Wayward Landlubber

   A white Male with economic or political stature is expected to be assertive, it is a desirable trait. A black man or woman of any color with economic or political stature is accused of being a tyrant in the first instance, or pushy in the second, if they assert their stature. Assertiveness is considered an undesirable characteristic, or so asserts the white males. The Presidency of the United States is supposed to be held by a statesman or diplomat who, while asserting his/her stature, must be seen as thoughtful or reasoned. The election of 2008 gave us the first non-white Male president. He was thoughtful and reasoned, a gifted diplomat whose assertions were a model of statesmanship. The aggrieved white males whose candidacies were handily rejected could not tolerate this interloper on their rightful domain. He was a (gasp) black man who had moved his attractive and morally upright family into their Whitehouse. His desirable traits were a tyranny and he was a tyrant, they ...

   Along about the mid-1850s, during the presidency of James K Polk, there existed a political rump party. Rump, not Trump. This party, whose unremembered name was the American party, is universally known as "know-nothing" because they claimed not to know who led the party. It has not been determined if this was a metaphor or a sad display of truth. The two dominant parties then were the Whigs, the party of Northern business interests, and the Democrats, then the party of slavery. The anti-slavery whigs and the Abolitionists would become the Republican party a decade later. The Know-nothings believed in American nativism, not to be confused with native- American. They were filled with the belief that all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was manifest by God to be included in the United States. The residents of that area of land were not consulted. Further, they wanted Mexicans to leave their land so that it, too could became a part of the United States. Canada...