The Return of the Know-Nothings

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Despite the President’s efforts to stop the silliness by producing the long form of his American birth certificate, the “birthers” still insist he could have been born in Kenya. One Republican Congressman cited as evidence, the lack of a plaque at the Hawaiian hospitable commemorating Obama’s birth as evidence he was not born there. Yet there is no plaque at the manger in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus, and while many insist on believing in the virgin birth, no such latitude is extended to our first black president. 

Doubtless there is a plaque in Roswell New Mexico commemorating the crash-landing of an alien spacecraft, and that of course makes it official. So how can you stop the unstoppable “birther” movement?  Well not surprisingly the Democrats are resorting to their tried and true 18^th Century Enlightenment method of winning the argument by presenting the facts and the evidence.  And of course they will not win because there is such a thing as emotional intelligence and gut feelings that trump any learned discourse or stack of empirical evidence.

Without being too cynical could it be that the Republicans have finally perfected their Reagan Democrat strategy of peeling off enough working Americans to get them vote against their interest in the name of God, the flag and family values.  Could it be that they have discovered that ignorance is the ultimate political strategy.  By wrecking public education and dumbing down the population with faux populist rants on right wing media, you can get enough votes running on ignorance so that you can rule over the stupid.

This strategy almost worked in the mid 19th Century with the emergence of the equivalent of today’s Tea Party, the Know-Nothing Party, or the Know-Nothings.  Their roots are similar to the conspiratorial and secretive anti-immigrant fervor that galvanized the Tea Party and made it the tail that wags the dog of the Republican Party.  Clearly the Tea Party was a brilliant rebranding of the Republican Right by insiders like Karl Rove and Dick Army who created this Astroturf movement backed by plutocrats like the Koch brothers, and by running candidates, with the help of the compliant Press, they made it the phenomenon this it is today.

Although often dismissed as an historical joke, the Know-Nothings were the mirror of Tom Tancredo’s immigrant-bashing Tea Party of today.  American Nativism was inflamed as immigration from Europe increased in the 1800s with citizens who had been born in the United States beginning to feel resentment at the new arrivals.  Violent encounters between immigrants and “native-born Americans” occurred in American cities in the 1830s and early 1840s with riots breaking out in Philadelphia in July of 1844.  Nativists battled Irish immigrants and two Catholic churches and a Catholic school were burned by mobs, with at least 20 people killed in the mayhem.

At the time several small political parties espoused nativist doctrine, among them the American Republican Party and the Nativist Party.  And secret societies, such as the Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, sprang up across America.  Like Arizona’s legislature today, their members were sworn to keep immigrants out of America, or at the least to deny them entry into mainstream society once they arrived.

Since the party’s leaders would not publicly reveal themselves, the established political parties at the time were baffled by these organizations.  And members, when asked about the organizations, were instructed to answer, “I know nothing.” That cryptic answer and the secrecy surrounding the membership societies led to it being commonly called the “Know-Nothing Party”, although the official name was the American Party, formed in 1849.

Many Americans were appalled by the Know-Nothings and Abraham Lincoln expressed his own disgust with the political party in a letter written in 1855.  Lincoln warned that if the Know-Nothings ever took power, the Declaration of Independence would have to be amended to say that all men are created equal "except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." He went on to say he’d rather immigrate to Russia, where despotism is out in the open, then live in such an America.

The movement imploded in 1856 when former president Millard Fillmore ran as the Know-Nothing candidate for president.  His campaign was a disaster and resulted in a crushing defeat with the election of James Buchanan who won on the Democratic ticket, beating Fillmore as well as Republican candidate John C. Fremont.

Buchanan turned out to be the worst president in U.S. history, only to be recently supplanted by George W Bush.  So what does that say about politics today?  Go ask Mitt, Donald, Sarah, Michelle, Mike, Newt, Tim and Paul.  They may know something.