"the way forward is to be ethical"
March 19, 2025 10:50 AM Subscribe
Protean Magazine, "The End of Resistance History." Historian Charlotte E. Rosen considers the legacy and project of "resistance historians," primarily focused on Heather Cox Richardson but also Kevin Kruse and others. "But after the election of Biden in 2020, these historians found themselves in a new position. Having helped vanquish their enemy, many of these figures were welcomed into the Democratic Party and Biden administration fold."
She is interviewed by the Nation-affiliated "American Prestige" podcast on the topic here, as well.
As Naomi Murakawa writes of this tendency in her history of the bipartisan support for mass incarceration, “with eyes fixed on the incendiary sins of conservative law-and-order, liberal agendas become contrast background, glossed quickly and presumed virtuous.” Or, as W.E.B Du Bois put it in his criticism of a different libelous strand of Lost Cause historiography, presuming virtue is “fine romance, but it is not science. It may be inspiring, but it is certainly not the truth. And beyond this it is dangerous."
Richard’s dichotomization of Democrats and Republicans—a stance that only viable if one willfully excludes reams of easily accessible historical evidence—is intellectually dishonest at best. While there is certainly truth to her depictions of Republican depravity and of Democratic opposition to flagrant conservative bigotry and exploitation, she underplays the fact that the latter opposition was often nominal at best. Moreover, along innumerable other valences of injustice as well—perhaps especially in the realms of foreign policy and criminal justice—liberals have been wholly complicit in sanctioning the violent power and the exploitations of capital, a historical reality that self-serving partisan triumphalist accounts necessarily obfuscate.
Indeed, historians have long held that assessing the content and material effects of U.S. policymaking through a “red-blue binary,” as Lassiter writes in Shaped by the State, produces dangerous “historical distortions.” Chiefly, it masks more consequential bipartisan alignments, including the shared ideological preconceptions of racial capitalism—a pernicious “common sense”—that consigns millions to various forms of premature death by social murder.
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The stakes here are not merely a matter of scholarly rigor or a snobbish dismissal of historians who do “presentist” historical work, as the former president of the American Historical Association James Sweet recently contended in a clumsily argued and controversial blog post. The issue is that Richardson and those like her have built a platform that, under the guise of offering accessible, objective and supposedly evidence-based public historical guidance, miseducates masses of people about the content and function of American politics—people who, if provided with a truer sense of the bipartisan rot at the core of the American project, might be moved to envision more expansive visions of liberation. Despite professing anti-fascist alignment with progressive movements, Richardson’s project ultimately complements and legitimizes a longstanding, frequently metamorphizing “fascism without fascists” that exists right here at home."
She is interviewed by the Nation-affiliated "American Prestige" podcast on the topic here, as well.
As Naomi Murakawa writes of this tendency in her history of the bipartisan support for mass incarceration, “with eyes fixed on the incendiary sins of conservative law-and-order, liberal agendas become contrast background, glossed quickly and presumed virtuous.” Or, as W.E.B Du Bois put it in his criticism of a different libelous strand of Lost Cause historiography, presuming virtue is “fine romance, but it is not science. It may be inspiring, but it is certainly not the truth. And beyond this it is dangerous."
Richard’s dichotomization of Democrats and Republicans—a stance that only viable if one willfully excludes reams of easily accessible historical evidence—is intellectually dishonest at best. While there is certainly truth to her depictions of Republican depravity and of Democratic opposition to flagrant conservative bigotry and exploitation, she underplays the fact that the latter opposition was often nominal at best. Moreover, along innumerable other valences of injustice as well—perhaps especially in the realms of foreign policy and criminal justice—liberals have been wholly complicit in sanctioning the violent power and the exploitations of capital, a historical reality that self-serving partisan triumphalist accounts necessarily obfuscate.
Indeed, historians have long held that assessing the content and material effects of U.S. policymaking through a “red-blue binary,” as Lassiter writes in Shaped by the State, produces dangerous “historical distortions.” Chiefly, it masks more consequential bipartisan alignments, including the shared ideological preconceptions of racial capitalism—a pernicious “common sense”—that consigns millions to various forms of premature death by social murder.
************
The stakes here are not merely a matter of scholarly rigor or a snobbish dismissal of historians who do “presentist” historical work, as the former president of the American Historical Association James Sweet recently contended in a clumsily argued and controversial blog post. The issue is that Richardson and those like her have built a platform that, under the guise of offering accessible, objective and supposedly evidence-based public historical guidance, miseducates masses of people about the content and function of American politics—people who, if provided with a truer sense of the bipartisan rot at the core of the American project, might be moved to envision more expansive visions of liberation. Despite professing anti-fascist alignment with progressive movements, Richardson’s project ultimately complements and legitimizes a longstanding, frequently metamorphizing “fascism without fascists” that exists right here at home."
