The Book<\/h4>\n
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America<\/p>\n
The Author(s)<\/h4>\n
Heather Cox Richardson<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Heather Cox Richardson\u2019s Democracy Awakens <\/em>is not a conventional academic history, nor does it neatly fall within what we normally think of as popular history.\u00a0 Richardson builds upon \u201cLetters from an American,\u201d her popular Substack newsletter, in which she offers a combination of news and historical context.\u00a0 She has stated the inspiration for the book is her newsletter audience<\/a>, who most days receive a combination of news summary, analysis, and historical comparisons.<\/p>\n Richardson is a Harvard educated professor of history at Boston College and the author of several academic books, although she is better known for \u201cLetters from an American.\u201d She started the newsletter on Facebook to provide context for President Trump\u2019s 2019 impeachment. Since then, Richardson\u2019s social media empire has grown.\u00a0 Today, her newsletter is one of the most successful on Substack. She has also hosted or co-hosted several podcasts and appears regularly on various social media platforms.\u00a0 In short, more than a few people turn to Heather Cox Richardson for historically informed news.<\/p>\n The book is divided into three parts.\u00a0 Part 1, \u201cUndermining Democracy,\u201d is a history of American politics focusing on the conservative movement emphasizing its opposition to the New Deal and the \u201cliberal consensus\u201d that the New Deal created.\u00a0 The opponents of the New Deal, and the idea that the government should serve ordinary people, dubbed themselves conservatives. Richardson disputes this writing that \u201cThis was not an accurate description of conservatism: it was a political position.\u201d? \u00a0Thus, she establishes one of the major themes of the book, a contest between the liberal consensus, and progressive politics, that had its roots in the Declaration of Independence and conservative oligarchs who favored the property clause in the Constitution and fought to preserve power for elites.\u00a0 This coalition has a history tracing from the slave south and the Confederacy through Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.\u00a0 mudsills<\/a>\u201d<\/a> speech justifying slavery as an example of this strain of American politics.James Henry Hammond\u2019s \u201c<\/a>mudsills<\/a>\u201d<\/a> speech justifying slavery as an example of this strain of American politics.<\/p>\n Richardson emphasizes the role of popular culture in indoctrinating Americans into conservative ideals as movies lionized lone men acting as a savior and projector. In particular, she points to the genre of westerns, which were widely popular during the Cold War. She notes the connection between The Little House on the Prairie<\/em>, books and later TV show, as examples of promoting libertarian ideology.\u00a0 Essentially, Richardson flips the traditional conservative complaint about Hollywood liberalism.<\/p>\n Part 2, \u201cThe Authoritarian Experiment,\u201d is a history of Donald Trump\u2019s first term as President.\u00a0 She continues her discussion of popular culture by introducing Trump through his reality TV show The Apprentice<\/em>.\u00a0 Richardson positions the Trump administration as the culmination of conservative efforts against the liberal order and as a threat to American democracy.\u00a0 She writes: \u201cEstablishment Republicans who wanted an end to government regulation of business and taxes had courted racists, sexists, and religious zealots to stay in power but had no plans actually to give in to extremist demands, which would turn off mainstream voters. Trump stripped the cover off this sleight of hand, offering to give the extremist base a hierarchical world in which they dominated women as well as their Black and Brown neighbors.\u201d According to her, \u201cTrump married Republican politics to authoritarianism.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Part 3, \u201cReclaiming America,\u201d she looks at American identity issuing a call to action.\u00a0 The Declaration of Independence was a radically democratic document written by flawed men in their views on race, sex, and slavery. She writes, \u201cEquality, then, depended on inequality. So was the whole concept of American democracy a sham from the start?\u201d \u00a0Her answer is no. The debate can be summed up in the differences between the The 1619 Project and The 1776 Report<\/em>. The Trump Administration issued the report to counter the claim that slavery stood at the center of the American experience.\u00a0 She writes, \u201cThe 1776 Report<\/em> demonstrated in real time how leaders seeking to undermine democracy have tied American history to their cause. The historical inequality embedded in our founding\u2014that \u201call men are created equal\u201d\u2014depends on the subordination of minorities and women. Whenever members of marginalized groups seem to approach[2]<\/a> can drum up supporters by insisting that they are attacking national principles and reducing white men to subservience. Those leaders reject the idea of equality, but, paradoxically, they root that rejection in our founding.\u201d?\u00a0 Richardson does not leave readers on that note.<\/p>\n Richardson then gives readers a tour of American political history focusing on the expansion of democracy. Similar to Part I, she traces the history of liberal or progressive movements that championed the average person.\u00a0 The 1980s proved a turning point.\u00a0 She writes, \u201cSince the 1980s, political figures eager to get rid of that liberal consensus have gained power by denigrating it. Ignoring the fact that expanding equality was entirely consistent with the principles the Founders had put in the Declaration of Independence, they have suggested that doing so rejected America\u2019s historical ideals. And although the liberal consensus bolstered economic prosperity and shared it more widely than ever before, they claimed it stunted economic growth.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0Much like Part 1 traced the conservative movement culminating in Trump\u2019s authoritarian experiment, Richardson sees the progressive movement running through Lincoln culminating in the presidency of Joe Biden. As she writes, in a tone that approaches hagiography, \u201cBiden\u2019s domestic program expanded liberalism to meet the civil rights demands Carter had identified, just as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ had each expanded liberalism to meet the challenges of westward expansion, industrialization, globalization, and anti-colonialism.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n The cliche\u2019 that journalism is the first draft of history applies to Heather Cox Richardson\u2019s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America<\/em>, but also demonstrates the nuance that a seemingly simple truism papers over.\u00a0 Richardson stands at several interesting intersections. Richardson\u2019s blend of journalism and history represents trends that have been ongoing.<\/p>\n Academic historians might find Richardson\u2019s Democracy Awakening<\/em> frustrating; however academic historians are not the intended audience. Building on her newsletter, Richard\u2019s book is aimed at Americans interested in historical context for today\u2019s never-ending political upheavals. Richardson blends the roles of public intellectual, historical scholar, and journalist.\u00a0 She is openly progressive although not necessarily partisan (depending on how you approach her writing on Biden, whom ?she is clearly a fan of) in that she praises both Republicans and Democrats who have championed the common person. She does not pull punches in arguing that Trump is an authoritarian.<\/p>\n Her tendency to fall into binaries brings a great deal of clarity to the book, but also papers over nuances that might have been worth exploring. While she is correct regarding the power of popular culture, her treatment sometimes lacks nuance. For example, although westerns certainly did emphasize a Cold War theme of the rugged individualist, the hero sometimes defended the community but sometimes stood in defiance of oppression and conformity.\u00a0 We should remember that Cold Warriors like Eugene McCarthy and Richard Nixon considered Hollywood a bastion of communism and its products leftist propaganda. Similarly, while it is hard to argue that Reagan and his followers did not want to roll back the New Deal and that Republicans used the \u201csouthern strategy\u201d to flip the once solidly Democratic south, going from that to fascism can be a leap.<\/p>\n Several years ago, I attended several sessions on the state of academic history at the annual conference of the American Historical Association (AHA).\u00a0 Participants lamented the lack of influence historians have in the public sphere and discussed public facing work as a way to revitalize the field.\u00a0 Liz Covart, of the Ben Franklin\u2019s World<\/a> podcast, wrote about attending sessions at the 2020 AHA conference<\/a> on historians using \u201cdifferent technologies to convey history\u201d where she \u201cnoticed a recurring theme:\u00a0 Historians who work beyond the professoriate are better placed to know the publics they want to write for and reach with their work.\u201d\u00a0 In 2023, the AHA hosted a webinar on \u201cOp-Ed Writing for Historians:\u00a0 How to Pitch, Write, Revise, and Get Your Ideas to the Public<\/a>.\u201d The current web page for the Organization of American Historians<\/a> states that the \u201cOAH seeks to be a public-facing, dynamic scholarly society.\u201d The turbulence of the past decade has helped create a market for historians as explainers and the maturation of platforms like podcasts, newsletters, and social media has reduced the friction. A common complaint about internet culture is the demise of gatekeepers. Here we see Richardson taking advantage of this culture.\u00a0 In this sense, history is having a moment.<\/p>\n Reading Democracy Awakens<\/em>, and her newsletter, reminds one of the types of discussion that might come about in a history seminar where curious students ask about the background of something in the news (say tariffs for example).\u00a0 These discussions are not always the best history, but they can be excellent teaching<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Richardson, 93.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Richardson, 173-74.<\/p>\n