#1, 055: The United States of Amnesia
The Speaker Bows to His King
First and foremost, a confession: I am not a Marxist. Period. End of confession. Why in the name of erudition am I making this avowal? Because I am about to quote from Karl Marx’s 1852 monograph The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: to wit, History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Paraphrasing the German Idealist G.W.F. Hegel, Marx’s intention in this essay was to discuss how historical events can echo - but with a lesser, more pathetic quality - the second time they happen. Well, dear reader, we are currently in the throes of a severe and moronic political crisis that affirms just how insightful and dead-bang on were die Herren Marx und Hegel: to wit, when history does repeat itself – as inevitably it shall – it tends to have a lesser, more distressing quality the second time around.
The current political crisis is well-known to a majority of Americans. While the government is shut down, Congress is on permanent holiday; while millions of families are in real danger of malnutrition and having to decide between paying rent or forgoing medical care, POTUS is gearing up to have his DOJ “repay” him $230 million for legal expenses and having his billionaire best buds cough up hundreds of millions of dollars in order to create the largest banquet hall on the planet. And to top it all off, our fearful leader is actually giving serious thought to constructing an Arc de Trump meant to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
To make matters worse, whenever questioned about anything going on within the regime, House Speaker Mike Johnson displays a raging case of amnesia. Sun Sentinel opinion writer Pat Beall snarkily summed things up in a recent piece in the following manner: Dinner with the president and his crypto BFFs? “I don’t know anything about the dinner.” Presidential crypto grift? Same. Quatar jet? Shutdown layoffs? GOP police funding cuts? Whatever it was Eric Trump said this week?
To the best my knowledge - and after extensive research - there are no historic rankings of house Speakers; of who were the best best of the best all the way down to the worst of the worst. It is, as with most things in the realm of American history, a matter of political weltanschauung (worldview) and partisanship. To my way of thinking, the best of the best was Joseph Gurney Cannon (R. IL) the man known during his speakership as both “Uncle Joe” and “Czar Cannon." He exercised exceptional control during his 7 years (1903-1910) as Speaker; he effectively had total control over the agenda and debate proceedings of the House. (n.b. He also chaired the House Rules Committee). Eventually, there came a political revolt, led by a small group of Republicans who managed to curb his power. In many ways his experience mirrored the more recent frustrations of far-right Republicans who, during the first Trump Administration, voiced interest in lessening the institutional power of both the speaker and the House itself. Although some could fault Cannon for the dictatorial manner in which he ran the House, he did manage to keep Theodore Roosevelt (whose presidency ranks in the top 10) from eviscerating and castrating the purpose and perquisites of the House . . . the one thing our current Speaker has utterly failed to do.
Other upper-echelon Speakers include
Henry Clay (Whig-KY): “The Great Compromiser,” was a staunchly anti-Jacksonian who eventually became leader of the Whigs . . . who were the liberals of his day and time. He was the only person to be elected Speaker during his first term in the House after having previously served two brief terms in the U.S. Senate. During his 6 non-consecutive terms as Speaker, Clay reshaped the office by actively setting the House’s policy agenda—especially his “American System” of economic expansion, high tariffs, and investments in the nation’s infrastructure—while pursuing more direct political objectives. He was also the first Speaker to be appointed to a presidential cabinet, servicing as U.S. Secretary of State in the administration of John Quincy Adam.
Sam Rayburn (D-TX), who wielded the gavel for a record 17 nonconsecutive years. He left a permanent legacy; one of the main buildings housing legislative offices adjacent to the Capitol bears his name. More importantly, he was a master negotiator, credited with raising the prominence of the Democratic party and supporting the budding career of LBJ.
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. (D-MA) who, despite being a deeply partisan Democrat, managed to also be a paragon of bipartisanship. The relationship between the highly-progressive Speaker and the ultra-conservative President Ronald Reagan was a model of what the executive and legislative branches can accomplish when political partisanship takes a backseat to what’s in the best interest of the commonweal. The two Irishmen often had to walk a fine line between capitulating to a popular conservative POTUS and maintaining his party interests in the midst of the Cold War.
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Likely the best “wrangler” of votes in the history of the office, the first female Speaker routinely found the proper leverage points to keep party legislators in line, while also trying to secure votes from members of the opposition. As but one example, during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, Speaker Pelosi helped drive through the deeply debated legislation. The sweeping health care policy passed the House on Nov. 7, 2009, with a vote count of 220 to 215. It needed 218 to pass. Today, she is routinely considered the “worst of the worst” by MAGA Republicans, who, afflicted with amnesia, forget the disasters which were Dennis Hastert (an admitted serial child molester), Newt, John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, and the current wielder of the gavel Mike “I know nothing” Johnson. Political historians predict that she will be known as one of the most successful Speakers of all time.
