When America Became a Banana Republic
Eight out of ten of our poorest states are former states of the Confederacy. Less than a handful of the original Confederate states have been able to begin to rise. The ‘again’ was always impossible. Because, in the antebellum South, one percent of the population had all the wealth; most whites were little, if any, better off than slaves. —, politically unstable, economy dependent on the export of one or two products such as agricultural products, social classes divided by wealth that include a large, poor working class and a small ruling class (elite) made up of businessmen, planters, politicians, and the military that controls and exploits the country’s economy, — The antebellum South, the Dixie of song, had all the characteristics of what today is known as a banana republic.
Not much has changed. Today, these eight of the poorest are still undemocratic, still run by wealthy whites for the benefit of themselves at the expense of poor whites and blacks. As then, this social dominance is abetted, given license, by the US Constitution, the US Supreme Court, and religion. By a Constitution that was always wrong about states’ rights and democracy. By a Supreme Court that almost always looks to this past, seldom forward. By religion that has all too often been a handmaiden to power, to corruption. In these states, democracy is rarely, if ever, discussed in meaningful ways amongst the ruling whites; is often virtually precluded by gerrymandering.
For example, Today, 70% of Tennesseans want gun control, an issue the extremely gerrymandered state legislature refuses to address. A woman’s right to choose is another. The gerrymandering is much attributable to the fact that we have an unrepresentative US Supreme Court packed with conservative justices. This because Leonard Leo, Mitch McConnell, and the Federalist Society do not like democracy. Consequent this Supreme Court, many of these State Supreme Courts are gerrymanderingly unrepresentative; it is a veritable merry-go-round.
These characteristics of governance were long provincial the South. Not anymore. In the mid-1960s, white Southern Democrats, in power postbellum in the former Confederate states, feeling threatened, with good reason, by the Civil Rights Legislation of the mid-1960s, were looking for a new home. Around this same time, the Republican Party, facing extinction, was desperate for new blood (voters). White voters in the former Confederate states were theirs for the picking. Republicans called it their southern strategy.
The Party’s southern strategy, reeking of racism and desperation, turned out to be a complete sellout. By the 1980s, the two were one. Today, the former white Southern Democrats of the former Confederate states, with a few like-minded others in a few other states, have taken over the Republican Party. This takeover, they insist, gives them the right to pull the rest of us down into their world. Rather than them coming up, they insist that we come down.
Any doubts about our nation’s new status as a banana republic were erased by the 2016 election of Donald Trump. An election in which the original eight of the ten lowest played a significant role.
In the 1970s and 80s, while the Republican Party was busy morphing into its present stage, both parties were missing an extremely important inflection point. One of the most significant transitions ever was underway. To wit, the industrial age was ending, the digital beginning. All of the signs and all of the signals of this during these years were missed by our political leadership. This missing was one of the worst political failures, the greatest failure of leadership, in modern times. Instead of leading us forward, politicians pandered to the past and led the nation backward, downward toward the lowest common denominator.
It wasn’t so much that they missed the signal; it was why they did. They missed it because they weren’t even looking; couldn’t have cared less. They were only interested in getting (re)elected. In this time of great change, clueless politicians denigrated intellectuals, government, and change itself. Rather than provide leadership, the clueless politicians told the people that they, the people, knew best. From the Republican Party’s sell-out to the 2016 election of Donald Trump was a direct progression. One running directly through the Republican Party.
As a consequence of the sellout, those who had never known, never liked democracy would take over one of our two major political parties and; from this position, wreak havoc on the Nation’s democracy. In this most crucial time, rather than going forward, the Nation went backward. In 1994, Newt Gingrich launched the Contract with America. We went from ‘The idiots are coming’ to ‘Don’t bother they here’ in one generation. In 1995, with their invitation from Newt in hand, they came in droves to the 104th Congress. A disproportionate number of these new members were cultural warriors (bible thumpers, gun nuts, rednecks, etc.) with no interest in governance. They were all about the same cultural issues as those responsible for their states being banana republics. The Nation has not been itself since. Thanks, Newt. Thanks, Ronnie.
The racist, nihilist Tea Party movement of 2009 didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the result of the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Its members came from the banana republic states and their like. So, the House Freedom Caucus. Tyranny by minority had come to the House of Representatives.
