Tuesday, November 11, 1941. Armistice Day on the Eve of War.

Franklin Roosevelt delivered an Armistace Day address at Arlington National Cemetery.  It reads:

Among the great days of national remembrance, none is more deeply moving to Americans of our generation than the Eleventh of November, the Anniversary of the Armistice of 1918, the day sacred to the memory of those who gave their lives in the war which that day ended.

Our observance of this Anniversary has a particular significance in the year 1941.

For we are able today as we were not always able in the past to measure our indebtedness to those who died.

A few years ago, even a few months, we questioned, some of us, the sacrifice they had made. Standing near to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Sergeant York of Tennessee, on a recent day spoke to such questioners. "There are those in this country today," said Sergeant York, "who ask me and other veterans of World War Number One, 'What did it get you?'"

Today we know the answer-all of us. All who search their hearts in honesty and candor know it.

We know that these men died to save their country from a terrible danger of that day. We know, because we face that danger once again on this day.

"What did it get you?"

People who asked that question of Sergeant York and his comrades forgot the one essential fact which every man who looks can see today.

They forgot that the danger which threatened this country in 1917 was real-and that the sacrifice of those who died averted that danger.

Because the danger was overcome they were unable to remember that the danger had been present.

Because our armies were victorious they demanded why our armies had fought.

Because our freedom was secure they took the security of our freedom for granted and asked why those who died to save it should have died at all.

"What did it get you?"

"What was there in it for you?"

If our armies of 1917 and 1918 had lost there would not have been a man or woman in America who would have wondered why the war was fought. The reasons would have faced us everywhere. We would have known why liberty is worth defending as those alone whose liberty is lost can know it. We would have known why tyranny is worth defeating as only those whom tyrants rule can know.

But because the war had been won we forgot, some of us, that the war might have been lost.

Whatever we knew or thought we knew a few years or months ago, we know now that the danger of brutality and tyranny and slavery to freedom-loving peoples can be real and terrible.

We know why these men fought to keep our freedom-and why the wars that save a people's liberties are wars worth fighting and worth winning-and at any price.

"What did it get you?"

The men of France, prisoners in their cities, victims of searches and of seizures without law, hostages for the safety of their masters' lives, robbed of their harvests, murdered in their prisons-the men of France would know the answer to that question. They know now what a former victory of freedom against tyranny was worth.

The Czechs too know the answer. The Poles. The Danes. The Dutch. The Serbs. The Belgians. The Norwegians. The Greeks.

We know it now.

We know that it was, in literal truth, to make the world safe for democracy that we took up arms in 1917. It was, in simple truth and in literal fact, to make the world habitable for decent and self-respecting men that those whom we now remember gave their lives. They died to prevent then the very thing that now, a quarter century later, has happened from one end of Europe to the other.

Now that it has happened we know in full the reason why they died.

We know also what obligation and duty their sacrifice imposes upon us. They did not die to make the world safe for decency and self-respect for five years or ten or maybe twenty. They died to make it safe. And if, by some fault of ours who lived beyond the war, its safety has again been threatened then the obligation and the duty are ours. It is in our charge now, as it was America's charge after the Civil War, to see to it "that these dead shall not have died in vain." Sergeant York spoke thus of the cynics and doubters: "The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them."

The people of America agree with that. They believe that liberty is worth fighting for. And if they are obliged to fight they will fight eternally to hold it.

This duty we owe, not to ourselves alone, but to the many dead who died to gain our freedom for us-to make the world a place where freedom can live and grow into the ages.

This would, of course, be the last peacetime Armistice Day/Veterans Day address delivered by a President until November, 1946.

Under Secretary of State Sumner Wells delivered one as well, in Washington D. C. In it, he stated:

Twenty-three years ago today, Woodrow Wilson addressed the Congress of the United States in order to inform the representatives of the American people of the terms of the Armistice which signalized the victorious conclusion of the first World War.

That day marked, as he then said, the attainment of a great objective: the opportunity for the setting up of "such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon something much better and much more lasting than the selfish competitive interests of powerful states".

Less than five years later, shrouded in the cerements of apparent defeat, his shattered body was placed in the grave beside which we now are gathered.
He was laid to rest amid the apathy of the many and amid the sneers of those of his opponents who had, through appeal to ignorance, to passion, and to prejudice, temporarily persuaded the people of our country to reject Wilson's plea that the influence, the resources; and the power of the United States be exercised for their own security and for their own advantage, through our participation in an association of the free and self-governed peoples of the world.

And yet, when we reflect upon the course of the years that have since intervened, how rarely in human history has the vision of a statesman been so tragically and so swiftly vindicated.

Only a score of years have since elapsed, and today the United States finds itself in far greater peril than it did in 1917. The waves of world-conquest are breaking high both in the East and in the West. They are threatening, more nearly each day `that passes, to engulf our own shores.

Beyond the Atlantic a sinister and pitiless conqueror has reduced more than half of Europe to abject serfdom. It is his boast that his system shall prevail even unto the ends of the earth.

In the Far East the same forces of conquest under a different guise are menacing the safety of all nations that border upon the Pacific.

Were these forces to prevail, what place in such a world would there be for the freedoms which we cherish and which we are passionately determined to maintain?

Because of these perils we are arming ourselves to an extent to which we have never armed ourselves before. We are pouring out billions upon billions of dollars in expenditures, not only in order that we may successfully defend ourselves and our sister nations of the Western Hemisphere but also, for the same ends, in order to make available the weapons of defense to Great Britain, to Russia, to China, and to all the other nations that have until now so bravely fought back the hordes of the invaders. And in so doing we are necessarily diverting the greater part of our tremendous productive capacity into channels of destruction, not those of construction, and we are piling up a debt?burden which will inevitably affect the manner of life and diminish the opportunity for progressive advancement of our children' and of our children's children.

But far graver than that-for the tides are running fast-our people realize that at any moment war may be forced upon us, and if it is, the lives of all of us will have to be dedicated to preserving the freedom of the United States and to safeguarding the independence of the American people, which are more dear to us than life itself.

The heart-searching question which every American citizen must ask himself on this day of commemoration is whether the world in which we have to live would have come to this desperate pass had the United States been willing in those years which followed 1919 to play its full part in striving to bring about a new world-order based on justice and on "a steadfast concert for peace".

Would the burdens and the dangers which the American people might have had to envisage through that "partnership of democratic nations" which Woodrow Wilson then urged upon them, have represented even an infinitesimal portion of the burdens and the dangers with which they are now confronted?

