«as american as apple pie, slavery and lynching»
in the heat of the presidential campaign, the mudslinging has americans once again complaining about negative politics. people say they yearn for the «good old days» when elections were supposedly more polite affairs. well, commentator kenneth c davis offers another take, showing that in our glorious nation, it's always been nasty...for example: in 1800 critics warned that if thomas jefferson was elected, rape, adultery and incest would be practised openly. that same year john adams was accused of sending his running mate to procure a pair of pretty girls as mistresses for each of them. in 1804 a reporter first exposed jefferson's supposed dalliance with young slave sally hemings. how about 1828, when john quincy adams was charged with providing american girls to the russian czar and andrew jackson's mother was called a common prostitute. a mere four years later, jackson was himself accused of adultery and murder.
not even abe L was spared. in 1864 our beloved abraham was bashed as thief, monster, butcher and the father of an illegitimate child. a pamphlet was published that year equating emancipation with miscegenation advising new york's irish to marry black and cast the civil war as lincoln's master plan to blend the races
so the mean-spirited politics of personal destruction prove to be as american as apple pie, slavery and lynching.
i agree with mr davis: «toxic campaigns release a corrosive acid that eats at democracy's soul and the real losers are not the candidates but we, the people».
