George Caleb Bingham
The County Election - 1852
Mid-term elections have begun in this country. That is the half-way point in the president's
term of office, when all of the members of the House Of Representative and one third of the
U. S. Senators are up for re-election. The poll watchers this year are saying that the feeble
Republicans are likely to lose control of the lower chamber of congress and possibly the
senate as well. This news has put Trump in a panic. For the past two years, the spineless
Republicans, who have been in control of congress, have sat back silently and watched while
Trump has been doing everything he can to destroy our constitutional democracy. If the
Democrats take control, there will finally be some checks on his dictatorial rule. So how is
Trump responding to his drop in popularity? Just as any other king would do, he is offering
to bribe the people to vote for him by offering everyone five thousand dollars each, if they
elect a Republican Congress.
Back in the days before Trump, if any other president had made such a blatant display of
his political corruption, the news headlines would have been screaming with outrage at such
an appeal from a crooked politician to buy votes and hold on to power. But now, since Trump
makes similarly blatant displays of his corruption every day, this new disregard of the rules of
public office only adds one more offense to his ever growing mountain of illegal actions. His
never ending corruption has become accepted as his normal daily behavior, and life goes on
as usual in Washington.
Of course only the gullible MAGA cult members believe Trump's lies about his power to
hand out our tax-payer's money to his supporters. He has made similar promises in the past
which didn't materialize, but his faithful followers continue to accept his lies as if they are the
gospel truth.
Up until Trump took power, I thought our country had grown beyond the era when people
were willing to vote for any kind of morally corrupt politician if it meant money in their
pockets. But then in our last presidential election, a convicted felon was elected president
simply because he made the false promise that on his first day in office, he was going reduce
the cost of living for everyone, give everyone jobs, and keep us out of wars.
George Caleb Bingham painted a scene of an election day in Missouri in 1852, which
revealed a number of the ways corrupt politicians were buying the votes of the local citizens
at that time, including simply plying them with whiskey. Looking at that painting, it is sad to
think that that we haven't grown any more intelligent now than we were then. A lot of our
fellow citizens seem to be perfectly willing to vote for the Devil, if he makes the impossible
claim that he is going to cut the cost of everything they buy, and put more food on their tables,
on the very first day of his presidency.
Eugene P. McNerney
