Sara Robinson posted this 8/28/20
Heather Cox Richardson on last night's speech:
"I looked at the hundreds of people at Trump's rally tonight, unmasked and older, and almost all so very white, and saw a group of people so afraid of the future they are willing to say yes, willing to throw in their lot with a malignant narcissist because he tells them they can recover a world in which they felt more relevant, a world they control.
We have been here before. In the 1850s, when the nation had to grapple with the idea of westward expansion across a continent, many reactionary Americans thought the solution to keeping an expanding nation stable was to spread human enslavement along with the American flag so that a small group of wealthy slaveowners maintained control over the government.
But Americans who believed that society worked best if every man had a right to his own labor organized under Abraham Lincoln and, rejecting their neighbors' hierarchical view of society, restored the idea of human equality and pushed America into the future.
In the 1890s, when the nation had to grapple with the idea of industrialization, many reactionary Americans thought the solution to the growing divide between labor and capital was to create a world in which a few wealthy industrialists directed the labor of the masses.
But Americans who believed in the founding principle of human equality before the law organized under Theodore Roosevelt and rejected the idea that workers belonged to a permanent underclass. They pushed America into the future.
In the 1930s, when the nation had to grapple with a worldwide depression, reactionary Americans thought the solution was fascism, in which a few strong men organized and directed the labor of their countrymen.
But most Americans rejected the idea that some men were better than others, and they organized under Franklin Delano Roosevelt to restore the idea of equality before the law and return the government to the hands of ordinary Americans. They pushed America into the future.
Tonight's event at the White House demonstrated that we are in another great crisis in American history. A reactionary group of older white men look at a global future in which questions of clean energy, climate change, economic fairness, and human equality are uppermost, and their reaction is to cling to a world they control.
But that world is passing, whether they like it or not. Even if Trump wins in 2020, he cannot stop the future from coming. And while the United States will not meet that future with the power we had even four years ago, we will have to meet it nonetheless. It will be no less exciting and offer no fewer opportunities than the dramatic changes of the 1850s, 1890s, and 1930s, and at some point, Americans will want to meet those challenges.
If history is any guide, when that happens, we will restore the principle of equality before the law, and push America into the future."
Comments
Thanks for this.
It is helpful to read Heather every day.
This is excellent.
. Very well said.
Had this discussion last year. To me, it is the "Big Daddy will protect us from the Bad Future people." Caudillo territory here, folks.
Charlie Pierce routinely refers to Trump as "El Caudillo de Mar-A-Lago."
I desperately want to be hopeful like this, but my understanding of the history of fascism does not let me.
A lot of us futurists are recovered historians so loved this retrospective. Just quibble with "Even if Trump wins in 2020..." Unlike previous examples, if Trump wins in 2020 it will be a threat to our democracy and nation itself, with no other threat as serious in our history except the Civil War. The principles of equality before the law may not be able to prevail against pure unrestrained power, or until it does the consequences of a fascist regime will make it impossible to unbreak the egg. Whether through a legitimate vote or stealing the election with voter suppression, refusal to concede, declaration of emergency powers, lawsuits and a willing Supreme Court, Trump will be emboldened to continue to erode democratic principles and checks on his power. Liberal states will secede, future elections will be suspended or rigged, and the end of the US as a single democratic country will begin. Trump must lose in a landslide to prevent the end of the republic - it sounds dramatic but following the impacts it's all there.
We need to be clear - we are already living in a fascist regime that is dismantling the people's representative freedoms and whose only ideology is the gaining and maintaining of complete power, one that has already killed 180,000 people in service of staying in office. This election will test our ability to vote ourselves out of that regime or show that our democracy is not strong enough to withstand it. It is literally (not figuratively) the most important vote since 1860.
Richardson, who is a professor of Civil War history, would no doubt agree with you. If you haven't seen it, her new book, "How The South Won The Civil War," is an excellent guide to these times -- and lays out exactly why this is the most important vote since 1860.
Which, it's good to remember, is the election that triggered the Civil War. This one may, too.
BTW, HCR is now a regular on Bill Moyers site. She's got a couple of top-notch podcasts up there, too.
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just like nature abhors a vacuum, economies detest imbalance. galbraith
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