Great piece by historian Jefferson Cowie on the history of liberalism and democracy in America...and what lessons we can draw from that history to inform our political vision in the present. newrepublic.com/article/1823...
Arguably the first white Americans to articulate a positive vision of the US as a multi-racial democracy were the Garrisonian abolitionists of the 1830s, 40+ years after the Constitution was ratified. The US was not born a multi-racial democracy, and it took immense struggle to make it such.
The idea that the US is a multi-racial democracy is just that, an idea. It's not woven into the fabric of the universe, and even after it was written into the fabric of the Constitution after the Civil War that was more often a dead letter than a reality for almost 100 years.
American democracy is not a permanent stone edifice at which we pay our respects every July 4, it is a work in progress and it is currently under assault by the same sorts of forces that have resisted its expansion at every stage of its history.
A small but highly energized segment of the citizenry is fired up by the participatory, anti-democratic project Trump's movement has become. That movement has very deep roots and drafts off the winds of similar movements from the national past. That's hardly surprising.
What's been just as demoralizing over the past decade is seeing how careless so many of my fellow citizens are about democracy in the face of such an obvious threat. People of my age, educated in the same system I was who consumed the same political culture, just saying "meh" about Trumpism.
"Don't vote for the guy who organized a violent insurrection at the US Capitol to try to overthrow the last election" would have seemed like a pretty G-D low bar for American citizens to get over if you'd asked my 2010 self about it. I think it's important to remain appalled by such moral turpitude.
and the use of violence and intimidation against public officials by the GOP - they are not going to turn a corner and stop - it is just going to escalate
Having a sister that seems to be completely separated from reality, they justify everything as a bigger conspiracy. I’ve had no luck even with discussing much less volatile topics. They don’t even believe what their own eyes see.
It hasn’t gotten real yet for enough people. Maybe that’s it. Also doesn’t help a lot of left wingers use 1/6 to point out that 2000 election was the real first coup attempt, laundering the unique aspects of 1/6 in the process
Democracy and our inability to understand the seriousness of our current situation, will be our undoing. We’ve let money corrupt our politics so much that there’s no hope of correcting our trajectory. Capitalism corrupts absolutely, and we’ve let it run rampant into every corner of our existence.