I get a Sunday newsletter from the DNC Treasurer highlighting things that Democrats have accomplished in the last week.
The last newsletter had a call to be informed, and a recommendation for three sub stacks to follow: Heather Cox Richardson, Richard Reich and Paul Krugman. As it happened, I was already following all three
...
Now, I'm perfectly aware that HRC is part of the democratic party's messaging. For my money, she eludes much less than Paul Krugman does - he is always thinking about accessibility and influrnce and talking about how both Dems and Republicans are complicit in the US imperial project would undermine that goal.
However. I look at the date this article was published. January 20, 2025! Listen. The two political parties in the US are not the same. One of them is engaging in a daily project to dismantle the government. Heather Cox Richardson is providing and important public service by writing about the overreach of the Trump administration every day, often late in the day, like 3 or 4am.
If there was less to write about, I'm sure she'd be happy to go back to writing about the history of the voting rights act, or other non topical things, and less on what the Trump administration is doing that's illegal and alarming.
I go through this daily with my dad... Today the FTC's Democratic commissioners were illegally fired so the commission is hamstrung, just like the NLRB is hamstrung, and this was done purposefully and maliciously, but did you know that Biden never appointed replacements for the NLRB board members who retired? Mahmoud Khalil who was a voice in the student protests for Palestine at Columbia University is being detained in Louisiana without being charged with anything, but did you know that Facebook having a content moderation team is the government putting limits on free speech? Pete Hegseth instructing cybercom to stop monitoring Russian cyber security threats, but did you know that Elizabeth Warren said she has partial Indian ancestry?
Dad, I say. Calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is a right wing meme. You aren't being a brave leftist when you do that you're repeating Republican talking points...
Anyway. I'll read the article. But right off the bat it reminds me of those conversations with dad.
And I get it, I really do. But at this particular moment in time it is more important to me to have some kind of United front against the anti-democratic takeover of our government than to pretend I have the enlightened and nonpartisan view from 3000 feet up.
posted by subdee at 12:00 PM on March 19 [13 favorites]
The last newsletter had a call to be informed, and a recommendation for three sub stacks to follow: Heather Cox Richardson, Richard Reich and Paul Krugman. As it happened, I was already following all three
...
Now, I'm perfectly aware that HRC is part of the democratic party's messaging. For my money, she eludes much less than Paul Krugman does - he is always thinking about accessibility and influrnce and talking about how both Dems and Republicans are complicit in the US imperial project would undermine that goal.
However. I look at the date this article was published. January 20, 2025! Listen. The two political parties in the US are not the same. One of them is engaging in a daily project to dismantle the government. Heather Cox Richardson is providing and important public service by writing about the overreach of the Trump administration every day, often late in the day, like 3 or 4am.
If there was less to write about, I'm sure she'd be happy to go back to writing about the history of the voting rights act, or other non topical things, and less on what the Trump administration is doing that's illegal and alarming.
I go through this daily with my dad... Today the FTC's Democratic commissioners were illegally fired so the commission is hamstrung, just like the NLRB is hamstrung, and this was done purposefully and maliciously, but did you know that Biden never appointed replacements for the NLRB board members who retired? Mahmoud Khalil who was a voice in the student protests for Palestine at Columbia University is being detained in Louisiana without being charged with anything, but did you know that Facebook having a content moderation team is the government putting limits on free speech? Pete Hegseth instructing cybercom to stop monitoring Russian cyber security threats, but did you know that Elizabeth Warren said she has partial Indian ancestry?
Dad, I say. Calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is a right wing meme. You aren't being a brave leftist when you do that you're repeating Republican talking points...
Anyway. I'll read the article. But right off the bat it reminds me of those conversations with dad.
And I get it, I really do. But at this particular moment in time it is more important to me to have some kind of United front against the anti-democratic takeover of our government than to pretend I have the enlightened and nonpartisan view from 3000 feet up.
posted by subdee at 12:00 PM on March 19 [13 favorites]
Anyway. I'll read the article. But right off the bat it reminds me of those conversations with dad.
I get that! I almost didn't post this but I felt like it was a good enough read to justify an FPP.
It's extremely difficult to criticize liberals and/or the Democratic Party without sounding like both sidesism or whataboutism. I posted this for two reasons: (1) to me it doesn't descend into whataboutism, and Rosen is diligent in acknowledging there are differences in the parties, (2) I really am troubled that the volume, frenzy, and sheer appetite of the right wing assault here has meant that people on the broad left spectrum (liberal-to-socialist, let's say) are not engaging in interesting and important conversations about the liberal coalition. (Where is the think piece considering how John McCain's narcissistic political style became the aesthetic of the swing state Dem House member? Where's the Adam Gopnik essay considering how Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk are all either partial creatures of or exiles from the liberal establishment, and what that means?)
