History Chat - May 21, 2020

Link to Video on Facebook

Link to transcript

Today HCR concluded her American paradox series (inequality for some depends on inequality for others) by continuing where she left off last time with the Right's reaction to the liberal consensus (which implies a strong state that promoted social welfare, infrastructure, and sensible regulations), and with the rise of Reagan. In the 80's and 90's this reaction, referred to as 'movement conservatism', intensified with figures such as Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. This movement, because it never appealed to a majority of Americans consistently, began to resort to voter suppression tactics and efforts to pack the judiciary. Ultimately this led to Trump, who held a mirror to movement conservatism, and took the movement to its natural extreme, with discourses intended to increase polarization (emphasizing makers versus takers, us versus them, worthy elite men versus the others), thereby recreating some of the arguments of Southern elites of the 19th century such as James Henry Hammond and Alexander Stephens, who emphasized that social and racial hierarchies were both natural as well as good. HCR contrasted this with the visions of Lincoln (as voiced in the Gettysburg address) and of some of the female Democratic candidates that ran for offices in 2018 -- a vision of inclusivity, community and opportunity.

Links (underlined) related to topics covered in the chat

Republicans are serious about voter suppression. Here’s how to stop them
"So how can Democrats combat those efforts? They have their own legal teams mounting challenges to voter suppression laws, and groups organizing voters, and with the pandemic going on they’re pushing for more vote-by-mail. On Election Day, they’ll also be sending their own teams out to polling locations....But there’s something else Democrats can do...a dramatic, high-profile fight over Republican voter suppression efforts — the Republican effort produced a backlash. As Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said afterward, 'Voter suppression might not be as clever as Republicans think it is. It can backfire by pissing voters off.'"

HCR’s American Paradox video chat concluded on Thursday, in which she highlighted: 1) the paradox itself (equality for some depends on inequality for others), 2) its corollary (attempts to extend equality to the “others” will be met with a strong counter reaction), 3) the mid 19th century Southern ethos (as manifested by the words of figures such as James Henry Hammond, John Calhoun, Alexander Stephens, and even President Andrew Johnson), 4) the metastasis of this ethos to the West, and 5) that this ethos did win in the end. This podcast from a few years ago explores (in about 26 min) the views of several experts on the culture of the South, including Glen Feldman, who wrote "Making The Southern Religion: Economics, Theology, Martial Patriotism, and Social Indifference—(and the Big Bang Theory of Modern American Politics" (Perspectives in Religious Studies, 30(1):275, 2012). For Feldman, the Southern ethos is found these four factors, which are protestant Christianity, libertarian economics, 'martial' patriotism, and social indifference (which leads to a firm rejection of government action to help “unworthy" people). What he further points out, just as HCR has been doing, is that the legacy of much of today's politics on the Right reflects these points.

This podcast series puts context around Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s 1945 classic “Age of Jackson”, which responded to Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier thesis” formulated about a half century earlier (which HCR has discussed in her chat series). In this long narrative, Jackson himself is not the main protagonist, but rather a symbol animating a psychological, political and intellectual movement in American history (in ways similar to Trump’s role as a living symbol for movement conservatism today).

Michaud: The myth of takers vs. makers

Peter Thiel Once Wrote That Women Getting The Vote Was Bad For Democracy

“I Can't See Her Legs!” : Roger Ailes' Rampant Sexism

QAnon Is More Important Than You Think

Trump and racism: What do the data say? - Brookings Institution

Trump's Inaugural Address (the "American carnage" speech)

CBO Confirms GOP Tax Law Contributes to Darkening Fiscal Future

Dictators Without Borders - Living in a democracy is no longer protection from authoritarianism

The Kochs and right-wing extremism

Mussolini's 'Doctrine and Fascism'

Lincoln and the fight for American opportunity

[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.

In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]

In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]

In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]

In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]

In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]