THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

Dave pointed out that "Robert Whitaker nailed the political plumbing when he said, 'The white race must become an empowered minority instead of a powerless majority.'"

When Lincoln became president in 1860, it was because the Democratic Party has split into three major divisions, so Lincoln's forty percent of the vote was a complete rout in the Electoral College.

Further, the three parts of the Democratic Party knew very well they didn't stand a chance, so Republicans were guaranteed a landslide victory, something that brings out the vote.

In 1933 the National Socialists and the Communist Party elected a majority of the Reichstag between them. So the new government had to include either Hitler or Stalin's puppets. Like Lincoln's minority election, this is something you won't read about elsewhere.

Lenin took power in 1917 because he had a fractured opposition, from Czarists to all the different brands of non-Bolshevik socialists and conservatives and liberals in between. In fact, one major turning point occurred when the chairman of the Soviets asked the endless variety in the hall "Is there any party that would be willing to take full responsibility now?" and Lenin stood up and said, "There IS such a Party!"

The famous painting of Lenin standing and saying that was so popular that they later had Stalin standing up just behind him.

Talking about the 1860 election, Hitler's appointment, and Lenin's grabbing control in the midst of the complete division of his opponents one is reminded of the old Chinese curse:

"May you live in interesting times."

The period following Hitler's appointment, the four years following Lincoln's election, and the decades in the USSR after Lenin took power were not just interesting. they were fascinating.

For the survivors.

But there is another aspect of a situation where power goes, not to a majority but to an empowered minority, and it is critical.

In such situations, the result is total victory for the empowered minority.

After his Party won the plurality in the 1933, there was no doubt that Hitler was absolute Fuhrer.

After his Party won the election of 1860, The decades-old argument went from Fugitive Slave Laws enforced in Northern States to black citizenship, suffrage and outright dictatorship of the South by the North.

As to the USSR, there weren't a whole lot of groups out there compromising with Lenin and Stalin after the October Revolution.

I flatter myself that when the showdown comes, respectables won't stand a chance against a team coached by Old Bob.