Dixiecrat

Dixiecrat (pronounced dik-see-krat)

(1) In US political history, a member of a faction of southern Democrats stressing states' rights and opposed to the civil rights programs of the Democratic Party, especially a southern Democrat who left the party in 1948 to support candidates of the States' Rights Democratic Party.

(2) In historic US use, a member of the US Democratic Party from the southern states (especially one of the former territories of the Confederacy), holding socially conservative views, supporting racial segregation and the continued entrenchment of a white hegemony.

1948: A portmanteau word of US origin, the construct being Dixie + (Demo)crat.  Wholly unrelated to other meanings, Dixie (also as Dixieland) in this context is a reference to the southern states of the United States, especially those formerly part of the Confederacy.  The origin is contested, the most supported theory being it’s derived from the Mason-Dixon Line, a historic (if not entirely accurate) delineation between the "free" North and "slave-owning" South.  Another idea is it was picked up from any of several songs with this name, especially the minstrel song Dixie (1859) by (northerner) Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815-1904), popular as a Confederate war song although most etymologists hold this confuses cause and effect, the word long pre-dating any of the known compositions.  There’s also a suggested link to the nineteenth-century nickname of New Orleans, from the dixie, a Confederate-era ten-dollar bill on which was printed the French dix (ten) but again, it came later.  The –crat suffix was from the Ancient Greek κράτος (krátos) (power, might), as used in words of Ancient Greek origin such as democrat and aristocrat; the ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European kret (hard).  Dixiecrat is a noun and Dixiecratic is an adjective; the noun plural is Dixiecrats.  The noun Dixiecratocracy (also as dixieocracy) was a humorous coining speculating about the nature of a Dixiecrat-run government; it was built on the model of kleptocracy, plutocracy, meritocracy, gerontocracy etc.

The night old Dixie died.

Former Dixiecrat, Senator Strom Thurmond (1902-2003; senator (Republican) for South Carolina 1954-2003) lies in state, Columbia, South Carolina, June 2003.

Universally called Dixiecrats, the States' Rights Democratic Party was formed in 1948 as a dissident breakaway from the Democratic Party.  Its core platform was permanently to secure the rights of states to legislate and enforce racial segregation and exclude the federal government from intervening in these matters.  Politically and culturally, it was a continuation of the disputes and compromises which emerged in the aftermath of the US Civil War almost a century earlier.  The Dixiecrats took control of the party machine in several southern states and contested the elections of 1948 with South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond as their presidential nominee but enjoyed little support outside the deep South and by 1952 most had returned to the Democratic Party.  However, in the following decades, they achieved a much greater influence as a southern faction than ever was achieved as a separatist party.  The shift in the south towards support for the Republican Party dates from this time and by the 1980s, the Democratic Party's control of presidential elections in the South had faded and many of the Dixiecrats had joined the Republicans.

US Electoral College map, 1948.

In the 1948 presidential election, the Dixiecrats didn’t enjoy the success polls had predicted (although that was the year of the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline and the polls got much wrong), carrying only four states, all south of the Mason-Dixon line and not even the antics of one “faithless elector” (one selected as an elector for the Democratic ticket who instead cast his vote for Dixiecrats) was sufficient to add Tennessee to the four (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana) won.  Nor did they in other states gain sufficient support to act as “spoilers” as Ross Perot (1930–2019) in 1992 & 1996 and Ralph Nadar (b 1934) in 2000 achieved, the “narrowing of margins” in specific instances being of no immediate electoral consequence in the US system.  With that, the Dixiecrats (in the sense of the structure of the States' Rights Democratic Party) in a sense vanished but as an idea they remained for decades a potent force within the Democratic Party and their history is an illustration of why the often-quoted dictum by historian Professor Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970): “The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die” needs a little nuance.  What the Dixiecrats did after 1948 was not die but instead undergo a kind of “resurrection without crucifixion”, emerging to “march through the institutions” of the Democratic Party, existing as its southern faction.

That role was for generations politically significant and example of why the “third party” experience in the US historically wasn’t directly comparable with political behaviour elsewhere in the English-speaking world where “party discipline” tended to be “tight” with votes on the floors of parliaments almost always following party lines.  Until recent years (and this is something the “Trump phenomenon” radically has at least temporarily almost institutionalized), there was often only loose party discipline applied within the duopoly, Democrats and Republicans sometimes voting together on certain issues because the politicians were practical people who wished to be re-elected and understood what Tip O'Neill (1912–1994; (Democrat) speaker of the US Representatives 1977-1987) meant when he said “All politics is local”.  Structurally, that meant “third parties” can operate in the US and achieve stuff (for good or evil) as the Dixiecrats and later the Republican’s Tea Party Movement proved; it just that they do it as factions within the duopoly and that’s not unique, the Australian National Party (a re-branding of the old Country Party) really a regional pressure group of political horse traders disguised as a political party.

US Electoral College map, 1924.

