RALLYING CRIES DISTINGUISH POLITICAL CANDIDATES

Now that 2016 is finally here we can at last look forward to getting on top of the political election calendar. Too much may have been made of the campaign already. However, the Iowa caucuses are less than a month away. The New Hampshire primary follows on February 9, just ahead of a series of electoral events leading to "Super Tuesday" when 12 states attempt to clarify their preference among our presidential aspirants. All of these events ultimately lead to national party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia in July when our choices are reduced to two. By the time we ultimately arrive at the election on Tuesday, November 8, we will all be exhausted, but we will finally know who is going to lead us during the next four years. In the mean time we attemptr to sort through more than a dozen candidates searching for reasons to select one over the other.

All contestants are busily trying to set themselves apart from each other, a chore not easily accomplished. During the Middle Ages competing entities used flags for the purpose of identification. By looking at a flag, observers were able to identify the status, association, or religion of the flag bearer. In war banners were used to help soldiers identify friends or enemies. Today political competitors have replaced banners with slogans used on posters and bumper stickers. In "How to win any election" Joe Garecht tells us that every campaign needs a message, issues that support the message, and an effective campaign slogan . "Slogans need to be easy to remember, short enough to be said in one breath, and snappy enough to say over and over again." Where combatants used to identify with the flag of their compatriots, today's voters identify with their chosen candidate  through her or his campaign slogan. In a way these taglines become a rallying call-to-action, and they can be used in support of or in opposition to specific candidates. Our electoral history is awash in memorable campaign slogans. Many of these reflect the values of society at the time. The Memorabilia Website of Duke University's Collections Library lists an impressive collection of presidential campaign slogans and catchprhrases. Some of these are quite memorable, pointed, and some are even risque. I selected the following to help us ease into what is sure to confront us this year.

One of the earliest rallying cries came from Patrick Henry, founding father, attorney, planter and politician who became the first post-colonial governor of Virginia, who is best remembered for his "Give  Me Liberty of Give Me Death" speech.

In 1789 George Washington, a reluctant candidate at best, used a poster with the slogan: "Let's Try it. See What Happens."

William Henry Harrison and running mate John Tyler made "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" part of history.

In 1852 Franklin Pierce, running against incumbent  President James Polk, came up with: "We Polked You in  '44. We Shall Pierce You in '52."

John Fremont, running in 1856, used the slogan: "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men and Fremont."

Abraham Lincoln's slogan in 1860 was: "Vote Yourself a Farm." During his re-election campaign in 1864 this changed to: "Don't Swap Horses when Crossing Streams."

In 1884 James Blaine, running against Grover Cleveland who had been accused of fathering an illegitimate child in 1874, ran the slogan: "Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa?"

In 1884 Republicans attacked the opposition for views against prohibition with: "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion."

Herbert Hoover ran using the catchphrase: "A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage."

Hoover ran against Al Smith in 1928. One of the issues debated was prohibition. Proponents were called "drys," opponents were referred to as "wets." A popular tagline during that election became: "Vote for Al Smith and Make Your Wet Dreams Come True."

FDR used various battle cries and became the recipient of slogans opposing his election as well. In 1932 FDR used: "Happy Days Are Here Again." Alfred Landon retorted in 1936 with: 'Life, Liberty and Landon." Wendell Wilkie, running in opposition in 1940 ran posters stating: "Roosevelt for Ex-President." Some of the latter's supporters also circulated literature proclaiming: "No Man is Good Three Times."

Everyone remembers Harry Truman's "Give Em Hell, Harry," and Eisenhower's "I lIke Ike."

In 1960 even prostitutes got into the act proclaiming: "Nixon or Kennedy, We don't Care Who Gets In!"

Goldwater's run for office generated pro and con slogans like: "Goldwater - In Your Heart You Know He's Right."  "In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts."

The 1972 election campaign opposing Democrats saw: "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion for All."

Jimmy Carter flaunted his background in 1976 with bumper stickers that said: "Not Just Peanuts."

Ronald Reagan was the first one to come up with: "Make America Great Again." (Donald Trump adopted the slogan for his own campaign and is actually trying to trademark it.)

Many of us still remember Bill Clinton's slogan: "It's the Economy Stupid," and Barack Obama's: "Yes, We Can!"

This year we should look forward to some new slogans. The better ones, other than the one Donald Trump "borrowed" are:

Ben Carson - "Heal, Inspire, Revive."

Carly Fiorina - "New Possibilities. Real Leadership."

Ted Cruz - "Reigniting the Promise of America."

Bernie Sanders - "A Political Revolution is Coming.

