By GORDON GLANTZ

GORDONVILLE — Ready for some time travel?

In the middle of the 19^th century, there was a political party born out of xenophobia/anti-Catholic feelings of protestants who saw themselves as the real Americans from real America.

When asked for specifics of their stances, members were instructed to say “I know nothing.”

History remembers them as the “Know Nothing” party. While it didn’t officially last, it still exists, does it not?

Ironically, it was officially known as the Native American Party or the American party.

Sound familiar?

It should.

Eerily.

After all, they wanted their country back.

Xenophobia – fears of strangers – is as American as not acknowledging the Native Americans were actually here first and that black people were forced immigrants.

You know, like baseball and Apple Pie and all that baloney.

I would say that the Know Nothing Party swam back to the surface from its cesspool when Donald Trump became a politician – while claiming to be the anti-politician – and was then somehow selected president (despite not winning the popular vote) in 2016.

While implying that “Make America Great Again” was code for “Make America White Again” after two terms of Barack Obama, he built what we now know as his base.

Trump would also sow the seeds of xenophobia by talking about who did and didn’t come here “legally,” which was code for Hispanics seeking refuge in the supposed land of the free and home of the brave.

The base bought it like fake gold watches tucked under the overcoat of a hustler on a city street corner.

They failed to realized that there really wasn’t anything resembling “legal” immigration (at least for all but the Chinese) until a nuanced law on quotas (curiously focused more on certain countries of origin than others) was put in place in 1924.

Instead, there were Italians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Irish, etc. … all following trails blazed by family members already here who sponsored them by paying for their passage.

But let us not let facts get in the way of a good hate parade.

It’s much easier to stay deaf, dumb and blind.

It’s much easier to … know nothing.

What’s past is prologue.

I have really tried to engage base dwellers in some form of intelligent discourse, but I have realized that they are impossible to move off of lame slogans and laughable talking points.

They argue on social media — in ALL CAPS, a 21^st century form of yelling — but it doesn’t make their arguments any more coherent.

Oftentimes – not always, but too many to count – I’ll be accused of being a keyboard tough guy who wouldn’t say what I’m saying to their faces.

Inevitably, I’m invited to meet them in public.

The fact that they are challenging me to a dual in the town square makes them the “keyboard tough guy” never occurs to them.

Why should it?

They are charter members of the resurrected Know Nothing party.

They were brought in the political fold, after really not knowing the details of how government and politics work, and believed the steady diet of high-fiber lies they were fed.

Inevitably, they will play their “Trump card” (pun intended) and proclaim, with all the knowledge from the School of Hard Knocks and their advanced degrees from Trump U, that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat.

Hold on there, Hoss, not so fast in that pickup truck with the oversized American flag.

The Republicans of that time – a time when all men were not created equal — were the liberals and progressives, the same type of people you detest now (think Bernie Sanders, AOC, etc.).

Lincoln was what we know now as left wing. He was either loved or hated, and he was particularly loathed in the South (in what are now known as Red states) because the idea of ending slavery was a threat to their way of life and, specifically, their economy (although plenty of Yankees benefitted, too).

In those days, his haters and baiters were the Democrats – or “Dixiecrats” (Southern Democrats) – who said no to the time of day, let alone any notion of compromise (think Mitch McConnell).

While slavery was the major specific issue, it was under the umbrella of big government vs. small government and how about states’ rights.

Lincoln and the “Republicans” of yesteryear were then the party of big government and less about individual states running themselves, which the slave states obviously wanted.

That is the polar opposite of now, by the way.

Theodore Roosevelt – a self-proclaimed proud progressive — was also a Republican, and he had an ego and hubris that would even put Trump to shame, but his list of accomplishments in two terms shows bipartisanship and liberal leanings.

Examples: Booker T. Washington was the first black person invited by a president to dine as a guest in the White House and first to have a Jewish-American, Oscar Straus, hold a cabinet post.

Among his lasting accomplishments was system of conservation and siding with coal miners in a major strike.

Free of the scourge of contrived bone spurs, he was a heralded frontiersman and soldier.

Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate, after failing to recapture the Republican nomination, and went even more into the left lane with a progressive platform (supporting workers’ rights and the suffrage movement) while doubling down on environmental issues.

I can hear the Koch Bros, cringe from here.

It wasn’t until his distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became president in 1932 — and used innovative social programs to lead the country out of the depression — that the party names officially changed as the New Deal took hold.

FDR was a liberal. He was a progressive.

Just like Teddy Roosevelt.

Just like Lincoln.

It was the same mindset, except he was a Democrat, as are the Democrats ever since.

In terms of the superficial labels for the parties, that was a game changer that was further cemented when a Catholic, John F. Kennedy, ran for and became president in 1960.

When the Deep South become firmly Republican? Richard M. Nixon, 1968, adopted what he called his “Southern Strategy” to appeal to those still fighting the Civil War in their minds to switch parties.

They were the same conservatives who believed in states’ “rats” (rights) in the time of Lincoln were, except they were now Republicans.

And that’s when we have been ever since.

You are not the party of Lincoln.

Not in any way, shape or form.

You dishonor his memory by even using his name to defend your nonsense.

Sorry.

Must be a tough life as a Know Nothing.