"What are the Real issues that exist today in these United States? It is the trend of the pseudo-intellectual government, where a select, elite group have (sic) written guidelines in bureaus and court decisions, have spoken from some pulpits, some college campuses, some newspaper offices, looking down their noses at the average man on the street."
The words of Donald Trump, 2024? No. The words of George Wallace, 1968.
Those born after 1960 may have little recollection of Mr. Wallace other than what they learned from history, where he has become more or less a footnote, but since I was born early enough, my recollection is clearer. Wallace was the Alabama governor who, in 1968— a time of racial unrest and war ramping up in Vietnam—declared himself a candidate for president. He was what we call a populist, though his concerns did not transcend his white constituency; in fact, he had spent his life embellishing his role as an inveterate segregationalist. Wallace ran as an independent and garnered just under ten percent of the popular vote, carrying Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. He won 45 electoral votes, 46 if you count one from a cheating elector who chose to ignore the popular vote and chose Wallace instead.
He was then and remains a blot on America. There had been other racists, but none in the modern era running for president on a specifically anti-integration platform, one designed to keep Black Americans in check. Despite many "Come-to-Jesus" moments later in life, most of them after an assassination attempt left him paralyzed, he will always be remembered for what he was at his most fiery: a bigot.
After the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Wallace saw discontent and fear among white voters and exploited it. He attacked intellectuals and learning, attacked the press, and attacked progressivism of all sorts. His bogeyman was the Black American voter, the Black American activist, and the Black American in the white school. Except for the five Southern states he carried, America summarily rejected him and recognized him for what he was. We were not ready to tolerate such ignorance and narrow-mindedness.
Apparently, however, fifty years later, despite all our technological and scientific advancements, we're ready. We have prepared ourselves by ignoring the factual reports of journalists and kowtowing to an Internet replete with liars and fantasists. We defy our own senses and subscribe to idiot conspiracists who believe (to quote from TV's "Slow Horses") that "Elvis shot JFK, and Hitler built the pyramids." We're ready to sacrifice our common sense, our ethics, and any belief in the innate goodness of humanity, and we'll do so to ingratiate ourselves to a moral cipher named Trump who doesn't give our well-being a moment's thought.
I've heard the advice—don't berate his followers, berate him. That ship has sailed. then foundered last weekend. I no longer feel the need to coddle people for whom vulgarity is standard fare and the puerile dialogue of a prepubescent boy-man constitutes an appropriate campaign speech. Not even the dead are safe from the idiocy of a foul-mouthed, intellectually stunted, and emotionally barren old man. It's ironic that Trump's idolaters, so concerned with others' wokeness, are themselves spiritually and morally asleep, if not dead.
George Wallace's ten percent of the vote will always be a shameful reminder of the 60s, but Donald Trump will quadruple that total and may very well win a second term. Wallace was stopped by patriots who loved their country and didn't fall for his blather, but today, the "love of country" people wear red hats and profess their country to be a hell hole. They sing aloud how they're "proud to be an American," then kneel at the feet of a convicted criminal who hates America and everything it stands for.
The MAGA people have found their man. And the rest of us—if we don't speak out against him—become their accomplices.
America sent George Wallace packing 56 years ago. Maybe we were smarter then or simply more aware. In any land that respects freedom of expression, there will always be demagogues like Wallace and Trump, and there will always be bigots and malcontents ready to follow them. My worry today is that we no longer possess the fortitude, the courage, or the patriotism to stand in their way.
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