Thread by @samuelmoyn

1/ Today my review of Eric Posner's interesting "The Demagogue's Playbook" posts - check it out and retweet! thenation.com/article/cultur…

2/ On one level, the review "interrogates" Posner's version of American history - his first attempt at writing history I believe - though I leave the details to the professionals.

3/ It's a revival of Richard Hofstadter, but without the complexity-an elitist history of the crackpot masses. But, I claim, it is refreshing that it is entirely open about its priors and may reflect the broader incidence of antidemocratic belief.

4/ But much more is at stake than the past, for "all history is contemporary history," i.e., a political act. And my main interest in the piece is understanding one intellectual trajectory Donald Trump has induced.

5/ (In passing: should I write a general history of the Resistance? Regardless, the intellectual history of the Trump era is fascinating. Can't wait for @CarlosLozadaWP's version.) simonandschuster.com/books/What-Wer…

6/ The central questions I pose are: Why Eric Posner's apparent flipflop under Trump, as a revealing moment of the slow breakup for the "four horsemen of the apocalypse" of the 1990s-2000s? And, equally interesting, why the centrist flipflop to embrace him?

7/ These questions require long answers, but the partial one I give is that, for Posner, his trajectory is more continuous than not: "Even once you realize demagogy is a risk, you do not act to contain unaccountable and unchecked power; you just pray that elites wield it."

8/ This didn't get into the piece, but it is worth nothing that Richard Posner also defended minimalist versions of democracy, and has seemed to move in interesting directions in the latter part of his career. hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

9/ Anyways, check it out, and let me know what I missed.