r/behindthebastards • u/TheDirtyDrunk • 1d ago

An episode on Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall political machine would be perfectly timed right now...

Boss Tweed is romanticized by many but was a real corrupt POS who stole millions of money from NYC during his reign in the 1860-1870s.

A hard line comparison can be made to him and trump on many things, but the recent flurry of memes of Musk shown as trump's handler/owner/babysitter that has impacted the MAGA world, has some great echoes of how Tweed was eventually taken down.

During Boss Tweed's reign Thomas Nast, deemed the father of political cartoons, made his famous cartoons as Tweed being a fat oafish swindler. His drawings not only got under the politicians skin but turned the tide of Tweeds public opinion.

“Let’s stop those damned pictures,” Tweed reportedly said. “I don’t care so much what the papers write about me—my constituents can’t read, but damn it, they can see pictures.”

Nast started his drawings of Tweed in 1869 when the bastard was still in full power/control of the city, with every scandal coming out Nast added more and more cartoons, eventually creating over 160 images highlighting Tweed & his cronies as swindlers, bullies and vultures. The cartoons were a hard definite aid in taking down a bastard.

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4

u/gingerzilla 1d ago

... may i introduce you to No Gods, No Mayors?

4

u/YourphobiaMyfetish 1d ago

No, but now I have. Between BTB, Trash Future, Tides of History, and the other hundred I follow... I don't even listen to music anymore with all these pods 😭

1

u/SaltpeterSal 1d ago

Oh fuck, one of their first episodes is about Darren Lyons. I live a city away from that Diana-killing ab injector, literally as far from America as you can get without space travel. This is a really ambitious project.

2

u/squishypingu 1d ago

I would love to see this series. I also think folks will be surprised to see just how many practices in their local governments today still mirror Tammany Hall's corrupt patronage culture.

1

u/ladycatbugnoir 1d ago

I read an interview with a member of Tammany Hall where he explained that if you just happened to know if something was going to go up in price buying it cheap and selling it high isnt corruption

1

u/TheDirtyDrunk 1d ago

"Its a feature, not a bug....:

1

u/SaltpeterSal 1d ago
  • William Shakespeare, grain merchant, 1595

3

u/SaltpeterSal 1d ago

The Gilded Age is the perfect topic to discuss right now, since the term Second Gilded Age had been tossed around recently. All of this has happened before. Every single event we're living through is farce. I especially recommend reading 1876 by Gore Vidal. You will lose your mind at the parallels.

1

u/sysaphiswaits 1d ago

I would LOVE that.