Marco Rubio - "A New American Century."

Rand Paul - "Defeat the Washington Machine. Unleash the American Dream."

Mike Huckabee - "From Hope to Higher Ground."

Jeb Bush - "Jeb!"

Candidates missing from this list have not quite come up with a succinct battle cry most of us can remember.

If history provides a guideline, our message to the candidates should be: "keep it simple," or come November we will have forgotten how you tried to help us focus.

were called "drys," 

FUELING XENOPHOBIC HYSTERIA FEEDS FASCIST ELEMENTS

On December 7 Donald Trump, Republican frontrunner in the presidential election contest, announced that he was calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." His words elicited a firestorm of reaction from domestic as well as foreign pundits. Leaders in both political parties chastised him for making un-American statements. The British Parliament is considering a motion banning him from entering the U.K.. Business associates operating in the Middle East are removing Trump's name from branded properties . A previously scheduled meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was cancelled. And across the globe the GOP frontrunner is being referred to as a Fascist demagogue. Donald Trump says that he does not care, that what he said needed to be said. Upwards of 60% of potential Republican voters appear to agree. He apparently anticipated some of the reaction, and his proposal was obviously designed to feed into a growing Islamophobia permeating the country.

While Trump may have unleashed a political firestorm among mainstream politicians, his remarks mirrored similar utterances coming out of a growing number of far-right populist, nationalist or outright Fascist parties dotting the political landscape in Europe. Many of the elements leading to the development of Fascist parties across pre WWII Europe  are again in evidence. During the run-up of World War II political movements were focused on similar concerns far-right parties agitate about today: The economy, unemployment, immigration, a loss of national identity, and a loss of traditional values. While anti-semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties during the first three decades of the 20th Century, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor during the early part of the 21st Century.

In our country political demagoguery may eventually be absorbed in platforms of one of the major political parties. In most European countries electoral systems allow fringe movements to organize their support in to political parties with real power. Today in Europe proto-Fascist parties that are anti-Islam, anti-Semitic, and anti-European Union have already become the second or third largest parties in a belt of formerly liberal societies that runs from Norway and Finland  to The Netherlands and France. In Hungary, where the nationalist Fidesz Party already governs, Jobbik, the more extreme and most obvious neo-Nazi party in Europe continues to gain in strength. Prime Minister Viktor Oban , already referred to as a dictator and the "Donald Trump of Europe," continues his movement to the extreme  right in an effort to thwart Jobbik's ascendance. In Poland a new right wing populist government controlled by the "Law and Justice Party" recently took steps to cancel previous appointments of judges to its Constitutional Tribunal, which rules on all legislation. In France Marine Le Pen's Nationalist Front took 30% of the vote in recent regional elections, positioning herself well for an anticipated challenge  in the upcoming 2017 presidential elections. It took collaboration between President Hollande's Socialists and past President Sarkozy's center-right "Les Republicains" to keep her from dominating the election.

The point is that the world is a dangerous place today, but our reaction to the dangers that seem to be lurking around every corner is potentially as dangerous as what we are trying to protect ourselves from. What we may now look at as political theater fed by powerful demagoguery can quickly deteriorate into mass hysteria and morph ideas into political power and control over public resources. While we yearn for a rebirth of traditional values, we tend to lose track of our core values. Witness Europe where ideas similar to those expressed by Donald Trump ultimately developed into political parties with real power running on platforms specifying desires to expel their Muslim population, register Jews and Muslims alike, stop the flow of refugees, reverse the influence of the European Union and its Parliament (one-third of which  now consists of far-right ant-E.U. representatives), restrict democratic values, and essentially reverted to the situation after the Weimar Republic in 1933 Germany. The Nazis who took over never won an election. However, their demagoguery acquired the support that eventually led us to World War II and the deaths of over 60 million people.

Political bluster and grandstanding can produce outcomes we don't imagine, and over which we could easily lose control. If you think that that can't happen here, just remember: we used to ostracize Catholics, we shamelessly allowed anti-semitism to fester and sent thousands of would-be Jewish immigrants back to Germany where most were exterminated, we interred our Japanese citizens, and if we follow Donald Trump's suggestions we will soon make life for our Muslim citizens a living hell.

Hitler's brown shirts were not very educated. They were storm troopers. When he released them  during the night of November 9, 1938 to execute a coordinated attack on Jews throughout Germany - during what was later dubbed as "Kristallnacht" - he destroyed the lives of millions of people and set the stage for what would become his "final solution." When I observed the raucous standing ovation Trump received in South Carolina when he announced his proposal I could not help but feel that he could have asked these people to do anything he wanted, and they would have complied. As we read this mosques are being firebombed,people are attacked, knifed and killed, businesses are being defaced and destroyed, and patriotic Americans are having their lives ruined.