Solely from the standpoint of the interest of the American people themselves, who saw straight and who thought straight 20 years ago? Was it Woodrow Wilson when he pled with his fellow Americans to insure the safety and the welfare of their country by utilizing the influence and the strength of their great Nation in joining with the other peace-loving powers of the earth in preventing the outgrowth of those conditions which have made possible this new world upheaval? Or was it that group of self-styled, "practical, hardheaded Americans", who jeered at his idealism, who loudly proclaimed that our very system of government would be destroyed if we raised our voice in the determination of world-affairs, and who refused to admit that our security could be even remotely jeopardized if the whole of the rest of the earth was plunged into the chaos of world anarchy?

A cycle in human events is about to come to its end.

The American people after full debate, in accordance with their democratic institutions, have determined upon their policy. They are pledged to defend their freedom and their ancient rights against every form of aggression, and to spare no effort and no sacrifice in bringing to pass the final defeat of Hitlerism and all that which that evil term implies.

We have no doubt of the ultimate victory of the forces of liberty and of human decency. But we cannot know, we cannot yet foresee, how long and how hard the road may be which leads to that new day when another armistice will be signed.

And what will come to pass thereafter?

Three months ago the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed and made public a new charter on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world".

The principles and the objectives set forth in that joint declaration gave new hope and new courage to millions of people throughout the earth. They saw again more clearly the why and the wherefore of this ghastly struggle. They saw once more the gleam of hope on the horizon-hope for liberty; freedom, from fear and want; the satisfaction of their craving for security.

These aspirations of human beings everywhere cannot again be defrauded. Those high objectives set forth in the Charter of the Atlantic must be realized. They must be realized, quite apart from every other consideration, because of the fact that the individual interest of every man and woman in the United States will be advanced consonantly with the measure in which the world where they live is governed by right and by justice, and the measure in which peace prevails

The American people thus have entered the Valley of Decision.

Shall we as the most powerful Nation of the earth once more stand aloof from all effective and practical forms of international concert, wherein our participation could in all human probability insure the maintenance of a peaceful world in which we can safely live?

Can we afford again to refrain from lifting a finger until gigantic forces of destruction threaten all of modern civilization, and the raucous voice of a criminal paranoiac, speaking as the spokesman for these forces from the cellar of a Munich beer hall, proclaims as his set purpose the destruction of our own security, and the annihilation of religious liberty, of political liberty, and of economic liberty throughout the earth?

The decision rests solely with the people of the United States-the power is theirs to determine the kind of world of the future in which they would live. Is it conceivable that, in enlightened self-interest, they could once more spurn that opportunity?

When the time for?the making of that great decision is at hand, I believe that they will turn again for light and for inspiration to the ideals of that great seer; statesman, patriot, and lover of his fellow men-Woodrow Wilson-whose memory we here today revere.

Then, again, they will remember that great cause he once held up before their eyes-"A universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

Australia dedicated its war memorial on this day.

In the Philippines, a general election won a second term for Manuel L. Quezon, the incumbent President. This was the first time a Filipino President had been reelected because it was the first time its constitution allowed for it.

Quezon was a lawyer and former insurrectionist, from the US point of view, who had come around to supporting the US created government, as most prominent Filipino figures had.  He would occupy the position of President until his death on August 1, 1944.

Vichy France suffered the loss of the commander of its ground forces, Charles Hutzinger, in an air accident. The aircraft in which he was a passenger was on an inspection tour of Vichy military facilities in North Africa when it attempted to land in bad weather with poor visibility in an aircraft whose radio equipment was obsolete.

Hutzinger, who had been one of the officials to sign Vichy France's anti-Semitic laws of 1940, was perhaps a natural for his position, as he was of German descent.

Friday, November 11. Veterans Day

Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans Day: 

1921 Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

On this day in 1921 the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated in Arlington National Cemetery.  I noted that on our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History, quite some time ago, but the photo below, of Chief Plenty Coups, whom I discussed on November 8, is a new addition here.

Also noting the tragedy of the Great War, today was the first day in which the Royal British Legion sold poppies in remembrance of the war.  This tradition still goes on in the United Kingdom and also in Canada.  When I was a kid, it occurred here in the form of artificial "bloody poppies" that were sold by one of the two veterans organizations, although I forget which one  I dimly recall it was the VFW, but I could be in error.

Harding gave a speech, as noted, at the event, which was transmitted nationwide by telephone wires by AT&T.

A photographer played with black and while film to capture this image at 10:30 that evening.

The war with Germany officially ended on this day, not coincidentally, as the US and Weimar Germany officially recognized the peace.   Germany also was reaching out to the Soviet Union with the formation of Deruluft, a joint German Russian airline.  It operated until 1937.

The New York Bible Society presented a bible to the conference meeting in Washington on arms limitation.

Does anyone know where a person can get a print of J. K. Ralston's 1963 painting of the Fetterman Fight?

Today In Wyoming's History: Does anyone know where a person can get a print of...

Orders Of Sacrifice - Guided Unboxing

Orders of Sacrifice

Monday, November 10, 1941. American Guide Week.

It was the start of American Guide Week, which had the purpose noted.  It seems odd that the Administration was boosting tourism right before World War Two, but it was.

On the same day, the British launched a commando raid on Rommel's headquarters, the same being Operation Flipper.  The mission by No. 11 Commando was designed to be a raid on the headquarters of Erwin Rommel on November 18.

The raid, timed with the commencement of a British offensive, was a flop.  Rommel had moved his headquarters weeks earlier and, by the time of the raid itself, was vacationing in Italy with his wife in celebration of his 50th birthday.  Two of the commandos were killed and 28 wounded in what was a fairly pointless endeavor.  The raid resulted in one posthumous Victoria Cross which has been criticized as, contrary to the norm, the report was not written by a witness and is contradicted by actual witnesses.

The German's launched an effort to take Sevastopol.  Elements of the Japanese naval force destined to raid Pearl Harbor started leaving Kure, their base in Japan.

Winston Church commented on this day that "should the United States become involved in war with Japan, the British declaration will follow within the hour."   The full speech read:

Alike in times of peace and war the annual civic festival we have observed to-day has been, by long custom, the occasion for a speech at Guildhall by the Prime Minister upon foreign affairs. This year our ancient Guildhall lies in ruins. Our foreign affairs are shrunken, and almost the whole of Europe is prostrate under the Nazi tyranny. The war which Hitler began by invading Poland, and which now engulfs the European Continent, has broken into the north-east of Africa, and may well engulf the greater part of Asia-nay, it may soon spread to the remaining portions of the globe. Nevertheless, in the same spirit as you, my Lord Mayor, have celebrated your assumption of office with the time-honoured pageant of Lord Mayor's Day, so I, who have the honour to be your guest, will endeavour to play, though very briefly-for in war-time speeches should be short-the traditional part assigned to those who hold my office.

