These Truths
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151.“Fox News and Facebook Partner to Host First Republican Presidential Primary Debate of 2016 Election,” Fox News, May 20, 2015; Ann Ravel, Chair, FEC, interview with the author, August 21, 2015; Doyle McManus, “Fox Appoints Itself a GOP Primary Gatekeeper,” Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2015; Rebecca Kaplan, “Marist Doesn’t Want Its Poll Used for Fox Debate Criteria,” CBS News, August 3, 2015; Scott Keeter, interview with the author, August 20, 2015; Bill McInturff, interview with the author, August 21, 2015.
152.Donald J. Trump for President, August 8, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/2015 0808202314/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/; Playbuzz—Authoring Platform for Interactive Storytelling, https://publishers.playbuzz.com/, accessed September 12, 2017; “Republican Debate Poll: Who Won First Fox GOP Debate?,” Time, August 7, 2015, http://time.com/3988073/republican-debate-fox-first-gop/, accessed September 12, 2017.
153.Brendan Nyhan, “Presidential Polls: How to Avoid Getting Fooled,” NYT, July 30, 2015; Michael W. Traugott, “Do Polls Give the Public a Voice in a Democracy?,” in Genovese and Streb, Polls and Politics, 85–86. Gallup’s own defense against the critics (including charges of bandwagoning and underdogging) is best read in Gallup and Rae, The Pulse of Democracy, ch. 18. “The conventional wisdom that politicians habitually respond to public opinion when making major policy decisions is wrong,” is the argument of the political scientists Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), xii–xv. Chris Kirk, “Who Won the Republican Debate? You Tell Us,” Slate, August 6, 2015; Josh Voorhees, “Did Trump Actually Win the Debate? How to Understand All Those Instant Polls That Say Yes,” Slate, August 7, 2015.
154.This report is based on the author’s presence at the Kennedy conference. For a transcript of the proceedings, see IOP, Campaign for President. Transcript of the campaign managers’ roundtable, 11–60. Outbursts from the audience at this roundtable and at other events held during the conference that are not found in the transcript come from notes taken by the author while attending.
155.Ann Coulter, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (New York: Sentinel, 2016), 2–5, 21.
156.Phyllis Schlafly, Speech in St. Louis, March 13, 2016.
157.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCGLXku15x0; Phyllis Schlafly, Ed Martin, and Brett M. Decker, The Conservative Case for Trump (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2016).
158.The remarks of Donald Trump at the funeral of Phyllis Schlafly, September 10, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bng_6HZlPM; Spruill, Divided We Stand, 336–41; Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 80.
159.Dreher, The Benedict Option, 79.
160.Ibid., 226; Sykes, How the Right Lost Its Mind, 17.
161.Hillary Clinton, What Happened (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017).
162.IOP, Campaign for President, 67.
163.Ibid., 68.
164.Ibid., 69.
165.Nicholas Confessore and Daisuke Wakabayashi, “How Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape U.S. Politics,” NYT, October 9, 2017.
166.Caitlyn Dewey, “Facebook Fake-News Writer,” Washington Post, November 17, 2016. And on his death: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/paul-horner-dead-at-38-9716641.
167.Tim Wu, “Please Prove You’re Not a Robot,” NYT, July 15, 2017.
168.IOP, Campaign for President, 70.
169.Mike Isaac and Scott Shane, “Facebook’s Russia-Linked Ads Came in Many Disguises,” NYT, October 2, 2017. And see, for example, Zeynep Tufekci, “Zuckerberg’s Preposterous Defense of Facebook,” NYT, September 29, 2017.
170.Cecilia Kang, Nicholas Fandos, and Mike Isaac, “Tech Executives Are Contrite About Election Meddling, but Make Few Promises on Capitol Hill,” NYT, October 31, 2017.
171.IOP, Campaign for President, 70.
172.Ibid., 71.
173.Indictment, U.S. v. Internet Research Agency et al., 18 USC §§ 2, 371, 1349, 1028A, February 16, 2018.
174.On Assange, see Raffi Khatchadourian, “Julian Assange, a Man Without a Country,” TNY, August 21, 2017.
175.IOP, Campaign for President, 76.
176.Ibid., 83.
177.Ibid., 87.
178.Ibid., 89.
Epilogue: THE QUESTION ADDRESSED
1.Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1 (1788); Edward R. Garriott, Cold Waves and Frost in the United States (Washington, DC: Weather Bureau, 1906), 10.
2.Charles Pierce, A Meteorological Account of the Weather in Philadelphia from January 1, 1790, to January 1, 1847 (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1847), 264. My thanks to Charles Cullen and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and to Peter Huybers of Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
3.Average annual temperatures from 1948 to 2017 can be found at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Climate at a Glance: U.S. Time Series, Average Temperature, published July 2017, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/, accessed July 23, 2017.
4.Michael Carlowicz, “World of Change: Global Temperatures: Feature Articles,” NASA, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php, accessed September 12, 2017.
5.“President Trump Announces U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord,” The White House, June 1, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/06/01/president-donald-j-trump-announces-us-withdrawal-paris-climate-accord; “President Trump Decides to Pull U.S. Out of Paris Climate Agreement,” All Things Considered, NPR, June 1, 2017; Justin Worland, “The Enormous Ice Sheet that Broke Off of Antarctica Won’t Be the Last to Go,” Time, July 13, 2017.
6.Andrew Sullivan, “The Republic Repeals Itself,” New York, November 9, 2016; Donald J. Trump, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2017; Samuel Moyn and David Priestland, “Trump Isn’t a Threat to Our Democracy; Hysteria Is,” NYT, August 11, 2017.
7.Jessica Anderson, “Taney Statue Is Moved from Outside Frederick City Hall,” Baltimore Sun, March 18, 2017; Celeste Bott, “Remaining Pieces of Confederate Monument Removed from Forest Park,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 28, 2017; Richard Fausset, “Tempers Flare over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans,” NYT, May 2, 2017; Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Brian M. Rosenthal, “Man Charged After White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville Ends in Deadly Violence,” NYT, August 12, 2017.
8.Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, 317–18.
9.Newt Gingrich, To Renew America (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 7.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Frontispiece
Americans assembled on the National Mall for the 1963 March on Washington. Warren K. Leffler / Library of Congress.
xxii
John Durand painted the precocious six-year-old New Yorker Jane Beekman in 1767, holding a book and seized with inspiration. Jane Beekman by John Duran, 1767, oil on canvas. Photo © New York Historical Society.
3
“America” first appeared as the name of an undefined land mass on a map of the world made in 1507. Martin Waldseemüller / Library of Congress.
4
On an ink-splotched sketch of northwest Haiti, Columbus labeled “la española,” Hispaniola, “the little Spanish island.” The Granger Collection.
15
A drawing originally made in the seventh century by Isidore of Seville became, in 1472, the first printed map of the world; twenty years later, it was obsolete. British Library, London, UK, © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images.
16
Artists working for the sixteenth-century mestizo Diego Muñoz Camargo illustrated the Spanish punishment for native converts who abandoned Christianity. Glasgow University Library, Scotland / Bridgeman Images.
21
An Aztec artist rendered the Spanish conquistadors, led by Cortés, invading Mexico. The Granger Collection.
24
Mexican casta, or caste, paintings purported to chart sixteen different possible i
ntermarriages of Spanish, Indian, and African men and women and their offspring. Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlan, Mexico / Courtesy of Schalkwijk / Art Resource, NY.
31
This deerskin cloak, likely worn by Powhatan, was by the middle of the seventeenth century housed in a museum in Oxford, England. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK / Bridgeman Images.
35
The Virginia Company recruited colonists with advertisements that lavishly promised an Eden-like bounty. Library of Congress.
44
In 1629, Massachusetts Bay adopted a colony seal that, by way of justifying settlement, pictured a nearly naked Indian, begging the English to “Come Over and Help Us.” Massachusetts Archives.
46
European slave traders inspecting people for purchase sometimes licked their skin, believing it possible to determine whether they were healthy or sick by the taste of their sweat. Traite General du Commerce de l’Amerique by Chambon. Bibliothèque Municipale, Nantes France (PRC BW).
51
In 1681, Charles II granted lands to the English Quaker William Penn, who founded a “holy experiment” in the eponymous colony of Pennsylvania. Library of Congress.
65
Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 woodcut served as both a political cartoon and a map of the colonies. Library of Congress.
68
George Whitefield’s preaching stirred ordinary Americans and set them swooning, but it also inspired study, and intellectual independence, represented here in the form of a woman, in the lower left, wearing spectacles to study Scripture. Private Collection / Bridgeman Images.
72
Boston-born artist John Singleton Copley left the colonies in 1774, never to return; in 1783, while living in London, he depicted the 1781 Battle of Jersey in a 12 × 8 foot painting—only a detail is shown here—and offered his own argument about American liberty by picturing, near its center, a black man firing a gun. © Tate, London 2018.
73
In protest of slavery, Benjamin Lay rejected anything produced by slave labor, became a hermit, and lived in a cave. William Williams / National Portrait Gallery.
80
London-printed maps commemorating the treaty that ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763 marked out the importance of both the Caribbean and the continent. Library of Congress.
85
People held in slavery in Jamaica rebelled throughout the middle decades of the eighteenth century, leaving Jamaican slave owners reliant on British military protection and unwilling to join colonists on the continent in rebelling against British rule. Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images.
89
A British minister with the 1774 bill closing the port of Boston in his pocket pours tea down the throat of “America”—here, and often, depicted as a naked Indian woman—while another looks under her skirt. American Antiquarian Society.
101
This political cartoon, published in London, shows “Britain,” on one side of the scale, warning, “No one injures me with impunity,” while, on the other side, “America,” trampled by her allies (Spain, France, and the Netherlands), cries, “My Ingratitude is Justly punished.” American Antiquarian Society.
103
Benjamin West, American-born History Painter to the King, began a painting of the British and American peace commissioners—including Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay—but never finished the canvas. Courtesy, Winterthur; painting: American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain by Benjamin West (1783–1819), oil paint on canvas, London, England, gift of Henry Francis du Pont, 1957.856.
109
Printers published the proposed Constitution as a broadside but also included it in newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets. Gilder Lehrman.
115
The value of paper currency fluctuated wildly, and by the end of the Revolutionary War, money printed on behalf of the Continental Congress had become nearly worthless. American Antiquarian Society.
118
James Madison took copious notes on the proceedings of the constitutional convention. James Madison / Library of Congress.
129
A 1787 engraving pictures Federalists and Anti-Federalists pulling in two different directions a wagon labeled “Connecticut,” stuck in a ditch and loaded with debts and (worthless) paper money. Amos Doolittle / Library of Congress.
132
George Washington was inaugurated on the balcony of Federal Hall, formerly New York’s city hall. Courtesy, Winterthur; etching: FEDERAL HALL / The Seat of CONGRESS by Amos Doolittle, Peter Lacour, 1790, New Haven, CT, ink, watercolor on laid paper, bequest of Henry Francis du Pont, 1957.816.
143
Federalists and Anti-Federalists had different reactions to the Haitian revolution. Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France, Roger-Viollet, Paris / Bridgeman Images.
148
An 1800 print commemorating the life of Washington pictures him holding the “The American Constitution,” a tablet etched in stone. Library of Congress.
150
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tate’s 1854 canvas Arguing the Point depicts a hunter and a farmer debating an election while reading a paper brought by a townsman, while the farmer’s daughter tries to break in on the conversation. Arguing the Point; Settling the Presidency by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819–1905); photo: R. W. Norton Art Gallery.
153
Philadelphians of all ranks celebrate the Fourth of July in 1812 in this watercolor by John Lewis Krimmel, a German immigrant. Fourth of July Celebration in Center Square by John Lewis Krimmel, HSP large graphics collection [V65] / Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
160
An election of 1800 campaign banner for Thomas Jefferson, promised “John Adams No More.” Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.#45-553 (PRC CT).
169
Jefferson imagined an “empire of liberty,” a republic of yeoman farmers, equal and independent. Library of Congress.
174
This political caricature, engraved and inked in Massachusetts about 1804 and sold in New Hampshire by 1807, depicts Jefferson as a rooster and Sally Hemings as his hen, testament to how widespread were rumors about the president’s relationship with one of his slaves. American Antiquarian Society.
183
Andrew Jackson’s 1824 bid for the presidency introduced all manner of paraphernalia, including this campaign sewing box. David Frent Collection / Photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions, HA.com.
184
Paper ballots were in general use by the 1820s, usually in the form of “party tickets” for an entire slate of candidates, like this Democratic Party ticket from Ohio in 1828. Library of Congress.
187
Jackson’s inauguration in 1829 brought an unprecedented crowd to the Capitol—a crowd that followed him to the White House. Robert Cruikshank / Library of Congress.
189
In the 1830s, railroads emerged as a symbol of progress, pictured, as in this engraving, as if cutting through the wilderness and carrying civilization across the continent. LC-USZ62-51439 (b&w film copy neg.).
194
The textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, on the banks of the Merrimack River, were the first in the United States to use power looms. Library of Congress.
196
The tent meetings of the Second Great Awakening had much in common with Jacksonian-era political rallies, but, where men dominated party politics, women dominated the revival movement. The Granger Collection.
200
An unidentified woman, about the age of Maria W. Stewart when she first wrote for the Liberator, posed for a daguerreotype, holding a book, an emblem of her learnedness. Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum.
213
The Cherokees devised their own writing system, adopted their own constitution, and began printing their own newspaper, the Phoenix, in 1828. Library of Congress.
222
Pioneers heading west gathered at settlements like Major John Dougherty’s trading post on the Missouri River. Denver Public Library, Western History Division #F3226 (PRC B/W).
225
During the Panic of 1837, a destitute family cowers when debt collectors come to the door, demanding hard money; fading portraits of Jackson and Van Buren hang on the wall behind them. Library of Congress.
227
An 1848 cartoon pictured William Henry Harrison as the engine of a train fueled by hard cider and pulling a log cabin while President Martin Van Buren, driving “Uncle Sam’s Cab,” pulled by a blindered horse, stumbles on a pile of (Henry) Clay. Robert N. Elton/Library of Congress.
232
In Richard Caton Woodville’s 1848 painting, a crowd gathers on the porch of the “American Hotel”—a symbol of the Union—eagerly awaiting the “War News from Mexico.” Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas #2010.74.