet but i found an old version of my work deep in my spreadsheets, so consider this an outdated prototype of the rankings to come

Top Ten:

1. Abraham Lincoln

2. Franklin Roosevelt

3. Barack Obama

4. Jimmy Carter

5. Woodrow Wilson

6. Theodore Roosevelt

7. Lyndon Johnson

8. John Kennedy

9. Dwight Eisenhower

10. Benjamin Harrison

Specifically, wilson, theodore roosevelt, and kennedy are probably going to drop.

Bottom Ten (least bad first)

1. John Tyler

2. John Adams

3. Richard Nixon

4. Grover Cleveland

5. Ronald Reagan

6. Martin Van Buren

7. Andrew Jackson

8. George W. Bush

9. James Buchanan

10. Herbert Hoover

Important note: this ranking predates the Trump administration, will almost certainly shift

[probablyasocialecologist]

Reagan’s Republican Party of 1981 was very different from Herbert Hoover’s of 1933: it had become the refuge of millions of formerly Democratic white conservative voters in the Solid South who resisted the civil rights reforms of the 1960s. Accordingly, behind his cheerful veneer Reagan made sure that he tapped into the fierce resentments of federal authority, dating back to the Civil War and Reconstruction, that fueled that resistance. Before they were done, the Reagan Republicans had absorbed into their coalition an array of aggrieved Americans, including quasi-theocratic white Christian nationalists, the gun-manufacturing lobby, antiabortion militants, and antigay crusaders. The antigovernment fervor that grips the nation today is the long-term product of the right wing that Reagan called to arms (literally, in the case of the National Rifle Association) forty-odd years ago. It was his attorney general Edwin Meese, in tandem with the newly formed Federalist Society, who started packing the federal judiciary with the conservative judges who have gutted federal protections for voting rights, abortion rights, and more, while inventing, with fake history presented as “originalism,” an individual’s Second Amendment right to own and carry military-grade armaments. It was the Reagan administration that eliminated the FCC’s fairness doctrine, which mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial public issues, paving the way for right-wing talk radio inciters like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy and, on cable TV, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to amplify antigovernment paranoia. The Reagan White House also harbored the former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan as its communications director. Buchanan’s politics were rooted in the 1930s America First isolationism of Charles A. Lindbergh and the diatribes of the right-wing “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin, with their eccentric fixations on imaginary Jewish internationalist cabals. In the waning days of Reagan’s presidency, Buchanan remarked that “the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan.” He tried to fill that vacuum himself, nearly defeating President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 New Hampshire primary with his “pitchfork brigades.” His convention speech later that year laid out the culture wars to come. Then he followed up with another bid for the Republican nomination in 1996 and an independent campaign in 2000. All those efforts failed, but their stark themes of isolationism, lost national greatness, immigrant invasion, and racial fear provided a template for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign a quarter-century later. “American carnage” was the favored far-right image at least two decades before Trump.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 3, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 04, 2024

The election of 2000 was back in the news this week, when Nate Cohn of the New York Times reminded readers of his newsletter, using a map by data strategist and consultant Matthew C. Isbell, that the unusual butterfly ballot design in Palm Beach County that year siphoned off at least 2,000 votes intended for Democratic candidate Al Gore to far-right candidate Pat Buchanan. 

Those 2,000 votes were enough to decide the election, “all things being equal,” Cohn wrote. But of course, they weren’t equal: in 1998 a purge of the Florida voter rolls had disproportionately disenfranchised Black voters, making them ten times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected.

That ballot and that purge gave Republican candidate George W. Bush the electoral votes from Florida, putting him into the White House although he had lost the popular vote by more than half a million votes.

Revisiting the 2000 election reminds us that manipulating the vote through voter suppression or the mechanics of an election in even small ways can undermine the will of the people.  

A poll out today from the Associated Press/NORC showed that the vast majority of Americans agree about the importance of the fundamental principles of our democracy. Ninety-eight percent of Americans think the right to vote is extremely important, very important, or somewhat important. Only 2% think it is “not too important.” The split was similar with regard to “the right of everyone to equal protection under the law”: 98% of those polled thought it was extremely, very, or somewhat important, while only 2% thought it was not too important. 

Recent election results suggest that voters don’t support the extremism of the current Republican Party. In local elections in the St. Louis, Missouri, area on Tuesday, voters rejected all 13 right-wing candidates for school boards, and in Enid, Oklahoma, voters recalled a city council member who participated in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and had ties to white supremacist groups. 

