The 9th Congressional District of NY (and a Happy Fourth of July Message)

We are coming up on the Fourth of July, our national holiday here in America when we all get together to celebrate being American. Mostly we celebrate by blowing things up, eating fattening food, and getting drunk—but whatever…we are after all American and those activities suit our national character. Yet lately there are real troubles in the USA: everyone is always fighting with everyone else over everything. The rich and the poor apparently regard each other as separate species (most unwisely in my humble opinion, since those states, seemingly so infinitely distant are not nearly so far apart as one might suppose). Ethnic and racial groups are sorting apart and clustering together even as like-minded individuals enter into their own echo chambers on the web. Drivers hate pedestrians. Dog owners and cat owners tsk at each other (although both sorts of animals are lovely pets). And beyond everything else there is the yawning chasm down the middle—the chasm between blue and red. This widening political gulf between left and right is paralyzing our nation and leaving us all poorer—both financially and in terms of experience, friendship, and opportunities. I have been disquieted by America’s growing animosity and fractiousness and I really hope you share my unhappiness. This is bad.

What is going to happen when the latest economic bubble breaks and all of these divisions are thrown into sharp contrast as the money all sluices off to wherever it goes? I am a West Virginian who grew up In southern Ohio, Mainline Philadelphia, and Virginia. I went to college in South Chicago. I have seen red and blue America and they aren’t even that different! I feel like this tribal nastiness is being manufactured just so a bunch of narcissistic freaks can cling to power.
We are going to talk more about how to deal with this in later posts. If our country was united we could solve all of these logistical, moral, and fiscal problems which bedevil us in short order and resume building a future of beauty, meaning, and wonder. We will get there, but to celebrate the Fourth, let’s flee into a starkly different political climate: the past.

For the 4th of July I decided to peak back through the history of my congressional district, which today is arguably the most diverse in the United States (consisting of unimaginably rich burgher-paradise of Park Slope, the inner city ‘hoods of Brownsville, the vast orthodox Jewish enclaves of Midwood, and the Russian and Central Asian immigrant districts of Sheepshead Bay).

The history of the 9th Congressional District of New York was hilarious and remarkable. This congressional district has changed shape, color, and composition again and again like a cuttlefish at a rave. It has been redistricted and torn apart and pasted into so many different coalitions and coteries.

Although it has mostly been a Democratic stronghold (with some congressmen and women who became famous (or infamous)—like Chuck Schumer, Geraldine Ferraro, and Anthony Weiner), there have been a fair number of Republicans representing the 9th District too. However, if you go back far enough there were other affiliations as well: Federalists, Whigs, and more than one candidate who were simply Anti-Jacksonian or “Opposition”. All the first representatives had Dutch names!

The famous journalist Joseph Pulitzer was a congressman of the ninth district so was Thomas Bradley, a Tammany-era lawyer who died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 31. There were remarkable beards and moustaches aplenty: there were weirdoes and heroes and forgettable placeholders. The only constant was change.

We Americans aren’t just different in different regions: we change a lot not over time. If you are unhappy now, keep your chin up and keep lobbying to keep the democracy fair, civil, educated, and unbiased. Affairs will work out in the end so long as we remain democratic and bound by fair rules. History keep changing faster than you might think and mostly for the better. That trend will resume and we can start being the UNITED States of America again. We can build bridges instead of walls and canyons (which suits Brooklyn better anyway). Happy Fourth of July!

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