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Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
@tzimmer_history
Nov 23, 2019 • 4 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
I wrote a piece for @ModAmHist on the #polarization discourse, the larger implications of approaching the past through the prism of polarization, and the challenges of writing a pre-history of the (supposedly) “polarized” present. cambridge.org/core/journals/…
@ModAmHist I’m certainly not providing final answers in the piece – rather trying to engage in what I believe is an urgently needed debate on the limits and potential pitfalls of using #polarization as a governing historical paradigm (find the pdf here: cambridge.org/core/services/…)
@ModAmHist I’m extremely grateful to the editors at @ModAmHist who did a fantastic job helping me say what I wanted to say – and to the brilliant Brooke Blower, in particular: working on this piece with her was an absolute pleasure and a wonderful experience. #twitterstorians #polarization
@ModAmHist The piece also outlines a research agenda that aims to historicize the idea of #polarization; how it’s been theorized in the social and political sciences, employed by historians, and how it’s shaped the broader political discourse. Give it a read – it’s quite short! @ModAmHist

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More from @tzimmer_history

Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Oct 26
Sunday Reading: A Constant Torrent of Authoritarian Arrogance, Corruption, Complicity

American politics is an exasperating, frenzied, dangerous mess. Let’s sort through the events of the past week to separate what matters from what does not.

New piece:

democracyamericana.com/posts/fe5acc52…
In this piece: The New York Times did not think the No Kings protests were all that significant – indicating how much mainstream institutions have bought into the idea that only Trump and his supporters represent “real America” and have a right to have their message amplified.
Ask yourself this: How would the New York Times have covered the protests if it had been seven million MAGA supporters flooding the streets? We don’t even have to guess: We know how they and other mainstream outlets covered the Tea Party protests during Obama’s first term.
Read 8 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Oct 12
I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is firing federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves.

This week’s piece:

steady.page/en/democracyam…
About a week ago, the New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast portrayed Russell Vought as a devout Christian, a true “small government” conservative who loves the free market, and a man with a great work ethic. A remarkable combination of credulousness and deliberate whitewashing.
Vought is a key figure in the world of Trumpism, with a rare – and dangerous – combination of ideological zeal and operative competence, a fully committed extremist causing massive harm to millions of people.

But if you only listened to The Daily, you wouldn’t get any of that.
Read 19 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Aug 10
Sunday reading: Why the Extremists Took Over on the Right
 
I wrote about the escalating sense of besiegement that has fueled the rise of dangerous people and truly radical ideas that fully define the Right today.
 
This week’s piece (link below): My latest Democracy Americana newsletter: “Why the Extremists Took Over on the Right: Fear of a pluralizing America is fueling a radicalization out of a sense of weakness and besiegement.”
We have been talking a lot - and with good reason - about the “crisis of liberal democracy.” But in crucial ways, it is the conception of “real America” as a white Christian patriarchal homeland that has come under enormous pressure. That’s why the Right is freaking out.
Socially, culturally, and – most importantly, perhaps – demographically, the country has moved away from the rightwing ideal since the middle of the twentieth century. As a result, the conservative hold on power has become tenuous.
Read 9 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Aug 7
Why the Extremists Took Over on the Right
 
Fear of a pluralizing America is fueling a radicalization out of a sense of weakness and besiegement.
 
Some thoughts from my new piece (link below):

🧵 My latest Democracy Americana newsletter: “Why the Extremists Took Over on the Right: Fear of a pluralizing America is fueling a radicalization out of a sense of weakness and besiegement.”
What is America? Who gets to belong? How much democracy, and for whom? Those have always been contested issues. But the fact that this struggle now overlaps so clearly with party lines is the result of a rather recent reconfiguration.
That is the fundamental reality of U.S. politics: National identity and democracy have become partisan issues. This existential dimension of the conflict between Democrats and Republicans overshadows all other considerations, it shapes all areas of U.S. politics.
Read 17 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Apr 14
In the MAGA imagination, America is simultaneously threatened by outsiders – invaders who are “poisoning the blood” of the nation, as Trump has put it – and by the “enemy within.” The core promise of Trumpism is to purge those inherently connected “threats.”

Utterly terrifying.
To the Trumpists, the “enemy within” - those radical “leftists” and “globalists” – are as acutely dangerous as the invaders from without.

In order to restore the nation to former glory, to Make America Great Again, it has as to be “purified” – the enemies have to be purged.
According to the Trumpists, only the providential leader can guide the nation to its re-birth and former glory – “Only I,” Trump loves to say. The rightwing base is all in on this, fiercely loyal to Trump personally, bound to him by a cult of personality.
Read 5 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Mar 31
What does the U.S. look like in five or ten years?
 
I was asked to reflect on this question, alongside other scholars. In a stable democracy, the range of plausible outcomes is narrow. But for America, it now includes complete democratic breakdown.
 
wapo.st/44bN4i6
There should not have been any doubt about the intention of the Trumpists. They desire to erect a form of plebiscitary autocracy, constantly invoking the true “will of the people” while aggressively narrowing the boundaries of who gets to belong and whose rights are recognized.
At every turn, the response to the rise of Trumpism has been hampered by a lack of political imagination – a lingering sense that “It cannot happen here” (or not anymore), fueled by a deep-seated mythology of exceptionalism, progress gospel, and willful historical ignorance.
Read 8 tweets

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