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February 11, 2025 – Back in August 26, 2023 (well before the results of our last election came in), I pondered what a Second Trump term might mean. (“Gasp!”) Ten days before that – August 16, 2023 – I did a draft, “On Liberty’s ‘FIRST Crisis.'” Later that day I did another draft, “More on Liberty’s ‘FIRST Crisis.'” They had to do with “one of my favorite go-back-to books, Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits who saved Free Speech, by Charles Slack.” It described the effects of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, when the party in power criminalized undue criticism of that party in power. (The Federalists.) And about how democracy survived.

I also mentioned that book – earlier – at the end of a May 24, 2018 post, On “Pirate’s Island,” Alabama. (About a kayaking adventure on Logan Martin Lake and seeing what I first took to be an American flag, but turned out to be a Jolly Roger, on a “little bitty island about a 100 yards offshore.” A bit of foreshadowing?) In this post I’ll try to tie up those long-ago loose ends.

But first a look at that August 26 Second term post, which included this:

I must confess – I “do not deny, but confess” – to some sleepless nights about that [second term]. Sleepless nights at the thought of him winning the 2024 presidential election. To be sure, that seems far-fetched at this point.* Or maybe not. The point is, with a second Trump term America might start looking more like Arkady Renko’s Russia[:] Death threats, reporters disappearing, broken legs, riots. At least that’s what some think…

BTW, those Renko novels feature a fictional Moscow (as in, Russian) chief investigator in charge of homicide investigations, but somehow his friends and co-workers keep getting killed off and he keeps getting into deeper and deeper trouble. After the first one, Gorky Park, the sequels show him taking on roles “varying from a militiaman to a worker on a fish processing ship in the Arctic.” That fish-processing sequel was Polar Star, which I found most interesting “because in it, Renko’s world has been turned upside down. Like America will be if Trump gets re-elected in 2024.” In other words, the novels give a good idea what it’s like to live in a dictatorship.

For example, those death threats, “reporters disappearing, broken legs, riots,” as I said in that August 26, ’23 post. (You could Google “Trump dissent crack down” for more specific examples.) Which brings up what one lady reporter said in Tatiana, a later Renko novel:

The thugs who do such work are meticulous… We recruit them and train them and call them patriots. And when they find an honest journalist, they let the bear loose… Sooner or later, I will be poisoned or nudged off a cliff or shot by a stranger…

But there’s hope in Renko’s ongoing ability to survive such dangers in his world turned upside down. In Polar Star he finds himself “gutting fish on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, in part to hide from the KGB, who have tried to kill him.” (Wikipedia.) Or as I wrote in Second Trump, Renko is “among the onboard lowest of the low. He works on the slime line, in the lowest bowels of the ship. But survive he does, with tricks and techniques we might all need to learn, possibly starting on Election Day, 2024.” And that turned out to be a bit of foreshadowing.

In other words, things turn out fine in that novel, as in the other Renko adventures; he manages to survive dire circumstances. Applying that message of hope to a possible Trump2 I noted, “There may be a blood bath (hopefully metaphoric) if he gets re-elected. And lots of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But in the end we’ve gotten through worse, and will again.”

Which brings us back to First Crisis, the story of the first big test of the First Amendment, when the Federalists in power passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticizing the government or its leaders a crime punishable by heavy fines and jail time, and so “the country’s future hung in the balance.” (Sound familiar?) That “extreme piece of legislation” was the 1798 series of Alien and Sedition Acts, of which John Adams said, “Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.”

The jury is still out on that last thought, but First Crisis does bring up some nuggets of wisdom from Charles Slack‘s book. Like its page 3, which said, “The greatest enemy of liberty is fear.  When people feel comfortable and well protected, they are naturally expansive and tolerant of one another’s opinions and rights.  When they feel threatened, their tolerance shrinks.” Which seems to have happened in the last four-to-eight years. But it raises the question: Are we willing to keep that tolerance and spirit of compromise? Or the noble idea on page 59, that free speech “belongs to each individual wrestling with his own conscience, and is meaningless unless the people one most hates can have heir say without fear of official reprisal?”

Then there’s the thought from page 73, that dealing with the 1798 Sedition Acts occurred “not among a nation of ignorant sheep in need of rulers, but of free people working things out, turning ideas over in their minds and having their say, state to state, town to town, brother to brother.” Which raises the question: Are we still a free people, capable of working things out, or have we become a nation of ignorant sheep, in need of a strong ruler?

On the other hand there is this one possible bright spot about those Alien and Sedition acts: In the 1800 U.S. presidential election voters booted Federalists out of office and the party pretty much faded from political view. It was never a viable political force after that.

In the meantime, on the topic of hoping for the best – or at least trying to keep a positive attitude – I’m getting ready to hike the Canterbury Trail (Pilgrims’ Way) in England this August ’25, from Winchester to the cathedral in Canterbury. (And maybe checking out the process for moving over there?) The next four years are going to be extremely interesting…

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The upper image is courtesy of Hope For The Best Prepare For The Worst – Image Results. On a thought credited to Benjamin Disraeli. See Wikipedia.

Re: “Far-fetched at this point.” The Second-term post noted “the poll saying 53% of US voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump. (Another poll puts that figure at a whopping 64% of Americans.” Meaning 53% of Americans said they “‘definitely’ would not support him and another 11% said they ‘probably’ would not support him.” (So much for the polls.)

The lower image is courtesy of The Nightmare – Wikipedia. “‘The Nightmare‘ is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest.” To which I added these thoughts:

A head’s up. The punchline for the [image] above would be, “At least it wouldn’t be as bad as living in Russia!” That’s the impression I got after starting to read my latest Arkady Renko novel. (Tatiana, one of a series of “life in Russia” novels by Martin Cruz Smith.) [And] a word about those Renko novels. They really make me appreciate living in the United States.

Which was true back then, but am I now starting to wonder? There’s Lincoln’s thought: “When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.” (Sic, from Lincoln on the Know Nothing Party – Lincoln Home National Historic Site.)

I guess we’ll have to wait and see, while “getting ready,” etc.

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For possible future reference here are some other notes from First Crisis. From page 3, on how Federalists saw themselves as “protectors of family, faith, education, and country…  [T]hey believed in liberty, yes, but liberty as informed and guided by a natural aristocracy consisting of themselves.” Then there’s page 49, which noted Freedom of the Press is the Bulwark of Liberty. Page 59 went on to talk about James Callender. Of whom Wikipedia noted that in the late 1790s, Thomas Jefferson sought him out to attack President Adams, which Callender did. (And Jefferson won.) But then after Jefferson won, Callender asked for a cushy federal postmaster job as a reward. Jefferson said no, after which Callender switched sides and “reported on President Jefferson’s alleged children by his slave concubine Sally Hemings.” (Which brought to mind the expression, “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.”)

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For more on the gored ox see King, Christie: Classic “Ox is Gored” Conservatives, on the idea that “Conservatives only like government intervention when those close to them or their immediate constituents personally need it.” In turn the expression “it all depends on whose ox is being gored” is from Exodus 21:28 and 29:

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten.  But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible.If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death.

See also What is the meaning of the idiom It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

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