democracy

America’s World Turned Sideways–Soon to be Upside Down?

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The British surrender at Yorktown by John Trumbull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I must say that the absurdity of this government is definitely going sideways, maybe even soon to be upside down.

But before I go on I want to say that I saw something the other day that put a pause in what I thought about American history. I thought it was so apropos for for today; and so historically ironic it had to be true: That the British Army after its surrendering at Yorktown to George Washington and the French Army marched out of Yorktown playing a ditty called: A World Turned Upside Down. However, it seems like this may have never happened, playing the ditty not the surrender. In fact researchers are not even sure if there ever was such a tune.

According to mountvernon.com, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, some American professional historians accepted this story “and published it in their textbooks (still without corroboration).” It goes on to say that the belief the British stacked arms and marched out of Yorktown with fifes and drums dolefully playing A World Turned Upside Down never happened and actually came from “several American novelists and one British poet, Robert Graves.” Somehow this novel idea worked its way into our historical textbooks and our mythology.

The story, according to mountvernon.com “was first published in Major Alexander Garden’s Anecdotes of the American Revolution forty-seven years after Yorktown. Garden quoted a letter from Major William Jackson who described the surrender negotiations as though he had been an eyewitness, but didn’t mention that he was in Europe, not Yorktown at the time.” Basically Garden’s assertions are based on second-hand and third hand information from sources who also were not even at Yorktown. This also makes me rethink the whole Alamo story.

It really does feel satirical and something a novelist (or Hollywood) would do to embellish a storyline. When one considers the Revolutionary War and what 13 colonies did–with the help of a global superpower, which France was in the 17th and 18th centuries–was incredible.

But defeating the British on the battlefield is not historically earthshaking. Upstarts have defeated Goliaths in the past. Look at what is happening in Ukraine today and what Vietnam did against the French, and later the US.

What turned the world upside down in the 1780s happened a decade after the Revolutionary War when those 13 states formed a more perfect union, a republic, in a monarchy dominated world. People ruling themselves was a philosophical concept batted around in coffee houses and universities of the time–but never in real time.

Now, what does this have to do with anything today. I am glad that you are thinking ahead because as I said our government has been going sideways for a long time. But the current buoyancy of the ship of state is listing heavily to the right–pun intended. I say this because of the back and forth that is going on about saving our elections from alien invasions.

There were two things that the framers of the Constitution wanted in setting up a republic, saving us from alien invasions was not high on their to-do-list. The first was tyranny. It is not a word we throw around too much today. American History Dictionary defines it as “A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.” The framers realized that checks and balances were needed. They feared a government with too much power. Hence, we see the formation of two distinct levels of government. They devised a federal system that a divided governmental powers. We have state and national governments and each has certain delegated and reserved powers–powers not concentrated in one person or institution.

Unfortunately for this administration elections fall mostly under the purview of the state governments and Congress. But that is not stopping this administration’s attempt at a rolling coup using the judiciary system in an obvious effort to control the outcome or at least influence the credibility of the next election. Instead of rolling up a tank division and Seal Teams in storming up the Capitol steps, the administration is using a battalion of lawyers to pull down the government with executive orders and legal rulings. It is the simple Trumpian belief if you can’t win find a judge who will just change the rules in mid game.

The second thing the framers were concerned about was too much democracy infused into the federal government. You see that in the Electoral College electing the president, state legislatures determine who will be senators, and the president nominating judges with Senate approval. At the time the Constitution was approved the people only voted for members of the House of Representatives.

Those framers also knew too much democracy can lead to mob rule, as we saw on January 6th, 2020 when people were urged to “fight like hell.” It was a page right out of Sam Adams and the Boston Sons of Liberty play book. The Sons of Liberty had no problem summoning out the mob to obstruct British governing of Massachusetts. Even after the war the Massachusetts government had to deal with Shay’s Rebellion when farmers shut down the legal system to keep the courts from foreclosing and seizing their property for unpaid taxes. Even during his presidency George Washington led an army into western Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

Without a doubt the checks and balances and the separation of powers can make our government slow-footed. Can a king or some other sort of autocrat work quicker and maybe more efficient? Possibly. But that is not how our republic was designed. It was designed with belief that the ultimate power rests with the people and not in one person or one branch of government.