Lewis Chas. Levin
Here’s where Marx/Hegel’s nostrum about history repeating itself “first as tragedy, second as farce” comes into play. Or, we can go back even further, to the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. In that book, Koheleth, the self‑named author, states a profound truth in Chapter 1, Verse 9: "What has been will be, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" Koheleth's verity, which extends to both the political and the religious realm, might well serve as the epitaph for the second Jewish person to serve in Congress, Lewis Charles Levin of Pennsylvania. For the major issue that obsessed Levin and made his brief moment in the political spotlight has resurfaced time and again. In Levin's day, it was called nativism. Toward the end of the nineteenth century it was termed populism. Today it goes under the name MAGA, or, as one current historian calls it, "the cult of national patriotism." The issues Levin raised in his day on the national political stage (roughly 1845-51) - prayer and Bible in public schools; keeping America free of foreign influence; strengthening moral values; keeping illegal immigrants from coming to America - are once again staples of American politics in the 21st century.
Equal parts crusading moral zealot, paranoid conspiratorialist, and agitating dogmatist, Levin fashioned a barely coherent political philosophy that sought nothing less than "the attainment and preservation of America's `national character.'" As he declared early in his first congressional term in 1845, "I go for everything American in contradistinction to everything foreign." In the end, he proved himself to be remarkably unsuccessful in achieving his aim. But . . . and this is an enormous ‘but’ . . . he did manage to give rise to a political party known in the mid-19th century as the American Party but ever since as The Know-Nothing Party.”
From the way Lewis Levin railed against paupers, drunks, Catholics, and those who "had not been sufficiently long in the country to have lost the odor of . . . steerage," one might have taken him for some priggish Backbay snob. Far from it. Although little is known about his antecedents or early life, it is clear that Lewis Charles Levin was the son of Jewish parents. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 10, 1808, Levin spent the first sixteen years growing up in a city that was home to early-nineteenth-century America's largest Jewish population---somewhere between 600 and 700. From his later actions, it is clear that Levin felt like an outsider and tried desperately to escape from his Jewish past. Although there is no concrete evidence that he ever formally converted to another religion, he did become an advocate of Protestantism and married two non‑Jewish women, Anna Hays and Julia Gist.
Levin graduated from South Carolina College (University of South Carolina) in 1824. Infected with wanderlust, he spent the next fifteen years earning a precarious living as an itinerant Christian preacher and teacher, settling variously in Maryland, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Somewhere along the line he read law and was admitted to the bar in several states. In 1839 or 1840, Levin---by now married to Ann Hays of Kentucky---moved to Philadelphia, which, notwithstanding his disaffiliation, was then home to some 1,600 Jews.
In 1842, Lewis Levin purchased a newspaper which he called the Temperance Advocate. For the budding journalist, the subject of temperance was an early passion. His speeches and articles against the evils of drink brought him to the attention of like‑minded souls; in 1843, he was elected president of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society. In this capacity, Levin continued speaking out against drink, the stage, and anything that in his estimation led to the creation of a less puritanical society. Like a Sunday‑school preacher, he distrusted man's natural impulses. Without discipline and self‑control, he feared, American society would collapse beneath the weight of its immorality.
Levin sold the Temperance Advocate in 1843 and purchased a larger paper, the Daily Sun. Now he added the evil of foreign influences to his arsenal. Levin was not alone in disparaging foreigners. In the 1840s, America began playing host to wave after wave of European immigrants. Their arrival served to fan the flames of dislocation, uncertainty, and intolerance. As a result, many Americans, looking for scapegoats to blame for political, fiscal and social dislocation, became attracted to the burgeoning nativist movement. This movement, which would eventually coalesce into a national political party, sought to identify and promote a purely American ethos. Foreigners, particularly Irish Catholics, became easy scapegoats in a highly confusing time. Levin took this antipathy and molded a paranoiac fantasy whereby the monarchs of Europe were plotting to take over America by means of the spiritual influence of the Catholic Church. In an article he wrote in his Daily Sun, Levin claimed that the monarchs of Europe were planning “. . . to people the country with Catholic immigrants, in order to provide for the contingency so patriotically prayed for . . . of our government changing to a monarch - whereby his holiness (the Pope) will have a King ready, sprinkled with holy water, to mount the throne in the name of Catholic liberty! Levin even gave rise to a canard that turned into a conspiracy: that the Pope was secretly digging a tunnel under the Atlantic to attack America!
