Hi, Katrina,

The history of the two major parties is a little more complicated than that.

I can suggest a few good books (covers pictured in the next tweet).

If you’re not really into reading history books, I can offer a nifty history thread in under 25 tweets.
1/ How Lincoln's anti-slavery, strong federal government pro-industry party morphed into the party of the Koch brothers & the KKK is a little complicated. But here we go.

During the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the pro-slavery party of the Confederacy & rural America.
2/ The Democrats wanted a limited federal government because they knew the North, if given the chance, would end slavery. Democrats vetoed federal funds for canals and highways because they understood such infrastructure
3/ Before the Civil War, Dems had disproportionate control over the federal government.

They had advantages in the electoral college (which favors rural states) & the 3/5 rule gave slaveowners disproportionate power in Congress.

The courts were packed with pro-slavery judges.
5/ In 1855 the Republican Party, the “Freedom Party,” was born as an anti-slavery, pro-industry, pro-federal government party.

Republicans wanted a strong federal government because industry needed roads, canals, etc. to thrive.

For that they needed federal legislation.
6/Republicans gave us our first income tax.

After the Civil War and the crushing defeat of the South, the Rs had the power to pass pro-industry legislation. As a result, the industrial revolution boomed.

Now the nation’s wealthiest people were railroad and business executives.
5/ Income inequality opened up. Business tycoons got rich. Labor put in long weeks in dangerous jobs at poverty wages.

Note: When slaveowners had power, they voted to consolidate their power. Now industrialists did the same.

Sometimes (not always) people in power do that.🤷‍♀️
6/States began segregating blacks & making it harder for them to vote (helped by the KKK) From Paxton👇The world’s first fascist group was the KKK.

The GOP, the party of industry and equality, split into to factions: The conservative pro-Industry part and liberal pro-labor part.
7/ When SCOTUS upheld segregation and voter restrictions on blacks, the GOP dropped racial equality and labor issues from its platform and became the conservative party.

By 1920, Democratic Party base consisted of Southern whites, rural America, and laborers.
8/ Neither party championed racial equality: which ushered in a long period of relative harmony between the parties—they respected each other's "differences" because they weren't that different!

Both parties were basically ruled by white men.
9/ In 1920, Harding (a Republican) won the presidency & immediately deregulated business and repealed taxes. More money poured into the hands of the wealthy. Banks freely lent too much money.

The gap between the wealthy and laborers widened further. Laborers had no protection.
10/ Only the wealthy could attend college, etc. Then, in 1929, the market crashed & the Depression hit. Republican President Hoover felt the best solution was to do nothing on the grounds that government control was socialist and anti-American.
11/ Democrat FDR promised a New Deal: Protective legislation for laborers.
He drew blacks into the Democratic coalition, who liked his pro-labor stance They called themselves Roosevelt Democrats.
FDR gave us social security, minimum wage, a 40 hour workweek, etc.
@AOC
12/ The GOP fought against the New Deal, calling it socialism and a welfare state.
Dems said the economy recovered because of FDR's economic policies.

GOP said mobilizing for WWII strengthened the economy (but notice that mobilizing for war meant LOTS of government spending)
13/ The GOP wanted to repeal the New Deal.

Evangelicals, too, opposed government assistance: They didn’t want to elevate government over church. Problems, they believed, should be left to God.
playboy.com/read/in-billy-…
The culture was patriarchal & authoritarian. . .
@C_Stroop
14/ . . .women in the home, children must obey.

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education (declaring racial segregation in schools unconstitutional) shocked much of the US.

People caught the drift. If schools could no longer be racially segregated, what about buses? Lunch counters?
15/ Those opposed to Civil Rights (and the Brown decision) used the same argument as the Confederacy: Federal courts had no business interfering. States should be free to decide. SCOTUS overreached.

Tensions arose when the federal government enforced the no segregation rule.
16/ Liberals celebrated the cultural changes & growing diversity of the 50s and 60s—the women’s and civil rights movements.

The changes alarmed the far right, igniting a powerful backlash,

Another movement arose that also despised all government regulations: Libertarianism.
17/ Libertarians, the KKK, and Birchers, evangelicals found themselves with a common goal: Dismantle the federal government. Return to 1920.

The NRA became a radicalized right wing group. Before the 1970s, hunters and gun enthusiasts were members of both political parties.
18/ NRA undertook a legal and propaganda campaign persuading conservatives that liberty meant unfettered access to guns.

Meanwhile the GOP devised a way to expand its base & bring the white South into the GOP, "The Southern Strategy”. . .
19/ To lure the South and rural America, Nixon talked about being “tough on crime” (code for putting black men in jail). Reagan talked about “welfare queens.”

What happened next in a nutshell: The authoritarians grew increasingly powerful & took over the party.
20/ Before you can really understand what happened, you need to know something about authoritarians v conservatives.

See, @KatrinaPierson I told you it gets a little complicated.
21/ Before the Southern Strategy, authoritarians were spread out over both parties. Afterward, the major authoritarian groups came to be concentrated in the GOP.

