“Pride is part of our brand in America. ... Shame doesn’t fit easily into that story. The Germans decided that discomfort could make them stronger by creating guardrails against a returning evil. We instead have reached for blinder.”
As a German historian who works on the contentious history of American democracy, and as a German citizen who now lives in the U.S., I have often been confronted with - and frustrated by - the difficulty of finding an apt translation for “Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung.”
Interestingly, “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” used to be the more common term associated with Germany’s struggle to deal with the Nazi past. But the word “Bewältigung“ puts the emphasis on overcoming the past, with the aim of eventually leaving it behind.
The goal of Germany’s struggle to come to terms with the Nazi past, however, has not been on moving past this chapter in the country’s history, on getting to a point where the past would no longer matter.
On the contrary, the very idea is to grapple with the Nazi crimes in earnest and integrate them in the nation’s collective imaginary in a way that would define and help guide the country in the present and the future.
Therefore, the term “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” has ultimately been replaced by “Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung“ - which puts the emphasis more on the process of working through the past, as an ongoing and, potentially, never-ending struggle.
The two terms are equally impossible to translate into English, of course. And just as @michele_norris says in her essay, that is indicative of contrasting approaches to dealing with past genocide and mass crime.
“What is the word for Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung in English?“ @michele_norris asks - “We must find it.“
As you would expect, @AdamSerwer demolishes the exculpatory myth of Republicans being afraid of and/or seduced by Trump and gets right to the heart of the matter: Republicans are convinced that if democracy yields Democratic governance, then democracy has got to go.
That’s why the intense focus on Trump’s #BigLie is actually somewhat misleading. It can easily obscure the real problem when it is taken to suggest that Republicans were wholeheartedly embracing democracy until they were seduced and overwhelmed by Trump’s brilliant propaganda.
What we need to focus on is that the “Big Lie” can flourish and have such a massive effect because it builds on longstanding anti-democratic tendencies and impulses on the American Right and among conservatives.
Great reporting by @ThePlumLineGS on the “Statement of Concern” issued by eminent scholars of democracy.
A few comments on this important document: Some historical context - and one objection to the final sentence, the idea that “History will judge what we do at this moment.”
First of all, I am grateful to @leedrutman and all the scholars who participated: “Our democracy is fundamentally at stake,” they write, and that is exactly the heart of the matter.
I reflected on the world-historic significance of this struggle in this thread a few days ago:
I’m also grateful that the Statement is entirely free of “both sides” nonsense or obscuring language of “unity.” It leaves no doubt that we are looking at a Republican assault on democracy - that is the threat we need to face.
Again: This is the only free speech crisis that matters.
Republicans are using the power of the state to outlaw dissent, restrict critical debate, and punish anyone who dares to question the righteousness of past, present, or future white reactionary rule.
Unless the system is fundamentally democratized, we’ll soon reach the point where it will become impossible to stop America’s slide into authoritarianism through elections.
Some thoughts on what is at stake, based on this important piece by @RonBrownstein: 1/
If democratizing reforms do not come, all the states in which Republicans are in power will soon resemble apartheid South Africa much more than anything that could reasonably be called a functioning multiracial democracy. 2/
In about half the states, Republicans will be erecting stable one-party rule and install a system that is best described as a herrenvolk democracy: A system that is fairly democratic if you happen to be a white Christian man – and something entirely different if you are not. 3/
If you want to unpack what the conservative movement has been all about since the 1950s and what is animating the Republican Party today, there really is no better place to start than “Dismantling systemic racism is Communism”
There’s a pretty straight line from “Race Mixing is Communism” - the slogan of those who opposed school integration in the 1950s and 60s - to Cotton’s fight to uphold the social caste system.
This famous photo, for instance, was taken at the Little Rock, Arkansas state capitol, August 1959 – the “Communist Race Mixing” in question was the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School (from a Library of Congress collection)
I went on CNN on the weekend to talk about Trump’s “Big Lie,” and what history can tell us about why it’s captured the Republican Party. In the very short segment, I didn’t get to talk about why I’m actually somewhat skeptical of the focus on the #BigLie idea. Let me explain: 1/
The term “Big Lie,” as it is defined today, refers to a specific kind of political propaganda: A lie that is told for political purposes and that is so outrageous, so bizarre, that it’s hard for people to resist. 2/ merriam-webster.com/dictionary/big…
As the theory goes, people believe the Big Lie precisely BECAUSE it is so shocking, because it is difficult to imagine anyone would lie in this shameless fashion about important political matters. 3/