America has long been a country with a penchant for both amnesia and conspiratorial fears. As the preeminent American historian Page Smith (under whom I studied back in the 1960s) noted in volume IV of his massive A People’s History of the United States: If there is something in the American character especially susceptible to notions of conspiracy it may stem from incapacity to deal with the unanticipated and coincidental quality of history itself. Americans have been generally inclined to think of themselves as being in control of their individual and collective destinies. Inexplicable or irrational events, hard times, or even natural disasters must, it was thought, be capable of explanation. Better a shaky conspiracy theory than no explanation at all.
In 1844, Levin published a broadside entitled A Lecture on Irish Repeal, in Elucidation of the Fallacy of Its Principles and in Proof of Its Pernicious Tendency in the Moral, Religious, and Political Aspects. In it, he attacked both the Irish "Repeal" movement (the fight for the repeal of Ireland's union with England and Scotland) and its leader, Daniel O'Connell. Levin claimed that in establishing Repeal Clubs throughout America, O'Connell and his minions were actually establishing beachheads for an eventual takeover of America by the papacy. Levin uncovered "a nefarious plot to debauch and contaminate the institutions of the United States and to set up a monarchy." His pen dripping with vitriol, Levin concluded that "The Irish Catholic vote is to be organized to overthrow American liberty. The extensive ramifications of Repeal Clubs have suddenly become affiliated societies, to carry out the intentions of His Holiness, the Pope!"
Fueled mainly by the diatribes of journalists, propagandists, and pamphleteers like Levin, the nativist movement continued to grow. In the mid-1840s, a new political faction, variously called the Native American Party, American Republicans, or the Know Nothings, came into existence. Wherever and whenever they held their conventions, violence against Catholics and Catholic churches was sure to follow. The party attracted followers by raising the fear that immigrants posed a concrete threat to the American way of life. When Levin and his cohorts added the issue of Bible in the public schools, their ranks swelled dramatically. One plank of the Native American Party's platform boldly proclaimed: We maintain that the Bible, without note or comment, is not sectarian---that it is the fountain head of morality and all good government and should be used in our public schools as a reading book.
The Bible to which the nativists referred was, of course, the King James (Protestant) version, which, they claimed, the Catholics wanted excluded from the schools. Levin's diatribes to the contrary, this was simply not the case. As one Catholic bishop of the time stated, "I do not object to the use of the Bible provided Catholic children be allowed to use their own version." Levin retorted that the King James Bible was actually a nonsectarian book! He and his nativist allies pushed for what they called "Bible Education"---a program of learning that would inculcate proper moral values and promote Americanism. Underlying all of this was, of course, an implied attack on the Catholic Bible, the Catholic Church, and Catholics in general. Although the nativists attracted numerous followers, their appeal remained largely among a narrow segment of society. With regard to the Catholic versus Protestant Bible issue, one observer of the time wryly noted: "A large majority of the Protestants who fought out the question of reading the Bible in the public schools . . . would not have known the difference between the Protestant and the Catholic Bible if it had been placed in their hands."
In July, 1844, Levin was indicted by a grand jury for inciting to riot. He made political capital by claiming that he had actually tried to stem the violence which had taken place in Philadelphia's Southwark district; moreover, he claimed, the indictment was part of a "Popish plot." His name prominently before the public, Lewis Charles Levin declared his candidacy on the American Party ticket for Congress from Pennsylvania's First District. During the three‑man campaign, Levin kept hammering away on the "pernicious foreigner" issue. Levin's standard stump‑speech message from 1844 sounds hauntingly familiar even after more than a century and a half: "Unless a remedy be found to impede the influx of foreigners in the United States, the day [will] not be distant when American‑born voters find themselves a minority in their own land." Largely on the strength of this message, and his public notoriety, Levin captured the First District seat. Shortly after his election, he stood trial on the charge of "riot, treason and murder." He was found not guilty.
Levin served three terms in Congress, during which time he became one of the least popular men on Capitol Hill. In speech after speech, Levin subjected his colleagues to rancorous attacks on the Catholic Church. When members of the House challenged him or took him to task, Levin would simply accuse his antagonists of being "paid agents of the Jesuits who hang around this Hall." At one point Levin attempted to win Southern support for the American Party by claiming that the abolitionist movement was inspired by the Pope and his agents! Most Southerners, offended by Levin's bravado and naked political opportunism, turned away in disgust.
