Political Animals
by Calla Jones Corner
In 1956, when I was 13, I wrote a winning essay on why Dwight D. Eisenhower should win re-election. The title was “Why Republicans Should Be Elected Again”. It was an English class assignment. The Westport Town Crier published my essay under “Wisdom From A Thirteen-Year-Old.”
I certainly wasn’t a wise teenager, far from it. But I did have Republican parents who discussed politics over dinner with me and my older sister, as did many parents in Weston, Connecticut, where I grew up, and its neighboring town, Westport.
Most residents of the two towns – as most of Connecticut – voted Republican in the 1960s. The two towns had a reputation for excellent schools, as I believe they still do.
I am quite sure that what got my teacher’s and paper’s editor’s attention was the use of an alliterative and concise argument that the nation, under Ike (President Dwight D. Eisenhower), was “peaceful prosperous, powerful, and progressive” (although now that last alliteration has taken on a different meaning thanks to Democrats). Do the first three “p’s” ring a bell in contemporary Republican politics?
Many of my classmates’ fathers had served in World War II and were proud of their service. My father had been a war correspondent with the Office of War Information (OWI). Many of my friends’ families were considered well-off and worked on Wall Street or Madison Avenue. I also had friends whose fathers and mothers were famous celebrities on TV, in the movies, were writers or musicians and had leftist sentiments. They were probably going to vote for Democrat Adlai Stevenson – one friend even wore a button to school that said “We Need Adlai Badly” – and that I thought was clever. Alliteration does get attention from all sides. My best friend’s mother was solidly behind Adlai and she and my mother were friends. Even as young widows, they travelled together, and politics never raised its ugly head.
My Diverse Segregated Community
Although there were no Blacks or Latinos in Weston, the town had many Jewish residents, and I never heard any antisemitic comments. My father’s agent, Lucy Kroll, was a renowned and gifted Jewish literary and actor’s agent and played a big part in my family’s life and in my education. At an early age, I knew quite a bit about Jewish history. One of my daughters is named after Lucy. I wonder now what this wonderful intelligent woman would say about antisemitism in today’s literary and entertainment community. At Lucy’s memorial service, James Earl Jones, one of Lucy’s discoveries, gave the eulogy. I’m sure he would give the same eulogy today.
My mother was one of the first women realtors in Fairfield County. She didn’t owe her success to DEI (Diversity! Equity! Inclusion!); it was because she got along with everyone regardless of their identity. She knew what people wanted: “Men buy garages and women buy kitchens,” was one of her mottos. I didn’t have any friends who needed to go to psychologists or psychiatrists because their parents didn’t understand them and their mothers worked. Perhaps if I were writing my essay today with an eye for winning, I would feel it necessary to include how mixed-up my generation is, even though most parents try their hardest to bring up their offspring.
Offering a Modest Democrat Name Change
I’m quite sure now that the reason I clinched the winning prize almost 70 years ago was my ending comparing the two political parties’ symbols – the donkey and the elephant – with “The lifespan of a donkey is 20 years, and it has outlived its age. The lifespan of an elephant is 100 years and it’s just begun its stay.”
Had Google existed, I would have discovered that the origins of the two political symbols were prophetic, even germane. That humor, once upon a time was enough to win an argument.
The Democrat donkey goes back to the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson when his political opponents called Jackson a “Jackass.” Jackson, a hero of the War of 1812, found the comparison amusing and used the symbol to defeat John Quincy Adams.
An image of an elephant was used as a Republican symbol in cartoons of the Civil War, when “seeing an elephant was an expression meaning experiencing combat.” Thomas Nast, the father of modern political cartoons, drew an elephant on the edge of a pit to mock President Ulysses Grant’s bid for a third term.
Should the present Democrat party change its symbol? We already know, for example, that it’s the party of jackasses with no common sense. How about a hippopotamus to reflect what Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the gang of hypocrites continue to spew when they come up from the mud in which they wallow?
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I wonder if any of your "Jackass" friends are still friends once you express your support for Trump. Are they?
Really enjoyed this, Calla. I recognize much of what you're writing about. I grew up ten years later than you did, in Altadena and Santa Barbara. My family often discussed politics at the dinner table. My mom was a Democrat, my father a lawyer and Republican, although he voted for Kennedy and was invited to Johnson's inauguration. What was different then than now was that California wasn't controlled by one party. And no one ever behaved the way people do now - getting outraged, hurling insults and storming away from the table simply because someone else had different political views. And looking back, we were discussing way more incendiary topics like the Vietnam War, the race situation, the campus riots. But again, no one called anyone else Hitler. No one accused anyone of racism. Everyone was expected to back up their views with facts.
One of my father's clients owned Parade magazine. His wife and he often entertained politicians and Hollywood people in a salon-like atmosphere at their Brentwood home. Parade relied on gossip, of course, so guests were expected to supply that. But there were always heated debates at the table. The children of this couple were terrifyingly precocious little Leftists who grilled and baited you. And went on to be college radicals while forging alliances that ensured their success in the Democratic Party. But they didn't exclude Republicans like my father from the table. And no one was rude to anyone else just because they disagreed.
We need to get back to this. It's not because of Trump that this kind of civilized rearing of children has disappeared. I saw it back in 2011 way before Trump when a Hollywood producer invited my husband and me to his Montecito home for a family dinner. One of his daughters (a militant vegan who refused to eat the food her parents served) stood up and harangued us guests about how badly Santa Barbara treats the homeless. I rolled my eyes. The daughter stopped, pointed at me, burst into tears and ran out of the house and roared off in her BMW. My husband and I were ordered to leave.
No, the inexcusable anti-social behavior we're subjected to today has nothing to do with Trump. He's just a convenient excuse. It's not even the fault of social media. This behavior is completely the fault of bad “liberal” parents who are too narcissistic to bother to be parents. These parents squawk about wanting to save democracy for their children. But they've created the problem. They've raised children who don't deserve democracy.