Democracy Under Assault

Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson — author of How the South Won the Civil War — argues that Donald Trump and his followers pose an existental threat to American democracy.

Schism

Today’s political schism in the United States dates to the 1930s. Republicans had controlled Congress in the 1920s, and their pro-business policies resulted in mass misery during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs expanded public safety, established worker protections, and raised taxes on the rich.

A country that once stood as the global symbol of democracy has been teetering on the brink of authoritarianism.
Heather Cox Richardson

During World War II, Black, Latino, Jewish, and Native American men joined the military, and women worked in factories. But America segregated its military and confined ethnically Japanese citizens in internment camps.

Jim Crow policies kept Black Americans in second-class citizenship into the 1950s. In 1954, the US Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that made racial segregation legal in schools. 

After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Republican presidential hopeful Barry Goldwater said “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice” — a  benediction of the Ku Klux Klansmen and police who harassed and attacked activists registering new Black voters and marching for equal rights. Racial resentment proved a political rallying point for Republican politicians throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

President Ronald Reagan’s cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans brought back 1920s-style wealth inequality. In 1987, Reagan-appointed officials ended the Fairness Doctrine, which required public radio stations to present balanced views. By 1988, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh gained a national audience with his assaults on liberalism, socialism, Black Americans, and “feminazis.”

Trump

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Fox News pushed the false idea that Democratic contender Barack Obama was not an American citizen and therefore not a legitimate candidate. Trump appeared on Fox News to claim Obama hadn’t released his birth certificate, though Obama in fact had. Republicans later framed Obama’s signature policy, the Affordable Care Act, as “a pure income redistribution play” — ignoring that, historically, Republicans had always sought to expand America’s national health care system.

Trump married Republican politics to authoritarianism.
Heather Cox Richardson

When Trump opened his presidential campaign in 2015, he was a reality TV star and self-styled business genius, though many of his companies were bankrupt. Trump labeled Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals” who stole Americans’ jobs. Trump’s nostalgic campaign slogan — “Make America great again” — was borrowed  from Reagan. Voters who longed for the days when white men ran the world and Christianity stood at the core of American society found their champion in Trump.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, but Trump cobbled majorities in a sufficient number of states to win the election via the Electoral College. Trump insisted the crowd for his inaugural speech had been larger than the crowd for Obama’s swearing in — a demonstrable lie. On Meet the Press, a Trump adviser argued that Trump’s assertion weren’t lies, but “alternative facts.” Among other purges, Trump fired civil servants who didn’t dispute the broadly proven assertion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

After officials in Virginia agreed to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a public park, white nationalists converged on the city. In August 2017, these “alt-right” protestors chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” From the time of FDR’s New Deal, right-wing unrest has always arisen when exploitative politicians claim that citizens have to fight the government’s “socialist” policies — violently. 

Trump said the clash in Charlottesville featured “very fine people, on both sides,” even after right-wing activists killed anti-Nazi protesters. During the 2020 Republican National Convention, Trump insisted that lawless Democrats were responsible for the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, Trump claimed that Democrats and public health officials were using the crisis to sabotage his re-election.

In 2019, The New York Times Magazine published the 1619 Project, referencing the year enslaved Africans first arrived in Virginia. The Times’ piece argued that racism stands at the heart of the American experiment. In response, Trump launched the 1776 Commission, a classic whitewashing of US history.

Insurrection

In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump in the popular vote and in the Electoral College. Trump claimed Democrats stole the election. Trump’s advisers established bogus electors in seven states in a scheme to have Vice President Mike Pence reject the votes from those states on January 6, 2021.

Pence refused to back the plot. At the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, Trump told attendees, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” The resulting assault on the US Capitol fueled Trump’s Big Lie. That led the Republican Party to purge non-Trump loyalists, and 19 states to enact election reform bills that made voting rules and procedures more difficult and partisan.

A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians.
Heather Cox Richardson

America’s Founders attempted to create a free and fair society, and their democratic experiment flourished, but it was never flawless. Today, Trump’s authoritarians seek to undermine American democracy.

A Clarion Call

Richardson’s provocative prose and accurate historical esssays will resonate primarily with like-minded readers. Conservatives will likely denounce all her accurate conclusions. Richardson connects the nation’s long-simmering inequalities to today’s conservative exploitation of political divides. She writes with calm articulation laid atop powerful, if understated, contempt for anyone who might weaken American democracy. Richardson’s even tone serves as a clarion call to anyone who wants to stop the spread of American fascism. Her comprehensive history should unnerve anyone — liberals, conservatives, and all citizens in between — who believe in the Amerian dream of democracy for everyone.