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Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
@tzimmer_history
Aug 8, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
To elaborate on this excellent point: America has always been dominated by one group - conservative white Christians. And a political system that threatened their privileged status - true democracy - has always been anathema to them.
What’s changed is that until recently, conservative white Christians were dominant in both parties, so they regarded both Republican and Democratic rule as legitimate.
That’s no longer the case though: Only one party, the GOP, has pledged to preserve and defend white conservative Christian rule by whatever means necessary, while the other is pursuing a more pluralistic, (small-d) democratic vision.
Under these circumstances, the quest to perpetuate conservative rule has morphed into a quest for one-party rule. White conservative Christians have been very consistent: They were never committed to anything other than herrenvolk democracy.

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More from @tzimmer_history

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
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Mar 16
Sunday reading: What Authoritarianism Means
 
I wrote about why even critical observers underestimated the speed and scope of the Trumpist assault, why they overestimated democratic resilience – about what America is now, and what comes next?
 
New piece (link below) My latest Democracy Americana Newsletter: “What Authoritarianism Means: Even critical observers underestimated the speed and scope of the Trumpist assault, they overestimated democratic resilience. What is America now, and what comes next?”
I take stock of where we are after two months of Trumpist rule, explore that space between (no longer) democracy and full-scale autocracy where America exists now, reflect on what competitive authoritarianism means in theory and practice, and recalibrate my expectations.
I revisit “The Path to Authoritarianism,” a crucial essay Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way published in Foreign Affairs in early February. It captured their expectations at the outset of the Trumpist regime – a powerful warning that has nevertheless been overtaken by events already.
Read 8 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
Mar 1
People who claim Zelensky was at fault yesterday and should have been more “diplomatic” or “respectful” are either deliberately propagating the Trumpist attack line – or they fundamentally misunderstand what the Trumpist project is and who is now in power in the United States.
There is this pervasive idea that Trump doesn’t really mean it, has no real position, and can therefore be steered and manipulated by tactical and diplomatic finesse; or maybe he’s just a businessman looking for a great deal. But that’s all irrelevant here.
Trump himself has been very consistent about his preference for foreign autocrats, especially Putin, and his (at best) disinterest and siding with Ukraine and (actually) explicit antagonism towards not only Zelensky, but Europe’s democracies more generally.
Read 10 tweets

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