I don't think these conversations and internal self-critiques are a luxury for a post-fascist future. I think they are central to recapturing a majority and holding onto a democracy.
posted by kensington314 at 12:11 PM on March 19 [14 favorites]
I get that! I almost didn't post this but I felt like it was a good enough read to justify an FPP.
It's extremely difficult to criticize liberals and/or the Democratic Party without sounding like both sidesism or whataboutism. I posted this for two reasons: (1) to me it doesn't descend into whataboutism, and Rosen is diligent in acknowledging there are differences in the parties, (2) I really am troubled that the volume, frenzy, and sheer appetite of the right wing assault here has meant that people on the broad left spectrum (liberal-to-socialist, let's say) are not engaging in interesting and important conversations about the liberal coalition. (Where is the think piece considering how John McCain's narcissistic political style became the aesthetic of the swing state Dem House member? Where's the Adam Gopnik essay considering how Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk are all either partial creatures of or exiles from the liberal establishment, and what that means?)
I don't think these conversations and internal self-critiques are a luxury for a post-fascist future. I think they are central to recapturing a majority and holding onto a democracy.
posted by kensington314 at 12:11 PM on March 19 [14 favorites]
Pete Hegseth instructing cybercom to stop monitoring Russian cyber security threats
Not trying to nitpick here, but since this whole shebang is about countering mis- or dis- information I just wanted to clarify that:
A) The Secretary of Defense does not oversee the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
B) The CISA disputes the Guardian report on a policy change and states they have not changed their monitoring of Russian cybersecurity threats. I mean who knows, but they do dispute it. And
C) Hegseth did reportedly earlier order a halt to the Defense Department's offensive cyber attacks against Russian state targets, which you may be mixing up with the above report.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:27 PM on March 19 [4 favorites]
Not trying to nitpick here, but since this whole shebang is about countering mis- or dis- information I just wanted to clarify that:
A) The Secretary of Defense does not oversee the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
B) The CISA disputes the Guardian report on a policy change and states they have not changed their monitoring of Russian cybersecurity threats. I mean who knows, but they do dispute it. And
C) Hegseth did reportedly earlier order a halt to the Defense Department's offensive cyber attacks against Russian state targets, which you may be mixing up with the above report.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:27 PM on March 19 [4 favorites]
> Also the two party system needs to dismantled and entirely replaced. I don't think the US of A has it in 'em, though.
On the contrary. It's well under way. However the result will be something you like even less.
posted by at by at 12:35 PM on March 19 [9 favorites]
On the contrary. It's well under way. However the result will be something you like even less.
posted by at by at 12:35 PM on March 19 [9 favorites]
We don't need to "abolish the two party system", we need to abolish the presidential system and the Senate.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:06 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 1:06 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
I appreciate this piece! For me personally it can be hard to find the line (when talking to well-meaning liberals) of supporting their movement leftward vs challenging the comforting falsehood that the current Democratic party is a strong vehicle for the future we need. This piece helpfully highlighted the fault lines present in that.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:21 PM on March 19 [6 favorites]
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:21 PM on March 19 [6 favorites]
I haven't read a lot of Heather Cox Richardson but people do talk to me about her pieces somewhat frequently. I guess my outsider view is that she is more on the beat of "let's be as good as our past" instead of moving ahead to "we need to be way, way better than our past".
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:24 PM on March 19 [4 favorites]
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:24 PM on March 19 [4 favorites]
Eh, lotta overstatement and needlessly derisive adjectives padding this piece. I'm down for a conversation about overarching effects negating smaller goods, and detailed critiques are often helpful, but Richardson has spent an enormous amount of time and effort illuminating history and offering valuable perspective in contexts otherwise sorely lacking. She gets things wrong (very) occasionally, and there could be more room for calling out hypocrisies, and to be sure we need more activists... but perhaps no one is perfect and activism just isn't HCR's lane? If Rosen has a bone to pick, it seems to be with institutionalism, and the sometimes-ineffectiveness of the Democratic Party in particular (with which I tend to agree).
Is complacency a problem? Yes. Can we fix it by tearing down allies through proxy fights? Probably not.
posted by angelplasma at 1:28 PM on March 19 [6 favorites]
Is complacency a problem? Yes. Can we fix it by tearing down allies through proxy fights? Probably not.
posted by angelplasma at 1:28 PM on March 19 [6 favorites]
what color do you get when you mix red and blue.
senators in this country need to represent the people in their state to their government rather then to the executive branches rubber stamp. The historical record during the Nixon Administration from 71 to 74 shows a steady decline in Republican representation in both the Senate and the House and Nixon packed the supreme Court.
"Even if times of crisis open up new opportunities for presidents to take decisive, meaningful action with fewer constraints, limits do remain. FDR, who often seemed to increase his powers with impunity, was occasionally checked by the judicial branch."
