The New Know Nothing Party

I did not know of The Hill's Republicans are the 21st-century Know-Nothing Party when I started this post. I only knew of my own opinions.

American Heritage's The Know-Nothing Uproar states the case also for a modern resonance with our Trumpist GOP:

What was responsible for this amazing political phenomenon? Three factors played an essential role. One was the nativistic propaganda that reached a crescendo just as the party was entering the national scene; hundreds of thousands of Americans voted for the party’s candidates because they were sincerely convinced that Catholicism and foreign immigration seriously threatened their institutions. Another was the breakdown of traditional political patterns following the Compromise of 1850; voters during the next years had to decide among Democratic, Whig, Anti-Nebraska, Free Soil, Hard Democratic, Soft Democratic, Conscience Whig, Union Maine Law, and a variety of other candidates. Any well-knit party with a well-defined purpose stood to profit by this disarray....

Add a few more details from The Smithsonian Magazine's How the 19th-Century Know Nothing Party Reshaped American Politics

...At its height in the 1850s, the Know Nothing party, originally called the American Party, included more than 100 elected congressmen, eight governors, a controlling share of half-a-dozen state legislatures from Massachusetts to California, and thousands of local politicians. Party members supported deportation of foreign beggars and criminals; a 21-year naturalization period for immigrants; mandatory Bible reading in schools; and the elimination of all Catholics from public office. They wanted to restore their vision of what America should look like with temperance, Protestantism, self-reliance, with American nationality and work ethic enshrined as the nation's highest values.

 Which may be our Trumpist future. This the past they want restored.

Richard Hofstadter wrote Anti-intellectualism in American life decades before the Republic Party became radicals masquerading as commonsensical conservatives. Salon,s Anti-intellectualism is back — because it never went away. And it's killing Americans says the problem of American dislike of thinking continues.

I do not see how we can rid the country of the superstitious, of the dogmatists of ignorance, but until then those prefer a democratic government need to be prepared for a fight. I was once apathetic and that is the road to destruction. Those who think we are immune to fascism will find they wallow in hubris and destruction is the cost of hubris. 

The danger is here.

The Dunce Party:

TENNESSEE’S SPRING LEGISLATIVE session featured a barrage of draconian bills—almost all of which passed. In the words of Democratic State Representative Gloria Johnson, “We have a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill worse than Florida’s” and “a vigilante abortion bill worse than Texas’. A bill that makes your friends and family $10k if they rat you out.” Add to that an attempt to define common-law marriage with a restriction excluding same-sex couples, which briefly made national news because it was initially drafted without a restriction against underage marriage. Both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly have lopsided Republican majorities: twenty-seven to six in the Senate and seventy-three to twenty-six in the House. With a Republican governor in place, there are no obstacles to enacting the GOP’s regressive agenda.

sch 5/27/22