My thoughts are turning ever more of late to the process by which the reigning Democratic-Republican Party broke up in the 1830s, with the Jacksonian Democrats on the one and the Whigs on the other. I think I have explained in this place WHY my thoughts are turning so much to that point. But the short version is: we may be entering another Era of Good Feelings. The Democratic Party may once again have a period of dominance. I hope it is a brief period, and I hope the Whigs are more competent that the Republicans have been for a long time now. For the curious, here are the basics: Whig Party - Definition, Beliefs & Leaders - HISTORY The Whig Part was born in 1834. It lost its first national election to Martin Van Buren in 1836. But it won in its second effort, electing William Henry Harrison in 1840. Harrison goes down in the history books for two pieces of trivia: (a) shortest term as president, dead after 32 days in office, and (b) half of the only grandfa...
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President Trump recently stumbled, in his usual word-salad way, into a subject to which I have given a good deal of thought over a period of decades (I once tried to write a book about it.) On May 1, on Sirius XM radio, Trump said: "People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?" Trump said in an interview with The Washington Examiner that also aired on Sirius XM radio. "People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?" This much already is confusing. "People" in general "don't ask" that question? Sorry, but a lot of people do ask, and a lot of people, of varying levels of well-informed to ignoramus, have sought to answer it and have argued with one another's answers. I can only understand Trump here if he is saying, "People in my circles generally don't ask it, or haven't until quite recently, or I haven't paid attenti...