It’s no hagiography. In economic terms, the period of general and anomalous prosperity in the U.S. from approx. 1947 through the early 2000s allowed liberal democracy more breathing room than it had previously, as one might expect. That the benefits of that general prosperity continued to be denied to PoC does not change that fact.
Liberal democracy for everyone (including those in privileged castes) is constrained during hard times. In that context, the broadened understanding of the arc of American history acknowledges that a larger number of non-wealthy white people (especially white cis-hit one) are becoming re-acquainted with the rough lives their ancestors lived before 1940 and the rough lives that PoC and women continued to live during that period. Their resentment at this discovery is in large part fueling the resurgence of right-wing populism in America.
To riff off what @gatto pointed out. I think these are particularly promising times. The pustule is popped and we can see all the white supremacy oozing out of the body politic. There’s nothing new or extreme going on, it’s just people (like me) who used to be oblivious or think they were immune, are now faced with the reality of the American Disease. Things could go to Hell, sure. But we are also seeing the ugly first steps in recognizing what was always true. I hate that it had to happen, but it had to happen.
The only thing that’s changed is how willing we are to support the lie we’ve been raised with. That’s a hopeful thing.
The one thing I would tell the Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, and anyone else who gives a damn about other people is to give up on pretending we think the Right is going to get better or compromise. It’s time to eliminate their power, take away their fuel, and salvage what we can of those who might stagger away from the clown car when it wrecks.
The Federal Government is the last check within our constitutional system. The Supreme Court could have helped remove Gerrymandering, but they failed, and have been swung hard right by the fuckery.
That being said, we can organize to win that fight, and win more state-level fights and should. And there are always protests, general strikes, and other means to push back.
When have we ever had Government by the people for the people? We have government for the lobbyists by the lobbyists. We have government for the corporations by the corporations. We have elections every so often, but the story never changes. Just the actors. We the people go to the polling stations, plug our noses as we check off the ballot for our preferred candidate. Then we hope for the best. But, nothing ever changes. Nothing ever gets done.
I don’t really blame republicans for our mess anymore. I blame Democrats, who have the power to abolish the filibuster, and pack the court, pass HR1, but refuse to use it.
Well, at this point it’s basically two specific Democrats in the Senate. Most of the ones who used to strongly defend the filibuster have changed their minds in recent years due to unprecedented Republican intransigence.
i dont know my history in facts enough to argue all that well. the 40s and the 50s seem to have particularly benefited white men, maybe even particularly conservative or at least not politically conscious white men. 60s resistance to the vietnam war, resistance to segregation, women’s lib – to me those seem like reactions to that doubling down of power that happened.
the years before and just after world war 1 seem to have had a lot of social consciousness: unions, suffrage… even civil rights was a big issue in the 20s. the depression and the second world war erased all that.
probably a different conversation, but i don’t think so.
my personal view is that white americans are mostly okay with hard scrabble economic conditions. the hardest rub is when they believe non-whites are gaining on them – or even just “infringing” on what they feel is their space.
yeah, media wants to say “economic anxiety” because that’s a polite rationale. but there’s been enough families living on the edge of poverty in america throughout its history that i don’t feel this is really the primary issue.
Also maybe I’m buying in too much to the myth of indispensable America, but I’m honestly not sure that if the U.S. turns into Germany 1933 v. 2.0, which seems entirely possible right now, there will be another useful global example of the strength of republican democracy for many years. Realistically, it might never come, because America’s strength was of course built on the systematic subversion of many of the principles the best version of it now espouses.
The GOP propaganda arm has been dumbing down their base for decades, and now the morons are in charge of the party, because without the base they have no power.
One question I always ponder-- does someone like Sean Hannity really believe the things he promotes, like did he really believe hydroychloroquine would cure covid? Does he really believe in massive voter fraud, or that Obama’s birth certificate is fake? (etc etc etc.)
I gather that a lot of these guys really do know bullshit when they smell it (McCarthy for example) but the media personalities are the ones I wonder about. They spew garbage every day. It was really just a short hop from believing Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Obama’s book to believing “donuts” in a Podesta email is code for a sex act involving kids.
The moral sense, or lack thereof, to say things you know are false every day. . . perhaps you convince yourself they are true, perhaps you justify it with “the other side lies too.”
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell --Paul Simonon
They might be motivated to do something if / when they lose power.
But while in power they (like all governing parties in democracies - excluding the GOP who decided they wanted to govern in something that was not a democracy) focus on what they can do now in a ‘business as usual’ governing mindset (e.g. economics, mostly) and utterly fail to plan for retaining power by preventing the opposition from getting it.
The most they plan for retaining power is to try to figure out what they can do to get voters to vote for them - which is a million miles from preventing the opposition from winning - and assuming that will be enough. The GOP figured this out - the need to prevent the opposition getting power - and that is why it really is such a threat and the earlier comment…
… could very well prove to be true. It’s a one-way ratchet and the Dems are doing fuck all to ratchet in the other direction - as has been noted…
It’s a paradox of modern politics (perhaps a paradox of all politics at all times, when the authoritarian/right and the democratic/left battle each other) that the left merely tries to govern and the right prioritises cementing its hold on power. The left in all autocratic risk states (UK, several European countries, etc.) needs to get off its ‘faith in democracy’ fence and understand it is an asymmetric war and start fighting it with the same tools the authoritarians use.