This made the GOP very dangerous. Because authoritarians are by nature opposed to democracy. They can also be cruel.
22/ An excellent explanation for what is happening to the US was described by Haidt and Stenner in their essay “Authoritarianism is Not a Momentary Madness, but an Eternal Dynamic within Liberal Democracies" which appeared in this book 👇
23/ It's a complicated essay, but no worries! I summarized it, starting here👇

Basically, America is having an authoritarian moment.
We're caught in an authoritarian dynamic.



I hope this explanation helps clear up the confusion, @KatrinaPierson
Adding: Here's a better summary of @JonHaidt and Stenner's essay:

All of my Twitter threads are now blog posts. You can see this one here: terikanefield-blog.com/in-which-i-res…

(I have all my threads categorized; some of them double as research for my books.)

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More from @Teri_Kanefield

Feb 21
Putin knows how to wield disinformation and he knows that the United States is divided: A large portion of the population, including the most influential voices from a major political party, want the United States to emulate his Russia.

1/
Some background:

After Russia enacted anti-homosexual legislation, Pat Buchanan said Putin was “entering a claim that Moscow is the Godly city of today" because he was stamping out western evils like easy divorce and homosexuality.
buchanan.org/blog/whose-sid…

2/
British right-winger Katie Hopkins, in an article in which she was interviewed with her friend Ann Coulter, said “Putin rocks.”

Katie Hopkins then went on to praise Russia as being “untouched by the myth of multiculturalism and deranged diversity."

rt.com/uk/429777-kati…

3/
Read 4 tweets
Feb 18
Trump lost in court THREE MORE TIMES today.

Trump tried to get all three of these cases⤵️ dismissed and lost. I analyzed one of the cases last April, Blassingame, here: (Transcript on my blog.)

He tends not to do well in court, where facts matter.

1/
The defendants made the following arguments (screenshot #1)

Trump also claims, among other things, that he has absolute immunity. (#2)

It turns out that the absolute immunity question isn't as easy as you might think (but Trump still lost).

2/
If you want to get caught up on one of the cases, my analysis from last April is here:terikanefield.com/blassingame-v-…

And here:

You can read the court's decision here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

3/
Read 8 tweets
Feb 16
Um . . . this isn't the defense Trump thinks it is.

Trump published a letter he received from Mazars dated (it looks like) 2014. He then summarized the letter.

#1: What Mazars said
#2: What Trump says Mazars said

Me = 🤦‍♀️

Does he think nobody can or will actually read it?
Mazars said, "Trump is responsible for preparing the financial statement."

Also Mazars does not "undertake to obtain or provide any assurance that there are no material modifications that should be made . . . "
Trump posts the letter and says Mazars "strongly states that all work was performed in accordance with professional standards and that there were "no material discrepancies in the financial statements."

There is no "I don't know how to read" defense.
Read 7 tweets
Feb 13
For this week’s blog post, I edited and combined a few of my recent threads.

I started with a reading of the newly unredacted sections of the Mueller report, then talked about some of the responses on Twitter . . .

terikanefield.com/is-social-medi…
. . . and concluded with thoughts about how social media brings out authoritarian instincts in large swaths of people who ordinarily would not be given to authoritarian impulses.



It's too easy for truth to lose, and when truth loses, democracy loses.
Right. And not all "manipulators" are bad actors, but all people need to learn to evaluate sources.

Reflectively saying, "Professor X should know" is not how to do it. It takes more work. Falling in line is always easier than doing the work.

Read 4 tweets
Feb 12
I'm tired of the word "accountable." It's a weasel word. Don't say "accountable." Say what you mean.

Does "accountable" mean
🔹Lose elections?
🔹Go to prison?
🔹Lose a lawsuit?
🔹Be hated?

It would be nice if all the good people were rewarded and the bad people punished.
So you want to start indicting people and gather the evidence after they're indicted?

Or not worry about evidence?

There are rules of evidence, which means that the stuff you've read in newspapers and Tweets probably isn't admissible in court . . .
Indicting people and having juries return "not guilty" verdicts because there isn't evidence to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt may not accomplish what people think it will accomplish.
Read 10 tweets
Feb 12
One reason I think social media is turning everyone into authoritarians: people don't read or think.

They see a headline and have a strong emotional reaction, which they Tweet and which then gets repeated by others, who are also not thinking . . .

1/
Political psychologists like @karen_stenner describe the authoritarian personality.

Those with an authoritarian disposition are averse to complexity. They reject nuance.

They prefer sameness and uniformity and have “cognitive limitations.”

(link in the next Tweet)

2/
See for example, "Authoritarianism is not a momentary madness,” which originally appeared in this book, an dwhich Stenner has now made available free on her website, here: ……e-4700-aaa9-743a55a9437a.filesusr.com/ugd/02ff25_370…

Timothy Snyder also talks about the danger of what he calls Internet Memes.

3/
Read 7 tweets

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