Radical Left mirrors Reconstruction GOP
In 1866, the Radical Republicans, led by Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, attempted to remove then-President Andrew Johnson over his firing of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, in violation of the Tenure of Office Act – an act that certainly violated the separation of powers between the Legislative and Executive branches. The act was one of the ways the faction wished to remove Johnson from office.
The Radical Republicans sought to punish the South for the Civil War, and treat it as conquered territory, unlike Abraham Lincoln, who sought a less bellicose plan of bringing the states back. The Radical Republicans gained a majority in the House, and passed several very restrictive acts; and, while it did give impetus to Constitutional Amendments that protected the former slaves, the tactics arguably led to the post-Reconstruction racial problems that plagued the South for a century afterwards, something historians have debated for decades.
The Radical Republicans were known for their intransigent, almost religious fervor, when it came to Reconstruction. Anyone who thought a more measured – or at least less triumphalist – plan was best was considered an enemy to be vanquished. There was no room for discussion. It was a matter of absolutes. The Tenure of Office Act was passed in order to hamstring President Johnson, and force a confrontation that would lead to his ouster. The fact the plan failed by only one vote in the Senate is remarkable.
Here we are 153 years later, and the same forces are at work: A segment of the Democratic Party – the socialist wing – has taken control. In numbers the faction is smaller than the total Democratic majority, but in taking over the party’s messaging, they have frozen out more moderate voices.
As in 1866, a large swath of the media has sided with the socialists. Horace Greeley was a leading voice for the Radical Republicans, and most of the media today gives voice to the socialist agendas of the extreme Left in the Democratic Party. Johnson was despised because he believed in a different path than the leaders of Congress. Can anyone think otherwise when it comes to the Democrats and President Donald J. Trump? We think not.
Trump, notwithstanding his brashness and ego, has a very different view of the world and the nation than does the extreme Left. He is pushing an America First agenda, which sees the nation as a force for good. He also sees that open borders and farming out our industries to foreign lands as a betrayal of our own people.
The Democrats, meanwhile, particularly the radical Left, see the nation as illegitimate, and its founding as a sin that must be, somehow, atoned. Our Constitution, our foundational institutions are all without merit, primarily because of slavery. The nation must be reestablished under a more equitable structure they say. And, their platform has, like the Radical Republicans, taken on a quasi-religious fervor, with anyone opposing them seen not as benign, but as evil.
The nation was heading toward this revision with Barack Hussein Obama, and was going to continue for at least four or eight more years under Obama 2.0, Hillary Clinton. She was going to continue the push toward government control and the brave new world.
Trump’s sin was that he won the election and was elected by 63 million heretics that refuse to allow the “fundamental transformation” of the nation.o
The ersatz impeachment inquiries – Congress isn’t following its own rules – that were announced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi are a capitulation to the radical leftists with one difference. Not following the established protocols for impeachment, Pelosi is playing a game of endless committee investigations, with no plan of actually having people get on the record. She’s hoping the ploy will mollify her base.
It’s a cynical move by a party that still refuses to see it was rejected in 2016. Like the Radical Republicans, they will harm the nation in an attempt to gain political power.