Phrases such as “required reading” can be overused, but Heather Cox Richardson’s newest book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America should be required reading for every American who wants to participate in our republic. It is an uncomfortable read as Richardson pulls no punches in detailing a troubling history of American politics, but it is a history we can no longer ignore.
If you are like me, you came to know HCR – as she is called by her followers – through her Facebook posts. She began writing “Letters from an American” essays on social media and a website to help connect what was happening during the final two years of the Trump administration to historical moments. She has repeatedly said she views her daily essays as “a chronicle of America for the graduate student in 150 years.”[1]
Democracy Awakening goes beyond the daily headlines to weave a narrative of the consistent struggle our democracy has faced – and faces – from those who wanted – and want today – to move us toward authoritarianism. As she notes in the Foreword: “This is a book about how a small group of people have tried to make us believe that our fundamental principles aren’t true.”[2]
The book chronicles most of the 20th century but dips back to America’s founding to chronicle the development of today’s political parties, their shifting supporters, and their advocacy for and antagonism toward the “liberal consensus,” a foundational ideology Americans claimed from the 1930s through the 1970s that saw government as a key player in business regulation, infrastructure, civil rights, and a basic social safety net.
Divided into three parts, the book starts with “Undermining America.” It explores the role of race, class and global events in shaping how Americans viewed their government and elected parties to lead it. Aspects of this history are well known to anyone who took a general education American history course, such as Nixon’s “Southern strategy” and the so-called “Reagan revolution,” but other historical moments may be new. Were you taught about the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden to honor George Washington? Did your history professor connect the rise of the mythological cowboy to southern Democrats and their rage against “socialism” that would give African Americans equal rights? On a related note, did an English literature professor ever share that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter edited her Little House on the Prairie series to be what HCR calls “an anti-New Deal screed”[3]?
After summarizing how we got to the 2016 election, the second part of the book delves into the four years of the Trump administration. America may have flirted with authoritarianism in the past, but it came quite close to adopting it during the Trump years. Richardson described rereading this part of the book in an interview with a Boston arts magazine: “That is probably what I found most shocking…. I found it just absolutely chilling. We were so freaking close [to losing our democracy]. I thought, dear God, this middle section is so frightening. How many people will make it to the third one, which is a lightning fast trip through American history. That’s the fun one! Maybe I scared people so much that they won’t even get there!”[4]
The second section is, indeed, scary, even though we lived through it. Richardson pulls us back into the anxiety, angst, despair and fear of the rise of Christian nationalism, the use of gaslighting opponents, the prioritization of dictators over traditional allies, the trampling of the rule of law, the lives lost, and the ramifications of “The Big Lie.” Richardson dedicates a full chapter to “The Big Lie,” starting with its Nazi origins and reminding readers that it “permitted the final destruction of the liberal consensus, focusing first on the right to vote itself.”[5] She ends the chapter and part two of the book with this chilling assessment:
“Regardless of who was in the White House, and with the help of the language of authoritarianism and the use of mythological history, the MAGA Republicans appeared to be on track to accomplish what the Confederates could not: the rejection of the Declaration of Independence and its replacement with the hierarchical vision of the Confederates.”[6]If the book ended there, the title would be nonsensical. Hence, part three is focused on “Reclaiming America.” In it, Richardson returns to America’s founding and the principles that drove its unlikely history. She reminds us of the moments where Americans made explicit choices to expand democracy, to learn from its past and try to move one more step toward “freedom and justice for all.” Like Rachel Maddow in Prequel, Richardson introduces us to a handful of the everyday citizens whose names may not roll off tongues but who helped us get closer to that “more perfect union.”
Democracy Awakening concludes by stressing that the work is never done, and we cannot afford to become complacent. Each time we think we are “on track to be the multicultural democracy the Declaration of Independence had hinted [America] could become,”[7] opponents of that vision double down on pulling the country toward their cause. The bedrock principles of our founding documents will continue to be under attack. We only have to look at the 2024 election cycle, but “we the people” can choose to protect them. As Richardson says, “[T]he hopes of our Founders have never been proven fully right. And, yet, they have not been proven entirely wrong. Once again, we are at a time of testing. How it comes out rests, as it always has, in our own hands.”[8]
That’s the story of America: It has a messy, chaotic history that has never truly lived up to its ideals, but its citizens seem determined to keep trying. Democracy Awakening is, quite simply, “the story of how democracy has persisted throughout our history despite the many attempts to undermine it,”[9] and that is a story we all should read.
References
-
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/sites/bc-magazine/fall-2022-issue/features/history-s-first-draft.html ↑
-
Pg. xvii ↑
-
Pg. 51 ↑
-
https://artsfuse.org/280346/author-interview-heather-cox-richardson-on-democracy-awakening/ ↑
-
Pg. 157 ↑
-
Pg. 160 ↑
-
Pg. 243 ↑
-
Pg. 253 ↑
-
Pg. xvii ↑
Reviewer
Dr. Keisha L. Hoerrner spent 27 years in higher education as a faculty member and academic administrator. She was on the faculty at Louisiana State University after completing her doctorate in mass communication at the University of Georgia. She spent 16 years at Kennesaw State University (Ga.) where she served as a department chair, associate dean and Dean of University College. She was also an AASCU Global Challenges Scholar during her time at KSU. Her final appointment was as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Hoerrner’s research interests included broadcast media regulation, media effects, interdisciplinary studies and first-year students.