My parents were living 300 miles from the center of activity in Germany in 1938. They were helpless to do anything about it, but they suffered the eventual consequences when my grandfather was enslaved and ultimately killed by the Nazis. We still have a choice. We need to use it, or we may wake up one morning regretting we didn't.

THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF

Our 32nd President, Franklin Roosevelt, spoke these words during his inaugural address in 1933. Within a decade our government would turn back thousands of Jewish refugees, desperate people fleeing a terrifying blood thirsty regime. We argued that they posed a serious thtreat to our national security, and we essentially returned them to Germany where many would be exterminated by the Nazis. Later in 1939 we rejected a proposal to allow 20,000 Jewish children to come into the country for safety. Three years later Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which resulted in interring nearly 120,000 citizens of Japanese descent while some of their offspring died on the battlefield fighting on our side during the war. At the time well over 80% of residents polled supported Roosevelt's turnabout. Politics trumped what was once a sensible expression of opinion in line with a set of values our country had always stood for. Since that time we have generally expressed regret for what we did back then. However, 70 years later we apparently still have not learned from it.

The terrorist acts in Paris where 130 people died at the hands of, mostly home-grown, criminals are stirring up the same type of political grand standing as what preceded our entry into World War II. More than half of our governors and most candidates running for president have grabbed onto heightened security concerns, misdiagnosed the facts, and again targeted a group of desperate refugees while identifying members of a specific religion to make political points, vastly under estimating real security threats.

This time around our focus is on Syrian refugees and followers of Islam. The House of Representatives passed a bill establishing a pause in resettling Syrian refugees until our vetting process has been reviewed. Mind you, currently refugees admitted to the U.S. undergo between one and two years of screening by multiple intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Department of Defense. Since 9/11 we have resettled 387,938 refugees from majority Muslim countries. Only 2 of these have subsequently been arrested for suspect activities. While pandering to their political base, and while trying to outdo each other, political candidates are falling all over each other making pathetic, pathological, xenophobic statements. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush are suggesting that going forward we should only admit Christian refugees. Trans-Humanist Party candidate Zoltan Istvan suggested that small microchips could be implanted under the skin of Syrian refugees as part of the process admitting them into the U.S.. Donald Trump wants to close down or monitor all mosques, place Syrians into internment camps in Syria, send Syrians already processed and in the country back, and register all Muslims into a database. Chris Christy pronounced that he would not even make exceptions for orphans under the age of five. In the mean time Ben Carson, at a campaign stop in Mobile, Alabama, referred to Syrian refugees as "rabid dogs."

As the inflammatory rhetoric escalates and becomes less and less American, it is worth observing that the terrorists in Paris mostly carried French, Belgian and Moroccan passports. Given the vetting time it takes before refugees are allowed into the country, it would be highly unlikely that terrorist groups could muster the patience required to infiltrate their flow and smuggle anyone into the U.S.. The real security risk rests with people who carry passports from countries we typically trust and for which we don't require visas. The political pandering does not only undermine security threats we should focus on, the rhetoric has a way of inflaming those who don't think for themselves. As French writer and philosopher Voltaire noted centuries ago: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Two weeks ago armed protesters showed up at a mosque in Irving Texas, which underscores the point that we should deescalate the discourse before it really gets out of hand.

Finally, one can't escape the fact that, since the attacks on the World Trade Center, we have experienced well over 360,000 gun related killings. In a way these acts of violence resemble a form of domestic terrorism that resulted in more devastation and agony than what we are currently observing internationally. However, these "terrorist" acts don't seem to elicit the same level of outrage. To combat terrorist acts within our borders, the Bush administration suggested in 2007 that we pass a law denying people who we suspect might engage in terrorist activities from purchasing guns and explosives. Almost nine years later this bill still has not passed Congress. Recently Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Peter King reintroduced this legislation, which is now dubbed the "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorist Act of 2015." The point they make, convincingly in my view, is that if we deny people on our "no fly list" from boarding our planes, we should keep them away from explosives and firearms. Unfortunately the lunatic fringe at the helm of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA's lobbying arm which manages its Political Action Committee, and which maintains its grasp over a cowardly Congress, has succeeded in keeping this sensible legislation from becoming law. Their aggressive arm twisting, presumably not by intent, but certainly in effect, appears to support domestic terrorism. Perhaps we should begin re-defining who our real enemies are.