CJ Roberts issued a bland sauce reminder of the appellate process rather than impeachment. It strengthens his position as Chief justice, it strengthens the courts position is some form of judiciary body. express' opinion against the executive statement to overrule and impeach a judge who overruled executive decision that involved he military. 👉hmm, abuse of executive privledge if it came to the big court👈
posted by clavdivs at 1:53 PM on March 19
senators in this country need to represent the people in their state to their government rather then to the executive branches rubber stamp. The historical record during the Nixon Administration from 71 to 74 shows a steady decline in Republican representation in both the Senate and the House and Nixon packed the supreme Court.
"Even if times of crisis open up new opportunities for presidents to take decisive, meaningful action with fewer constraints, limits do remain. FDR, who often seemed to increase his powers with impunity, was occasionally checked by the judicial branch."
CJ Roberts issued a bland sauce reminder of the appellate process rather than impeachment. It strengthens his position as Chief justice, it strengthens the courts position is some form of judiciary body. express' opinion against the executive statement to overrule and impeach a judge who overruled executive decision that involved he military. 👉hmm, abuse of executive privledge if it came to the big court👈
posted by clavdivs at 1:53 PM on March 19
perhaps no one is perfect and activism is just isn't HCR's lane?
Is complacency a problem? Yes. Can we fix it by tearing down allies through proxy fights? Probably not.
per the link in rosen’s piece, richardson’s newsletter pulls in at least $5 million a year, so i don’t think asking questions about her work constitutes “tearing down an ally” or insisting she needs to be “perfect” or an activist. she’s made an armchair industry out of this. looking at what she’s selling and people are buying seems appropriate, especially if she is, like, interviewing presidents.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:54 PM on March 19 [13 favorites]
Is complacency a problem? Yes. Can we fix it by tearing down allies through proxy fights? Probably not.
per the link in rosen’s piece, richardson’s newsletter pulls in at least $5 million a year, so i don’t think asking questions about her work constitutes “tearing down an ally” or insisting she needs to be “perfect” or an activist. she’s made an armchair industry out of this. looking at what she’s selling and people are buying seems appropriate, especially if she is, like, interviewing presidents.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:54 PM on March 19 [13 favorites]
what color do you get when you mix red and blue.
senators in this country need to represent the people in their state to their government rather then to the executive branches rubber stamp. The historical record during the Nixon Administration from 71 to 74 shows a steady decline in Republican representation in both the Senate and the House and Nixon packed the supreme Court.
clavdivs, did you mean this for another thread somewhere on the blue?
posted by kensington314 at 2:11 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
senators in this country need to represent the people in their state to their government rather then to the executive branches rubber stamp. The historical record during the Nixon Administration from 71 to 74 shows a steady decline in Republican representation in both the Senate and the House and Nixon packed the supreme Court.
clavdivs, did you mean this for another thread somewhere on the blue?
posted by kensington314 at 2:11 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
looking at what she’s selling and people are buying seems appropriate
I agree! Which is why this incessantly hyperbolic hit piece seems more problematic than helpful.
posted by angelplasma at 2:59 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
I agree! Which is why this incessantly hyperbolic hit piece seems more problematic than helpful.
posted by angelplasma at 2:59 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is a right wing meme. You aren't being a brave leftist when you do that you're repeating Republican talking points...
This was a tough one for people who 1) defend democratic politicians even when they do wrong things and 2) like to say they’re allies to POC.
This is the kind of politics that many find distasteful: an ostensible commitment to doing the right thing, but at little cost.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:13 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
This was a tough one for people who 1) defend democratic politicians even when they do wrong things and 2) like to say they’re allies to POC.
This is the kind of politics that many find distasteful: an ostensible commitment to doing the right thing, but at little cost.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:13 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
Thanks for the correction, 10th Regiment of Foot. Reality is bad enough that we don't need extra conspiracy theories*, so I'm happy to hear that the verbal order from Hegseth might only apply to offensive operations against Russia.
*With the understanding that some conspiracy theories are true. But in this climate I'm conserving my anxiety for the terrible events that have proveably happened since there's enough of them already.
posted by subdee at 6:31 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
*With the understanding that some conspiracy theories are true. But in this climate I'm conserving my anxiety for the terrible events that have proveably happened since there's enough of them already.
posted by subdee at 6:31 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
Thanks for posting this - it's certainly more interesting than an earlier critique of Resistance historians published in Slate over the summer (also linked to the FFP article).
I do think it goes a bit too far in terms of how much blame it puts on people like HCR as abetting fascism - this is the part where Rosen loses me a bit: "miseducates masses of people about the content and function of American politics—people who, if provided with a truer sense of the bipartisan rot at the core of the American project, might be moved to envision more expansive visions of liberation. Despite professing anti-fascist alignment with progressive movements, Richardson’s project ultimately complements and legitimizes a longstanding, frequently metamorphizing “fascism without fascists” that exists right here at home."
I mean, there is nothing stopping people from reading HCR and also progressive or leftist commentary. I can imagine someone finding HCR's public writing as a gateway to better public history (or even academic work) - and I'm skeptical everyone who reads her will therefore adopt all of her views - my mom has read her, and is also outraged by the genocide in Gaza - often cultural critiques like this ascribe too much power in any one cultural product.
But I agree with the bulk of what is written here - and if others are reacting negatively to that last bit quoted in the FPP, there is still a lot of value laid out before that conclusion. I had no problem with these Resistance Historians during the first Trump term (even if I found them a little overly smug) - at worst, they perhaps contributed to the false notion that you can defeat Trump with "facts" - an idea that clearly also informed much of both the Biden and Harris campaign, and Democratic strategy in general. Which of course might work for highly educated people like themselves - but quite likely has contributed to the growing education-attainment divide in politics.
Like Rosen, my main beef with them is what they all did once they found themselves with power - I mean, very few academics will be invited to any White House. Did they pressure Biden to give more funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities? Have they done anything to address the jobs crisis in their own discipline? And more importantly, their absolute silence on Gaza is pretty stark - somehow barely saying a word about it strikes me as more intellectually dishonest than if they had put forward a in-depth argument in support of Biden's approach (I'm not counting HCR's softball interview with Blinken). Especially once the crackdown on student protest started happening on US campuses - still not a peep from the #Resistance crew of historians (besides from indirect snide remarks). As Rosen rightly puts it, they became "unofficial court historians for Biden and the Democratic Party."
I think this part of the article (which is right before the part quoted in the FPP) is important:
posted by coffeecat at 8:35 AM on March 20 [6 favorites]
I do think it goes a bit too far in terms of how much blame it puts on people like HCR as abetting fascism - this is the part where Rosen loses me a bit: "miseducates masses of people about the content and function of American politics—people who, if provided with a truer sense of the bipartisan rot at the core of the American project, might be moved to envision more expansive visions of liberation. Despite professing anti-fascist alignment with progressive movements, Richardson’s project ultimately complements and legitimizes a longstanding, frequently metamorphizing “fascism without fascists” that exists right here at home."
I mean, there is nothing stopping people from reading HCR and also progressive or leftist commentary. I can imagine someone finding HCR's public writing as a gateway to better public history (or even academic work) - and I'm skeptical everyone who reads her will therefore adopt all of her views - my mom has read her, and is also outraged by the genocide in Gaza - often cultural critiques like this ascribe too much power in any one cultural product.
But I agree with the bulk of what is written here - and if others are reacting negatively to that last bit quoted in the FPP, there is still a lot of value laid out before that conclusion. I had no problem with these Resistance Historians during the first Trump term (even if I found them a little overly smug) - at worst, they perhaps contributed to the false notion that you can defeat Trump with "facts" - an idea that clearly also informed much of both the Biden and Harris campaign, and Democratic strategy in general. Which of course might work for highly educated people like themselves - but quite likely has contributed to the growing education-attainment divide in politics.
Like Rosen, my main beef with them is what they all did once they found themselves with power - I mean, very few academics will be invited to any White House. Did they pressure Biden to give more funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities? Have they done anything to address the jobs crisis in their own discipline? And more importantly, their absolute silence on Gaza is pretty stark - somehow barely saying a word about it strikes me as more intellectually dishonest than if they had put forward a in-depth argument in support of Biden's approach (I'm not counting HCR's softball interview with Blinken). Especially once the crackdown on student protest started happening on US campuses - still not a peep from the #Resistance crew of historians (besides from indirect snide remarks). As Rosen rightly puts it, they became "unofficial court historians for Biden and the Democratic Party."
I think this part of the article (which is right before the part quoted in the FPP) is important:
From there [Brown v. Board/ Right-wing resistance to desegregation], Richardson suggests, we can trace a direct line to the reactionary politics of Donald Trump, where Republicans continued to appeal to various constituencies’ “racist and traditionalist dislike of equal rights” to win the votes they needed to implement conservative, business-friendly economic policies.At the risk of opening a can of worms, to me this thinking somewhat explains why HCR doubled-down so hard into "Biden can't drop out." If you really view politics as a sort of competition of good vs. evil, then you just need to explain to voters who is evil and who is good, and they'll go with good. And former-Democratic voters won't switch over to an evil candidate. This was where I really became downright angry with HCR and other Resistance Historians, when in this moment where there was much uncertainty, along with a lot of data suggesting Biden's chances were extremely weak, they claimed being a historian gave them clairvoyance and the ability to say, without a doubt, that Biden shouldn't step down. Like many others with history PhDs, I found that claim to be absolute bullshit, and in general a smear on the profession. The work of history is careful analysis of how politics/culture/economy/etc. have worked in the past, which can perhaps give insights into our present moment, but it is never predictive. Because one thing you really appreciate in studying history is how contingent everything is - at any given moment in time there are many different potential futures.
There is some truth to the narrative—but it’s ultimately partial, as this account of desegregation willfully omits the significant bipartisan support for segregation. As historian Matthew Lassiter notes in his history of the postwar south, The Silent Majority, many white suburban liberals and moderates, including those who considered themselves supporters of civil rights, blocked meaningful school desegregation. Similarly, Lily Geismer writes in her history of late 20th-century suburban liberalism, Don’t Blame Us, many of these liberal constituents only endorsed piecemeal programs that demanded no financial or personal sacrifice from white families. And as historian Brett Gadsden has argued, in the 1970s, none other than freshman senator Joe Biden vigorously fought against desegregating Delaware’s public school system.
posted by coffeecat at 8:35 AM on March 20 [6 favorites]
You know, I've spent my whole life believing people need to be open to the 'other side', there always will be the 'other side' so might as well treat them respectfully, you will be treated back respectfully (except for a few die hard retrogrades) and you might learn a thing or two.
But honestly, that was SO wrong, in the moment and now. I'll treat my disgusted by Trump conservative friends (all two of them) with respect they deserve. But when Bill Kristol (!!!!) fights harder and is braver than the entire national democratic establishment (who's entire ethos is based on the first paragraph) then there is something very very wrong with that approach and it DOES NOT meet this terrifying moment.
I dont beleive Rosen quite understand, well, history. This is the moment where the new-nazis are taking over the country. I dont care how much money HCR makes. I dont think that he cares about, well, whatever it is that he cares about.
ALL I care about is if youre fighting the neo-Nazi Regime. If you're harming, nit picking or slagging the people who are, you are worse than useless.
A couple months ago, people crapped on people like HCR, Kruse at al who were sounding the alarm based on, well, history. Well we are about 3 months from deportation trains to the Texas Camps. the Regime is black bagging green card holders as a trial run and just sent hundreds of legal residents to a slave gulag.
Dont really care what Rosen has to say at this point.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:00 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
But honestly, that was SO wrong, in the moment and now. I'll treat my disgusted by Trump conservative friends (all two of them) with respect they deserve. But when Bill Kristol (!!!!) fights harder and is braver than the entire national democratic establishment (who's entire ethos is based on the first paragraph) then there is something very very wrong with that approach and it DOES NOT meet this terrifying moment.
I dont beleive Rosen quite understand, well, history. This is the moment where the new-nazis are taking over the country. I dont care how much money HCR makes. I dont think that he cares about, well, whatever it is that he cares about.
ALL I care about is if youre fighting the neo-Nazi Regime. If you're harming, nit picking or slagging the people who are, you are worse than useless.
A couple months ago, people crapped on people like HCR, Kruse at al who were sounding the alarm based on, well, history. Well we are about 3 months from deportation trains to the Texas Camps. the Regime is black bagging green card holders as a trial run and just sent hundreds of legal residents to a slave gulag.
Dont really care what Rosen has to say at this point.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:00 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
Rosen uses she/her pronouns and is an academic historian.
"anyone who opposes Trump in whatever form is beyond any criticism" is a VERY bad position to take.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:29 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
"anyone who opposes Trump in whatever form is beyond any criticism" is a VERY bad position to take.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:29 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry for mis-gendering Rosen. I do not say historians like HRC and Kruse are beyond criticism. I said I'll take HRC and Kruse every day over the words of Rosen, cause they are actually fighting back. Not pontificating and nitpicking on why other historians are 'doing it wrong'. Thats some Schumer-esque "we need a strong republican party" garbage right there.
Further, the bad people are winning. We are losing and losing badly. When ICE is 2,000,000 stormtroopers empowered to do anything to anyone they despise or who say some form of "Trump bad", these 'be more ethical' words will mean absolutely nothing. IMO If you do NOT make common cause with people who fight fascism, you have no chance of winning (not you specifically MP). You're (again not you specifically MP) helping the bad guys.
Sorry to be so blunt, I try to be more nuanced in thinking (probably unsuccessfully) but take a look at what's going on, compare it to how other totalitarian regimes got started, it is not the time for ethical approaches to proper norms for discussions of the day.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:41 AM on March 20 [3 favorites]
Further, the bad people are winning. We are losing and losing badly. When ICE is 2,000,000 stormtroopers empowered to do anything to anyone they despise or who say some form of "Trump bad", these 'be more ethical' words will mean absolutely nothing. IMO If you do NOT make common cause with people who fight fascism, you have no chance of winning (not you specifically MP). You're (again not you specifically MP) helping the bad guys.
Sorry to be so blunt, I try to be more nuanced in thinking (probably unsuccessfully) but take a look at what's going on, compare it to how other totalitarian regimes got started, it is not the time for ethical approaches to proper norms for discussions of the day.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:41 AM on March 20 [3 favorites]
I said I'll take HRC and Kruse every day over the words of Rosen, cause they are actually fighting back
Are they?
FWIW, 'doing it wrong' means cozying up to the Biden administration while the administration was abetting a genocide, and withholding any criticism of said administration for abetting a genocide because if they did, they would lose access.
That's nitpicking? that's 'helping the bad guys'?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:45 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
Are they?
FWIW, 'doing it wrong' means cozying up to the Biden administration while the administration was abetting a genocide, and withholding any criticism of said administration for abetting a genocide because if they did, they would lose access.
That's nitpicking? that's 'helping the bad guys'?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:45 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
I said I'll take HRC and Kruse every day over the words of Rosen, cause they are actually fighting back.
Rosen is fighting back though? She writes for various outlets, and she works for Public Books, which puts out interesting information, etc. Her academic research in on the history of the carceral state in the US. She's publicly spoken out against the genocide as an early career scholar without an academic job - i.e. she's taken an actual risk. Calling her "Schumer-esque 'we need a strong republican party' garbage" is completely untethered from anything she's done or written.
A core question right now is - how do we ensure that the GOP does poorly in the midterm elections? There is not consensus here, and some centrists are arguing the Dems just need to be more centrist, or just need to "get the facts" out there. Some (me) would argue that's a great way to risk getting more fascism. Having debates over messaging, tactics, etc. is vital in this moment, and constructive towards the outcome I imagine you also want.
posted by coffeecat at 9:58 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
Rosen is fighting back though? She writes for various outlets, and she works for Public Books, which puts out interesting information, etc. Her academic research in on the history of the carceral state in the US. She's publicly spoken out against the genocide as an early career scholar without an academic job - i.e. she's taken an actual risk. Calling her "Schumer-esque 'we need a strong republican party' garbage" is completely untethered from anything she's done or written.
A core question right now is - how do we ensure that the GOP does poorly in the midterm elections? There is not consensus here, and some centrists are arguing the Dems just need to be more centrist, or just need to "get the facts" out there. Some (me) would argue that's a great way to risk getting more fascism. Having debates over messaging, tactics, etc. is vital in this moment, and constructive towards the outcome I imagine you also want.
posted by coffeecat at 9:58 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
In Democracy Awakening, [Richardson] writes, “because the white men who drafted the Declaration saw it primarily as an assertion of their own right to be equal to other white men in England, they did not immediately take on the larger implications of their principled stand.”16 Here and elsewhere, Richardson argues that anti-Blackness, white settler expansionism, and the illiberal belief in the subhumanity of nonwhite people is incidental to the nation’s history, or is externalizable only to contemptible figures and political parties within it. Such a claim borders on historical malpractice.
Is it nitpicking to criticize bad racist history?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:01 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
Is it nitpicking to criticize bad racist history?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:01 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
Fine youre right. Lets focus exclusively on the atrocious Biden and his genocidaires (Blinken obv, but all the rest too). Let me be clear, Biden will burn in (non-existent) hell for what he has done to the innocent Gazans, West Bank Palestinians, and those in Syria and Lebanon.
So you win. I'll never read HRC and Kruse again until, I guess, they come out strongly against Biden. Let me know when its time to focus on the coming totalitarian regime, cause after Trump comes the real guy, the American Stalin.
I give up. You win. I'm tired. I'm out.
posted by WatTylerJr at 1:41 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
So you win. I'll never read HRC and Kruse again until, I guess, they come out strongly against Biden. Let me know when its time to focus on the coming totalitarian regime, cause after Trump comes the real guy, the American Stalin.
I give up. You win. I'm tired. I'm out.
posted by WatTylerJr at 1:41 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
So you win. I'll never read HRC and Kruse again until, I guess, they come out strongly against Biden. Let me know when its time to focus on the coming totalitarian regime, cause after Trump comes the real guy, the American Stalin.
This is a kinda goofy bit of invective though. The article doesn't say not to oppose Trump and no one in this thread is saying not to oppose Trump. We can think about multiple things. DJT and Elon Musk are rapidly tearing apart our governmental and non-governmental institutions--I think that alongside opposing that effort, we can spend some time thinking about the world we want to start rebuilding when Dems regain some power hopefully, because the world they're tearing down was also not great. We can be engaged in both projects and we have to be, because they are linked.
Seriously this is like ten minutes of reading and some idle internet chatter on a message board. Are we not allowed fifteen to twenty minutes once in awhile of non-Trump-focused-brain-time for the next four years?
posted by kensington314 at 2:03 PM on March 20 [4 favorites]
This is a kinda goofy bit of invective though. The article doesn't say not to oppose Trump and no one in this thread is saying not to oppose Trump. We can think about multiple things. DJT and Elon Musk are rapidly tearing apart our governmental and non-governmental institutions--I think that alongside opposing that effort, we can spend some time thinking about the world we want to start rebuilding when Dems regain some power hopefully, because the world they're tearing down was also not great. We can be engaged in both projects and we have to be, because they are linked.
Seriously this is like ten minutes of reading and some idle internet chatter on a message board. Are we not allowed fifteen to twenty minutes once in awhile of non-Trump-focused-brain-time for the next four years?
posted by kensington314 at 2:03 PM on March 20 [4 favorites]
I’m not telling you who to read, I’m telling you what you’re reading.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:21 PM on March 20 [2 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:21 PM on March 20 [2 favorites]
History become pure, sovereign science would be for mankind a sort of conclusion of life and a settling of accounts with it. The study of history is something salutary and fruitful for the future only as the attendant of a mighty new current of life, of an evolving culture for example, that is to say only when it is dominated and directed by a higher force and does not itself dominate and direct.Mark Fisher interpets Nietzsche's message here in Capitalist Realism:
Insofar as it stands in the service of life, history stands in the service of an unhistorical power, and, thus subordinate, it can and should never become a pure science such as, for instance, mathematics is. The question of the degree to which life requires the service of history at all, however, is one of the supreme questions and concerns in regard to the health of a man, a people or a culutre. For when it attains a certain degree of excess, life crumbles and degenerates, and through this degeneration history itself finally degenerates too. Nietzsche - On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life
"Some of Nietzsche’s most prescient pages are those in which he describes the ‘oversaturation of an age with history’. ‘It leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, ‘and subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism’, in which ‘cosmopolitan fingering’, a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche’s Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness."Does HCR's history stand in the service of life? Is her religious faith in the power of elections attendant of a mighty new current of life, of an evolving culture? Or is it cosmopolitan fingering (or finger-wagging)? As Reich puts it in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, our task is more complex than simply compiling a litany of liberal norms broken or lies told:
That political reaction in the form of fascism had 'befogged, 'corrupted,' and 'hypnotized' the masses is an explanation that is as sterile as the others. This is and will continue to be the function of fascism as long as it exists. Such explanations are sterile because they fail to offer a way out[...]posted by Richard Saunders at 2:44 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
To be sure, the economic interests of Geman imperialism were the immediate decisive factors, but we also have to put into proper perspective the mass psychological basis of world wars; we have to ask how the psychological structure of hte masses was capable of absorbing the imperialistic ideology, to translate the imperialistic slogans into deeds that were diametrically opposed to the peaceful, politically disinterested attitude of the German population.
mean this for another thread somewhere on the blue?
posted by kensington314 at 5:11 PM
ironically, the comment could fit into the gaming thread or this one as a response to
"We don't need to "abolish the two party system", we need to abolish the presidential system and the Senate."
posted by BungaDunga
just disagreeing why we don't need to abolish the senatorial system in a historical example of how it works which led to the impeachment of a president.
which reminds me of the conundrum, argumentatively wise, concerning the Democratic party under LBJ and a quick slide into Nixon. Teachers I studied under didn't support either but saw the lesser evil in Johnson domestically but thoroughly embroiled into a war he could not win.
Nixon supposedly stopped the war but started a domestic intelligence program
Is this not historically similar to what the article is conveying about a support for Biden even though the Palestinian people were getting pummeled by our weapons in the support of historically dismantling the twitterhistoraverse of the Trump shade historical worldviewpoint.
posted by clavdivs at 3:06 PM on March 20
posted by kensington314 at 5:11 PM
ironically, the comment could fit into the gaming thread or this one as a response to
"We don't need to "abolish the two party system", we need to abolish the presidential system and the Senate."
posted by BungaDunga
just disagreeing why we don't need to abolish the senatorial system in a historical example of how it works which led to the impeachment of a president.
which reminds me of the conundrum, argumentatively wise, concerning the Democratic party under LBJ and a quick slide into Nixon. Teachers I studied under didn't support either but saw the lesser evil in Johnson domestically but thoroughly embroiled into a war he could not win.
Nixon supposedly stopped the war but started a domestic intelligence program
Is this not historically similar to what the article is conveying about a support for Biden even though the Palestinian people were getting pummeled by our weapons in the support of historically dismantling the twitterhistoraverse of the Trump shade historical worldviewpoint.
posted by clavdivs at 3:06 PM on March 20
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I was just reflecting that it seems a lot of liberals/progressives have generally left values but are generally more influenced by institutionalism, and this article tracks with that. In these turbulent times, though, it is not possible to meet the moment if you can't grasp the problems at their roots.
Also the two party system needs to dismantled and entirely replaced. I don't think the US of A has it in 'em, though.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:40 AM on March 19 [7 favorites]