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Had (minor) toe surgery yesterday. The podiatrist's clear instructions were that I spend all of today with my foot propped. Naturally, a good tweet from earlier instead has me up and rummaging through old research files looking for a cache of old editorial cartoons from N.C. 1/
The tweet in question came from @AnthonyMKreis, a law professor, political scientist, & Georgia political expert, one who you should follow in coming weeks. Georgia is the new center of our political universe, and apologies for this, the devil is headed down there. 2/
As a historian, I'm happy to show a through-line that takes present events back to 1619. For present purposes, I'll settle for a through line that begins with the 2008 Palin rallies, and the racialized insinuations of what constitutes a "real American." https://twitter.com/AnthonyMKreis/status/1330168431644176384?s=20 3/
I like to start my U.S. history survey class meetings with clips. As often as not, these are just ridiculous. And, then there are the ones which are not. So, class, settle in and start with this: 4/
It's standard for schoolchildren to learn the Jacksonian Era saw the rise of "universal manhood suffrage," but it didn't: it saw the rise of universal *white* manhood suffrage. With the 19th Amendment, that became universal white suffrage, hence "Free, White, & Twenty-one." /5
Free, white, & twenty-one became an aphorism, an unthinking evocation of adult status--but adult status for whites. The white supremacy thus becomes at once obvious and hidden; thoughtless in the sense it is second nature. /6
White supremacist language and appeals, whether in a politician celebrating "real Americans" or in demanding "birth certificates" or maybe trafficking in dog whistles--it all comes from the same place, and it leads to the same end. Back to Georgia now. 7/
Rev. Warnock--who occupies a pulpit that is as conservative and main-line as one can possibly be--is already insinuated to be some sort of deranged radical. Clutch your pearls. 8/
And he is elsewhere connected to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was in 2008 dragged into various loosely-hinged attacks upon then-candidate Barack Obama. 9/
It's a very old playbook, one we needn't rehash in full here. But I thought immediately this AM about the 1898 White Supremacy Campaign in NC, the last time in U.S. History where we witnessed a full-on, successful coup. Specifically, I thought about how that campaign looked. 10/
I mean, he we know how it "sounded," or at least how it read in print. And, many if not most U.S. history texts reproduce this infamous cartoon from the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 11/1/1898. 11/
The messages are clear: Black politicians, Republican politicians, and their People's Party "Fusionist" allies are fat, dumb, corrupt, and a sexual threat to white women. "White Women Insulted" & "Protection to White Women"=interracial sex. 12/
There was nothing unique in seeing NC Democrats connect African American voting to interracial sex. That was the standard party line throughout the South. But, NC, specifically the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, had a devilishly talented cartoonist who breathed it into visual life. 13/
So, consider the ads we've already seen in GA, and imagine (or shudder at) the ones that are to come. And when they come--and they will--ask yourself how they differ in their fundamentals from those seen in NC in 1898. 14/
Bewildered by ads claiming Barack Obama exercised mind trick control over other Democratic politicians? Can it work absent a racialized fear? Can a white Populist or Republican officeholder otherwise willingly serve alongside African Americans? RNO, 10/15/1898 15/
Can there be freedom in a world where Rep. Ocasio-Cortez holds office? Can freedom exist in the company of a Senator Warnock? Or does the latter mean white women will be consigned to a racialized prison? RNO, 10/18/1898 16/
Can there today be a Christian Democrat? Or are Rev. Warnock's sermons mere Commie-socialist agitprop? Because you know likes it when African Americans hold office? That's right--the Devil. RNO, 10/26/1898 17/
The Devil makes them do it, you see, & the end result is--gasp!--African American men holding clerical jobs. Why are the whites united?, per the RNO? Because white women encounter AA postmasters. Horrors! You'd almost think those AA men were handling absentee ballots. 18/
White women get their mail from African American postmasters which threatens there sexual purity. None of this is new. We've established over and over for more than a generation the centrality of sex and gender to understanding U.S. history. 19/
And, please note, too, the pull-quote beneath. You know what's just as scary as Black men voting? Black women packing heat and refusing to clean house. I mean, we know without knowing the kind of crazy that's going to be employed against Vice-president elect Harris, right? 20/
White women cannot live free in a world where African Ameicans live free. That's the through-line of the 1898 White Supremacy Campaign. This is not an anodyne feminized allegory: this image is entirely literal. RNO, 11/3/1898 21/
Conservative Democrats, "Bourbons," we call them, attained power in Redemption and maintained it for the next 40 yrs through violence, theft, and fraud. The constant truth of voter fraud allegations is that the one who smelt it, dealt it. RNO, 11/4/1898 22/
Yes, it's the Saturday before the election, N.C. is in a constant state of frenzied white riot, and you can just smell that ripening fruit. RNO, 11/5/1898 23/
Then, the day came, November 8, 1898. Powerless, demure, pure, this little Gibson Girl with the pretty hat pin and the impossible waist stands ready to help you get your ballot into the jar. And, she reminds you what is at stake: her. RNO, 11/8/1898 24/
I mentioned her impossible waist (literally--she should be dead of some nasty disease with a corset that tight) because I need you look at it closely. Remember: it's the accessory that makes the outfit. 25/
She has that dangerous waist for a reason: so you can stare at what really matters. 26/
So, as I've been saying for weeks here and elsewhere, there is no new thing under the sun. We've seen all of this before (pun intended), and, folks: it's only going to get worse. /27 The End.
