The Great Depression

Donald Trump’s Insane Tariff Policy: An Economic Disaster If Ever Enacted!

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Donald Trump is proposing massive tariffs on foreign nations and their goods, particularly China, without realizing such a policy is a true economic disaster!

History tells us high protective tariffs, as for instance under President Herbert Hoover nearly a century ago, with the Smoot Hawley Tariff of 1930, helped make an economic downturn escalate into a full scale Great Depression!

Back then, hundreds of economists took out an ad in the NY TIMES, pleading with Hoover to veto such action, but he paid no attention, and it caused his demise to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Presidential Election Of 1932.

What Trump clearly does not understand is that it is middle class and working class Americans who will suffer the most, as prices of all kinds of imported goods will rise 20 percent or more, adding massively to the cost of living.

Trump is ignorant on economics, along with many other areas of knowledge and policy, and were he elected and able to accomplish his crazy economic ideas, it could lead to another Great Depression!

So the Presidential Election of 2024 is crucial on economic policy, as it is on so many other issues!

A Century Ago Revived: Isolationism, Protectionism, Nativism!

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It has been a century since three “isms” were promoted, that undermined the United States!

We had the rise of Isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s, after World War I, a very powerful movement, particularly among Republicans, which became a major challenge for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.

This author and blogger wrote about this in his first book–TWILIGHT OF PROGRESSIVISM: THE WESTERN REPUBLICAN SENATORS AND THE NEW DEAL (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).

We also saw the rise of Protectionism, the idea of high protective tariffs, which was pursued by Republican Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

Hoover, in particular, pursued this with the Hawley Smoot Tariff of 1930, which made the emerging Great Depression only multipled in 1930 and after, and this despite hundreds of economists taking out newspaper ads, appealing to Hoover to reject higher tariffs.

And we also had nativism, with the passage of extremely restrictive immigration laws in the 1920s under Calvin Coolidge, discriminating against Catholic, Jewish, and Asian immigrants, an apology that led to great human tragedy during the 1930s and World War II.

Now, we have Donald Trump and the Republican Party pursuing the goal of Isolationism (unwillingness to back Ukraine in its war with Russia, weakened support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and expressing doubts about supporting the sovereignty of Taiwan against mainland China)!

And we have Protectionism rearing its ugly head, with Trump promoting the idea of 10 percent tariffs on all foreign goods, which will raise the prices to American consumers, causing major rises in the cost of living!

Finally, we have Nativism, with the pledge of Trump to deport up to 11 million migrants, both undocumented immigrants and others who are not citizens of the United States, bringing back memories of detention camps promoted by Trump in his first term, including separation of children from their parents!

America cannot allow these old “isms” to become government policy again, as we need to learn from mistakes of a century ago!

Wisconsin And Michigan: Republican Party Beginnings And Ultimate Battleground In 2024 Presidential Election!

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The Republican Party was founded in 1854, in the upper Midwest, with its founding on March 20 in Ripon, Wisconsin, and its first party convention held in Jackson, Michigan on July 6.

It was a reform oriented party, opposed to the expansion of slavery, and would dominate in the United States over the next seven decades until the rise of the Democratic Party, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Interestingly, the Republican National Convention in July will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so in a sense a return to the roots of the party of 170 years of history.

However, the Republican Party of history basically can be seen as dead, gone, unlikely to be revived in a form reminiscent of the party’s history, as Donald Trump and his MAGA followers have totally destroyed the roots and the base of the historical Republican Party!

This is the ulimate battleground in the Presidential Election of 2024, as whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins the upper Midwest ultimately will determine who is elected to the Oval Office!

118th Congress Least Productive Since Great Depression 72nd Congress!

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The 118th Congress (2023-2025) is fast becoming the least productive since the 72nd Congress (1931-1933) under President Herbert Hoover at the worst times of the Great Depression.

Both the House of Representatives and US Senate are responsible for such poor performance, but clearly, if the House of Representatives is poorly organized and operated, the Senate cannot make up for it.

