Strom Thurmond

Danger Of American Fascism Greater Now Than Ever Before!

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America has had the danger of Fascism before in its history, but never as great as in the present with Donald Trump!

In the past, we had Huey Long in the 1930s before 1936, with him being assassinated in September 1935.

We also had Strom Thurmond in 1948.

We also had George Wallace in 1968.

We also had Patrick Buchanan in 1992 and 2000.

The closest threat before now was Wallace in 1968, who ran as the American Independent Party nominee, and won 5 Southern states and 46 electoral votes. I cover the story of Wallace in my Presidential Assassinations book.

Strom Thurmond won 4 Southern states and 39 electoral votes in 1948 as the candidate of the Dixiecrats.

Long was a great potential threat to Franklin D. Roosevelt for 1936, but was assassinated in 1935, as I cover in my Presidential Assassinations book.

Patrick Buchanan weakened George H. W. Bush in 1992 primaries, and his name on the ballot in Florida in 2000 led to confusion, gaining votes that were meant to go to Democratic nominee Al Gore, affecting the election of George W. Bush.

But now, Donald Trump is a real threat, not only to immigrants, but also to critics, whether in the news media or opposition politicians, and calling for a dictatorship on Day One, leading General Mark Milley to declare Trump a Fascist, and the most dangerous threat to American democracy, the Constitution, and rule of law in all of American history!

If Trump Is Convicted, Estimate That Seven Percent Of His Supporters Would Abandon Him, Enough To Elect Joe Biden!

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As the primary season begins, indications are that IF Donald Trump is convicted on any of the 91 counts against him over four trials, that it would insure that Trump would be unable to win the Presidency.

An estimate is that at least SEVEN percent of Trump supporters now would abandon him if he was convicted, and facing prison time.

That seven percent may sound as not much, but it is believed it would be the margin of victory for President Joe Biden in key battleground states, such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all states that Biden won in 2020, before the criminal actions of Donald Trump!

One must recall that Donald Trump has never won the popular vote, and could ill afford to lose seven percent of his support upon a conviction, which seems certain on at least some of the counts against him, as the evidence in the four cases coming up in future months is very strong!

And the belief is that third party or independent candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West, and even a No Labels candidate for the White House would, when push came to shove, do very poorly, reminding us of the Presidential Election of 1948, when two known political leaders, Strom Thurmond and Henry A. Wallace, both expected to undermine Harry Truman against Republican Thomas E. Dewey, both flopped dramatically!

Joe Biden Needs To Be Harry Truman, And Give Trump And Republicans “Hell”, As Truman Did In 1948!

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President Joe Biden is now starting to mention and to attack the threat Donald Trump represents, as he travels to different events and activities.

For a man 81 years of age, Biden certainly has demonstrated energy, but he had always tried to avoid mentioning Trump directly, calling him for a long time “that other guy”!

No more, as clearly the campaign has begun for the Presidential Election of 2024, and with the almost certain likelihood that Trump will be the Republican nominee, no matter what happens in his four trials next year on 91 counts of indictments.

Biden has always been underrated, much like Harry Truman, but Truman became famous as “Give Them Hell Harry” in the Presidential Election campaign of 1948, when he faced the much younger NY Governor Thomas E. Dewey, and a split in his own party with Henry A. Wallace and Strom Thurmond.

It was thought he had no chance to win, but he proved otherwise, in the biggest election upset in American history.

So Biden is now picking up the Truman idea, and will run with it, and being underestimated can be a plus, as proved 75 years ago!

Senator Dianne Feinstein: A Massively Significant Figure For Three Decades!

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California and the nation have lost a massively significant figure in US Senate History, in the three decades contribution of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who passed away yesterday at the age of 90.

One of only three Jewish women to have served in the US Senate, and the longest serving woman Senator in American history, Feinstein was a very significant force on many issues, including gun control, national security, civil liberties, the environment, and many other issues, and knew how to work across the aisle with Republicans.

She was also the longest serving California Senator, sadly going into rapid decline in the past year, which made many observers think she should resign, but she refused to do so.

She became only the fifth Senator to reach the age of 90 in office, joining Strom Thurmond (100), Theodore Green (93), Robert Byrd (92) and Carl Hayden (91), and Chuck Grassley has just reached the age of 90 this month, as the sixth Senator to reach 90 in office.

She was Chair of the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee at different times, and had been Mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone in 1978, making gun regulation her most lasting commitment, and promoting the Assault Weapons Ban passed in 1994, but allowed to expire in 2004!

When the history of the Senate in the late 20th century and early 21st century is written, she will shine as a major star for her impact on American history!

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy Will Retire At End Of 2022, After Serving As Third Longest Serving Senator!