The condition of Europe is terrible in the last degree. Hitler's firing parties are busy every day in a dozen countries-Norwegians, Belgians, Frenchmen, Dutch, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Greeks, and above all, in scale, Russians are being butchered by thousands and by tens of thousands after they have surrendered, while individual and mass executions in all the countries I have mentioned have become part of the regular German routine.

The world has been intensely stirred by the massacre of the French hostages. The whole of France, with the exception of that small clique whose public careers depend upon a German victory, has been united in horror and indignation against this slaughter of perfectly innocent people. Admiral Darlan's tribute to German generosity falls unseasonably at this moment on French ears, and his plans for loving collaboration with the conquerors and murderers of Frenchmen are quite appreciably embarrassed.

Even the arch-criminal himself, the Nazi ogre Hitler, has been frightened by the volume and passion of world indignation which his spectacular atrocity has excited. It is he, and not the French people, who has been intimidated. He has not dared to go forward with his further programme of killing hostages.

This, as you will have little doubt, is not due to mercy, to compassion, to compunction, but to fear and to a dawning consciousness of personal insecurity rising in a wicked heart. I would say generally that we must regard all these victims of the Nazi executioners in so many lands, who are labelled Communists and Jews-we must regard them just as if they were brave soldiers who died for their country on the field of battle. Aye, in a way their sacrifice may be more fruitful than that of the soldier who falls with his arms in his hands. A river of blood has flowed and is flowing between the German race and the peoples of nearly all Europe. It is not the hot blood of war, where good blows are given and returned. It is the cold blood of the execution yard and the scaffold, which leaves a stain indelible for generations and for centuries.

Here, then, are the foundations upon which the "new order" of Europe is to be inaugurated. Here, then, is the house-warming festival of the Herrenvolk. Here, then, is the system of terrorism by which the Nazi criminals and their quisling accomplices seek to rule a dozen ancient, famous cities of Europe, and if possible all the free nations of the world. In no more effective manner could they have frustrated the accomplishment of their own designs. The future and its mysteries are inscrutable, but one thing is plain-never, to those bloodstained, accursed hands, will the future of Europe be confided.

Since Lord Mayor's Day last year very great changes have taken place in our situation. We were then the sole champion of freedom in arms. Then we were ill-armed and far out-numbered even in the air. Now a large part of the United States Navy, as Colonel Knox has told us, is constantly in action against the common foe. Now the valiant resistance of the Russian nation has inflicted most frightful injuries upon German military power, and at the present moment, the German invading armies, after all their losses, lie on the barren steppes exposed to the approaching severities of the Russian winter. Now we have an Air Force which is at least equal in size and numbers, not to speak of quality, to the German air power.

Rather more than a year ago I announced to Parliament that we were sending a Battle Fleet back into the Mediterranean for the destruction of the German and Italian convoys. The Admiralty brings us to-day news of the destruction of another Italian destroyer. The passage of our supplies in many directions through the sea, the broken morale of the Italian Navy-all these show that we are still masters there.

To-day I am able to go further. Owing to the effective help we are getting from the United States in the Atlantic, owing to the sinking of the Bismarck, owing to the completion of our splendid new battleships and aircraft carriers of the largest size, as well as the cowing of the Italian Navy already mentioned, I am able to announce to you that we now feel ourselves strong enough to provide a powerful naval force of heavy ships, with its necessary ancillary vessels, for service if needed in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

We stretch out the long arm of brotherhood and motherhood to the Australian and New Zealand people, and to the Indian people, whose army has already been fighting with so much distinction in the Mediterranean theatre. This movement of our naval forces, in conjunction with the United States main Fleet, may give practical proof to all who have eyes to see that the forces of freedom and democracy have not by any means reached the limit of their power.

I must admit that, having voted for the Japanese Alliance nearly 40 years ago-in 1902-and having always done my very best to promote good relations with the island Empire of Japan, and always having been a sentimental well-wisher of Japan and an admirer of her many gifts and qualities, I would view with keen sorrow the opening of a conflict between Japan and the English-speaking world.

The United States' time-honoured interests in the Far East are well known. They are doing their utmost to find a way of preserving peace in the Pacific. We do not know whether their efforts will be successful, but if they fail, I take this occasion to say-and it is my duty to say-that should the United States become involved in war with Japan the British declaration will follow within the hour.

Viewing the vast, sombre scene as dispassionately as possible, it would seem a very hazardous adventure for the Japanese people to plunge, quite needlessly, into a world struggle in which they may well find themselves opposed in the Pacific by States whose populations comprise nearly three-quarters of the human race.

If steel is a nation's foundation of modern war it would be rather dangerous for a Power like Japan, whose steel production is only about 7,000,000 tons a year, to provoke quite gratuitously a struggle with the United States, whose steel production is now about 90,000,000 tons a year. And I take no account of the powerful contribution which the British Empire can make in many ways. I hope devoutly that the peace of the Pacific will be preserved in accordance with the known wishes of the wisest statesmen of Japan, but every preparation to defend British interests in the Far East and to defend the common cause now at stake has been, and is being, made.

Meanwhile, how can we watch without emotion the wonderful defence of their native soil, and of their freedom and independence, which has been maintained single-handed for five long years by the Chinese people under the leadership of that great Asiatic hero and commander, General Chiang Kai-shek. It would be a disaster of the first magnitude to world civilization if the noble resistance to invasion and exploitation which has been made by the whole Chinese race were not to result in the liberation of their hearths and homes. That, I feel, is a sentiment which is deep in our hearts.

To return for a moment to the contrast between our position now and a year ago. I do not need to remind you here in the City that this time last year we did not know where to turn for a dollar across the American Exchange. By very severe measures we had been able to gather together and to spend in America about £500,000,000 sterling. But the end of our financial resources was in sight; nay, had actually been reached. All we could do at that time-a year ago-was to place orders in the United States without being able to see our way through, but on a tide of hope, and not without important encouragement.

Then came the majestic policy of the President and Congress of the United States in passing the Lease-Lend Bill, under which, in two successive enactments, about £3,000,000,000 was dedicated to the cause of world freedom, without-mark this, because it is unique-without the setting up of any account in money. Never again let us hear the taunt that money is the ruling power in the hearts and thoughts of the American democracy. The Lease-Lend Bill must be regarded without question as the most unsordid act in the whole of recorded history.

