Donald Trump is Campaigning Like It's 1856

Despite the US Civil War and 160 years of social and technological progress, people's beliefs in some parts of America have not changed since 1856. Donald Trump’s current Presidential campaign platform: anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-“elite” nativism – appears to have support in many of the same areas of the US as the “American Party” of 160 years ago.

The “American Party”, who were also known as the “Know-Nothings”, started out as a semi-secret society and were called the “Know-Nothings” because if outsiders asked members about the party, they were supposed to say, “I know nothing.”  The group was made up of white Protestant men who were disturbed by the influx of immigrants during the 1840's and 1850's, especially Catholics, which changed the social landscape of America to something that was new to these nativist Americans - and they didn't like it.  They wanted to Make America Great Again, that is "back to the way it used to be".

Look at these comparative maps showing Trump support in 2016 (areas of strong support in red) and the Know Nothing Presidential Results in 1856 (areas of strong support in yellow):



Of course, in 1856 much of the western part of the US was sparsely inhabited, and the red areas of Oklahoma, South Dakota, eastern Colorado and northern New Mexico were still territories at that time, so they were not included in Presidential elections.

However, there are a number of regions that are surprisingly similar: much of the Old South still supports the ideas the Trump has revived from the Know-Nothings, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama along the Gulf of Mexico.  The Appalachia states of Tennessee and North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky are still strong in their support of those ideas, even Missouri and upstate rural New York follow the same pattern in 2016 as they did in 1856.

Interestingly, South Carolina did not support the Know-Nothings in 1856 and that seems to hold true for Trump 160 years later; it is one of the few areas in the US southeast that is not dark red in the Trump support map.

California in 1856 voted for the Know-Nothings as a backlash against Chinese immigration at that time, there still seems to be support for those ideas in the southwest, although it is more spread out through Arizona, western Oregon, and northern Nevada, perhaps because of Mexican immigration in those areas of the US.

As much as Trump has tried to refer back to the Republican Party as the “party of Lincoln”, it is quite clear that his ideas are actually those of the Know-Nothings. In fact, Abraham Lincoln despised the beliefs of the American Party. In a letter, he wrote:

“I am not a Know-Nothing – that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Browne, Francis Fisher (1914). The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative and Descriptive Biography with Pen-pictures and Personal Recollections by Those who Knew Him. Browne & Howell. p. 153.

Possibly the only difference between Trump and the Know-Nothings would be to subsitute Muslims for Catholics. Trump and his supporters seem to fear Muslims for the same reason the Know-Nothings feared Catholics (especially those who had recently emigrated to America): their religious beliefs and loyalties would be opposed to what the American Party saw as national beliefs and loyalties.

There are other similarities between Trump and the Know-Nothings: their popularity increased dramatically, from 50,000 to over 1,000,000 members in only one year as the Whig Party collapsed in 1854. With only the Democratic Party remaining, many people joined the American Party rather than the newly-formed Republican Party. This is similar to Trump’s astonishing rise in popularity since he started his campaign last year, with the post-Tea Party vacuum of leadership of the current Republican Party.

Despite its sudden rise, the American Party also declined quickly.  Millard Fillmore (a former President with the Whig Party) only garnered 23% of the vote in 1856, behind the Democrat and Republican candidates. 

Hopefully, Trump's campaign and ideas will go the way of the American Party: with the election of Abraham Lincoln and rise of the new second party (Republican), as well as internal dissent among the Know-Nothings, their influence and existence were short-lived.  By the 1860 Presidential election, the American Party was all but gone for good.

While racism and intolerance are unfortunately still alive, let's all work toward making sure those beliefs don't win on November 8 by showing the facts of Donald Trump's campaign, his past actions, and his temperament make him unfit for the US Presidency and that all good, thinking, compassionate people will not accept those ideas as representing our society.

2014 Commonwealth Games Bid

It is a real shame that the provincial and municipal governments withdrew their funding for the 2014 Commonwealth Games bid. They claimed that $1,700,000,000 was too much for what we would get. Forget that $400,000,000 was promised by the Feds and another $300,000,000 was promised by the province and $200,000,000 by HRM. The bid committee said they had the bid figure estimated at $1,300,000,000. That leaves $400,000,000 and 7 years to raise it. Vancouver was able to get enough funding to host the 2010 Summer Olympics. I guess the powers-that-be Out West recognize a good chance to grow when they see it. All we have to do locally is look at how many companies Moncton is wooing away from HRM to see that growth and long-term prospects are not in the politicians' viewplane.

In my opinion, it was a short-sighted decision to withdraw funding without giving the committee an opportunity to present the revised numbers. It is a question of the chicken and egg: do we build infrastructure for a growing city like Halifax before we host a games event, or do we need a games event to get the infrastructure that a growing city like Halifax needs? I believe that an international games event is needed to provide politicians enough political points with voters before they commit to providing and money to build such infrastructure.

We will likely be another 20 years before we see any large-scale sporting/recreational infrastructure built in HRM. By that time, we will be in dire need of it and we will waste another generation of athletes before our facilities and our athletes' needs for such facilities match up and we can provide the number of world-class athletes that we are capable of producing, given our population.

These facilities would not only be for HRM, but Nova Scotia as well as the other Maritime provinces. A population of 2,000,000+ within a few hours' drive is enough to support larger facilities. Unfortunately, it appears that the current political leaders are more concerned with not taking any chances and protecting their own future than looking forward and seeing what a legacy they could leave for future generations.