On 3 October 2023, when asked about his vote against Kevin McCarthy for speaker, Representative Tim Burchett, (TN-02) said that he asked god to tell him what to do. Before god and everyone, the man admitted that he has no mind of his own, and doesn’t believe in thinking, in reason. What the hell is this man doing in Congress? Tim Burchett has no business in any elected office, anywhere. Boebert, Taylor-Greene, Gaetz, Comer, Massie, ….; there are dozens more Republicans like him in Congress.
On 18 October 2023, a group representing, at best: 10 percent of House Republicans, 5 percent of the total House, and 5 percent of the total populace came too close to getting Jim Jordan elected Speaker of the House. We came this close to a takeover of one branch of government by a very small, very radical group. It was an attempted coup by a minority that has been tyrannizing the United States since 2009. If they had been successful, as their first order of business, they would set about expunging Trump’s impeachments.
PS: Please, please stop sending cultural warriors to Congress. They’re killing us. We need people who can think; want to solve problems, to make government work.
@Ken,
Great piece! Thanks!
FYI, I’ve spent nearly all my life in Tennessee, North Carolina and Missouri. You nailed it.
Hmmm. I have spent practically all of my life in the Northeast, except for a few months at (previously-known-as) Fort Benning in GA & about a month at Fort Mead in MD. In wealthy states, dontchaknow.
US states by poverty rate – Wikipedia
5 of the highest poverty states were in the Confederacy.
Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama.
All have poverty rates in the teens. (Compared to the territory of PR with a 43% rate.)
After MS & LA which are close to 20%, the others are in the mid teens.
Other poor states are New Mexico (#4) & West Virginia (#5).
Going farther on the list you find all the other southern states, except Virginia which is one of the wealthiest (#43 on the poorest list.) Even Texas is among the poorest.
But the difference in poverty rates (after MS & LA) is not the great. Even VA has 10% poverty. Only the wealthiest of states are under 10%.
This suggests a problem of Income Inequality more than anything else. Which is not outright, across-the-board Poverty as such. Arguably, I’m sure. Obviously, the poorest states do not want to do anything about that. Or they would.
Unions seek gains in hostile territory: ‘If you change the South, you change America’
Politico – Sep 5
It isn’t just a move to the South. It’s about a move to isolated rural areas where a company can set itself up as the primary employer. When I visit the South, mainly SC & GA, I’m always impressed with the lack of urban development. There are cities, but they are small and don’t sprawl like cities in more developed areas. If you move your company to someplace in the South, you have a company town. You can dictate the terms. In more developed areas, people can find a job in the next town or suburb or neighborhood.
It’s a good way to fight labor and suppress innovation.
Fred, it’s news to a whole lot of folks that Kentucky was in the Confederacy.
If that is direct from Wikipedia, it’s simply another example of how shoddy a lot of that source is.
@Eric,
“Kentucky was admitted into the Confederate States of America on December 10, 1861. The provisional government in Bowling Green lasted a mere three months as Confederate forces, along with Governor Johnson, retreated to Tennessee in February 1862.”
https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/372#:~:text=Confederate%20Kentucky%20was%20admitted%20into,to%20Tennessee%20in%20February%201862.
The confederacy wanted the remaining slave states of Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri to secede, but they did not. Delaware was still slave also, but of little interest to the confederates. Kentucky’s “provisional government” was more of an “alternate government” as the state constitutionally authorized government never yielded its authority (voluntarily or otherwise) and did not secede at any time. There was a good deal of sentiment in favor of the rebels though, particularly in the west. Kentucky was in the confederacy in the same manner Juan Guaido is President of Venezuela. As a tangent, in spite of the fame of Juneteenth, legal slavery in the US continued through December 1865 as the wartime emancipation decrees did not cover any union states. At the time the 13th amendment was fully ratified in December 1865 it was a still a legal practice in Kentucky and Delaware and there were a few slaves in both states through then. Missouri and Maryland abolished the practice prior to the war’s end. West Virginia was admitted to the union as a slave state during the war also abolished it prior to ratification of the 13th amendment.
Thanks for pointing that out. I always get Tennessee & Kentucky confused for some reason. It’s important to appreciate that they are in some ways different. One gives us Daniel Boone & the other Davy Crocket, and both provide fine sippin whiskey.
And how are unions doing in any of those states?
Who were oddly enough not with the Union.
That probably has something to do with their Income Equality problems.
@Fred,
Tennessee also gave us enriched uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb. That was in Oak Ridge TN, where I grew up. And Nashville is the epicenter of Country music.