We for our part have not been found unworthy of the increasing aid we are receiving. We have made unparalleled financial and economic sacrifices ourselves, and now that the Government and people of the United States have declared their resolve that the aid they are giving us shall reach the fighting lines, we shall be able to strike with all our might and main.

Thus we may, without exposing ourselves to any charge of complacency, without in the slightest degree relaxing the intensity of our war effort, give thanks to Almighty God for the many wonders which have been wrought in so brief a space of time, and we may derive fresh confidence from all that has happened and bend ourselves to our task with all the force that is in our soul and with every drop of blood that is in our veins.

We are told from many quarters that we must soon expect what is called a peace offensive from Berlin. All the usual signs and symptoms are already manifest, as the Foreign Secretary will confirm, in neutral countries, and all those signs point in one direction. They all show that the guilty men who have let Hell loose upon the world are hoping to escape with their fleeting triumphs and ill-gotten plunder from the closing net of doom.

We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our Russian Allies and to the Government and people of the United States, to make it absolutely clear that whether we are supported or alone, however long and hard the toil may be, the British nation and his Majesty's Government at the head of that nation, in intimate concert with the Governments of the great Dominions, will never enter into any negotiations with Hitler or any party in Germany which represents the Nazi regime. In that resolve we are sure that the ancient City of London will be with us to the hilt and to the end.

Churchill's statement was no doubt true. ..  for lots of reasons, but it cannot realistically be regarded as that great of an offer of help.  The US was as far into the war in the Atlantic in aid of the British as conceivably possible and a Japanese attack on the US, while it would cause British setbacks, and it did, also just made that near belligerent status a full belligerent status.

In fact, as the item below notes, on this date the US commenced escorting a British troop convoy from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to India.  Escorting a convoy of troops at war is an act of war, irrespective of where those troops were going.

Today in World War II History—November 10, 1941

Also, according to that entry, the US adopted the famous M1 helmet and the "Parson's" field jacket on this date in 1941, which while that might not seem like much to many, actually are big events in material history.

The M1 helmet was a huge improvement over the Brodie pattern M1917 helmet that had been adopted during World War One, and which was of the type still used by the British.  The M1 had full head coverage and was a great helmet.  The M1 covered the head fully, and could be separated from its liner to be used as a basin, a not insignificant feature.

It wasn't adopted on this date, however. That date was June 6, 1941. By this date in 41, thousands had already been produced.  It was in use for decades and worn by millions of servicemen. . .including me, my father, and three of my uncles.

The M1941 field jacket, i.e., the "Parson's", was adopted, as the designation indicated, in 1941 as well.  I'd question whether it was this late in 41, but it was adopted in 41.  FWIW, this was the second model of the jacket, not the first, so this type of jacket had been in service for a while.

Based on civilian "wind breakers" the wool lined jacket was much more practical than the Army Service Coat which had replaced the Service Coat of World War One.  For nearly inexplicable reasons, the Army, in the early 1920s adopted a service coat which replaced the closed collar service coat of the Great War which soldiers wore for nearly any service. The new service coat more closely resembled an Edwardian business suit jacket, with an open collar, and was designed to be worn with a tie. It even featured brass buttons, as opposed to the earlier subdued blackened ones.  In addition, a separate distinct patter was introduced for officers of a dark green with khaki colored trousers.

This uniform doubled as a dress and field uniform, but it was completely lacking in suitability for the latter.  Indeed, it was much less suitable in this role than its predecessor.  By the late 30s this was extremely obvious, and the Army took a giant step in a more practical direction, replacing the service coat for "field" use with a "field jacket", of which the M1938 was the first.  This was, we should note, before the build up of the service for the war had commenced, as the war had not commenced.

In 1941 the new pattern was adopted with some changes that, if nothing else, made it appear a bit more military than the prior jacket had. The same year the Army adopted the M1941 Winter Coat, which was also a wool lined jacket.  This jacket became popular with armored vehicle crewman and is mistakenly associated with them.  It was in fact used by all branches.

We could go on at length, as the topic of World War Two Army coats is surprisingly complicated, but we will simply note that in 1943 the Army adopted the M1943 field jacket which became the pattern for every Army field jacket for decades and of which there is still an authorized version.  The M1943 was designed as part of a paratroopers uniform, but the Army was wisely concluding by that point that was good for paratroopers worked for everybody else.  What you can take from all of this is that things were very much in a state of uniform flux by this point in the US military, and would be throughout the rest of the war.

Thursday, November 10, 1921. Hanging in there.

"Fearless Freddie", a Hollywood stuntman,  negotiating a transfer from aircraft to automobile on this date in 1921.
 

Lex Anteinternet: The 2021 Election Post Mortem. The Mortem and Sel...

Lex Anteinternet: The 2021 Election Post Mortem. The Mortem and Sel...: Okay, I wasn't going to comment on the 2021 off year election, but the combined impact of pundit bloviating and mutual left wing crying ...

Somehow missed in all the yapping about what the election meant was the Virginia election of Winsome Sears to Lt. Governor.

Sears is a Jamaican immigrant, a Marine Corps veteran, and black. She's also a member of the Republican Party.

That probably tells us more about undercurrents in the election than all the discussion of the Governor's race might.

Sunday November 9, 1941. Force K intercepts an Axis Convoy.

On this day in 1941 Force K of the Royal Navy, led by the HMS Penelope, devastated the German/Italian convoy Duisburg in the Mediterranean, sinking seven transport and tanker ships headed to resupply the Africa Korps.  Two Italian destroyers also went down. 

The Penelope would be sunk by a U-boat in 1944, loosing over 400 of her crew.

A lot of British ships of the period bore names from Greek mythology or works of antiquity.  Why, I don't know.  Given that, Penelope was certainly named after the character from The Odyssey, although the name was one that was used by the Greeks well past that and spread into general use in modern times.

On the same day, the Germans took Yalta, but the Soviets completed the evacuation of 23,000 troops from the Crimea.

All of these events are noted here:

Today in World War II History—November 9, 1941

Another site notes that by this day in 1941 German radio had quite broadcasting that troops would return from the Eastern Front by Christmas.  The Germans were certainly still advancing, but they were having a much harder time digesting Soviet territory, and indeed there has always been pockets of stout resistance. The recent massive Soviet parade in Moscow was a demonstration of absolute defiance of German hopes, and even in the south combined German and Romanian troops were slowing down in their advances.

Wednesday, November 9, 1921. The Unknown Soldier Comes Home.

The body of the Unknown Soldier arrived in the United States from Europe abord the USS Olympia, and was conveyed to lie in state.

