Make Elitism Great Again: Democrats Return to Their 1860 Roots

Flopping Aces ^ | 11-25-24 | Jeff Childers

[Starman417]

by Jeff Childers

The New York Times ran (another) deep post-election analysis over the weekend headlined, “How Democrats Lost Their Base and Their Message.” It described what is gaining speed to potentially become the Democrats’ worst-case scenario.

The article began by contrasting Trump’s 2016 and 2024 strategies. In 2016, Trump won using an electoral “Moneyball” approach, surprising Democrats by gaming out exactly which handful of key counties were needed to win the Electoral College. The 2020 election proved the Democrats learned their lesson and weren’t about to let Republicans win again through cherry-picking.

During his 2020-2024 wilderness years, amidst fending off FBI raids and a mudslide of political lawfare persecution, President Trump discarded wonky statistical manipulation. Instead, he leaned into his roots, his undeniable genius: marketing. The new strategy was not to win through statistical sleight of hand but by actually selling Americans on a better vision, a vision of a better America that was and an even better America that once again could be.

Make America Great Again. It was pure marketing genius.

Only President Trump could have done it, and that is because he is quintessentially American: part P.T. Barnum, part Teddy Roosevelt, part Abraham Lincoln.

Commonly referred to as a “master showman,” P.T. Barnum was a genius of spectacle and self-promotion. Like Trump, Barnum enjoyed an uncanny ability to captivate audiences, transform controversies into publicity, and consistently manifest a larger-than-life persona. Like Trump, Barnum built his fortune in Manhattan.

Like Trump, President Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909), who coined “speak softly and carry a big stick,” was also a dynamic, larger-than-life figure, beloved for his populism, rugged individualism, and his feisty, combative spirit. He shattered political norms and redefined the GOP for a generation, delivering a "Square Deal" for America by waging war on the entrenched power structures of the day, especially big corporations (the “trusts”). Teddy was a strong Republican leader, but he shattered political norms by embracing the working class through his trust-busting, anti-corporate, and consumer protection policies.

Finally, Trump is easily compared to President Abraham Lincoln (1860-1864), who is regularly ranked as the nation’s greatest president by presidential historians. Like Trump, Lincoln was (and remains) deeply divisive. Democrats in 1860 were so enraged at the election of the first Republican president that seven heavily Democrat southern states quickly seceded between Lincoln’s election and his inauguration. They didn’t even wait for Lincoln to take the oath to see what he would do.

You could call it Lincoln Derangement Syndrome (LDS). And, of course, they shot both Lincoln and Trump in the head after each president’s first term.

There are many points of similarity, but here’s just one more: like Trump, Lincoln was also elected through a unique confluence of electoral events: a disunited Democrat party shattered into three competing candidates, paving the way for the first Republican to be elected president in the nation’s history.

I am not arguing Trump is just like these three great American men, not at all. President Trump is a unique modern amalgam of their circumstances and their best, quintessentially American qualities.

Regardless, during his presidential interregnum, master marketer Trump undertook to give the GOP a much-overdue brand refresh. He hawked conservatism to core parts of the Democrat base, the parts that don’t enjoy full membership benefits enjoyed by that party’s elite ruling class.

But … was it a re-brand? Or did Trump, like Teddy Roosevelt did, shift the GOP from an off-skew slant back toward its home base?

Trump’s success at communicating with discarded, disenfranchised Democrats is undeniable. Consider this chart from the New York Times’s analysis, calculating the 12-year shift toward the GOP:

In other words, men and women included, Trump gained with: young people, working-aged folks, college-educated minorities, black folks, Hispanics, Asians, all “other race” people, and working-class whites.

Now consider this: These gainers are all folks who would have voted for President Lincoln in 1860. Think about what that implies.

It got better. The next chart in the Times’s analysis showed the paltry three groups that improved for Democrats—the demographics that shifted away from Trump’s populism—and one group in particular stuck out like monkeypox:

The first outrageous implication, which I won’t dwell on because why pout about things you can’t change, is that if it had gone the other way, had Republicans only gained with over-educated whites, the New York Times would be jumping up and down shouting “white supremacy!!” from the skyrises.

But which party is actually, by the numbers, the party of “white supremacy?” Trump exposed the Democrats. The only group who solidly slid away from Trump’s populist MAGA movement was college-educated whites. Insufferable, pasty-skinned, wealthy coastal elites.

In other words, the same people who would have voted Democrat in 1860.

Nothing has changed! Nothing about Democrats has changed except, for a long time, the Democrats were able to fool minorities and working-class whites into thinking they’d abandoned their elitist, slave-owning roots. They tricked the same groups that, down south, the Democrats had consistently fooled before the Civil War.

