We live in a revolutionary age. With all the change and transformation that has occurred, people are overwhelmed, anxious and fearful of a future that could mean more disruption, dislocation and the loss of the world that they grew up in. Some in the West are ready for radicalism. Some outside see this as the moment to break the long dominance of the West and its ideas. But if we tear down liberalism at home, if we allow it to be eroded abroad, we will find that the edifice of ideas and practices that liberalism and democracy have built will also crumble. And we will return to a world that is more impoverished, tense and conflict-ridden than the one we have known for generations.

-Fareed Zarkara in the 

WaPost

From Amazon

 

Illiberal America: A History 

by  Steven Hahn  (Author)

See all formats and editions

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If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That’s not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberalism as deep-seated in the American past as the founding ideals.

A storm of illiberalism, building in the United States for years, unleashed its destructive force in the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. The attack on American democracy and images of mob violence led many to recoil, thinking “That’s not us.” But now we must think again, for Steven Hahn shows in his startling new history that illiberalism has deep roots in our past. To those who believe that the ideals announced in the Declaration of Independence set us apart as a nation, Hahn shows that Americans have long been animated by competing values, equally deep-seated, in which the illiberal will of the community overrides individual rights, and often protects itself by excluding perceived threats, whether on grounds of race, religion, gender, economic status, or ideology.

Driven by popular movements and implemented through courts and legislation, illiberalism is part of the American bedrock. The United States was born a republic of loosely connected states and localities that demanded control of their domestic institutions, including slavery. As white settlement expanded west and immigration exploded in eastern cities, the democracy of the 1830s fueled expulsions of Blacks, Native Americans, Catholics, Mormons, and abolitionists. After the Civil War, southern states denied new constitutional guarantees of civil rights and enforced racial exclusions in everyday life. Illiberalism was modernized during the Progressive movement through advocates of eugenics who aimed to reduce the numbers of racial and ethnic minorities as well as the poor. The turmoil of the 1960s enabled George Wallace to tap local fears of unrest and build support outside the South, a politics adopted by Richard Nixon in 1968. Today, with illiberalism shaping elections and policy debates over guns, education, and abortion, it is urgent to understand its long history, and how that history bears on the present crisis.

Panickd Trump

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By IGOR DERYSH

Managing Editor

He Means It

 It may seem superfluous to say this, but it needs saying: He means it. Donald Trump meant it when he called his mob to Washington in December of 2020 by telling them, “Be there, will be wild!” and he means it right now when he tells the mobs at his rallies that the members of the January 6 Committee belong in jail, and if he is elected in November, he will have his Department of Justice “go after” President Biden and his family.

Lucian K. Truscott in Salon.com

 

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From The New Republic

 In the 20's the so-called Lost Generation fled to Paris because they found the States an intellectual and cultural wasteland. They would discover the same country today. Only today there is no Paris.

 Donald Trump exposed his profound condescension and blatant manipulation with the notorious 2016 declaration, “I love the poorly educated.” Election results and polling data consistently show that the most poorly-educated Americans — at least, those who are white — love him back with almost religious reverence, treating him as guru, despot and pop-culture idol all in one. While it is easy to chortle at the hillbilly-Deadhead vibe surrounding Trump rallies, it is more important to consider how the better-educated are weakening their country by rejecting the tools necessary to maintain the structure of liberal democracy.

-David Masciotra in Salon.com