 

President Harding visited the bier of the Unknown Solder.  The body had been conveyed by ship to the United States arriving earlier that day.

The Washington Disarmament Conference (the naval conference) continued on, although it had not yet officially commenced.

Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator Oscar W. Underwood, Secretary of the Delegation Basil Miles, and former Senator Elihu Root, American delegates to the World Disarmament Conference, descending the steps of the Daughters of the Am Rev Hall

In Italy, the National Fascist Party was founded.  Its founding resulted in an Italian one day general strike over its labor policies.  It was the first party of its type.

Weary

I'm pretty sick of the news.

I’m thinking about just not paying attention to it for a week or two.

And if I do that, I'm going to expand it into social media for the same time.  I'm tired of people who are convinced that one political party or the other needs to be eradicated and only their own most inner political views have any validity.

And I'm tired of politics in Washington and Cheyenne, for that matter.  

And if I do that, I'm not going to blog in the same period either.

Maybe starting this upcoming Sunday.

We'll see.

Tuesday November 8, 1921. Dignatary.

Crow Chief Plenty Coups, (b circa 1908), a Crow leaders since 1876 when he was 28 years old, was back East in order to serve as the Native American representative at the upcoming dedication of the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The US Austrian peace treaty came into effect, officially ending the state of war between the US and Austria.  On the same day, Yugoslavian troops advanced into Albanian territory.

Friday, November 7, 1941. A day of speeches and demonstrations.

Four Freedoms and Arsenal of Democracy posters set for display in Defense Square, Washington for a month beginning November 7, 1941. 

On this date in 1941, a set of massive posters was set on display in Defense Square in Washington D. C.  The posters, after being on display, would then tour major US cities for a month.  The display emphasized the four freedoms theme of the Administration and American industrial might.

On the same day, the U.S. Senate voted to amend the Neutrality Act to allow merchantmen to be armed and to allow the U.S. Navy to enter combat zones.  The vote was 50 to 37.

While this was occurring in the United States, senior members of the Japanese armed forces were informed that war against the United States would commence on December 8, one month away. The date was Japanese local time.

Japan did continue to exchange diplomatic notes with the United States during this period, with there being some slight hope that the US and Japan might reach an accord.  On this date, the Japanese delivered a note regarding Japanese forces in China, which stated:

DISPOSITION OF JAPANESE FORCES

(A) stationing of Japanese forces in China and the withdrawal thereof:

With regard to the Japanese forces that have been despatched to China in connection with the China Affair, those forces in specified areas in North China and Mengchiang (Inner Mongolia) as well as in Hainan-tao (Hainan Island) will remain to be stationed for a certain required duration after the restoration of peaceful relations between Japan and China. All the rest of such forces will commence, withdrawal as soon as general peace is restored between Japan and China, and the withdrawal will proceed according to separate arrangements between Japan and China and will be completed within two years with the firm establishment of peace and order.

(B) Stationing of Japanese forces in French Indo-China and the withdrawal thereof:

The Japanese Government undertakes to guarantee the territorial sovereignty of French Indo-China. The Japanese forces at present stationed there will be withdrawn as soon as the China Affair is settled, or an equitable peace is established in East Asia.

PRINCIPLE OF NON-DISCRIMINATION

The Japanese Government recognizes the principle of non-discrimination in international commercial relations to be applied to all the Pacific areas, inclusive of China, on the understanding that the principle in question is to be applied uniformly to the rest of the entire world as well.

Churchill delivered his Resolution Of The People Speech.

The day is most remembered for a parade.

In spite of hundreds of thousands of German troops attempting to take the city, a giant military parade was held in Moscow on this day commemorating the anniversary of the October Revolution.  The daring of it was such that it became an event in the history of World War Two in and of itself.

Soviet sailors marching in parade.

The massive parade featured tanks, marching infantry and cavalry and truck and horse-drawn artillery.  Some troops deployed directly from the parade to frontline deployment.  Stalin observed as the troops passed in review and then delivered a speech.  

Making it more dramatic, a snowstorm broke out during the parade, with the snow going from light to heavy as the parade went on.

Stalin's speech predicted a German defeat, but suggested it would be coming in a matter of mere months.

In post Communist Russia, the parade still occurs, but it now honors the November 7, 1941 parade itself.  This year it was cancelled due to COVID 19 which is hitting Russia  hard at the present time.

This event and a dramatic stamp depicting it can be found here:

Today in World War II History—November 7, 1941

The Soviets sustained a terrible disaster on this day when the hospital ship Armenia was sunk by German He111s through a torpedo strike.  7,000 people lost their lives, making it one of the worst naval disasters in history.  The ship was marked with red crosses, but it was also armed with light anti aircraft guns.

The Armenia before the war when she was a Black Sea passenger ship.

While the US was heading rapidly towards war, life continued on, as it does.  

Bette Davis became the first woman to be elected president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

In Cleveland a six man high school football team was photographed, this being football season.

Monday, November 7, 1921. Madam Yajima Kajiko, 矢嶋 楫子, visits President Harding.

Madam Yajima Kajiko (矢嶋 楫子) November 7, 1921.

Japanese Christian peace and social activist presented a bundle of signatures hoping for peace to President Harding on this day in 1921.

She was a midlife convert to Presbyterianism after which she dedicated her life to social causes, including temperance and pacifism. 

While I haven't posted on it, dignitaries were gathering in Washington D. C. for the Washington Naval Conference, which had significance far beyond navies.  It was in effect a global effort at limiting arms and avoiding another world war.

Best Posts of the Week of October 31, 2021

The best posts of the week of October 31, 2021

Friday October 31, 1941. Did you have a friend on the Good Reuben James?

Skippy and Nena ponder guns.

Wednesday November 2, 1921. Rise of the House of Saud

It's for a Dip Pen

Mid Week At Work. November 3, 1921 The birth of Charles Bronson

Momento mori.

The 2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session, Part III. The unvarnished views addition.

Pandemic Part 7. The Litigation Edition

Wednesday November 5, 1941. Japan commits to war.

Some feral threads in the fabric.

The 2021 Election Post Mortem. The Mortem and Self Interest Addition.

Thursday November 6, 1941. The Odenwald Incident.

The USS Omaha and the USS Somers stopped a suspicious vessel in the South Atlantic. As they boarded, scuttling charges went off but the crews of the US ships prevented the ship from sinking.  It turned out to be the German blockade runner Odenwald, loaded with rubber and other supplies for Nazi Germany on a dangerous mission.