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Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy will retire at the end of his 8th Senate term at the end of 2022, after an amazing 48 years in the upper body of Congress!

He will leave office as the third longest serving US Senator in the 234 years of that historic institution, only behind Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who served 51.5 years, and Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who served just short of 50 years.

At the moment, he is fourth longest serving, behind Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who served 47 years and a bit more than 5 months, which Leahy will pass in June 2022.

Leahy just passed Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts in total service in late October 2021.

Leahy is the last member of Congress elected in 1974, and the only sitting Senator to have served while Gerald Ford was President, and also to have served while Jimmy Carter was President.

Leahy is the only Democrat ever elected to the Senate from Vermont, as Bernie Sanders always ran as an Independent. Leahy is easily the longest serving Vermont Senator as well.

Leahy has been, in his long career, Chairman of the Agriculture, Judiciary, and Appropriations Committees, and is President Pro Tempore of the Senate, third in line of Presidential succession.

Leahy also presided over the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in 2021.

Had Leahy chosen to run for an unprecedented 9th term, he would easily have been reelected and in 2026, would have become the longest serving US Senator ever!

Leahy is a premier liberal and progressive throughout his career, and will be nearing the age of 83 when he retires at the beginning of 2023.

Leahy is a great figure in the history of the Senate, and will be missed when he leaves office!

Three Present Members Of The Senate Likely To Be Three Of The Eight Longest Serving In Senate History!

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Following up on yesterday’s article on the aging of the Congress, three present members of the US Senate are likely to be three of the eight longest serving in the history of that legislative body.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will pass Senator Ted Kennedy in longevity on October 23, just a month from now, with 46 years, 9 months, and 20 days, one more than the Massachusetts Senator, and will be fourth longest serving. And he plans to run for a ninth term, having been elected in 1974, and if he finishes that term in 2028, he will have served two and a half years more than the longest serving member in history, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who had nearly 51 and a half years in the Senate. Leahy would be 88 and nine months at that time.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has announced he is running for an eighth term, having served since 1980, and if he finished an eighth term, he would have served 48 years, longer than all but three Senators, Robert Byrd and Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, and also Leahy, and Grassley would be 95 years of age, with only Strom Thurmond leaving the Senate at age 100 in 2002 being older.

And Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former Majority Leader and now the Minority Leader, has his seventh term end in 2026, when he would be 84 plus, and he will pass a number of Senators and be seventh or eighth longest serving at the end of that term five years from now, depending if he is in office for exactly 42 years, as former Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah served from 1977-2019.

Donald Trump: George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Pat Buchanan On Steroids!

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President Donald Trump is a true nightmare, as he has brought to ultimate power the viewpoints and policies of Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ran for President on a third party line in 1968, and won 13 percent of the national popular vote, and 46 electoral votes from five Southern states at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Donald Trump has also brought to mind the then South Carolina Governor and later US Senator Strom Thurmond, who won four Southern states and 39 electoral votes in 1948, also on an anti civil rights platform.

Donald Trump reminds us also of Pat Buchanan, journalist, commentator, and advisor to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who challenged President George H. W. Bush for renomination in 1992, and weakened his reelection campaign in that election year.

All three men were racists, hatemongers, Fascist oriented, and against civil rights.

Additionally, Buchanan was also a big time antisemite, who actually, indirectly, affected the Presidential Election of 2000. Four thousand Jewish voters in Palm Beach County, Florida, were confused by the so called “butterfly” ballot, and punched the hole for Buchanan, rather than Democratic nominee Al Gore, helping to influence the election result, with George W. Bush being declared the winner of Florida’s electoral vote by a margin of 537 popular votes statewide, and winning the Presidency!

All three of these candidates were obnoxious, disgraceful, and reprehensible, but while they all gained popular support to some extent, none was feared or became a dominant factor in leadership of the national government.

But now, we have a President who represents all of the evil and horrors promoted by Wallace, Thurmond, and Buchanan, but he was able to manipulate votes with Russian interference in 2016. Despite losing the national popular vote by a massive nearly three million to Hillary Clinton, he was able to win three states in popular vote combined of 78,000 (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania) and become President.

He has unleashed one horror and disgraceful action and utterance after another, doing massive damage to American domestic and foreign policy, and attempting to do everything he can to make himself an authoritarian leader on a level unimaginable in American history.

Donald Trump makes George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, and Pat Buchanan look like choir boys by comparison. He raises the historical profile of the President most reviled for his actions and behavior before now—Richard Nixon–to a higher level, with at least Nixon having accomplished some really significant goals that are seen as positive in historical retrospect.

But many of the accomplishments of Nixon are now either gone or being destroyed by this maniac, who if he is somehow reelected by manipulation and fraud, is a clear threat to the Constitution and Bill of Rights!

