2024 Election Thoughts - # 1

It’s Election Season...again...and thanks to a couple of readers who actually encourage these rants and my inability to keep quiet, I will post cartoons and commentary. We started this in 2012 and the political landscape since then has certainly gotten more _____. (insert your expletive here).

Even though I’m a bit of a news junkie, I’m starting to resent the idea of 24/7 news networks. When every hour has the next anchor and guest talking head giving their take on the same story/issue, I’m ready to switch to a music station.

 

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

And I really resent that, in order to justify their existence, they have focused on the next presidential election as soon as the last election ends. Being an old fart, I miss the time when there really was an ‘Election Season.’ Every four years, the party conventions nominated candidates in the summer, serious campaigning began on Labor Day and it all ended on the first Tuesday in November. Those were the days.

The networks have to fill the air time with something (besides expensive ads) and while Donald Trump can be a reliable dispenser of outrageous nonsense and ignorance, the Balkanization of news programs convinces me that audiences tune in for confirmation more than information. MSNBC and FOX/Newsmax audiences are not interested in learning anything that doesn’t reaffirm their positions. Thus, the needle doesn’t move much.

Not that the right is ever interested in making their case based on FACTS and TRUTH. Tune in for their take on the Baltimore bridge collapse and you’ll learn[?] that despite all the infrastructure spending that they didn’t vote for, Republican officials are blaming the Biden administration for the tragedy because they’re all consumed by diversity and inclusion rather than safety.

Last night, Uncle Joe had a little fundraiser in New York City. Popular former two-term presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were there and it was reported that they raised over $25 million for the Biden campaign. The media couldn’t help but note that the one-night haul might exceed what Trump will raise in a quarter...bibles and sneakers included.

Of course, Trump needed to horn in on the event coverage as he also was in New York to politicize the wake of a city cop who was killed in the line of duty. I’m sure he was disappointed that the shooter was not Black or an undocumented immigrant. At first, I couldn’t recall ANY time when then-president Trump even bothered to visit disaster or crime scenes since the malignant narcissist is incapable of empathy. But wait. I was wrong. In 2019, following the mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, he went there to take thumbs-up selfies with hospital staff but then complained that state Democrats were criticizing him.

By David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star (2016)

Since that was a banner week for mass murder, the president went from Dayton to El Paso where a White supremacist / Republican voter had blown away 22 Latinos in a Walmart. Since the victims refused to see him, he again posed with first responders and complained about not being treated right. This total lack of sympathy and capacity for shared grief is Reason # 213 this cretin should not be elected.

State Capitols – St. Paul, Minnesota – Outside

Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul (24 September 2009)

Constructed: 1896-1905

Architect: Cass Gilbert

State Admitted to Union: May 11, 1858 (32nd)

State Population (2020): 5,706,494 (22nd)

Since I followed posting the Kentucky vice presidents with the Frankfort capitol, I’m following Minnesota VP Hubert Humphrey with the stunning state house in St. Paul...a building so fine, I need two posts to do it justice.

The Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) web site describes the state house as one that “many acknowledge today as one of the five most beautiful in the country.” The entire country. All of it. Five out of fifty. Top ten percent. I won’t argue with them. In 2011, two years after I was there, the Board undertook a $310 million restoration that addressed a number of structural and aesthetic issues. I bet the place gleams now...outside and in.

The current building is the state’s third capitol, all of which have been in St. Paul. The first, completed in 1854, began as the territorial capitol and burned down in 1881. The second, completed on the same site in 1883, was inadequate from the start and soon prompted the legislature to order the current structure.

Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

Born in Ohio and raised in St. Paul, the capitol’s architect, Cass Gilbert, was one of the great designers of public buildings. His work on the Minnesota capitol put him on the map and he moved his practice to New York City where he went on to design two other state houses in Arkansas and West Virginia, the Customs House in New York and the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. Another Gilbert project, the Woolworth Building in New York, was the world’s tallest skyscraper from 1913-30.

Statue of Knute Nelson, by John Karl Daniels [1928]

Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

Born in Norway, Knute Nelson was an important political figure in the early days of Minnesota and Wisconsin. He served as governor in the 1890’s. The accompanying figures are of him as a boy with his mother and as a Civil War soldier. Sadly, we rarely name our boy-children ‘Knute’ anymore.

Statue of John Johnson by Andrew O’Connor [1912]

Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

Although Minnesota entered the Union in 1858, it did not have a native-born governor until John Johnson was elected in 1905. The popular three-term governor was responsible for civic reforms. He died in office at the age of forty-eight. The additional figures represent the state’s important early industries – agriculture, iron mining, timber and manufacturing.

 

Dome, Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

After St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the capitol dome is the second largest self-supporting marble dome in the world. The dome actually has three layers with a brick and steel middle dome for additional support and water drainage and the inner dome that is seen from inside.

Architect Gilbert insisted on using bright Georgia marble for the dome instead of locally-mined stone. This upset some folks whose memories of the Confederate rebellion were still fresh but Gilbert prevailed and Minnesota rock was used in most other places.

