The Old Bloviator has long held that that southern history
holds the keys to unlocking practically any contemporary conundrum, including,
in this case, explaining how and why someone so thoroughly dedicated to being
utterly repugnant can actually be the front-runner for the Republican
nomination. In fact, this one is something of a pushover in that Trump could
well have stolen his playbook from no less towering a presence in the storied
annals of Georgia politics other than Eugene Talmadge, who ran for governor
five times, won four times but expired before taking office for the final term.
From the governor's office, he ruled Georgia with an iron, albeit reckless,
hand, usurping the prerogatives of the Comptroller General or the Public
Service Commission whenever it suited his purpose, prompting one historian to
denounce him "as a dictator, a demagogue and a threat to the tranquility of the
state." (Sound familiar, DT?) Not for nothing was ol' Gene known as the "Wild
Man from Sugar Creek," which actually trickled through his Telfair County
estate, for his campaigns featured all manner of histrionics and audacity, such
as showing up for a rally driving a set of oxen after strapping on his
trademark red suspenders and sometimes drenching himself in corn whiskey. In a
typical stump speech carefully choreographed to seem impromptu, he ridiculed
his political opponents and critics, among whom he listed both "them lying
Atlanta newspapers" and his favorite punching bag, the racially tolerant scalawag
Atlanta Constitution columnist "Rastus," [a.k.a.] Ralph, McGill.
Talmadge's
behavior, like that of such counterparts as Jeff Davis in Arkansas and Ellison
D. "Colton Ed" Smith, was easily written off to the apparently endemic
ignorance and depravity of southern political leaders, not to mention that of
those who kept electing them, but there were sound structural incentives that
encouraged and reinforced such contrived rascality. Not the least of these was
the "white primary," a device implemented as a sort of final filter meant to
screen out any blacks who had somehow breached a veritable Siegfried Line of barriers
to voting--from the poll tax, to the literacy test, to property requirements--and
therefore remained eligible to exercise the franchise on election day. Determined
that even this tiny minority of blacks would not have their say at the ballot
box, state Democratic parties across the South had simply declared themselves
private organizations, which allowed them to forbid black participation in
their nominating primaries for state offices. Though this move may have seemed
unnecessary, it was actually critical precisely because the aforementioned artifices,
all of them keyed in one way or another to disfranchising the economically and
educationally disadvantaged, had all but eliminated the prospect of voting by
blacks and low-income whites who had a history of supporting Republican, Populist,
or any other Independent candidates. With a Democratic triumph in the general
election now a foregone conclusion, the Democratic primary was now the only
meaningful game in town for statewide political aspirants (and just to make
sure it served its purpose, anyone who ran in the white primary was required to
foreswear any subsequent candidacy as a Republican or Independent.) Since the
only realistic path to state office led straight through the Democratic primary,
it frequently attracted aspirants in large numbers. With the overwhelming
majority of those likely to really see things differently now on the outside
looking in, differences among the candidates on concrete issues were
infrequent, to say the least. The challenge of a large, relatively homogeneous
group of competitors encouraged efforts to separate one's self apart as
vividly, even histrionically, as possible, while lumping all the rivals
together. In an especially crowded race for governor in 1932, Gene Talmadge simply
dismissed his faceless opponents as "the baseball nine." Likewise, the virtual
absence of fundamental differences on issues encouraged both personal attacks
on one's rivals and tirades against a variety of sinister, impersonal, and frequently
contrived forces. Over in Mississippi, for example, two-term governor Theodore
G. Bilbo, who had recently called one of the state's sitting U.S. senators "a
vicious, malicious pusillanimous, cold-blooded, premeditated, plain, ordinary
liar," soon won a Senate seat himself, vowing to wreak vengeance on "farmer
murderers, corrupters of southern womanhood," and "skunks who steal Gideon's'
Bibles from hotel rooms."
Needless to
say, incumbents with established bases of support were likely to benefit from a
crowded field of candidates, just as fields were more likely to be crowded
when, as in 1932 in Georgia, there was no incumbent in the race, and so it is
in a 2016 Republican primary line-up, which includes not only the outrageous
Mr. T, but sixteen would-be rivals, the closest running a mere fifteen points
behind him in current polls. Though he is actually a better showman than P. T.
Barnum, Mr. Trump clearly subscribes to the old Barnum dictum that "there's no
such thing as bad publicity."
His most
recent ventures into over-the-top audacity appear to have cost him an event or
broadcast contract or appearance opportunity here and there, but what the heck
does that mean to a guy worth $10 billion? Not only do these intended rebukes
simply bounce off his Kevlar-encased ego, but they afford further opportunities
to tout himself as the only, red-blooded, non-wuss GOP option, in the much way the
disapproval of the "better element" served
as badges of distinction for the Talmadges and Bilboes. Meanwhile, his tremulous opponents agonize over jeopardizing
their conservative creds by venturing out of the far right lane just long
enough to chide him for being too forthright and visceral in expressing and defending
views on immigration, health care, women's issues, etc. that generally differ
little from their own. Thus, the currently trumped non-Trumps sit gaping as he
careens all over the road, mocking party icon John McCain, ridiculing Rand
Paul, and flat-out dissing both Jeb and his brother. Surely the O.B. has told
you enough about Gene Talmadge by now that you could easily see him giving out
Ralph McGill's phone number, much as Trump did with poor old Lindsay Graham.
Although Trump's refusal to foreswear an independent candidacy would have
gotten him booted out of the white primary, neither his individual or
cumulative excesses to date have sufficed to send him tumbling down amongst his
competitors who, at this point, are left to paddle back and forth in a tepid puddle
of "meh" awaiting what they keep telling themselves is Donny's inevitable
downfall.
Though Trump hardly qualifies as a much
of a "populist," he seems to have tapped, however crudely and tastelessly, into
a rich vein of throbbing discontent, not all of it necessarily partisan, with
the rigid code of political correctness that frequently seems to govern public action
and thought these days. This is to say, that some, perhaps many, of those who disagree
with the substance of what Trump actually says nonetheless find it hard not to
admire the exuberantly unhesitant manner in which he says it. In fact, as it was
with ol' Gene, his most endearing trait to many supporters may well be that "he
just don't give a damn!"
In the practical political sense,
however, the trouble with The Donald is that he is not exactly overstocked with
such traits. Trustworthiness? Likability? The Common Touch? "Nope" 3X. Ironically,rather than taking solace
in the fact that the very same deficits might be cited in the lurking, looming,
inevitable, nine-lived Hillary, Republican leaders must find it more than maddening
that, from a field of nearly two "baseball nines," their party has yet to come
up with no more viable opponent than someone whose every attempt to capitalize
on her negatives is all but certain simply to call further attention to his own.