The ship was taken in a very old-fashioned way to Puerto Rico, where it was sold along with its contents.  The German owners of the vessel sued after the war claiming the seizure, which had been justified on the basis of the Navy suspecting the vessel contained slaves, was illegal, but the court upheld the seizure and the proceeds of the sale were distributed to the surviving members of the crew, along with two months pay.

Joseph Stalin addressed his nation on the radio and declared that Hitler's "crazy plan" to unite the United States and the United Kingdom with Germany to defeat the USSR  had failed.  There was, of course, no such plan.

Stalin declared that there was effectively a three nation coalition fighting the Germans, which was correct, and he hoped for the establishment of a "second front" soon.  In reality, the British were fighting in North Africa which was a second front, simply one that Stalin refused to recognize as such, and the US and the UK were fighting in the Atlantic, which was effectively its own third front.

German troops started reporting with frostbite.

The Germans removed over 15,000 Jewish Ukrainians from Rivne and killed them over a two-day period.

Australian troops landed at Singapore to reinforce the garrison there.

Sunday November 6, 1921. The East Karelian Uprising commences.

Ethnic Finns and volunteers from Finland started the East Karelian Uprising in an attempt to wrest East Karelia from the USSR and join it to Finland.  While initially successful, the uprising was defeated by the USSR in February, 1922.

One of the Finnish Kindred Nations Wars, the war would have expanded Finland to the White Sea had it been successful and have brought in territory occupied by ethnic Finns, but Finns who had never been part of the Grand Duchy of Finland.  It would have been a significant expansion of Finland.

It's an interesting example of nationalist hopes in the post Great War era.

The 2021 Election Post Mortem. The Mortem and Self Interest Addition.

Okay, I wasn't going to comment on the 2021 off year election, but the combined impact of pundit bloviating and mutual left wing crying and gnashing of tofu encrusted teeth has caused me to reverse course on this.

Whitaker Chambers, 1948.

First, something to consider.

Virginia,in it's off year election, has only once elected a person from the same party as the sitting President.  So the results of its election are probably completely meaningless.  Why Virginians think that the interest of their state automatically lie with whomever is not in the Oval Office is an open question, but they probably do.

Or at least those who show up do, which is important to consider.

For some incredably odd reason, people tend to get really mad at the sitting President really quickly.  There's no real way that most Presidents can make any real difference in things in less than at least three years, but the public seems to think that if they haven't made the world perfect in about six months, they're a failure.  That explains part of the typical mid term election shift, and it probably applies to early off year elections as well.

And in an off year election, moreover, only the really motivated show up.  It's been noted that Republicans in general tend to show up, while Democrats do not unless they're in passionate love with a candidate.

Things like that, I'd note, are a consideration in things like bond issues.  Some strategists put bond issues in off year elections thinking that the motivated will show up and nobody else. Trouble is, the most motivated are those who vote "no", which is why that's not a good strategy.  When the general public shows up at a general election, those things tend to pass.

Anyhow, if we're really going to try to put some meaning into the Virginia election, and we probably ought not to, that's about it.  If we go a tad further, and we ought not to, it might be that the GOP candidate pretty much tried to run without anyone mentioning Trump.

There may be a real lesson in that.  

If we go a tad further than that, and some Democratic punditry certainly is, a potential lesson of the 2021 midterms in general is that the American public didn't suddenly take down their Reagan posters from the secret recesses of their homes and put up AoC posters.  People turn out to be middle of the road conservatives, just as they have been since, well, 1492, at least on a lot of things.

None of which has kept liberals from screaming out into the street decrying the benighted public as ignorant dolts who should never be allowed to vote.  

And this is no surprise. The left doesn't really like democracy very much.

The wailing is particularly noticable in regard to the supposed case of "white women", who we recently read were abandoning the GOP in droves and supporting the Democrats, which made the same Democrats at the time chortle.  Now that it turns out that "white women" are voting more conservatively, like white men. . . and like Hispanic men and women. . .and also like black men and women in some places, which means in the view of progressives they're ignorant fools who need to be sent to the Gulag.  The general trend isn't mentioned, however, just the "white women" part of it right now.  Similar stories on "white men" must have run their course.  And progressives engage in the preverbial whistling past the grave yard when the growing conservatism of Hispanics and some African American demographis are mentioned.

Part of this is based on a left wing view of what's in people's "best interest".  And in the view of liberals, allowing abortion on demand is pretty much in women's best interest.  Witness the following:

57% of white women in Virginia voted for a Republican *the day after* Republicans spent an entire day in court trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, and *actual professionals* in charge of Democratic messaging are going to blame it on Beloved.

And consider the following: 

Nobody votes against their best interests like white women.

This latter one caused some wag to amusingly note: 

Why is the left calling them, "white women"? I thought they called them "white birthing persons who chest feed"?

While that last item was in jest, there's actually more than a little truth to it.   Part of the reason that "white women", Hispanic women and black women, among others, are voting more conservatively is that they are women and want that recognized.  Progressives have entered an era in which biology doesn't exist.  It actually does, and people don't like pretending otherwise.

Much of the liberal angst here, of course, is about abortion.  Abortion is about killing a fetus so that it's not born.  There's no two ways about it, and anyone honest with themselves and with reality has to admit it. Basically, we're more comfortable with killing people we don't see, and as we haven't seen the baby yet, we're okay with that to a surprising extent.  It's the same reason we're okay with drone strikes in remote regions of the globe.  We don't see the people we're offing, even though they're just as dead as if we went out and hit them in the head with an axe.

Of course, killing people is generally an uncomfortable topic for most people, so we camouflage it, and in the case of abortion the left likes to call it "reproductive rights" now days.  That's just goofy.  It's actually "anti reproductive rights" if we are going to use the word "reproductive", which at least is some progress in acknowledging reality.  It's almost a societal admission that abortion in the United States is mostly about birth control, rather than rape or incest.  Of note in the area of progress also, recently pro abortion advocates have been encouraging women to speak about their own abortions, which at least is honest, and in doing so they're drawing the inevitable "I just didn't want to have a baby" admissions.  Having a baby is serious to be sure, but that admission is referring is pretty much the same as simply admitting that when a person presents you with a serious life difficulty, you ought to be allowed to off them, or should be able to at least if they're helpless.  And again, the speakers haven't tended to be "I was attacked" so much as women in their 20s admitting that sex causes people, and they didn't want to be burdened with a person, so they killed it.  It was convenient.

Not that society at large doesn't engage in this.  The "no abortions except. . . " line of logic, which is very common, feeds into this as well.  If a person is a person since conception, and science at this point says it is, a person is still a person no matter how horrific the circumstances of their conception may be.