Seemingly aware of the growing backlash to their policies, MAGA Republicans are backing away from them, at least in public. Earlier this year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for making it harder to ban books after a few activists systematically challenged dozens of books in districts where they had no children in the schools—although he blamed teachers, administrators, and “the news media” for creating a “hoax.” 

Today, lawyers for the state of Texas told a federal appeals court that state legislators might have gone “too far” with their immigration law that made it a state crime to enter Texas illegally and allowed state judges to order immigrants to be deported. (Mexico had flatly refused to accept deported immigrants from other countries under this new law.) Nonetheless, Arizona legislators have passed a similar bill—that Democratic governor Katie Hobbs refuses to sign into law—and are considering another measure that would allow landowners to threaten or shoot people who cross their property to get into the U.S.

Indeed, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party seem less inclined to moderate their stances than either to pollute popular opinion or to prevent their opponents from voting. 

While Trump is hedging about his stance on abortion—after bragging repeatedly that he was the person responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade—MAGA Republicans have made their unpopular abortion stance even stronger. 

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times reported today that the hospital at the center of the decision by the Alabama state supreme court that embryos used for in vitro fertilization have the same rights and protections as children has ended its IVF services. And on Monday, Florida’s supreme court, which Florida governor Ron DeSantis packed with extremists, upheld a ban on abortion after 15 weeks and allowed a new six-week abortion ban—before most women know they’re pregnant—to go into effect in 30 days. 

In the past, people seeking abortions had gravitated to Florida because its constitution upheld the right to privacy, which protected abortion. But now the Florida Supreme Court has decided the constitution does not protect the right to abortion. Caroline Kitchener explained in the Washington Post that in the past, more than 80,000 women a year accessed abortion services in Florida. This ban will make it nearly impossible to get an abortion in the American South. 

Anya Cook, who in 2022 nearly died after she was denied an abortion under Florida’s 15-week ban, gave Kitchener a message for Florida women experiencing pregnancy complications: “Run,” she said. “Run, because you have no help here.”

Extremist Republicans have managed to put their policies into place not by winning a majority and passing laws through Congress, but by creating cases that they then take to sympathetic judges. This system, known as “judge shopping,” has so perverted lawmaking that on March 12 the Judicial Conference, the body that makes policy for federal courts, announced a new rule that any lawsuit seeking to overturn statewide or national policies would be randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges. 

On March 29, the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas, where many such cases are filed, told Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would not adhere to the new rules. 

Rather than moderating their stances, extremist Republicans are doubling down on their attempt to create dirt on the president. With their impeachment effort against President Joe Biden in embarrassing ruins, House Republicans are casting around for another issue to hurt the Democrats before the 2024 election. 

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico reported today that in the last month, House Republican Committee chairs have sent almost 50 oversight requests to a variety of departments and agencies. Haberkorn noted that there is “significant political pressure on the party to produce results after months of promising it would uncover evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors involving Biden.”

But it is Trump, not Biden, who is in the news for questionable behavior. In The Guardian today, Hugo Lowell reported that Trump’s social media company was kept afloat in 2022 “by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.”

There is more trouble for the social media company in the news today, as two of its investors pleaded guilty to being part of an insider-trading scheme involving the company’s stock. They admitted they had secret, inside information about the merger between Trump Media and Digital World Acquisition Corporation and had used that insider information to make profitable trades. 

Meanwhile, Trump is suing Truth Social’s founders to force them out of leadership and make them give up their shares in the company. His is a countersuit to their lawsuit accusing him of trying to dilute the company’s stock. 

Of more immediate concern for Trump, Judge Juan Merchan denied yet another attempt by Trump—his eighth, according to prosecutors—to delay his election interference trial. The trial is scheduled to begin April 15.

Finally, in an illustration of extremists aiming not to moderate their stances but to impose the will of the minority on the majority, Republicans are putting in place rules to make it easier for individuals to challenge voters, removing them from the voter rolls before the 2024 election.

Marc Elias of Democracy Docket noted today that states and local governments have regular programs to keep voter registration accurate, while right-wing activists are operating on a different agenda. In one 70,000-person town in Michigan, a single activist challenged more than a thousand voters, Elias reported, and in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, right-wing activists have already challenged 16,000 voters and intend to challenge another 10,000.

One group boasted that their system “can and will change elections in America forever.” 

Rather like the election of 2000.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON