#Jefferson gets to lose all subtlety

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In Retrospect, William Jennings Bryan and the Election of 1896

What we are currently seeing in the infancy of the 2020 Presidential Election is the focusing of the electorate on economics rather than foreign policy or a less pressing issue, like “honesty” and “integrity” which usually dominate campaigns. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the favorites to win the nomination in a hotly contested Democratic primary that isn’t yet finished fielding potential candidates. But these two specifically have declared unapologetic warfare against Wall Street. They put in simple terms explaining why the middle class is in its dilapidated state is the aristocratic class hoards all the capital amassed by the proletariat. While centrist candidates Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand dance around whether they’ll dismantle the private insurance industry, Sanders is the only one decisively saying yes, he would go as far to implement his Medicare-For-All legislation.

There are many imitators, but only one O.G. What we’re seeing is the beginning stages of the fruits of the labor the Sanders 2016 campaign planted turning over the establishments apple cart and paving the way for likeminded, younger representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and IIhan Omar to carry on the mantle for his various causes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did for William Jennings Bryan. Championing the cause for the downtrodden middle class and poor masses left behind by an oligarchic United States.

Before William Jennings Bryan the Democratic Party was made up of fiscal conservatives laissez-faire style of economics, strict adherent to the gold standard and primarily the party of big business. The Republicans of the late 19th century weren’t different in anyway besides treating black people objectively better than the Democrats. Though in this era Jim Crow laws ran rampant in the south and the GOP did little to resist the disengagement of blacks. Any progress accomplished by the Union winning the American Civil War, the subsequent Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1875 and the concurrent Reconstruction Era in the South became undone completely in this time period of the 1890’s.

Just like their predecessors both parties kicked the can down the road when it came to the plight of blacks. As both parties stomaches fattened as a result of getting cozier with Wall Street, the railroad industry and the gold standard, the southern and midwestern farmer wasted away thanks to rampant inflation and bearing the brunt of the various panics and depressions in the 1870’s and 1890’s. Historians rather assume flatly Reconstruction ended because of the American people’s and the Republican Party losing collective interest in protecting blacks in the Deep South, when in actuality the Panic of 1873 cost the U.S serious capital and thus by 1877 federal troops were withdrawn from the Confederate states.

Debates ragged on whether the United State should do the unthinkable: become the first country to abandon the gold standard for a currency system favoring silver. The topic arose multiple times since the 1870s. You’d find silver leaning men in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Populist James B. Weaver won 8.5 percent of the popular vote campaigning on the free coinage of silver. But the movement truly came of age under the man William Jennings Bryan. The 36-year-old former Nebraskan representative commanded the Democratic Party and held a tight grip around its throat from 1896 up until his retirement in 1915. In those sixteen-years Bryan transformed the Democrats from a party of fiscal conservatism to pro-labor with more emphasis on aiding the yeomen farmer. While Bryan himself would never see the White House, his likeminded followers Woodrow Wilson and F.D.R carried the torch for him.

Playing the ultra-boring, but simultaneously fun “Campaign Trail” choose your own adventure game on AmericanHistoryusa.com I played as Bryan and in order to win I toned down the radical rhetoric somewhat. Instead of advocating on the unlimited free coinage of silver, I pivoted to a moderate stance of coinage at a 30-to-1 ratio to allow the treasury time to adjust to the effects of bimetallism and to avoid another run on the hoards of gold the U.S held. Taking home 248 electoral votes and 51.8 percent of the popular vote Bryan steals Illinois from the establishment candidate William McKinley to secure the presidency. The is the text the game reads upon victory.

Congratulations! You have won the 1896 election.

"The Great Commoner" will soon be President of the United States! Nobody with your political views has ever sniffed the Presidency, let alone won it, and with that in mind your supporters are rioting frenziedly in the streets. The sweetest speech of all will be your victory speech tomorrow in Lincoln, Nebraska. Prepare to enact your reform agenda and most importantly the free coinage of silver.”

Yup. I sure will. If only the game allowed you to be president after securing the Oval Office then I can try out this radical departure from the norm. But, alas, somethings are meant to be left to the imagination.

So, Jennings Bryan is President. Instantly the United States financial sectors panic and rally around opposition to halt Bryan’s measures. In the midterm election of 1898 the Democrats, fully taken over by Silverites, wrangler control of the House from the Republicans and a moderate, but nonetheless, radical change to our currency system is implemented. By 1899 the United States is off of the gold standard. Soon, Japan, Great Britain and France follows. Albeit reluctantly. This is how it happened in real life. Only the United States was the last to be brought to heel eventually in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt did what Bryan dreamt of for so long.