Of course all of this is rarely in mind, which is why the recent debate style changes in the pro abortion camp have made some in that camp nervous.  People grew pretty acclimated to a combined clinical speech pattern in which the humanity of a fetus was never addressed as well as the talking point that all those getting an abortion are 13 year old incest victims.  Turns out this isn't true and a surprising number of women who receive an abortion really knew what they were doing.  That debate is more honest, but it may backfire as well.

Indeed, it might already be backfiring.

Anyhow, "white women", like perhaps most women everywhere, might simply feel that that's just too much.  I.e, they might not be buying into the liberal logic that a fetus isn't a person, or is't a person we need to pay attention to, or put another way, they may have the view that science and politics aren't frozen in the year 1973.  That doesn't mean that they're voting against their own interest.  They're voting for it. If they feel that their interest is preserving life, and women have always held that more closely than men, they're voting for their interests.

And it's a big assumption that this is a "white women" think, as this post from a black woman noted:

Lol Democrats are blaming white women for Glenn Youngkin's victory. These people are insane. Your guy lost. Get over it

Well exactly.

Most voters aren't single issue voters anyhow, and there's no real reason to believe that somehow white women, if they'd been aware of this, which is assuming that they would not have been, would have voted for the Democrat.  It just doesn't seem to be the case.  I.e., the liberal logic that its de facto in women's best interest to allow for wide-ranging abortions is an assumption without support. Why would that be in their best interests?  The answer would have to be that they might get pregnant, and if that occurred they'd need to have an abortion.  They may have instead included that if they get pregnant they'll choose life over death.

It's also assuming a lot to assume they were not aware of their self-interest.  Indeed, the single biggest problem in American politics today might be people over identifying with their self-interest.  People do, in fact, vote against their long term best interest, but typically in doing so they vote for their short term self-interest.  I.e, "I make money doing 'X', therefore the 'X' industry is good for business/the economy/the nation/the environment/ etc., and (believe it or not) somehow authorized by God".  You see this all the time.

On the topic of abortion, proponents who are voting on best interest or self interests are usually voting for hypothetical short term self-interest, which isn't at all the same as long term best interests.  So here, when "white women", or brown women, or black women, vote against abortion, they're actually weighing personal belief and long term societal best interests.  

When liberals, however, decry this as not voting in "best interests", what they really mean is not voting to ratify the liberal, or progressive, ideal, which pretty much regards children, and even people, in a theoretical rather than real way.  Indeed, it appears the overwhelming majority of Americans are not now, and never have been, for the liberal ideal.  Abortion was very much part of that.

Back in the 60s and 70s liberals promulgated a world view based on what they thought an ideal world looked like, and the feminism of the period was very much part of it.  Feminist of the period imagined that men lived in an industrial workplace paradise and that if only women could break into it, their lives would be as prefect as men's were.  In that world that they imagined gender practically didn't exist, except in terms of having sex.  

Sex by feminist of the period had oddly enough adopted the same view of sex that Hugh Hefner had adopted earlier, with slight variations in the view.  Hefner had advanced the idea that women, all of whom had big boobs in his world, were available for sex on demand and they were all sterile.  Feminists weren't as fascinated by huge mammaries, but they glommed onto the concept of sex as existing for nothing other than entertainment.  Unlike Hefner's sterile chesty dimwits, however, they took it a step further and assumed that sex doomed women to second class citizenship as they knew it could cause children.  Pharmaceuticals and abortion, however, took care of that.

This mattered to them as they tended to have a sort of quasi Marxist view of sex.  There's been a lot of ink spilled on "critical race theory" recently, but it might be better to spill it on Marxism in the bedroom.  Marx was an enemy of marriage and normal child rearing and early Communists really picked that up.  Up until the the October Revolution Communists were aggressive in separating sex from reproduction and had a view of it nearly identical to 1970s feminists, something that's rarely noted.  When they came into power they interesting pretty quickly became prudes, but even well into the 20s and 30s there were communists outside the USSR, including women, who were aggressively anti marrage and aggressively libertines in this area.  Whitaker Chambers, who was a bisexual until his rejection of Communism, goes into this a little bit in Witness, noting that the decision of he and his wife to have children was contrary to the American Communist world view at the time which universally favored abortion.

Feminist regarded children as the enemy  and took the view that sex couldn't result in children, however, as women always got stuck raising them, which kept women from financial independence and workplace fulfillment, which is where all fulfillment was.  Separate sex from marriage and children from sex was all part of the goal, and then women could join men in the boardroom in marital-less, equality, everybody could make loads of cash, and full equality of every type would bloom forth.

Pharmaceutical sterilization and abortion would help to achieve that, they reasoned.

Problem was, it was all based on a big lie.

And that lie was that men lived in paradise. They didn't.  They never had, but they particularly hadn't after industrialization.

We've dealt with that elsewhere, but what was forgotten is that industrialization took men out of their homes and away from their families to serve industry basically by economic force.  Marx was full of bs about "wage slave" but failed to realize that the economy he was advocating for the "worker" was even more in the nature of bondage.  People, as COVID 19 has shown, just don't naturally decide to spend most of tehir days in cublcles way from their family and kin.  They don't.  Indeed, as feminist knew, but failed to appreciate, men seperated for hours every day from their spouse begin, in some instances, to replicate that relationship with available women at work, with predictable disasterous consequences.  Feminists saw this as a male power play, which in some ways it actually was.

We've dealt with that elsewhere, but what was forgotten is that industrialization took men out of their homes and away from their families to serve industry basically by economic force.  Marx was full of BS about "wage slave" but failed to realize that the economy he was advocating for the "worker" was even more in the nature of bondage.  People, as COVID 19 has shown, just don't naturally decide to spend most of their days in cubicles way from their family and kin.  They don't.  Indeed, as feminist knew, but failed to appreciate, men separated for hours every day from their spouses begin, in some instances, to replicate that relationship with available women at work, with predictable disastrous consequences.  Feminists saw this as a male power play, which in some ways it actually was.  Prior to the 80s some of it was absolute hypocrisy and power in action, no doubt.  But some of it was biology combined with our fallen natures as well.

The fact, however, that such dalliances occurred says something about the overall satisfaction people have with their work.  At least in part people who are married aren't going to spend time chasing skirts if their work brings fulfillment.  And they aren't going to turn to other vices either.  Indeed, people somehow managed to not really note what average work actually was like for men.  Sure, they worked 8 to 5, as a rule, for their families, but the "work place camaraderie" was more likely built in a bar after work than at work itself.  People's work bonds, if they had any, tended to be outside of work, not in it.