The main (south) entrance does not have the Greek revival columns and triangular pediment common in many state houses. The portico is awash in allegorical statuary. Classically-draped women represent Prudence, Truth, Wisdom and Bounty while the males represent Integrity and Courage. Radiant above the Six Virtues is the golden quadriga (a chariot drawn by four horses abreast), shining like nothing else on the building.

‘Progress of the State’ [1906] by Daniel Chester French

Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

Daniel Chester French was one of our great late 19th and early 20th century sculptors. He created the iconic seated figure of the president in the Lincoln Memorial. Architect Gilbert saw French’s ‘Columbus Quadriga’ at the Chicago World Exposition in 1893 and wanted one for Minnesota. Called ‘Progress of the State,’ it has four horses that represent the classical elements of nature – earth, fire, water and air. The two women embody industry and agriculture...civilization. (Remember – Man conquers. Woman civilizes). Instead of Columbus, the man driving it all is Minnesota. He holds a cornucopia of plenty.

The architect and planners wanted the rest of the country to know that Minnesota was more than immigrant miners, lumberjacks and farmers.

Minnesota Capitol, St. Paul (24 September 2009)

The next post will take us inside the capitol.

Passed Vice Presidents - # 38 – Hubert H. Humphrey

Grave of Hubert Humphrey (18 July 2023)

Served under Lyndon Johnson

20 January 1965 – 20 January 1969

Preceded by # 37 – Lyndon Johnson

Succeeded by # 39 – Spiro T. Agnew

Born – 27 May 1911

Died – 13 January 1978 (age 66)

Buried – Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN

Date Visited – 18 July 2023

With the assassination of John F. Kennedy, vice president Lyndon Johnson, ascended to the presidency. The VP office was vacant until the election of 1964 when Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater. His running mate, Minnesota senator Hubert Humphrey became our 38th vice president.

Born in South Dakota, the son of a druggist, Humphrey left college after one year to instead earn a pharmacist’s license and help in his father’s store. Eventually, Humphrey completed his academic training and joined the faculty at Macalester College in St. Paul. Political involvement grew from there. He helped found the Minnesota Democratic-Farm-Labor Party in 1944 and was elected the mayor of Minneapolis.

The official Vice President’s Portrait – 1965

(from Google Images)

At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the young rising star in the party fired up the meeting by forcing a vote to put a stronger civil rights position on the party’s platform. Of course, this upset the Confederates in the crowd who believed that White supremacy and segregation of the races was still the most important issue. The southerners bolted the convention and formed their own party. Called the Dixiecrats, they hoped to spoil Harry Truman’s election. Strom Thurmond did carry four states but the favorable reaction from the rest of the country boosted Truman to that huge upset win over Tom Dewey.

Grave of Hubert Humphrey,

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN (18 July 2023)

Below his name is the following quote from the man whose nickname was ‘The Happy Warrior.’

“I have enjoyed my life, its disappointments outweighed by its pleasures. I have loved my country in a way that some people consider sentimental and out of style. I still do and I remain an optimist, with joy, without apology, about this country and about the American experiment in democracy.”

Humphrey was elected to the Senate after that. A Democrat hadn’t done that since before the Civil War. He was reelected twice and rose to be Majority Whip in the early ‘60’s. He was the lead author of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and introduced the legislation that created the Peace Corps. He seemed the ideal running mate for the Texan LBJ in the 1964 election. The public agreed and gave them a landslide victory over the far-right Goldwater.

After his failed presidential run four years later, he returned to the Senate where he served until cancer ended his life in 1978 at age 66.

Grave of Hubert Humphrey,

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN (18 July 2023)

Flanking the central marker with Humphrey’s quote are the

seals of the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis (here)

and the United States Senate and the Vice President.

Footstone at Grave of Muriel Humphrey Brown,

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN (18 July 2023)

In 1981, Muriel Humphrey married Max Brown, a friend from childhood. She appreciated the new life and its freedom away from politics and formalities. They had seventeen years together before Muriel passed and reunited with Hubert.

Hubert was for fair labor practices, regulating economic activity, equal rights and basic universal freedoms...a prototype liberal...before Fox and the far right made it a dirty word they couldn’t say without sneering. I can imagine him now defending his liberal bona fides and resisting the left’s capitulation on the label. We’re ‘Progressives’ now. Is that better?

Footstone at Grave of Hubert Humphrey,

Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN (18 July 2023)

It’s a shame that at the time of my very first election, I didn’t know Mr. Humphrey better...and that I didn’t realize his opponent, Richard Nixon, was the scum bucket he was. 1968 was such a turbulent, upsetting year and this immature, draft-eligible, city kid was determined to cast his first vote for a change from the Johnson administration’s miserable prosecution of that failed escapade in Viet Nam. I wish I wasn’t so focused on shooting the grave to pause and apologize to the man for not being more understanding in 1968.