11,037 House Members And 1,983 Senate Members Since 1789

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In the 230 plus years that Congress has been in existence since March 4, 1789, we have had 11,037 people serve in the House of Representatives, and 1,983 people serve in the US Senate.

10,360 members served only in the House of Representatives, while 1,306 members served only in the US Senate, and 677 members have served in both bodies of Congress.

29 members of the House of Representatives have served 40 or more years, with John Dingell of Michigan serving the longest, 59 years from 1955 to 2015.

16 Women in the House of Representatives have served 25 or more years, with Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, having served 36 plus years since 1983, the longest of any woman, and still serving, with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, being the third longest serving at nearly 32 years and counting from California since 1987.

25 US Senators have served 35 and a half years or more, with Robert Byrd of West Virginia serving nearly 51 and a half years from 1959 to 2010. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii served nearly 50 years from 1963 to 2012, while Strom Thurmond of South Carolina served 47 and a half years and was past age 100 when he left the Senate. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts served 46 years and more than 9 months from 1962 to 2009. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, still in the Senate, is 5th longest serving at 44 plus years since 1975.

Trump’s Border Wall Is Not Based On National Security, But Simply Pure Racism Against Darker Skinned People

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Trump’s insistence on a border wall with Mexico is NOT based on concerns about national security, as there is little danger of that, and statistics demonstrate that most people we would term “terrorists” come through airports or ports of entry, not by walking or traveling through the difficult terrain that Central American migrants escaping violence, sexual abuse, and gang violence have used to pursue freedom and a new chance on a decent life for what is mostly women and children.

Yes, there is the problem of cocaine and other drugs coming to America, but it mostly goes through elaborate tunnels that have been constructed, are very sophisticated, and are extremely numerous in number and hard to detect by drug agents and border agents.

So why is Donald Trump pursuing this, despite two thirds of the American people being opposed to it, and wanting the end of the crippling federal government shutdown that is impoverishing millions, not just the actual federal workers and their families, but subsidiary businesses that are suffering from the lack of economic activity that has ensued?

Clearly, it is pure racism against darker skinned people, who Trump sees as inferior, and we have already heard his disgraceful, despicable comments about people from Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as well as from Asian countries.

We have never had a President as racist as Donald Trump. Yes, we had Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson,and all of the slave holding Presidents. We also had others who we know had the tendency to be racist in their language, such as Richard Nixon on the Watergate tapes, and in earlier lives, such as Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. But Trump is far worse than any of these, and has been his entire life, including when he was a landlord with his father back in the 1970s in New York City, and in many other situations ever since.

Trump is a combination of the worst racists of modern times in America—the dead Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace; and those who are alive, including Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and Richard Spencer, among others.

The only time we had to worry about such a personality on the Presidential level was George Wallace in 1968, but he ran on a third party, winning five states and 13.5 percent of the vote, so could not win the Presidency.

And even George Wallace, in later years, after the assassination attempt by Arthur Bremer in 1972 left him paralyzed for life, changed his views, asked for forgiveness for his racism, and was accepted as reformed by many in the Civil Rights Movement.

There is no hope for Donald Trump in this regard, and his racism will always mark him as, certainly for modern times, the worst person on the race issue, without any chance of redemption.

Senators Who Reached Age 90 In Office, Other Possible Additions To The List in Future Years To 2026, And Democratic House Leadership Reaching 80 By 2020

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Strom Thurmond, Democrat and then Republican, South Carolina 100

Theodore F. Green, Democrat, Rhode Island 93

Robert Byrd, Democrat, West Virginia 92

Carl Hayden, Democrat, Arizona 91

Additionally, the potential future shows the following:

Dianne Feinstein, Democrat, California, would reach age 90 in next term ending 2024 with her reaching that age in 2023, with her victory in November for another six year term assured.

Chuck Grassley, Republican, Iowa, would reach age 90 in 2023 if he won another term in 2022.

Richard Shelby, Democrat and then Republican, Alabama, would reach age 90 in 2024, if he won another term in 2022.

James Inhofe, Republican, Oklahoma, would reach age 90 in 2024, if he won another term in 2020.

Pat Roberts, Republican, Kansas, would reach age 90 in 2026, if he won another term in 2020.

The question is whether it is good for the nation to have five Octogenarians in the US Senate in 2019, and this after John McCain died and Orrin Hatch is retiring.

It is, however, a growing trend, and the present Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn), all will reach 80 soon, with Pelosi reaching 80 in March 2020, Hoyer reaching 80 in June 2019, and Clyburn reaching 80 in July 2020, so all age 80 during the 116th Congress.

The debate will grow over the aging of Congress, and particularly of leadership and influence over the future of American democracy.