Even in defeat Bryan’s hold on the party became so strong he purged the gold standard Democrats out of the party solidifying his silver coalition of politicians sympathetic towards the farmer and laborers. No reason to believe this doesn’t happen if Bryan is elected President. In fact, it probably happens sooner than it did in real-life.

Bryan was a staunch advocate of a federal income tax, which fully was realized in the certification of the sixteenth amendment in 1909 under William Howard Taft. Initially, Bryan opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve, which happened under Woodrow Wilson. Bryan worries the Fed it gave bankers too much control of the monetary system. The bill was promptly rewritten to suit Bryan’s needs and he voted for the creation of the Federal Reserve. I think this still happens in a timeline which Bryan is election and probably sooner. Swept into office amidst populistic fervor unseen since the days of Andrew Jackson Bryan, though a novice, most likely utilizes the bully pulpit and we see Henry Teller lead the charge on the Republican side and we are witnessed to the most eventful first term of a U.S President in the country’s history.

Bryan calls for the direct election of senators once in office, subtlety supports women’s suffrage and usually this is the part in alternate history articles where the radical, moralistic protagonists falls for his idealism. Except this is all happening during the Spanish-American War and Bryan could have been blind, deaf and dumb while serving in office and the U.S still decisively runs the imperials out of Cuba and the Philippians. Only Bryan had little interest in cultivating an American Empire. An anti-imperialist and pacifist, Bryan saw war as necessary but never actively sought a fight. He saw the United States as the moral arbiter in the Cubans fight for independence. If elected there is no subsequent Philippine-American War and no further bloodshed. The United States gains serious credit among future generations.

Hawaii is not annexed and probably never really is. For all the good I can say about Bryan he was an anti-imperialist, but since he and his party didn’t want to absolve any country not made up of predominantly Whites. Hawaii therefore becomes the smallest independent country on Earth... until a later administration absorbs it or some other imperialist country, like Russia, Japan or Great Britain does it. Most likely Japan. So Bryan inadvertently washes away U.S military involvement in World War Two.

The war carries Bryan to a second-term of the presidency... only to be cut short by a bullet months after his inauguration. His vice-President former Silver Republican Henry M. Teller succeeds him.

If the United States were to abandon the gold Standard, thirty-five-years prior to Japan were the first to do it, this helps the farmer and for a brief time the country recognizes Jefferson’s dream of a country built and supported off the backs of the Yeomen farmer. Again, for a brief time. The loss of their vigorous champion Bryan farmers cannot find a suitable replacement to rally around and this allows for the big business friendly, gold standard leaning Democrats to repopulate the party nominating New York judge Alton B. Parker. A moderate trust busting advocate for labor, Parker benefits from the meteoric rise of Theodore Roosevelt and swings into the presidency since both of the main parties are fractured in the aftermath of Bryan’s effects on the political scene.

No Roosevelt means no William Howard Taft. Meaning no splitting of the Republican Party in 1912. With neither close enough to sniff the presidency Wisconsin senator Robert La. Follette is nominated in 1912 and defeats Democratic Speaker of the House Champ Clark and becomes America’s first President to serve two consecutive terms since Ulysses S. Grant. Since Wisconsin is populated with German immigrants, La Follette interferes into World War One on the side of the Central Powers. Theodore Roosevelt is given the role of Secretary of State and the German Empire crushes the Allied Powers at the Marne near Paris with the help of the United States.

A victorious Germany means no rise of Adolph Hitler. No Third Reich. No Holocaust. Great Britain’s awesome power is greatly diminished, never to recover. The ninetieth century is the German century. As it originally was supposed to be.

Back to the gold versus silver debate. I am sorry.

Eventually the gold standard is readopted and the silver versus gold issue goes on until Richard Nixon flatly ditches gold in favor of neither metal backed currency. Still you see Bryan’s ideas infecting the parties for decades after his death.

Instead of Bryan’s ideas manifesting themselves in Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, they do so in Robert La Follette. The U.S becomes an economic power house rather a military one. Perhaps we’re all better off because of this.