It has long been a truism in Congress that the best way to succeed on Capitol Hill is to make oneself an expert on a single issue or area of interest---farm price supports, foreign policy, defense, etc. For Levin, given his unique political pathology, the area of expertise, not surprisingly, was immigration and naturalization. Levin proposed changing the naturalization law to require a residence period of twenty‑one years in order to qualify for American citizenship. Moreover, he pushed a concept he called federal citizenship, whereby the federal government would be granted the exclusive right to determine qualifications for voting. After a prolonged and rancorous debate, the House concluded that Levin's proposal was unconstitutional; it usurped the clearly enumerated right of the individual states to set voting qualifications. Levin's hatred of immigrants was so great that he opposed a bill setting minimum passenger-space requirements for transatlantic ships bearing newcomers to America. The bill's sponsor, Representative George Rathbun of New York, argued that current overcrowded conditions on the ships were ". . . a revolting spectacle, a disgrace not only to our laws and our country, but to humanity itself." In speaking out against Rathbun's proposal, Levin sarcastically suggested that the legislation be amended to read "A bill to afford additional facilities to the paupers and criminals of Europe to emigrate to the United States." Levin's diatribe notwithstanding, Rathbun's bill passed overwhelmingly.
Levin and his cohorts attempted to turn their nativist faction into a national political party but met with little success. Levin easily dominated the Native American Party's three national conventions, held in 1845, `46, and `47. The party's demise can largely be blamed on Levin himself. By resolutely demanding that "birth upon the soil be the only requisite for citizenship," Levin caused an irrevocable split among his nativist colleagues. By 1848, the Native American Party was finished as a political force. Levin should have seen the handwriting on the wall. He was easily defeated for reelection to a fourth term in 1850, and returned to Philadelphia, where he took up the practice of law.
In the last years of his life, Levin's tenuous mental makeup got the best of him. He spent at least the last three to four years of his life as a patient in hospitals for the insane in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Lewis Charles Levin died in Philadelphia on March 14, 1860 at age fifty-one, thus ending both a tortured life and a sorry chapter in American political history. Levin was buried in the nondenominational Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. His wife, Julia, tried to raise funds for a monument to his memory, but someone connected with the campaign absconded with the funds. To this day, no tombstone graces Levin's final resting place. Julia Gist Levin and Louis Levin (his son) converted to Catholicism in 1880.
What caused Levin’s party to become nicknamed "The Know-Nothings” was that party leaders ordered its rank-and-file members, when asked by non-members about any and all party doctrine, to say they "knew nothing.” Despite attempts to resurrect the name and officially run candidates for office, it has never again become a ballot-qualified party.
Nonetheless, the "amnesiac” defense continues to thrive in MAGA land. As mentioned in the early paragraphs of this week’s post, Speaker Johnson is the modern embodiment of the I know nothin strategy in American politics. Me thinks he must have spent his childhood watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes (to my mind one of the most tasteless sitcoms in all broadcast history) and learned to imitate "Sgt. Schultz” who made I know nothing! the show’s most memorable phrase. (Somewhat hauntingly, John Banner, the actor who portrayed Schultz, was, in real life a Viennese Jew who fled Europe shortly after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to Nazi Germany. Another cast member, Robert Clary [who played the character “Cpl. LeBeau) was a French Jew, who as a child, was interred in a Nazi concentration camp.).
This past Sunday’s edition of Sixty Minutes featured Norah O’Donnell’s extended interview with IT, held at Mar-a-Lago. At one point in the interview, just after POTUS was railing about Joe Biden’s use of an autopen “in order to give pardons” (thus suggesting that, like a puppet, he did not know what he was doing) O’Donnell asked him about last month’s pardon of crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao (“C.Z.”). He had pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in 2023, serving four months in prison and then agreeing to step down as the chief executive of Binance, the crypto exchange he co-founded. His companies have partnered with firms linked to Trump on new digital-currency projects including Dominari Holdings, where his sons sit on the board of advisers and which is based in Trump Tower.
When asked about why he pardoned Zhao even though government prosecutors had sasid he caused “ significant harm to U.S. national security, Felon47, gave an answer that would have caused Lewis Chas. Levin to beam: “I don't know who he is. . . I have no idea who he is,” only that he had been told that the businessman was a victim of a witch hunt by the Biden Administration. POTUS went on to say, My sons are involved in crypto much more than I-- me. I-- I know very little about it, other than one thing. It's a huge industry. And if we're not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.
The historic Know Nothings did manage to run one candidate for president in the 1856 election. That man was Millard Fillmore who served as the last Whig POTUS from 1850-1853. Generally ranked by historians as one of the 3 or 4 worst presidents, he came in third, receiving a less-than-resounding 21% of the popular vote - a mere 8 electoral votes - losing the election to Democrat James Buchanan.
Had he won, America would have been run by a bunch of racist, xenophobic, Bible-thumping reactionary amnesiacs. Hmmm . . . wonder what that would have been like.
Not really . . .
Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone
