There really is nothing new on earth

 

National Portrait Gallery

Did you know that in 1933 a group of financiers and fascists attempted overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency and stop the New Deal? The coup leaders thought Mussolini and Hitler offered governments that America should emulate. Militias sprang up in the country—following the example of Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts, these groups of conservative veterans called themselves Gray Shirts, Silver Shirts, Khaki Shirts, depending on the city of their origin.

Retired US Marine Corps Maj Gen Smedley Darlington Butler was recruited to lead an army of veterans, funded by the American Liberty League, whose membership included such Wall Street figures as JP Morgan, Jr, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark of the Singer sewing machine fortune, and the chief executives of General Motors, Birds Eye, and General Foods. Instead, he reported the plan to the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, who reported it to FDR. Some critics suggested it was a hoax, insisting that there was a great gap between contemplation and execution, but others claimed that if Butler had not been such a loyal patriot, the coup might well have succeeded—and American history would have been dramatically different.

Then of course there was Watergate in 1972, another time when the country was deeply divided, then over Vietnam. President Richard Nixon, anticipating a hard-fought battle for re-election, sanctioned members of his Committee to Re-Elect the President to break into Democratic headquarters in D.C., steal top-secret documents, and bug the phones. After two break-ins (the phone bugs didn’t work at first), Nixon was re-elected, defeating Democrat George McGovern in a landslide. Nixon gave hush money to the burglars and tried to get the CIA to block the FBI investigation of the break-in. Before a grand jury, several of Nixon’s aides testified to his crimes and revealed that Nixon had taped every conversation in the Oval Office. Special investigator Archibold Cox demanded the tapes, and the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release then. He stalled. The House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, criminal cover-up, nd several violations of the Constitution.

Nixon resigned and was pardoned by President Gerald Ford, but his attorney general and several high-power aides went to prison. General Alexander Haig, then White House Chief of Staff, is credited with persuading Nixon to resign and was apparently the one who held the government together in the last chaotic days before Nixon left office.

So Trump wasn’t even making up his own script. He had a playbook to follow with his aborted coup. The country survived two major acts of treachery, which encourages me to think it will survive again as a democracy for all people. And in the Watergate case, some people even went to prison--that could happen again too!

And a sort of unrelated illustration of history repeating itself: our minister, Russ Peterman, is preaching a series he calls “Fierce,” about women of the Bible. This morning he preached on the story of Ruth. Most of us know the Ruth, a Moabite widow, insisted on following her Hebrew mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem. It was a time when women had no rights—their lives were determined by men. That resonated with me today when men are trying to take women back to the past instead of forward to the future. But what really struck me was the Naomi feared for Ruth, a Moab, in Bethlehem, because she would be an outsider, and it was a time when prophets in Israel were trying to cleanse the population of outsiders, people who were different. Sound familiar today? Of course it does. That story ends well too—Ruth married again and is considered the great-grandmother of David (perhaps great-great?)

Maybe there are reasons I’m a cock-eyed optimist! History lesson for the day is over.

Days of drama

            How was Friday the 13^th for everyone? I have the feeling this day will be much more momentous in history than we realize now. We are watching a great drama unfold before us. Today was perhaps the fourth act, with building tension.

Trying to think back to Watergate and remember if we sensed at the time the history that was playing out in front of us. I have a great deal of faith that justice and our democracy will triumph again, as they did then. That’s something perhaps neither Putin nor Trump recognized or anticipated. I don’t think Nixon did either, until the last minute when he saw impeachment staring him in the face. One thing I think about today is that this will mark a turning point. Some Republican Congress members were beginning to turn away from Trump already, and yesterday’s interrogation of Peter Strzok disgusted more of them. Perhaps after these two dramatic days in a row, more will grow a spine. Trump’s bumbling about Europe didn’t help his cause. It will be interesting to see what happens in Helsinki.

It’s amazing to me how successful Putin’s plan has been in—what? —two years if you count the campaign and election. Our country is more divided than it ever has been. Collegiality has gone out the window, replaced by vituperative hate. Racial incidents are dramatically up, because as some claim trump has given permission for well-hidden hate to rise to the surface and become public. Our environment is taking hit after hit—pollution of air and water as industry regulations are abandoned; public lands are sold off to mining industries. Our sitting (or should I say squatting) president has alienated most of our allies, chummed up with traditional antagonists, and drawn us out of carefully crafted treaties and alliances. And we’ve separated who knows how many children from their parents, with no idea how to reunite them.  If Putin wanted to tear apart America, he’s doing damn good job—and we’re letting him do it.

It’s a good time for us to remember Michelle Obama’s words: when they go low, we go high. It’s what we must do to heal the corrosive division among us. We must temper anger with reason.

An old friend and I frequently spar on Facebook. Our opinions are diametrically opposed. But the other day, when someone told me to quit bitching about things I had no control over, my friend jumped to my defense, asking the offender to “stand down” and explaining that we are friends who respect each other’s differing opinions. I remain grateful to him, and I cite him as a model for all of us to follow, while I admit I haven’t always followed my own words. I’ve sometimes been impatient with him and others.

So, go do something nice for a neighbor, maybe that one that thinks your dog is pooping on his lawn or the one who mows his lawn at six a.m. on Saturday. Me? I’m going to sit on my patio and count my blessings.