When I was a child, I had no qualms about being called a Georgia Cracker. In elementary school we learned it was a nickname for Georgians that referred to the hard-working wagon drivers who as far back as colonial times had hauled provisions and merchandise from Georgia’s coastal ports to its more inland frontier. The term, cracker, we were told, came from the “crack” of bullwhips as those drivers urged on their oxen. We were told it was a nickname to be proud of because it implied we Georgians, like those wagoneers of old, are tough, hard-working folk.
The Cracker label was thought well enough of to be common throughout Georgia and north Florida. The Atlanta Crackers were a farm team of the then Boston Braves. There were Georgia Cracker peaches, Georgia Cracker firecrackers, a Georgia Cracker Salad, and even a Florida Cracker Highway, among others. We were Georgia Crackers and were to be as proud of that as Indianans were to be Hoosiers or Oklahomans to be Sooners.
Well, not so much. It turns out we were being taught a rather self-serving, 20th century twist on a 15th century English word. At its origin, the term, cracker, referred to a loud, braggadocious person with more ignorance and bluster than skill and industry. As the American colonies developed, the society’s upper-crust applied the term to those around them who they saw as uneducated, ill-mannered, and unruly. Likely, Georgia’s drovers and wagon drivers were called crackers because they fit the characterization. I was a late teenager before I learned that being a cracker referred not to a sturdy, hard-working someone but to an ill-mannered blusterer who was making little use of whatever education they possessed. That’s a hard come-down for a term I was once taught to think well of.
A sad parallel to that descent is the current mode of American politics. While our political parties have always had their different ideas about what is good for the country, the differences have largely been amenable to civil discourse, negotiation, and progress in legislative action. With some notable exceptions, senators and representatives have been able to agree to disagree and still use compromise to get things done. That time seems to have passed. Our political mode now seems to be one in which the political class are taught to bluster loudly, swagger widely, and make ill-mannered, personal attacks on the opposition. The politics of ill-mannered bluster and swagger, the very definition of cracker politics.
Cracker politics is unruly, disruptive, and intent on venting spleen, not on solving problems. Cracker politics is performance politics where every disagreement is expressed as an outrage and outrage must be expressed before cameras. Cracker politics denigrates and vilifies the opposition. Cracker politics appeals to the public’s darker emotions, especially the urge to lash out at opponents rather than solve problems with sensibility and humility. Cracker politics loves a fact-free environment where gut prejudices may be responded to at will. Cracker politicians may seem ignorant, but they are not; they simply choose not to use the knowledge they have. In that way, they are doubly at fault.
All of that is a hard come-down from the political method that worked, often behind the scenes, to protect our democracy through the likes of the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the domestic challenges of racial integration, Vietnam, and Watergate.
The Democrat and Republican parties, respectively, have represented the liberal and conservative aspects of American politics for over 170 years. If they stay in this mode of cracker politics, they are unlikely to repeat the accomplishment.