The book I quoted earlier, The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1970 (1970) by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, has quite a bit of material on George Wallace's presidential campaign of 1968, and the ways in which it showed the potential appeal of far-right demagoguery. Wallace was notorious as the segregationist governor of Alabama in the 1960s who tried to block the racial integration of the University of Alabama during the Kennedy administration. He ran rightwing campaigns for President in 1964, 1968 and 1972.
It struck me that some of the Wallace quotes sounded an awful lot like, well, Chuckie.
Evil courts
Lipset and Raab:
His speeches were replete with statements that he would eliminate the sources of evil in the society witout regard to due process or constitutional rights. ...
Wallace emphasized his contempt for judicial procedure and due process, arguing that the courts have deprived us of our freedom and are responsible for the growth in crime through their decisions protecting the right of criminals and dissenters. Thus he would "take every one of those Communists in our defense plants and toss them out on the seat of his pants." If a demonstrator should lie down in front of a Wallace motorcade, he told his impassioned audiences, "it will be the last car he ever lies down in front of." If students continue to support the Viet Cong after he is President, "I would have me an attorney-general that would drag them in by their long hair."
Chuckie, 2000 (America Then and Now):
George Washington didn't hesitate to ask almighty God for guidance and help. We were a God fearing people at that time, unshackled by the atheistic crusades of the A.C.L.U. and a supreme court who try to take divine decisions into their own human hands, causing America generations of sorrow. In these days of unprincipled leadership, a gutless congress a judiciary run amuck and a self serving media I can't help but wonder what happened to that great American spirit.
Chuckie, 2002 (The Scum of the Earth):
It's maddening to me to think that judges in California are worried about having "Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance and of all things, the rights of Al Qaida murderers, while our streets are being roamed by the worst kind of depraved pigs.
Chuckie, 2003 (The Devil and Roy Moore):
I never thought that I'd see the day when a Judge in the United States would be removed from the bench for having a monument of The Ten Commandments on the grounds of a courthouse.
And people, make no mistake about it, what happened here has little to do with The Ten Commandments and much to do with denying God, which Judge Moore absolutely refused to do. ...
How much longer will the God fearing citizens of America continue to allow the tail to wag the dog? How much longer before we stand up and force our legislative branch to get in line with the convictions of the majority?
Law and Order
Wallace, 1967:
Of course, if I did what I'd like to do I'd pick up something and smash one of those federal judges in the head and then burn the courthouse down. But I'm too genteel. What we need in this country is some Governors that used to work up here at Birmingham in the steel mills with about a tenth-grade education. A Governor like that wouldn't be so genteel. He'd put out his orders and he'd say, "The first man who throws a brick is a dead man. The first man who loots something what doesn't belong to him is a dead man. My orders are to shoot to kill."
That's the way to keep law and order. If you'd killed about three that way at Watts [in Los Angeles, where there had been a major urban riot], the other fourth wouldn't be dead today.
Funny, that's not what Rummy said when looters were ransacking Baghdad in 2003!
Chuckie, 2005 (Aftermath):
That's how I feel and I don't want to hear from any of you bleeding hearts spewing forth your same old song about human rights. Human rights are reserved for humans, these people are not human beings.
In my book if people want to act like animals then they should be treated like animals. It's time to take the gloves off. I'm talking about raids, search and seizure, mandatory life prison terms, and letting our police forces shoot back at any time they feel threatened. This situation has escalated into a war and should be treated as such.
Demonstrations
And I think Chuckie could really relate to this one. Lipset and Raab:
In his campaign addresses, he referred frequently to the "scum of the earth" and the "trash" who demonstrate around the country. And one of his solutions for the problem was to "let the police run this country for a year or two and there wouldn't be any riots." On one occsion, he exlicitly talked of a "police state" to solve the problems of law and order. "If we were President today, you wouldn't get stabbed or raped in the shadow of the White House, even if we had to call out 30,000 troops and equip them with 2-foot long bayonets and station them every few feet apart. ... That's right, we gonna have a police state for folks who burn the cities down. They aren't gonna burn any more cities.
Chuckie, 2000 (Mob Rule):
Had the mob been made up of Caucasians they could have waded into the middle of it with nightsticks and mace and had the streets cleared in a matter of minutes. However, that was not the case, the rabid band of thugs were mostly minorities so the police had to handle the situation with kid gloves lest Al Sharpton and his brother blowhards come forth and accuse them of racial profiling. Everytime someone says something like what I am getting ready to say, some loudmouthed hack comes out to call them a bigot. Well I am not a bigot, nor am I racially prejudiced so I'll say what I dern well please and let the chips fall where they will.
Chuckie, 2000 (Law and Order):
I believe in peaceful demonstration but what happened recently at the the world trade organization meeting in Seattle is nothing short of an uprising, by a mob of unruly radicals who destroyed the property of innocent people. This is against the laws but the law officers practically had their hands tied by political considerations. I think a situation such as this merits the use of the National Guard to bring order. Civil unrest in the face of injustice is not a bad thing but when it is used for an excuse for burning and looting it becomes, in many cases, worse than the wrong that is being protested.
Yep, ole Chuckie's carrying on Tradition. Part of "tradition," anyway.
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