I think we are fast approaching a tipping point with this administration’s efforts to bully its way into the election process. Elections are the engines that drive a republic, a democracy. The Constitution is clear on the fact that states handle elections, No where in the Constitution is it even implied that an executive department, the Department Homeland Security or an independent agency of the executive branch, the United State Postal Service can determine who is an eligible voter.

Without a doubt our election history has had its dark moments. Has there been voter fraud? I am sure if we were to take a deep dive into City-Machine politics we would find more rats in the ballot boxes then we would like to believe. Every major city from Boston to St. Louis has had some sort of boss led city machine. Three of the most famous machines were William Tweed’s Tammany Hall during the Gilded Age, James Pendergast in Kansas City and Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. It would be hard to believe that ballot boxes were not stuffed during their reign as “Boss.” And I am not going to talk about the opposite: voter suppression with Jim Crow in the South. When it comes to elections we have come a long way from night-riders and city-machine machinations.

What we are witnessing today is the assembling of a national machine lead by Boss Trump. A machine backed with the full force of the federal government. The only thing between the Boss and an election is the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I am not a Constitutional scholar on running elections but it seems obvious elections are delegated to states and not the Executive Branch of the Republic, Homeland Security, Social Security or the Post Office. If this were to happen voters would be marching to the polls to the tune of A World Turned Upside Down.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/03/2026-06601/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections

GOP wants TSA style voter PreCheck

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Booze was proof of citizenship in Caleb Bingham, “The County Election,” 1854, Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

When I was in college many years ago I took a class on State and Local Government. One thing that I clearly remember was what the professor said about voting rights. He said that when it came to expanding suffrage it was the federal government that took the lead. Today, I am not so sure.

The House of Representatives just passed the SAVE America Act or its official moniker: The Safeguard America Voter Eligibility Act. USA Today writes that “The legislation would require people to provide proof of citizenship “in person” when registering to vote in federal elections, and adds an additional requirement that voters show an approved form of photo identification to cast their ballot. It also places new rules on mail-in voting, requiring Americans to send in a copy of their ID when both requesting and submitting their ballot.”

Before long we will be carrying some sort of portmanteau with all of our various IDs, Usernames and Passwords. But I suspect voting will turn out much like applying for, and being approved, for a TSA PreCheck Pass. For less than $90 you can skip the lines and renew every five years for just under $60. Is this where we are heading with voting?

It is all about manipulating the vote. I would not be surprised if the SAVE Act were to morph into a law that “allows” Americans access to the polling place but in order to actually cast a ballot the voter will be charged a fee for individual ballots for federal, state and local elections; much like how Medicare drug plans categorize medications into tiers, with lower tiers generally having lower copayments. To vote in local elections would cost X dollars and in State X2 dollars and Federal elections would be the top tier. It would be The FEAR Act: Funding Elections Against Reprobates. Those not paying can wait in the back of the line with the riffraff and vote at the DMV.

By making voting a user fee and a funding mechanism it would take it out of the realm of the Twenty-fourth Amendment “The right of a citizen of United States to vote…shall not be denied or abridged by the United States by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” It is now a funding mechanism for those who can afford to vote.

Let’s face it, there have always been some sort of voting restrictions or requirements going all the way back to Colonial times. Even after the Revolutionary War, which was basically fought over the lack of representation in Parliament over who gets to tax Americans, had requirements. Even the newly independent Americans were faced with voter requirements. The most obvious requirement was being a property owning white male. This requirement hit the propertyless poor, white men, women and anybody of color–even the propertyless veteran of Valley Forge who fought to found this country could be disenfranchised.

The republican logic of the times believed that in order for a citizen to vote he, and I use the word “he,” had to have an economic interest in the community at large. Those lacking economic independence, even if they fought for independence, were believed to be easily manipulated and could not be trusted to vote–for whatever reason.

There is some truth to manipulating the weak-minded voter on Election Day. George Washington lost his first run at the Virginia House of Burgesses because his liquor wagon ran dry. Washington was swamped losing the election by 231 votes. He garnered only 40 votes. According to classiccitynews.com “Washington avoided the same mistake during his second run, spending nearly the entire campaign budget on 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider royal served to 391 voters — nearly a half-gallon per voter.” A good time in the old town was had by all as Washington floated his way into the House of Burgesses.

The GOP backed SAVE bill incorporates some of the same logic Washington used but with a twist of lemon–the mail-in ballot. Trump believes he lost the 2020 election due to mail-in ballots. There is a lot of truth in this. According to MIT’s Election Lab study on How We Voted in 2020: A Topical Look at the Survey of the Performance of American Elections states that “Looking at 2020 (election), the partisan difference in voting by mail increased substantially. The proportion of Democrats voting by mail more than doubled, while the proportion of Republicans using vote-by-mail increased by “only” 50 percent compared to 2016. In total, 60 percent of Democrats cast their ballots by mail in 2020, compared to only 32 percent of Republicans.”

This does not explain Trump’s 2024 victory but here is the bitter lemon in the cocktail. MIT’s Election Lab study says that voting by mail, which includes dropping votes off at drop boxes had steadily increased since 1996. Standing in line and expecting a gill of rum for doing your civic duty has dropped from 89 percent to 60 percent in 2016. “The fraction of voters casting ballots by mail more than doubled from 2016 to 46 percent. “Meanwhile, the share of voters casting ballots on Election Day declined by half, from 60 percent to 28 percent.” Granted, the Covid pandemic had states scrambling to set up safe voting procedures. Drop-off and mail-in ballots provided voters with safe access to voting without the crowds. However, it appears that voters like the idea of early voting using drop-off boxes and mail-in ballots.

The other twist is that Trump, constitutionally, is not allowed to run again per the Twenty-second Amendment. Without Trump’s rum wagon pulling up on Election Day maybe GOP Congressional representatives feel the need to legally control the voting process. Voting by either drop-off or by mail is like the forward pass in pro football. In 1933 the NFL changed the rules that a passer had to be “five yards behind the line of scrimmage before he can pass the ball…” to allowing “the passer to pass the ball from any point behind the line of scrimmage.” In three years, 1936, the NFL had its first 1,000 yard passer when Green Bay Quarterback Arnie Herber threw for 1,239 yards.  In 1967 Joe Namath became the first QB to throw for 4,000 yards and in 1984 Dan Marino threw for 5,000 yards. Simply put, mail-in voting, like the forward pass is a game changer. Since Marino threw for 5,000 yards that number has been eclipsed ten or more times.

I am not sure where this act of saving our elections from ourselves fits into the timeline of our county’s democratic principles. Voting rights can be easily fit into historical narrative and are often associated to important events in our history. The most obvious is the Fifteenth Amendment giving freed slaves the right to vote. Then there was the Twenty-sixth Amendment ratified in 1971 which allowed 18 year-olds the right to vote. This amendment came out of the Vietnam War. If a young man or woman was old enough to die for their country they surely should be old enough to vote much like their forefather in the Continental Army. The Twenty-fourth says the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. I am surprised Congress has not taken up some sort of restrictions on trans gender people from voting. Maybe in the near future besides proving we are citizens we will need medical proof of our sex. Selfies do not count.

I really think the GOPers in Congress are not reading the writing on the wall–adapting to the forward pass or mail-in or drop box to voting. They need to scrap Trump’s revenge plays trying assuaging the “Big Man’s” ego and start looking downfield at the changing times. Putting more obstacles in the way of voting flew away with Jim Crow.