But the Democrats have not, in fact, changed. The numbers prove it, and the Times’s analysis agreed. “Democrats,” the article explained, “became the party of institutions, the national security apparatus, norms and, ultimately, the status quo — not change.”

[Z28.310]

DEMOCRATS
The party of slavery

...even to this very day.

Thanks to propaganda media, most are oblivious to this very fact and believe lies.

Like a meme I saved

you don’t believe you’ve been
LIED TO AND BRAINWASHED
because you’ve been
LIED TO AND BRAINWASHED

[Pelham]

Funny. In 1860 Karl Marx was a featured columnist for the Republican party’s flagship newspaper, Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. He spent over a decade writing for them.

A driving force in the creating the GOP was its Radical Republican wing and the expatriate German revolutionaries known as ‘48ers.

If you’re looking for 1860’s roots of today’s Woke Democrats that’s where you will find their closest antecedents.

[Grampa Dave]

(MAGA is not a historical blip. It is a trend.) - - Jeff Childers!

[PGalt]

BUMP

[joshua c]

If we deport the illegal aliens, who will pick our cotton fruit?
=

former govt employees

stole that from twitchy

[steve8714]

Her heels will cool well in the up position.

[metmom]

The left just doesn’t get why Trump won.

[TigersEye]

Do we owe allegiance to the government or do we not?

Hell no!!! It would be hard to think of a more anti-American thought than that.

[SauronOfMordor]

“ The only group who solidly slid away from Trump’s populist MAGA movement was college-educated whites. ”

I suspect, if you dig into the numbers, you will see it’s college educated white WOMEN (who benefit from DEI) who went Democrat.

[BroJoeK]

"NO, TRUMP IS A MODERN INCARNATION OF ANDREW JACKSON

Sure, I love your enthusiasm, but Andrew Jackson was in a class by himself, where can we even begin?

How about the Battle of New Orleans?

Yeah, much as I love Trump, military experience is not his strong suit.

[BroJoeK]

"Anyone worships republicans from 1860 on is poorly informed"

Anyone worships republicans Democrats from 1860 on is poorly informed

Or before 1860.

[Elsie]

...they purposely alienated, abused and abandoned their base in their headlong rush to the Soviet left,...

[Elsie]

Me, too, Ronnie!!

[Elsie]

Let me add that it is even HARDER to get them to ADMIT that they got fooled,
thus the reason for clinging to their foolishness.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Then as now, Democrats were the party of the big city machines and the big city masses.
Wealthy Establishment urbanites also favored the Democrats, the status quo party who didn't rock the boat.
Republicans were stronger in the rural, small town, and small city North."

Exactly right.
Almost from Day One, Federalists / Whigs / Republicans have been the party of:

1. The US Constitution -- Federalism

2. Traditional Western values, especially Christianity

3. Small towns, small businesses, family farms

4. Middle incomes, middle classes, mid-levels of education

5. Peace Through Strength law & order supporters

6. Federal infrastructure projects like bridges, canals, harbors, roads & railroads

7. Conservationism, national parks & forests, clean air & water.

8. Restricted franchises to qualified citizens

From Day One, Anti-Federalists / Oppositionists / Democratic-Republicans & Democrats have been the party of:

1. Opposition to the US Constitution -- anti-Federalists

2. Freedom from religious conformity, i.e., "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," -- Jefferson to Rush, 1800.

3. Opposition to tyranny over Democrats, but certainly not by Democrats

4. The alliance of big-city, big-globalized business, big immigrant bosses with big plantation Southern slavocrats, today's illegal alien employers

5. Military adventurism, wars of choice, weakness provoking attacks and, especially recently: retreats, defeats & humiliations resulting from poor planning and reckless behavior internationally

   

6. Federal infrastructure projects, but only when controlled by Democrats themselves, never when under management of Federalists-Whigs-Republicans

7. Expanding franchises to everyone who votes reliably Democrat, i.e., landless immigrants, but not to successful groups (property owners) who vote in opposition such as 1790s era women and freed slaves

8. Radical environmentalism, climate alarmism, ecological radicalism, "tree huggers".

9. Slavery, black codes, Jim Crow, KKK, segregation, welfare entitlements, CRT, Woke, DEI and any other nonsense they can concoct to legally force other people to work for the benefit of Democrats

[Diana in Wisconsin]

So, ‘educated’ Whites moved to Socialist Democrats?

How stupid must they be? ;)

[dead]

Hey! I’m a college-educated, insufferable, pasty-skinned, coastal white Trump voter!

[DPMD]

And we’re hearing the phrase yet again from some new conservatives.

[wardaddy]

You’re still here?
Amazing

[BroJoeK]

You’re still here?
Amazing