Both Congresses had one house Democratic, and one Republican, which also caused stalemate and gridlock.

The fact that the House of Representatives Republican majority has just voted an Impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, with zero evidence of such abuse of power, is a sign of how incompetent and hopeless the 118th Congress is, even with a small Democratic majority in the US Senate.

Clearly, the most productive Congresses have been when one party, in all modern times Democrats, has had a vast advantage in the number of seats in both houses of Congress.

So those most productive Congresses were, chronologically:

63rd Congress (1913-1915) under Woodrow Wilson
73rd Congress (1933-1935) under Franklin D. Roosevelt
74th Congress (1935-1937) under Franklin D. Roosevelt
89th Congress (1965-1967) under Lyndon B. Johnson
111th Congress (2009-2011) under Barack Obama

The most productive of all were the 73rd Congress under FDR, and the 89th Congress under LBJ.

The Most Historic Turning Point Trial For American Democracy’s Survival!

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American democracy’s survival is the crucial point for all Americans to understand, as Donald Trump, now indicted for the third time, in the most crucial of all cases, will face justice sometime in 2024.

If he fails to be convicted, it will mean that the concept of the rule of law has been destroyed, and it will cause the death of the American experiment two years short of its 250th anniversary in 2026!

If Donald Trump gets away with the abuse of power, what can stop either him or a future authoritarian tyrant from doing it again, and leading to violence, bloodshed, and potential civil war?

America’s place in the world will be compromised if Donald Trump is not convicted, and it will embolden Russia, China, North Korea and Iran to exploit the result, and destroy NATO and our other alliances around the world!

This upcoming trial is one of the crucial moments in American history, alongside the Civil War; the Great Depression; entrance into World War II; the Cuban Missile Crisis; and the September 11 attacks!

Those who continue to defend Donald Trump will go down as villains in American history, their reputations besmirched for a man who has no concerns except for himself!

Centennial Of Warren G. Harding’s Death, And Accession Of Calvin Coolidge Coming Up On August 2-3!

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The centennial of the death of President Warren G. Harding is arriving on Wednesday, August 2, with Harding passing away of natural causes in San Francisco, shocking the nation, as Harding was on the way to finishing a Western tour, which had included visiting the territory of Alaska.

The swearing in of President Calvin Coolidge took place in the early morning hours on August 3, with Coolidge being sworn in at his father’s homestead in Vermont, where Coolidge was visiting, and with his father, a local justice of the peace, swearing in his son, before he returned to Washington DC, and was again sworn in later in the day.

This was the sixth time a President had died in office, and was the second time that the Vice President who succeeded to the Presidency went on to win a full term of office in 1924, following Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded the assasinated William McKinley in 1901, and went on to win a full term in 1904.

Harding is regarded by scholars as a failed President, with massive scandals occurring, similar to those of a half century earlier under President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s. While he had some successes, he is ranked in the bottom five of all Presidents, in the same category as Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Donald Trump, and Franklin Pierce.

Calvin Coolidge is perceived as higher in ranking, generally at the top of the bottom third of Presidents, but shortly after he left office, the Great Depression occurred, and his administration is perceived as having had major negative impact on the economy which led to the Crash on Wall Street seven months after his retirement.

Certainly, the Presidency is seen as having declined in the 1920s, after the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, and seeing rising fortunes after Herbert Hoover, with the coming to the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 Presidential election.

Donald Trump Insured Of Being Ranked Worst President Ever, As He Totally Fails In Crisis Management!

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The issue of Crisis Management is a crucial one in judging Presidential leadership, as what matters more than that in judging a President, or a governor of a state or a mayor of a city, all executive positions where the population depends on the abilities, skills, compassion, and empathy of such leaders.

So on that factor alone, Donald Trump is insured of being ranked the worst President ever, as he totally has failed in the present CoronaVirus Crisis, which may end up considered the greatest crisis since the Great Depression, World War II, and the Civil War!

Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were unable to handle the issue of division between the North and the South over slavery in the 1850s, helping to lead to the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding were totally incompetent in dealing with the issue of political corruption in the 1870s and the early 1920s.

Herbert Hoover was unable to resolve the crisis of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, as economic conditions worsened every month.

Andrew Johnson in the 1860s, Richard Nixon in the 1970s, and George W. Bush in the 2000s presided over governments that were highly inept and corrupt in so many ways.

But Donald Trump has been horrendous in all these way—inability to unite the nation in a crisis as with Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan; personally engaged in corruption in a wider way than Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, and Richard Nixon; disastrous policies on so many issues as with George W. Bush; and total ineptitude in a difficult time in national life, as with Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover.

So Trump, without any debate possible, will rank as the absolute worst President we have ever seen in American history! Let us hope that the nation will overcome the CoronaVirus epidemic in decent shape, without too much loss of life, and that no foreign foe takes advantage of our weaknesses to present a threat on the scale of September 11. 2001 or December 7, 1941!

American History Since The Civil War: President’s Party Loses 32 House Seats And 2 Senate Seats In First Midterm Election

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American history tells us that the party of the President regularly loses seats in the first, and all but once in the second (when it occurs) Presidential term of office.

The one major exception was 1934, when in the midst of the Great Depression, and FDR’s New Deal programs, the Democratic party gained 9 seats in the Senate and 9 seats in the House of Representatives.

Also, in 2002, after September 11, George W. Bush and the Republican Party gained 2 seats in the Senate and 8 in the House of Representatives.

And Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party, in the second term midterm election in 1998, gained 5 House seats, with no change in the US Senate.

That is the total historical record since the Civil War, more than 150 years, so it is clear that the Democrats will gain seats in the midterm elections of 2018.

The average since the Civil War is 32 House seats and 2 Senate seats, and if that happens precisely, the Democrats will have gained the House, needing only 24 seats, and the average historically being 23 seats, when one includes both first and second term midterm elections of a President.

But also, if the Senate were to see just the 2 seat gain as the average, then the Democrats would have the majority with 51 seats, which can be brought about by gaining the contested seats of Arizona, where Jeff Flake is retiring, and Nevada, where Dean Heller is seen as the most endangered Republican in 2018.

But to accomplish that, the Democrats must produce, miraculously. the retention of Senate seats in 10 Trump states in 2016–Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, Montana, West Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, and also retain the Minnesota seat recently vacated by Al Franken, and the New Jersey Senate seat of Bob Menendez, who faces another criminal trial after a hung jury. That will be a tall order for sure!

The 166th Anniversary Of The “National Newspaper” With More Pulitzer Prizes Than Any Other: The New York Times

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Today is the 166th Anniversary of a treasured newspaper, seen as the “National Newspaper” of America, the New York Times.

Founded on September 18, 1851, the New York Times has recorded America’s history and that of the world through the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, The Great Depression and the New Deal, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Vietnam War, The Watergate Scandal, The Reagan and Clinton Era, September 11, the Obama Era, and now the Trump Presidency and the challenges it presents to a free press.

Through it all, it has been the leader in news reporting and scoops often unique from others, and has been under attack by those who are angry that it exposes evil and wrong doing so often.

The New York Times has made its mistakes and had some stories later demonstrated to be untrue or manufactured, and is certainly far from perfect, but what source is perfect?

But it has admitted its shortcomings when they have become evident.

It is the newspaper of record, with the best index for researchers, writers, and historians. It has won 122 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, and has the highest paper circulation of any metropolitan daily newspaper in America.

It is the only paper to have such an index going back to its founding in 1851. Any one doing newspaper research would need to search the archives of the NY Times as a beginning point for other research.

It has a slogan: “All The News That’s Fit To Print”, very appropriate for a great newspaper that has changed knowledge by its efforts in all fields of learning and public interest.