Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
May 13, 2021 21 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Thread: On polarization, “consensus,” and multiracial democracy in American history.

I’m writing a book about the idea of “polarization” and how it has shaped recent American history. @JakeMGrumbach is making a crucial point here, and I’d like to add a few thoughts: 1/
First of all, @JakeMGrumbach is right: Political “consensus” was usually based on a bipartisan agreement to leave the discriminatory social order intact and deny marginalized groups equal representation and civil rights. A white male elite consensus was the historical norm. 2/
The frequently invoked “consensus” of the post-World War II era, for instance, was depending on both parties agreeing that white patriarchal rule would remain largely untouched. “Civility” was the modus operandi between elites who adhered to that order. 3/
By the 1960s, however, white elite consensus had fractured and America split over the question of whether or not the country should become a multiracial democracy: a system in which all citizens count equally and elect a representative government with majoritarian rules. 4/
Over time, one party came to advocate this liberal, multiracial version of democracy – while the other is committed to do whatever it takes to prevent what conservatives believe would be the downfall of “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America. 5/
It was not at all a coincidence that “polarization” started when one party decided to break with this white elite consensus and support the civil rights legislation of the 60s. 6/
In many ways, “polarization” is the price U.S. society has had to pay for real progress towards multi-racial democracy – there is absolutely no need for polarization-induced nostalgia. 7/
Unfortunately, that type nostalgia is exactly what characterizes much of the broader polarization discourse. For proponents of a centrist realignment in American politics, in particular, “polarization” is the great evil, the root cause of all that plagues the country… 8/
…and a return to a golden age of consensus (the 1950s!) is the goal – a supposedly better time before radical activists and a mean cancel culture threatened peace and prosperity (and it is really quite telling that much of the anti-polarizers’ ire is focused on “the Left”). 9/ Image
But it’s not just journalists and pundits who fall for consensus nostalgia – it is quite prevalent in the work of political scientists and historians as well who have adopted the “polarization” concept as the framework for their analysis. 10/
For a longer discussion of the pitfalls of using #polarization as a governing historical or political paradigm and the challenges of writing a (pre-)history of the polarized present, see my @ModAmHist piece from 2019. 11/
In short, telling the history of recent decades as a story of polarization tends to create a narrative of the American polity in decline. “Polarization” is almost always used as a pejorative term: it is meant to invoke dysfunction, instability, conflict. 12/
The terminology suggests that the status quo ante against which the polarized decades since the 1970s are measured was one of unity and order. The polarization interpretation, almost by definition, casts the “consensus” of the postwar era in a problematically favorable light. 13/
The implied nostalgia for a supposedly better, pre-polarization era shines through even in generally excellent work, such as Steven Levitsky’s and Daniel Ziblatt’s investigation of “How Democracies Die.” /14
Levitsky and Ziblatt provide a convincing dissection of how the pre-1960s “consensus” was based on racial exclusion and depended on a cross-party agreement amongst white men to leave white supremacy intact. 15/
And yet, in the end, the authors still combine a warning against the dangers of polarization with praise for the mid-twentieth-century consensus era that was supposedly characterized by “egalitarianism, civility, sense of freedom.” (p. 231) 16/
Historians are not at all immune to the misleading nostalgia that often comes with the polarization framework. Let’s look at Jill Lepore’s grand retelling of U.S. history in “These Truths,” for instance. 17/
Lamenting the end of a “midcentury era of political consensus,” Lepore diagnoses “division, resentment, and malice” as the animating forces in American politics since the late 1960s. 18/
In her interpretation, “wrenching polarization” brought “the Republic to the brink of a second civil war” and shaped America “to the detriment of everyone.” (quotes on p. 633, 658, 546) But what if it did not? “Everyone” is certainly doing some heavy lifting here… 19/
Bottom line: Let’s be more critical about a paradigm that can’t distinguish between the fact that, in a vacuum, unity is good—and the fact that in the reality of American history, consensus politics always stifled necessary change and real political and social advancements. 20/
If the goal is to capture the central development in recent history and the crucial threat to democracy as precisely as possible, we need to de-emphasize the concept of “polarization” and instead foreground the radicalization of the conservative movement and the GOP. /end

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More from @tzimmer_history

Sep 19
Blood and Soil

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Inciting a pogrom in Ohio is part of that project.