The big reveal from the big feminist success of the 1970s and 80s was to expose "work fulfillment" as a lie to a lot of women. A lot of men already knew it was a lie. The lie is still being told, and its part of the pablum of professional schools and organizations.  Lots of pros, from attorneys to accountants, to business workers, to physicians, etc., are fed lines that happiness lives in work in and of itself  If they fail to achieve it, it's due to some problem, probably in them.  Only recently have some of the professions started to look at the profession itself, and wonder if it's them.

The famous quote is that you can't fool all of the people all the time, and that certainly applies to things that are deeply ingrained in nature.  Whereas Cosmopolitan may have imagined a world in which every woman in the office was a libertine who was on her away to a super happy desk job career it turned out that most women, and men, continue to see the world pretty much the way they always have, so regular life including children and marriage kept happening.  What did change, however, was the workplace, which now had not only been opened up to women, but which had now evolved to where their availability was now expected and mandatory.  This has made the lives of some women all the rougher, which takes us back to the liberal impulse.  If women won't abort their children, well then society must find a way to coax women away from children back to the workplace, and universal child care would be that.  With that, women will be allowed back in the workplace soon after giving birth, which is to say that they'll have no excuse not to be there and therefore will have to be.  Nobody of the Bernie Sanders ilk is going to say that, as they aren't thinking of it that way, but that's the reality of it.  Universal child care is a child care subsidy for industry so that the female part of the work force has no good reason not to be back at work.  This too represents "their best interests".

Finally, there's the gross overuse of everything being race related.  This really came out in a NPR Politics episode when Nena Totenburg had a melt down when a lifelong Democrat in Virginia expressed his discontent with the Democrats making everything about race.  Totenburg was practically spewing her coffee through the Iphone to maintain that only the Republicans do this.

Now, in the Virginia race there were no doubt differences in how various demographics voted. But note that the GOP nearly won in New Jersey as well, and not for the first time. And while hardly anyone seems to have noticed it, in spite of everything, the Republican Party's popularity has been going up with some black voters and generally with Hispanic voters.

Totenburg had a fit over the interviewed Democrat noting that the Democrats routinely reduce things to race at the present time, and not only do that, but that they basically demonize "white voters".  A person can question how to even really define "white" voter as that's merely the sort of color of a person's skin and not everyone agrees who is "white".  "White" doesn't really mean anything in and of itself, and the ability to define "white' is increasingly problematic.  Lebanese Americans have long been regarded as white, for example, so why wouldn't recent immigrants from Syria? They're the same ethnicity, separated by their religions.

Some Hispanics consider themselves white and lots of "white" American consider Hispanics without accents to be white.  Like Italians of earlier generations, at some point they'll all be considered "white" and that some point is probably very soon.  As the predictions of the decline of "whites as a majority" is based in large part on the increase in the Hispanic demographic, such predictions are actually completely meaningless.  And they should be, if we're speaking of general European culture, as Hispanics are just as much the heirs of general European culture as people of English ancestry.

Which in reality means that when the press and Democrats speak of a person being "white", what they really mean is what used to be called a WASP, or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.  And when progressive WASPs decry the election in Virginia, that's what they mean.  It's an internecine spat between the nation's oldest European demographic, paler members of other demographics need not apply.

This spat has been going on forever.  It's always been the case that urban WASP elites have looked down on rural WASP groups. Entire regions look down on others, but even WASP in the cities look down on their cousins in the sticks, and have for about 200 years.

Now some of this does have a real racial and racist expression.  The Southern hinterlands have never been friendly towards African Americans and following the election of Barack Obama old hatreds came back out.  And not just out there, but amazingly out everywhere. Trump made them worse as he fanned those flames for nearly inexplicable reasons.  Praising any group in which the Confederate battle flag shows up is sending some sort of racist message and at a bare minimum people ought to know that.

Nonetheless, the GOP increase in some African American demographics and some Hispanic demographics continued anyway.  A conservatism based on traditional values and traditionalism also existed which isn't really "white" and which isn't racist.  Indeed, church going African Americans and church going white Southerners are at least partially motivated by the same values.  Hispanic culture, as we've noted here before, is actually deeply conservative and much of the liberal social agenda is an anathema to it.

It's those values that that progressives keep slamming, and people voting to preserve them doesn't mean they are voting against their self interests. The Democratic dissing of these values has made them fully fair game for Republicans, the much more conservative party anyway, and that is why conservatives of all stripes and ethnicities have leaned into the GOP.  People who hold traditional views on marriage, sex and even simply biology feel they are being assaulted by a Democratic Party which holds all of those things in absolute contempt.  That doesn't make those voters racist and when they vote Republican, they are voting in their own self-interest.

This doesn't mean that there aren't really dark elements in the GOP. There are.  Genuine racists and bigots of all sorts have crept into it since the 1980s, and this increased during the Obama Administration and Trump took advantage of this.  This has tainted the populist movement no end and the Democrats have made hay with it.  But at this point, they've overplayed their hands.  It's one thing to call people flying the Confederate battle flag racists, as that's a racist symbol for which there is no excuse in 2021.  It's another to hurl the invective "white" at somebody as they feel marriage is only between a couple of the opposite gender or because modern American televised culture reflects a moral sewer.  If you keep doing that, eventually Democrats who were in that party as they sought a socially active country will leave, seeing that their moral values are not wanted, or even under assault.

And that may be one of the lessons of the 2021 election.

It's also dangerous, we'll note, to reduce a person's ethnicity or color to a joke.  Racists did this for decades with blacks and indeed American culture did.  But at some point within the last 20 or so years progressive WASPs started to do it as well and now it's extremely common. To call something "white" or somebody the "whitest" is not only inaccurate, but is meant as a type of racial slur.  If that's done long enough people get pissed off about it.

Indeed, one of the Twitter comments that I didn't post was by a very white woman with bright pink hair complaining about "white women". The irony of this is that this is about as upper class WASPish as a person can be.  When WASPs complaint about WASPs, they ought to look in the mirror.

As for the off year elections, most people might not be voting for Trump with their votes.  But rather, their votes may instead mean that they don't want their nation to be a large-scale soy vegan variant of downtown Amsterdam.

And people get tired of continually being told that their personal views are rubbish and they themselves aren't much better.  Whatever a person thinks of Trump, forty years of that from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party put him in the Oval Office and might again.  The GOP has to deal with that right now, but the Democrats might have to as well if their only response to losing is to have a bunch of white liberals complain that they lost due to white women.  

That's certainly not true.

Blog Mirror: 680: A Brief Explanation of Modern Monetary Theory

 

680: A Brief Explanation of Modern Monetary Theory