Joel:
We had a plant in Nashville and I was on a visit there as a member of Purchasing. That night we went to the Grand Ole Opri hall. On the lower level in the garden(?), there was a recording going on with a young female singer. She actually sounded like one might hear on TV or the radio. Interesting place.
That took a whole lot of electricity, which was provided by FDR’s TVA plants I believe. The Uranium enrichment, not country music, that is.
@Fred,
“That took a whole lot of electricity, which was provided by FDR’s TVA plants I believe.”
Certainly the calutrons (Y12).
@Bill,
“That night we went to the Grand Ole Opri hall.”
Was that the Ryman or the Opry out in Opryland?
I was a freshman at Vanderbilt in Nashville, 1973-74. Ran varsity cross-country for Vandy. That year cured me of any interest in engineering. Transferred to UT-Knoxpatch after that.
Joel:
Been so long and not sure.
I went to an ATA (aviation) convention at the Grand Ole Opry hotel complex. We called it the Opry-sphere and it was pretty impressive all decorated for Christmas. I didn’t get into town, but I got lost in the hotel complex a few times.
It turns out that only 4 of the poorest 5 states were in the Confederacy.
Athough SC, TN, GA, TX and NC are in the poorest 16.
“were long provincial the South” – Don’t forget that the majority of western and appalachian states were long ruled by creatures of the mining industry.
If you look at US historical economic development, basically the rest of the country was a NY & Boston colony funneling in investment funds stolen from European peasants. The entire “trunk” region out to Chicago was in effect an NYC colony with its railroads, hog butchers, steel mills and agricultural processing. Read Nature’s Metropolis to get a sense of this. The railroads set their tariffs so you could only produce industrial goods in certain areas and provide natural resources or agricultural products in others. They were run out of NY & Boston. When winter wheat became a thing, the colony extended to the Rocky Mountains but it only ran so far south.
San Francisco was a similar colony once the 49s established a population base. It was only years later that Los Angeles was colonized by the movie industry and aviation, both driven by NYC investors.
I’m not saying there wasn’t local initiative and local money, but the big drive was Europe -> NY/Boston -> everywhere else, and the South wasn’t part of it except peripherally.
Hmmm. Most of the US GDP before 1860 came from agricultural production of exports from the South. Tobacco & cotton, produced with slave labor, owned by an upper class of plantation owners it seems.
How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South
The History Channel – updated July 25
Slavery was so profitable, it sprouted more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation.
An excellent essay.
Thank you, Ken Melvin.
Ditto on ltr’s comment. The following discussion thread weren’t too shabby either.
Is the US a banana republic?
Tribune Chronicle (Warren, Ohio) – Sep 25
Letter to the editor…
“There comes a time in American history when we have to question the motives of the U.S. government when it comes to equal treatment under the law.
“Banana republic” is a term often used to describe a politically unstable, economically dependent and corrupt country, typically in Latin America. But, it appears that our once great constitutional republic has devolved into a banana republic during the Biden administration.
The typical characteristics of a banana republic include a weak and often corrupt government that caters to the interests of foreign corporations (China) rather than its own citizens. The political elite and connected, often supported by military force, maintain power through authoritarian means, suppressing dissent and perpetuating a system of inequality.
Whether you believe the Jan 6 instance is an insurrection or not, the political prosecution of former President Trump is something everyone should be worried about. Where is our great country heading? The problem we are running into is the two-tiered justice system that is being implemented under the Biden Administration; one has to wonder are they trying to destroy the public trust in our constitutional republic? … “
Err… Not Sep 25. Rather, JUN 25.
So, the problem with suggesting that the Good Ol’ USA has become a Banana Republic is, essentially, that there is no clear definition of what that means.
Apparently, the Trump faction believes that the Dems under Biden are turning it into one, and the Dems believe the MAGA GOP is doing so. (The latter seems likely to me.)
Personally, there is no scarier thought for me than the one about Trump getting back into office. I’d prefer we remain a Republic, whether we become one of the Banana variety or not.
For the record. (Wikipedia is exonerated.)
Border states (American Civil War) – Wikipedia
In the context of the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states were slave states that did not secede from the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. …
For the record, because it seemed to me that West Virginia was not a slave state.
It actually was, briefly, throughout the Civil War.
A Brief History of African Americans in West Virginia
Also, lest I give the wrong impression, I don’t disagree with the thrust of the lead-off post at all. Just some of the details.