New piece (link in bio):

🧵1/ Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: “Blood and Soil: The Right is committed to preserving America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic”
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. 2/
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. 3/
Read 15 tweets
Sep 19
Blood and Soil
 
The Right is committed to preserving America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.

Inciting a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio is part of that project.

New piece (link in bio): Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: “Blood and Soil: The Right is committed to preserving America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic”
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly.
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom.
Read 9 tweets
Sep 10
One reason to be skeptical about anti-Trump Republicans is that they tend to propagate a diagnosis of Trumpism as a mere aberration from an otherwise noble conservative tradition. Such self-serving mythology misleads the political discussion.
 
My new piece (link in bio):
 
🧵1/ Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: “Liz Cheney and the Problem of the Anti-Trump Republican: Republicans who hold the line against Trump deserve respect. But champions of egalitarian, pluralistic democracy they are not - and that also matters”
If America is to claw its way out of this crisis to something better, it must do so on the basis of an honest assessment of what Trumpism is, what fueled its rise, and where it came from. The anti-Trumpers, however, are offering something very different. 2/
In their standard tale, Trump executed a hostile takeover of the GOP and turned it into something that has nothing to do with the party’s former real self, that supposedly venerable “Reagan Republicanism” anti-Trumpers almost invariably invoke as their ideal. 3/
Read 16 tweets
Aug 13
What is “weird” and what is “normal” in America?

Democrats are, finally, asserting their right to define the boundaries of normalcy – and their claim to be defending the nation’s true ideals against the reactionary assault.

Some thoughts from my new piece (link in bio):

🧵1/ Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: What is “weird” and what is “normal” in America? Democrats are, finally, asserting their right to define the boundaries of normalcy – and their claim to be defending the nation’s true ideals against the reactionary assault”
I wrote about why the “These guys are weird” messaging matters: It crystallizes a central fault line – who gets to define “normal” America? – and catalyzes a significant shift in how Democrats handle (and finally reject!) Republican assertions of representing “real America.” 2/
Since the late 1960s, Republicans have successfully weaponized the idea that they represent the norm that should define the nation. This assertion (in)famously crystallized in the “silent majority” notion Richard Nixon popularized early in his presidency. 3/
Read 15 tweets
Aug 5
ICYMI on the weekend: I wrote about an encounter with enraged Trumpers - and the difficult road ahead for a society in which conspiracies, extremist iconography, and political violence have become ubiquitous.

MAGA on the Beach Redux (link in bio):
 
🧵1/ Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: “MAGA on the Beach Redux: On an encounter with enraged Trumpers - and the difficult road ahead for a society in which conspiracies, extremist iconography, and political violence have become ubiquitous.”
I wrote about a run-in with an elderly lady who quickly went from pleasant small talk to launching a conspiratorial tirade about Joe Biden’s war on upstanding patriots and how Trump alone could save the Republic. It tells us something about political culture in America today. 2/
She was an elderly white person, with an academic background, widely traveled, had lived overseas, and, it can be assumed, reasonably wealthy. I’ve spent a fair bit of time reflecting on what, if anything, I should take away from this encounter. 3/
Read 14 tweets
Jul 27
Weekend reading: I wrote about the meaning of Kamala Harris in this particular moment in history.

Her story as VP reflects the post-George Floyd racial reckoning that never came as well as the racial and social retrenchment since 2020:

🧵1/

thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/kamala-harri…
Screenshot of my latest “Democracy Americana” newsletter: “Kamala Harris May Force a Reckoning: Harris emerged as VP in the summer of 2020 when it seemed the country might finally deal with its defining demons. But as the reactionary counter-mobilization triumphed, she was sidelined. Until now.”
Harris’ arc since 2020 points to how much of a reactionary retrenchment we have experienced, and how much social, racial, and gender progress have come to be viewed as “woke” radicalism that has supposedly gone too far - a position shared by elites across party lines. 2/
Harris was seen as the perfect VP in the summer of 2020: A woman of color, highly qualified and accomplished, who rose to elite status through her abilities and determination, in a party that wanted to tell the world: Yes, we are indeed the champions of multiracial pluralism. 3/
Read 12 tweets

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