The 1924 Electoral College results were a harbinger of the later Dixiecrat movement and a graphical representation of terms such as "solid South" or "south of the Mason-Dixon Line".  At the time of the 1924 election, slavery in the South was still in living memory.  Although there was fracturing at the edges, the "solid south" did remain a Democratic Party stronghold until the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and it was was the well-tuned political antennae of Texan Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) which picked up the implications and consequences of the reforms his skills had ushered through the Congress:  "I think I've just lost us the South" he was heard to remark when the Senate passed a landmark voting rights bill into law.

In recent years, what has changed in the US is the Republicans and Democrats have become the captive organizations of a tiny number of dedicated political operatives pursuing either their own ideological agendas or (more typically), those providing the funding.  The practical implication of that is the elections which now most matter are the primaries (where candidates for the election proper are selected) and because primary contests are voted on by a relative handful, outcomes are easier to influence and control that in general elections where there are millions to nudge.  Party discipline has thus become tighter than can often be seen on the floor of the House of Commons in the UK, not because the ideological commitments of politicians within parties have coalesced but because they’re now terrified of being “primaried” if they vote against the party line.  Re-election is a powerful inducement because the money politicians make during their careers is many, many times what might be expected given their notional earnings from their salary and entitlements.  There are few easier ways to get rich, thus the incentive to “toe the party line”.  This behavioural change, mapped onto something which structurally remains unchanged, is one of the many factors which have produced a country now apparently as polarized as ever it has been.  The nature of that polarization is sometimes misunderstood because of the proliferation of “red state, blue state” maps of the US which make the contrast between the “corrupting coastlines” and “flyover states” seem so stark but each state is of course a shade of purple (some darker, some lighter) but because of the way the two parties now operate, politics as it is practiced tends to represent the extreme, radical elements which now control the machines.  So while in the last twenty-odd years there’s been much spoken about “the 1%” in the sense of the tiny number of people who own or control so much, it’s political scientists and historians who much fret over the less conspicuous “1%” able to maintain effective control of the two parties, something of even greater significance because the state has put in place some structural impediments to challenging the two-party political duopoly.

In the US, the state does not (in a strict legal or constitutional sense of the word) “own” the Republican or Democratic Parties because they are “private” organizations protected by the constitution’s First Amendment (freedom of association).  However, over the years, something biologists would recognize as “symbiosis” has evolved as the state and the parties (willingly and sometimes enthusiastically) have become entangled to the extent a structural analysis would recognize the parties as quasi-public although not quite at the status familiar elsewhere as quangos (quasi autonomous non-government organizations).  Despite being “private concerns”, the parties routinely conduct state-regulated primaries to select candidates and in many cases these are funded by tax revenue and administered by state electoral instrumentalities.  Beyond that, it needs to be remembered that to speak of a “US national election” (as one might of a “UK general election”) is misleading because as a legal construct such events are really 50 elections run by each state with electoral laws not wholly aligned (thus the famous (or dreaded, depending on one’s position) Iowa caucuses) and in many states, it’s state law which regulates who can voted in party primaries, some permitting “open” primaries in which any lawfully enrolled voter is allowed to cast a ballot while others run “closed” events, restricting participation to registered members of the relevant party.  What that means is in some places a citizen can vote in each party’s primary.  That done, those who prevail in a primary further are advantaged because many states have laws setting parameters governing who may appear on a ballot paper and most of them provide an easier path for the Republican and Democratic Party candidates by virtue of having granted both “major party” status.  As objects, the two parties, uniquely, are embedded in the electoral apparatus and the interaction of ballot access laws, debate rules and campaign finance rules mean the two function as state-sponsored actors; while not quite structurally duopolistic, they operate in a protected environment with the electoral equivalent of “high tariff barriers”.

Elon Musk (left) and Donald Trump (right), with Tesla Cybertruck (AWD Foundation Series), the White House, March, 2025.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Given all that, Elon Musk’s (b 1971) recent announcement he was planning to launch a “third party” (actually the US has many political parties, the “third party” tag used as a synecdoche for “not one of the majors”) might seem “courageous” and surprised many who thought the experience of his recent foray into political life might have persuaded him pursuits like EVs (electric vehicles), digging tunnels (he deserves praise for naming that SpaceX spin-off: “The Boring Company”) and travelling to Mars were more fulfilling.  However, Mr Musk believes the core of the country’s problems lie in the way its public finances are now run on the basis of the “Dick Cheney (born 1941; US vice president 2001-2009) doctrine: “Deficits don’t matter” and having concluded neither of the major parties are prepared to change the paradigm which he believes is leading the US to a fiscal implosion, a third party is the only obvious vehicle.  In Western politics, ever since shades of “socialism” and “capitalism” defined the democratic narrative, the idea of a “third way” has been a lure for theorists and practitioners with many interpretations of what is meant but all have in common what Mr Musk seems to be suggesting: finding the middle ground and offering it to those currently voting for one or other of the majors only because “your extremists are worse than our extremists”.  Between extremes there’s much scope for positioning (which will be variable between “social” & “economic” issues) and, given his libertarian instincts, it seems predicable Mr Musk’s economic vision will be “centre-right” rather than “centre-left” but presumably he’ll flesh out the details as his venture evolves.

Mr Musk can’t be accused of creating a “third party” because he wants to become POTUS (president of the US).  As a naturalized US citizen, Mr Musk is ineligible because Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the constitution restricts the office to those who are a “natural born Citizen” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 5).  Because the US Supreme Court (USSC) has never handed down a definitive ruling on the matter it’s not absolutely certain what that phrase means but the consensus among legal scholars is it refers to someone who was at birth a US citizen.  That need not necessitate being born on the soil of the US or its territories because US citizens often are born in other countries (especially to those on military or diplomatic duty) and even in international waters; indeed, there would appear no constitutional impediment to someone born in outer space (or, under current constitutional interpretation, on Mars) becoming POTUS provided they were at the time of birth a US citizen.  Nor does it seem an interpretation of the word “natural” could be used to exclude a US citizen conceived through the use of some sort of “technology” such as IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).

Lindsay Lohan, potential third party POTUS.

As a naturalized US citizen, Elon Musk can’t become POTUS so his new party (tentatively called the “America” Party) will have to nominate someone else and the constitution stipulates (Article II, Section 1, Clause 5): “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States”.  The age requirement is unambiguous and in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), Justice Joseph Story (1779–1845; associate justice of the Supreme Court of the USSC 1812-1845) explained the residence requirement was “…not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy as includes a permanent domicil in the United States.”  That means Mr Musk can consider nominating Lindsay Lohan for president.  She’d apparently flirted with the idea of running in 2020 but at that point would have been a few months too young; on all grounds she’ll be eligible for selection in 2028 and many would be attracted to the idea of Lindsay Lohan having her own nuclear weapons.

Whether or not it’s “courageous” (or even “heroic”), to build a new third party in the US time will tell but certainly it’s ambitious but Mr Musk is also a realist and may not be planning to have a presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states or even contest every seat both houses of Congress.  As he’ll have observed in a number of countries, “third parties” need neither parliamentary majorities nor executive office to achieve decisive influence over policy, some with comparatively little electoral support able to achieve “balance of power” status in legislatures provided those votes are clustered in the right places.  Additionally, because the polarized electorate has delivered such close results in the House & Senate, the math suggests a balance of power may be attainable with fewer seats than historically would have been demanded and under the US system of fixed terms, an administration cannot simply declare such a congress “unworkable” and all another election (a common tactic in the Westminster system); it must, for at least two years, work with what the people have elected, even if that includes an obstreperous third party. Still, the challenges will be onerous, even before the “dirty tricks” departments of the major parties start searching for skeletons in the closets of third party candidates (in a rare example of bipartisanship the Republicans and Democrats will probably do a bit of intelligence-sharing on that project) and the history is not encouraging.

It was the Republican party which in the 1850s was the last “third party” to make the transition to become a “major” and not since 1996 has such a candidate in a presidential contest secured more than 5% of the national vote.  In the Electoral College, not since 1968 has a third-party candidate carried any states and 1912 was the last time a third-party nominee finished second (and 1912 was a bit of a “special case” in which the circumstances were unusually propitious for challenges to the majors).  Still, with (1) the polls recording a general disillusionment with the major parties and institutions of state and (2) Mr Musk’s wealth able to buy much advertising and “other forms” of influence, prospects for a third party may be untypically bright in 2028 elections and 2030 mid-terms.  There are no more elections for Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) and it seems underestimated even now just what an aberration he is in the political cycle.  While his use of techniques and tactics from other fields truly has since 2016 been disruptive, what he has done is unlikely to be revolutionary because it is all so dependent on his presence and hands on the levers of power.  When he leaves office, without the “dread and awe” the implied threat of his displeasure evokes, business may return to something closer what we still imagine “normal” to be.

Demimonde

Demimonde (pronounced dem-ee-mond or duh-mee-mawnd (French))

(1) That class of women existing beyond or on the margins of respectable society because of their indiscreet behavior or sexual promiscuity; typically they were mistresses but not courtesans and certainly not prostitutes (classic meaning from the mid-late nineteenth century).

(2) A group, the activities of which are ethically or legally questionable (later use).

(3) Any social group considered to be not wholly respectable (though vested sometimes with a certain edgy glamour).

(4) By extension, a member of such a class or group of persons.

1850–1855: From the French demi-monde, the construct being demi- (half) + monde (world (in the sense of “people”)), thus literally “half world” and translatable as something like “those really not ‘one of us’”.  It may have been coined by the French author and playwright Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) but certainly was popularized in his comedic play, Le Demi Monde (1855).  The hyphenated original from French (demi-monde) is sometimes used in English.  Demimonde is a noun; the noun plural is demimondes.

In English, demi dates from the mid-1300 and was from the Middle English demi (half, half-sized, partial), from the twelfth century Anglo-Norman demi (half), from the Vulgar Latin dimedius, from the Classical Latin dīmidius, the construct being dis- (apart; in two) + medius (middle).  The French demi (which English borrowed) was a combining form which existed as noun, adjective, and adverb.  The French monde was from the twelfth century Old French monde, a semi-learned form of the tenth century mont (etymologists trace the alteration to ensure the word was distinct from the unrelated mont (mountain)), from the Latin mundus which could mean (1) clean, pure; neat, nice, fine, elegant, sophisticated, decorated, adorned or (2) universe, world (especially the heavens and heavenly bodies with the sense “universe” being a calque of the Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos)).or mankind (as in "inhabitants of the earth").  In Medieval Latin it was used also the mean "century" and "group of people".  The Latin mundus may have been from the Etruscan munθ (order, kit, ornament) or the primitive Indo-European mhnd- (to adorn) which was cognate with the Old High German mandag (joyful, happy; dashing).  As well as the historically pejorative sense in demimonde, “demi” appeared in other loanwords from French meaning “half”  including demilunes (in the shape of a half-moon (semi-circular)) and demitasse (a small coffee cup of the type associated with the short black) and, on that model, is also prefixed to words of English origin (eg demigod).

Treading Water Perfume's Demimonde.  The Trending Water brand is described as “queer-owned” and the products are “hand crafted”.

Similar forms in French included beau monde (literally “beautiful world”, the plural being beaux mondes) which meant “the fashionable part of society” (ie the “beautiful people”) and demi-mondaine (plural demimondaines) which was used in a variety of ways ranging from “women of equivocal reputation and standing in society” to “a sexually promiscuous woman” (ie, one of the demimonde).  Of lifestyles in some way disreputable (or at least unconventional), the terms “bohemian” and “demimonde” are often used although if one is to acknowledge the history of use, they should be differentiated despite both being associated with non-conformity.  Bohemianiam is best used of artistic and intellectual milieus where there’s a pursuit of the non-orthodox and often a rejection of societal norms (or they are at least ignored).  Demimonde, reflecting the specific origin as describing a social class of women financially able to sustain a lifestyle deemed morally dubious, retains to this day the hint of something disreputable although with the decline in the observation of such things, this is now more nuanced.  The gradual distancing of the word from its origins in the intricacies of defining the sexual morality of nineteenth century French women meant it became available to all and in her politely received novel The Last Thing He Wanted (1996), Joan Didion (1934-2021) explored the murky world of the back-channel deals in politics as it is practiced, a demimonde in which individuals are “trying to create a context for democracy” but may be “getting [their] hands a little dirty in the process.”

The Canyons (2013), Lindsay Lohan's demimonde film.

It was Alexandre Dumas’ play Le Demi Monde (1855) which popularized the use but in earlier works, notably La Dame aux Camélias (1848), the character of the demi-mondaine is identifiable although in that work the doomed protagonist is more of a courtesan whereas as used during the second half of the century, the term really wasn’t applied to that class and was most associated with women on the margins of “respectable society” who lived lavishly thanks to wealthy patrons; subtly different from a courtesan.  The literal translation “half-world” implied an existence halfway between the “proper" world and that of the disreputable and that was the sense in the late Victorian era of the Belle Époque era: glamorous but morally ambiguous women, living on the margins of high society in a state of the tolerably scandalous.  Social mores and moral codes are of course fluid and in the first half of the twentieth century the meaning shifted to encompass some other marginalized or shadowy subcultures and ones which encompassed not only women and the association was no longer of necessity associated with sexual conduct.  Thus bohemian artists, the underground nightlife, those who live by gambling and later the counter-cultural movements all came to be described as demimonde.  What that meant was these was less of a meaning shift than an expansion, the word now applied to many groups existing in some way not wholly outside the mainstream but neither entirely in conformity.  There were thus many demimondes and that use persists to this day although the air of the glamorous depicted by Dumas is now often absent, some demimondes distinctly squalid and definitely disreputable.

By the late nineteenth century the notion of the demimonde had attracted the avant-garde and non-conformists, their circles of artists, writers and intellectuals in their own way vested with the edgy glamour of the type attached to the salons the well-kept mistresses conducted in parallel with those of the establishment ladies and it’s easy to draw parallels with Andy Warhol’s (1928–1987) Factory in the 1960s which was a magnet for New York’s non-mainstream “creatives” as well as the flotsam and jetsam of the art schools.  Sometimes too, there are echos, the demimonde of Berlin after the fall of the wall (1989) drawing comparisons with that described in the city during the last years the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  So, the track of demimonde has been (1) mistresses, and women not quite respectable but with funds enough to defy conventions (nineteenth century), (2) the more subversive of the avant-garde added (early twentieth century), (3) bohemian subcultures, various “underground” scenes (mid-late twentieth century) and (4) reflecting the implication of post-modernity, anyone who likes the label.

Sarah Bernhardt (1876), oil on canvas by Georges Clairin (1843-1919).

The Parisian Belle Époque (beautiful era) was the time between the late 1800s and the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918).  For more than a century the period has been celebrated (accurately and not) in art and literature, the great paintings mush sought by collectors.  The Belle Époque is considered still one of Europe’s “golden ages” and although its charms would have escaped most of the working population, for the fortunate few it was a time of vitality and optimism and in some ways modernity’s finest hour until ended by the blast of war.  One trend was the way the cultural hegemony of the private salons of the networks of artists, aristocrats and intellectuals lost some its hold as discourse shifted to the more public (and publicized) realm of the stage, cabriolets and cafés, lending a new theatricality to society life and an essential part was the demimonde, those who operated in the swirling milieu yet were not quite an accepted part of it, their flouting of traditional mores and bourgeois politeness perhaps a little envied but not obviously embraced.  While it could be said to include drug-takers, gamblers and such, the classic exemplar in the spirit of Dumas’ demimonde was the demimondaine, those thrusting women who maintained their elevated (if not respectable) position by parlaying their attractiveness and availability to men willing to pay for the experience.  It usually wasn’t concubinage and certainly not prostitution (as understood) but it was clear les demimondaines belonged with the bohemians and artists of the avant-garde and they were known also as les grandes horizontals or mademoiselles les cocottes (hens) among other euphemisms but for youth and beauty much is tolerated if not forgiven and in all but the inner sanctums of the establishment, mostly there was peaceful co-existence.  Among the demimondaines were many actresses and dancers, a talent to entertain meaning transgressions might be overlooked or at least not much dwelt upon.  Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) benefited from that and her nickname monstre sacré (sacred monster) was gained by her enjoying a status which proved protective despite her life of ongoing controversy.  The Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) also found a niche as an amusing proto-celebrity with a good stock of one-liners and being part of the demimonde of the not quite respectable was integral to the appeal although being convicted of the abominable crime of buggery proved social suicide. 

Marthe de Florian (1898), oil on canvas by Italian-born society portraitist Giovanni Boldini (1842–1931).  The painter’s style of brushwork saw him dubbed le maître du swish (the master of swish) and he was another of Mademoiselle de Florian’s many lovers.

What tends now to be forgotten is that among the demimonde it was only figures like Bernhardt and Wilde who were well known outside of society gossip.  The once obscure Marthe de Florian (1864–1939) joined the “half worlders” by being, inter-alia, the one-time lover of four subsequent prime ministers of France (a reasonable achievement even given the churn rate in the office) although she took the name she adopted from a banker; nothing really matters except money.  When the details of her life emerged, they inspired the novel A Paris Apartment (2014) by US author Michelle Gable (b 1974), a theme of which was une demimondaine could be distinguished from a common prostitute because the former included (at least as a prelude) romance with the le grande acte (acts of intimacy) and ultimately some financial consideration.  That seems not a small difference and unlike the transactional prostitute, the implication was that to succeed in their specialized profession (debatably a calling), a demimondaine needed the skills associated with the Quai d'Orsay: tact, diplomacy, finesse, daring, low cunning and high charm.  It needed also devotion to the task because for Mlle de Florian to get where she did, she inspired “some three duels, an attempted suicide and at least one déniaisé (sexual initiation) of one lover’s eldest son”.

Establishment

Establishment (pronounced ih-stab-lish-muhnt)

(1) The act or an instance of establishing.

(2) The state or fact of being established.

(3) Something established; a constituted order or system.

(4) The existing power structure in society; the dominant groups in society and their customs or institutions; institutional authority (ie “the Establishment” in the popular imagination which in this context should be used with an initial capital).  “The Establishment” is a nuanced synecdoche for “ruling class” with the emphasis on a dedication to the preservation of the status quo.

(5) As a modifier, belonging to or characteristic of “the Establishment” (the dominant or hegemonic “power elite” in a field of endeavor, organization etc (“the political establishment”, “the literary establishment” etc) or their “world view” (the “establishment interpretation of history”).

(6) A household; place of residence including its furnishings, grounds etc; a body of employees or servants

(7) A place of business together with its employees, merchandise, plant, equipment etc.

(8) A permanent civil, military, or other force or organization (often used to describe the defined number of personnel, in aggregate or sectionally, the “establishment” being the approved size, composition, and equipment of a unit.  In the military, the word is often modified (peacetime-establisnment, war-establishment, overseas-establishment etc).

(9) Any institution (university, hospital, library etc).

(10) The recognition by a state of a church as the state church.  In Christianity, the church so recognized, the term most associated with the Church of England (and historically the Church of Wales and Church of Ireland).

(11) A fixed or settled income (archaic).

1475–1485: A compound word, the construct being establish + -ment, from the Middle English establishment, stablishment & stablisshement, from the Old French establissement (which endures in Modern French as établissement), from the verb establir.  The noun establishment was from the late fourteenth century verb establish, from the Old French establiss-, the present participle stem of the twelfth century establir (cause to stand still, establish, stipulate, set up, erect, build), (which endures in Modern French as établir), from the Latin stabilire (make stable), from stabilis (stable).  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgement etc), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  In modern use, judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.  Establishment is a noun; the noun plural is establishments.

The noun establishmentarian describes “an adherent of the principle of an established church” dates from 1839 which of course begat the noun establishmentarianism (the doctrine of the establishmentarians).  What came first however was antidisestablishmentarianism, every schoolboy’s favorite long word although in scientific English there are constructions longer still and even the most alphabetically prolifically forms in English are short compared to those in languages such as Welsh, German and Maori.  It’s not clear who coined antidisestablishmentarianism but William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898; prime-minister 1868–1874, 1880–1885, Feb-July 1886 & 1892–1894) used the word in his two volume work The state in its relations with the church (1841), a critique of “the ecclesiastical system established by law” and specifically the status of Church of England; it was a discussion of the implications of disestablishment (the act of withdrawing the church from its privileged relation to the state).  As words, neither establishmentarianism nor antidisestablishmentarianism now much disturb the thoughts of many in England and the only role for the latter has long been as a entry in the internet’s many lists of long, obscure or weird words.  In the narrow technical sense, the curious beast that is the Church of England became “an established church” only after the Act of Settlement (1701) and the subsequent Acts of Union (1707) which formalized the status of the institution, first in England and later Great Britain.  Functionally however, the English church can be considered “established” since the Act of Supremacy (1534) which abolished papal authority in England and declared Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) Supreme Head of the Church of England, the culmination of a process the king had triggered in 1527 when Clement VII (1478–1534; pope 1523-1534) proved tiresome in the matter of divorce law.  Although other sixteenth century statutes (notably the Act of Supremacy (1558) & Act of Uniformity (1558) which usually are referred to collectively as the “Elizabethan Religious Settlement”) added to the framework, the changes were mechanistic and procedural rather than substantive and simply built upon what had since 1534 been the established “state church” while the eighteenth century acts were essentially codifications which formalized the position in constitutional law.  Legally, little since has changed and 26 Church of England bishops (all appointed by the prime-minister (on the recommendation of the Archbishop of Canterbury)) continue (as the “Lords Spiritual”, their lay colleagues being the “Lords Temporal”) to sit in the House of Lords.

In English, establishment's original fifteenth century meaning was “a finalized and settled arrangement” (ie of income or property) while the sense of “the established church” entered the language in 1731, reflecting what had been the legal position since 1534.  The sense of “a place of business” emerged in the early 1830s while the idea of “a social matrix of ruling people and institutions” was in use as early as the mid 1920s although the phrase “the Establishment” (in the socio-political sense) didn’t enter popular use until the late 1950s, influenced by the publication in 1956 of The Power Elite by US sociologist Charles Wright Mills (1916–1962 and usually styled C Wright Mills).  Mills took a structuralist approach and explored the clusters of elites and how their relationships and interactions work to enable them to exert (whether overtly or organically) an essentially dictatorial control over US society and its economy.  Mills, while acknowledging some overlap between the groups, identified six clusters of elites: (1) those who ran the large corporations, (2) those who owned the corporations, (3) popular culture celebrities including the news media, (4) the upper-strata of wealth-owning families, (5) the military establishment (centred on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff) and (6), the upper echelons of government (the executives, the legislatures the judges, the senior bureaucracy and the duopoly of the two established political parties.  The overlaps he noted did not in any way diminish the value of his description, instead illustrating its operation.

When the establishment fractured: Republican (for Goldwater, left) & Democratic (against Goldwater, right), 1964 presidential campaign buttons, 1964.  This was before the color coding (Republican red, Democratic blue) was standardized in 2000 by the arbitrary choice of the TV networks.

The term “Establishment Republican” (a “moderate” or “liberal” member of the US Republican Party (as opposed to the right-wing fanatics who staged a hostile take-over) emerged in the 1980s to replace “Rockefeller Republican”.  Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979; US vice president 1974-1977) was the archetype of the “liberal republican” in the decade between crazy old Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) losing the 1964 presidential election and crooked old Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) in 1974 resigning from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal.  It was in those years the right-wing began their “march through the party establishment”, a process accelerated during the Reagan (Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) years and the moderates came to prefer the term “Establishment Republican” because Rockefeller was tainted by his association with the north-east, something with less appeal as the party’s centre of gravity shifted to the Mid-West and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  The few surviving Establishment Republicans are now derided by the right wing fanatics as RINOs (Republicans in name only) and in 2024 the more useful descriptors are probably “pre-Trump Republican” & “post-Trump Republican”.  That linguistic moment may pass but the party at this time shows little inclination of seeking to find the centre ground, a wisdom advocated even by Richard Nixon.  In the pre-Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990)) UK, where the existence of “the Establishment” was quite obvious, it was the journalist Henry Fairlie (1924-1990) who popularized the term, explaining the concept as a kind of individual & institutional symbiosis by which “the right chaps” came to control the country’s “levers of power, influence and social authority”, exercised through social connections established between families or at the elite schools such men attended: “By the 'Establishment' I do not mean only the centers of official power—though they are certainly part of it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised. The exercise of power in Britain (more specifically, in England) cannot be understood unless it is recognised that it is exercised socially.”

The Rover P5B, the car of the Establishment

In the UK, the Establishment had survived two world wars, the Great Depression, an abdication and even a couple of Labour governments but, by the 1960s, the acceptance of its once effortless hegemony was being challenged, not because people were becoming convinced by the writings of political theorists but as a consequence of the antics of those from the very heart of the Establishment (the Profumo scandal, the “Cambridge Five” spies etc).  In retrospect, it was the ten-odd years prior to 1973 that were the last halcyon days of the “old Establishment” for after that the UK’s anyway troubled “old” economy stagnated, triggering a series of events, notably the assault on the system from within by the improbable anti-Establishment figure of Margaret Thatcher.  The changes wrought in the last five decades shouldn’t be overstated because what happened was one Establishment was replaced by another and there was a substantial overlap in institutional and individual membership but it’s a very different apparatus from that of the 1960s.

Rover 3.5 Coupé.  Establishment figures preferred the saloon, the (four door) coupé more what used to be called a “co-respondent's” car (ie the sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with other men’s wives, later to be named as “co-respondent” in divorce proceedings).

One charming Establishment symbol from those years which are for most not in living memory was the ultimate “Establishment car”, one which while not the biggest, fastest, or most expensive available, possessed the qualities to appeal to the “right chaps”.  The Rover P5 was in production between 1958-1973, running from around the time that old patrician Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) told the working class “…most of you have never had it so good” to the last days before the first oil shock ended the West’s long, post-war economic prosperity (although the British experience of that was patchy).  The P5’s presence throughout was somehow reassuring because from its debut it embodied the virtues for which Rovers had during the 1950s come to be valued: solidity, quality, comfort and an indifference to fashions and fads.  The P5 was a presence also in parts of the old British Empire and it enjoyed a following in both Australia & New Zealand, valued because it had an “Establishment air” yet was not flashy like a Pontiac or Jaguar (the mostly badge-engineered Daimlers a remarkably effective piece of product differentiation) or a statement of wealth like a Mercedes-Benz would by the mid-1960s become.

Rover 3 Litre engine schematic.

The P5 was sold originally as the 3 Litre in three releases (Mark 1, 1958-1962; Mark II, 1962-1965 & Mark III 1965-1967), using a 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) straight-six with an implementation of the “F-head” design in which the inlet valve sat at the top of the combustion chamber with a side-mounted exhaust valve, an arrangement which offered some advantages when designing combustion chambers suited to the lower octane fuel then used in many markets and allowed the use of larger valves than would have been possible with a conventional OHV (overhead valve) arrangement).  The latter was a matter of some significance because the Rover six came from a time when the taxation regime was based on bore diameter, something which resulted in generations of British small bore, long-stroke engines and the 3 litre six was a famously smooth device, the advertising sometimes showing a circular coin sitting (on its edge) on the air-cleaner with the engine running, the coin not even vibrating.  Technologically though, for passenger vehicles, it was a cul-de-sac and more modern power-plants from the US, Europe (and even the UK) were out-performing the old F-Head.

What transformed the P5 was the adoption of the 3.5 litre (215 cid) V8 which Rover had purchased from General Motors (GM) which, in versions made by Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac (BOP), had been used for the new compact lines between 1961-1963.  The UK’s industry made many mistakes in the post-war years but what became the Rover V8 was an inspired purchase, remaining in production in displacements between 3.5 litres (215 cubic inch) and 5.0 (305) from 1967 until 2006, powering everything from the original Range Rovers to executive sedans and sports cars  It was related also to the Oldsmobile version (Rover used Buick’s variant) on which Repco in Australia based the 3.0 litre (193 cubic inch) SOHC (single overhead camshaft) V8 the Brabham team would use to secure the Formula One drivers & constructors championships in 1966 & 1967.

Look of the past; glimpse of the future: 1967 Rover 3.5 Saloon (left) and 1967 NSU Ro80 (right).

It was in late 1967 the Rover 3.5 was released and the press reception was generally favourable, the improvements in performance and fuel consumption (not something often achieved when adding cylinders and displacement) attributed to a combination of greater mechanical efficiency and reduced weight, the all-aluminum V8 some 200 lb (90 kg) lighter than the hefty old six although some did note the new engine couldn’t quite match the smoothness of the old.  By 1967 however the testers seemed to be aware that whatever its charms, it was a design from the mid-1950s and the world had moved on although to be fair Rover had too, it’s P6 (2000), released in 1963 was very much a modernist take (and one which would in 1968 also be transformed by the V8, becoming the 3500 (1968-1976)).  Between 1967 and the end of production in 1967, the flavor of the press commentary about the 3.5 was very much: “outmoded but satisfying”.

Released in September 1967: Rover 3.5 saloon (left) and NSU Ro80 (right), partially exposed at the Earls Court Motor Show in October.

Like the 3.5, the NSU Ro80 had been released in September that year and the contrast was obviously between the past and the future, the German car influencing design for more than a generation (with the obvious exception of the ill-fated Wankel engine) while what the Rover represented was already almost extinct, few of the others in its market segment (the Vanden Plas Farinas, the Humber Super Snipe, the Vauxhall Viscount, the Daimler Majestic Major and the Austin 3 Litre) to see the 1970s.  Nor did other manufacturers make much effort to compete for buyers who clearly wanted something lighter and more modern although, after taking over Rootes Group, to replace the defunct Super Snipe and Imperial, Chrysler did embark on a quixotic venture to prove demand still existed by taking advantage of the old Commonwealth tariff preference scheme by importing the Australian-built Valiant (built on the US A-Body) in both straight-six & V8 form.  It registered barely a blip on the sales charts although, remarkably, both remained available until 1976 by which time the writing was on the wall for Chrysler’s entire European operation.

A UK government 3.5 waiting outside No 10 Downing Street (left) and Harold Wilson about to enter his (right).

For many however, the Rover’s reassuring presence was more appealing than modernity (although the rakish Rostyle wheels may have been a shock for some).  It certainly appealed to those at the heart of the establishment and the first prime minister to have been driven in one was the pipe-smoking Harold Wilson (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) who, although he’d once promised to revitalize the economy with the “white heat of technological change”, was a cautious and conservative character; the car suited him and he appreciated the custom-built ashtray which held his pipe.  Edward "Ted" Heath (1916-2005; UK prime-minister 1970-1974), James "Jim" Callaghan (1912–2005; prime minister of the UK 1979-1979) and Mrs Thatcher followed him into the backseat, something made possible because the Ministry of Supply (advised production was ending in 1973), purchased a batch from the final run, stockpiling them for future VIP use, the same tactic some police forces would later adopt to secure warehouses full of Rover SD1s (another recipient of the ex-Buick V8), the front wheel drive (FWD) replacements they knew were in the pipeline not a compelling choice for the highway patrol.  Not until 1981 was Mrs Thatcher's Rover retired and replaced with a Daimler.

1955 Chrysler C-300 (top left), 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Coupé (top right), Rover 3.5 Coupé (bottom left) and Rover 3.5 Saloon (bottom right).

On sale only in 1955-1956, the restrained lines of Chrysler’s elegant “Forward Look” range didn’t last long in the US as extravagance overtook Detroit but the influence endured longer in Europe, both the Mercedes-Benz W111 (1961-1971) & W112 Coupes (1962-1967) and the Rover P5 (1958-1967) & P5B (1967-1973) interpreting the shape.  The Rover was a tale of two rooflines: the “Establishment” Saloon and the rakish Coupé.

US-delivered 1965 Rover 3 Litre Coupe.

Prior to 1967 when legislation rendered the low-volume model unviable, Rover did ship a small number of P5s to the US, made possible because the line was anyway produced in LHD (left-hand-drive) for European sale.  There were a number of changes such as the amber taillights being replaced with red lens but although, sensibly, the Americans spelled “coupe” without the l'accent aigu (acute accent), the “Coupé” badge was retained.

In automobiles, by the 1960s, the English-speaking world had (more or less) agreed a coupé was a two door car with a fixed roof and (if based on a sedan), often a shorter wheelbase, designed put a premium on style over utility.  There were hold-outs among a few UK manufacturers who insisted there were fixed head coupés (FHC) and drop head coupés (DHC), the latter described by most others as convertibles or cabriolets but mostly the term had come to be well-understood.  It was thus a surprise when Rover in 1962 displayed a “four-door coupé”, essentially their 3 Litre sedan with a lower roof-line and a few “sporty” touches such as a tachometer and a full set of gauges.  One intriguing part of the tale was why, defying the conventions of the time, the low-roof variation of the four-door was called a coupé (and Rover did use the l'accent aigu (the acute accent: “é”) to ensure the “traditional pronunciation” was imposed although the Americans and others sensibly abandoned the practice).  The rakish lines, including more steeply sloped front and rear glass were much admired although the original vision had been more ambitious still, the intention being a four-door hardtop with no central pillar.  Strangely, although the Americans and Germans had managed this satisfactorily, a solution eluded Rover which had to be content with a more slender B-pillar.

Lindsay Lohan with Porsche Panamera 4S four-door coupe (the factory doesn't use the designation but most others seem to), Los Angeles, 2012.

The etymology of coupé is that it’s from couper (to cut off) but the original use in the context of horse-drawn coaches referred to the platform being shortened, not lowered.  Others too have been inventive, Cadillac for decades offering the Coupe De Ville (they used also Coupe DeVille) and usually it was built to exactly the same dimensions as the Sedan De Ville, differing on in the door count.  So Rover probably felt entitled to cut where they preferred; in their case it was the roof and in the early twentieth century, the four-door coupe became a thing, the debut in 2004 of the Mercedes-Benz CLS influencing other including BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen and Audi.  The moment for the style clearly hasn’t passed because when CLS production ended in August 2023, the lines were carried over to the new E-Class (W214, 2023-) but there are no longer references to a “four-door coupé”.

One of Elizabeth II’s P5B Saloons outside the gates of Windsor castle (left) and Her Majesty at the wheel (right), leaving the castle, reputedly on the way to church so while one of her 3.5s won’t quite be “only driven to church on Sunday by little old lady”, being in the Royal mews, it would have been well-maintained.

Although for almost 20 years a fixture outside No 10 Downing Street, the most famous P5B owner was Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) who upgraded from a 3 Litre in 1968 and, although not noted for being sentimental about machinery, until 1987 ran one of the several maintained in the Royal Mews during her reign.

Rover P5B headrests (left & right) and the mounting assembly for the reading lamps in the front units (centre).

Most of the focus on the Rover 3.5 has always been about the engine and the illustrious passengers but one detail of note is the bulk of the headrests, optional fittings in most markets.  Quite why they were so big isn’t clear although the shape of the rear units presumably made for an easier mounting on the parcel shelf, meaning the seat's frames & covers needed no modification, but it’s apparently not an urban myth some used by the British government had a bullet-proof panel inserted; there was certainly the space to accommodate even a thick metal plate.  The front headrests were used also to house the optional reading lamps, the wiring harness well concealed within.