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OUAT rewatch: 1x17 - Hat Trick

This will always puzzle me. He looks completely dumbfounded by this story being there. I remember this being the subject of much speculation in the early days.

Bucky you smooth bastard.

Aww they’re adorable.

Grace: Whose carriage is that? Jefferson: The Queen’s.

The worry on his face. Aww don’t you want to see your old pal Regina?

Regina: I’d like to say you’re looking well, Jefferson, but I’d be lying.

Wow brutal Regina.

Damn it Lana. She has chemistry with everyone.

Ouch this was painful. Grace is so darling though.

I’m so glad they let Lana do this. Her and the make-up department nailed this.

Sidney: Well, that was awfully cruel.

What he said.

Grace is the best daughter. Season 1 really nailed the child actors and kids on this show.

Seb is so sinister in this role.

Jefferson: What’s crazier than seeing and not believing? Because that’s exactly what you’ve been doing since you got to our little hamlet. Open your eyes. Look around. Wake up. Isn’t it about time?

Everything that comes out of his mouth is so poetic. Great character sadly not explored enough.

Jefferson: Here – this is the entrance. It’s important that we stick together. Same amount of people that go through have to come back. No more, no less. It’s the hat’s rule, not mine.

We see Regina get around this rule later. Unless she didn’t have her lightbulb moment until later, I’m inclined to think she purposely screwed Jefferson over here for what he did to her.

Jefferson: Stories. Stories? What’s a story? When you were in high school, did you learn about the Civil War? Emma: Yeah, of course. Jefferson: How? Did you read about it, perchance, in a book? How is that any less real than any other book? Emma: History books are based on history. Jefferson: And storybooks are based on what? Imagination? Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere. You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants some magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.

I fucking love this conversation. We believe so easily in the written word and yet only when we’re told it’s true. What makes one story more true than another? What makes us question the reality of a story? What makes one book fact and another fiction?

It’s just a really fascinating conversation to have on a show based on real life fairytales and I’m glad they had it.

Jefferson: A real world. How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one? There are infinite more. You have to open your mind. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands. Each just as real as the last.

Who knew we would explore that so intensely later...

Regina: The Queen of Hearts. She’s not one for subtlety. Jefferson: This wasn’t part of our deal. You know what she does to anyone that crosses her. Regina: Indeed. Better than most.

I loved the hints. Even though It wasn’t subtle and most guessed the connection between Regina and the Queen of Hearts, this was a twist that worked so damn well. Predictable isn’t always a bad thing, A&E. If the story is good and worth telling. Sadly they forget that later on down the line.

So much speculation over that single glowing box that ended up just being a lighting accident.

I loved the visuals here so freaking much. Perfectly Wonderland in every way. Including the directing and camera work.

Jefferson here just losing his mind and Regina’s out here having the time of her life.

I’m so glad they explained this later. I’d all but given up on them ever doing so.

!!!!!!!! LANA

Jefferson: Wait! Wait! Wait, please. My daughter… My Grace… She’s waiting for me. I promised her I’d be home for tea.

That moment of heart crushed by one single word. “Promise.” I love throughout season 1, seeing Regina’s moments of humanity come through just to be trampled by her own heartbreak, traumas and insecurities.

Gosh this was an awful thing to do Regina. But the added backstory of Regina and Jefferson’s past plus, once again, Lana and her acting…well, it makes me want to reprimand Regina a lot less here.

I love that they had Barbara come in and do the voice work for this.

Him coming in with the hat purely for the aesthetic was the most extra thing ever.

They never explain this and it bothers me.

Emma: And I realized, all my life, I have been alone. Walls up. Nobody’s ever been there for me – except for you. And I can’t lose that. I cannot lose my family. Mary Margaret: Family?

THIS IS EMMA LETTING HER WALLS DOWN. Willingly! Not having them broken down by a guy 3 years later. Emma’s walls weren’t a force to be broken. They were a protective barrier that she herself needed to be open and willing enough to let down. She needed people in her life to prove that they weren’t going to hurt her or leave her and that’s what this interaction was. That they completely forget about this and how special this relationship was supposed to be is tragic.

And how they could get this so right and then so wrong later is so beyond me.

I like that Rumple is playing both sides. And Regina and Emma are both getting dragged in, despite not trusting him further than they can throw him, because they are desperate for results.

This single interaction between Henry and Grace with a one word line that launched a ship for 4 years.

Cora had magic. Why couldn’t she get the hat to work?