Thursday and time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future. Tick tock on the election clock.

I lamented the state of our country yesterday because we’re so divided that eventually we’re going to either collapse under the weight of progressive Marxism and go full socialist, or we’re going to have to defeat that disease riddling the body politic. The problem is that when you’re cultural institutions are infected with the same disease, your options are limited. What do you do when the courts, the politicians and the media are all corrupt?

That reminded me of a true story set in Athens, Tennessee in 1946. You can read the whole thing at American Heritage (or another excellent account at The Abbeville Blog) but I’m just going to summarize it and make a couple of observations.

McMinn County, in which the town of Athens was located, had come under control of the most powerful political machine in the state. You don’t even have to ask if it was a Democrat machine. It was.

For ten years, a Democrat sheriff who had won election in a county that had voted Republican since the Civil War used fear, violence, intimidation and shakedowns to control his constituents. The political machine which he represented was also “firmly in control of the newspapers and schools.” Worse, he and his cronies made sure they kept themselves in power.

In subsequent elections, ballot boxes were collected from the precincts and the results tabulated in secret at McMinn County Jail in Athens. Opposition poll watchers were labeled as troublemakers and ejected from precinct houses.

That paragraph could be ripped from today’s headlines, with poll watchers across the country being denied entry or being told to leave while presidential ballots were counted in secret.

The men from Athens who had been off fighting in World War II returned home to find a corrupt city. By the time the 1946 election rolled around, they decided to do something about it and fielded their own candidates.

Election Day saw “the largest turnout in local history.” By 9:00 P.M., the political machine boss and fifty deputies “were locked inside the jail and going through the ballot boxes,” up to their old tricks to ensure they held power.

But they didn’t count on the men of Athens to fight back. Dozens of GIs and other locals surrounded the jail with guns and demanded that the ballot boxes be surrendered. When the boxes weren’t forthcoming, they started shooting. When that failed, they used dynamite to force the jail’s occupants out: “The jail’s defenders staggered from their ruined stronghold and handed the ballot boxes over to the veterans.”

The city formed a mob and wanted to beat the daylights out of the deputies. Fortunately, no one was killed, although many were injured. Eventually, the slate of opposition candidates were declared the winners once all the votes were counted.

There are several parallels in this story to our current circumstances. First, there’s the elitist Democrat who imposes his will on the public through fraud, corruption, intimidation and fear. I think of Newsom in California, Whitmer in Michigan and Cuomo in New York. All of them act like mob bosses, handing down edicts and demanding obedience “or else.”

Then you’ve got the secrecy when it came to ballot counting. The public was afraid of the sheriff and his men, so they never challenged their (illegal) practice of counting ballots secretly in the jail. Similar, as I noted, to what we’ve seen in this election.

In addition, the entire system was corrupt. It’s wasn’t just the local guy in power. The GIs had sent a note to the governor of Tennessee and the U.S. Attorney General, asking for help in guaranteeing a fair election. Neither of them responded.

I feel the same way now. Where are the Republicans in Congress? Where’s William Barr? Where’s the FBI? Where are the outcries and pushback from those who we expect to represent us, who swore to protect and defend the Constitution? For the most part, they seem to be MIA, exactly when we need them most.

Finally, the media (mostly newspapers back then) was complicit in the corruption. They were controlled by the Democrat machine, just like today’s much more extensive media is controlled by Democrat sympathizers. They aid and abet the corruption instead of being an independent institution of accountability.

The Battle of Athens is a microcosm of what is happening nationwide today. We are victims of a corrupt bipartisan power structure that is maintaining its power through unconstitutional laws, fraud and intimidation (I say “bipartisan” because Republicans let Democrats get away with it). We are waiting to see if our legal and political institutions will have the integrity to make things right. But if they don’t, then what?

In 1946, the locals decided to take matters into their own hands. I’m beginning to wonder if we can avoid doing the same.