I’m being aggressively reminded that “The two parties are not the same and voting for one or the other produces meaningfully different results” is an objectionable statement for many who consider themselves to be on the Left, and I struggle to express how depressing I find that.
And this at a moment in which the survival of American democracy - severely flawed as it is, but at least somewhat closer to becoming a multiracial, pluralistic democracy than at any other point in U.S. history - depends on the center-Left and the Left uniting against the Right.
Been thinking a lot about the near-vanishing of democracy in interwar Europe. A key factor almost everywhere was that, while conservatives made common cause with the Far-Right, the Center-Left and the Left did not stand together to push back against the authoritarian onslaught.
I’m getting way too many “It doesn’t matter who wins, nothing is going to change anyway” replies - I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people whose lives will be very meaningfully affected if a revanchist White nationalist movement gets back to power.
I’m looking at states that are controlled by Republicans, the way they are all in on voter suppression, upholding patriarchal rule, entrenching a White nationalist understanding of history - and I just don’t see how anyone would conclude it doesn’t matter who is in charge.
One more thing: “Democrats won't allow fundamental change” is a criticism I'm getting a lot. Ok. But we need to grapple with the fact that the Right certainly *is* determined to make some fundamental changes, aiming to turn the clock back to full-on 1950s herrenvolk democracy.
I’ll post a proper follow-up reflection soon, but much of what I’m getting is basically this: A perspective on U.S. politics that is so unabashedly white male, not only inadequate analytically, but displaying a remarkable lack of solidarity with traditionally marginalized groups.

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More from @tzimmer_history

28 Oct
Ah yes, the wise man looks at the two major parties - the one that wants to get rid of democracy to entrench the rule of wealthy white men and the one in which most people want to bring America closer to a social democratic ideal - and yells: “Don’t you see?! They’re the same!”
If you believe in the principles of equality and fairness, and believe that democracy is the political form best suited to realizing those principles and to recognizing the dignity of every human being, then you must see the fundamental difference between the two major parties.
If you’re still holding on to the “The two parties are the same!” shtick in 2021, you’re either incapable of producing a serious political analysis or you are not serious in your professed political principles and perhaps care about something other than democracy and equality.
Read 4 tweets
20 Oct
Disheartening for the White House to propagate this willful category error. Unless the administration accepts and treats democracy as an overarching concern that transcends and permeates all levels and areas of the polity, it will be hard to defeat the authoritarian onslaught.
Conservatives certainly don’t treat democracy as just one issue amongst many: They have made the quest to prevent multiracial, pluralistic democracy their overriding concern. They understand that the struggle over democracy determines the course of the nation.
“We can’t let democracy interfere with white Christian dominance” is what’s animated religious conservatives. “We can’t let democracy interfere with the market (and thus the rule of wealthy white men)” is what libertarians / neoliberals have argued.
Read 5 tweets
15 Oct
This week, @MaxBoot came out as a single-issue voter – his issue being the fate of democracy. That’s an important statement, because the key question in America today is whether or not enough people are as committed to preserving democracy as Republicans are to abolishing it. 1/
I think the position @MaxBoot lays out is the one that all small-d democrats should adopt – because we need to acknowledge that most people on the Right already are single-issue voters, their issue being the fate of “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America. 2/
Focusing on the fate of democracy above all else is, analytically, the right response to the authoritarian threat precisely because democracy is, of course, not really a “single issue,” but an overarching concern that transcends and permeates nearly all areas of public policy. 3/
Read 15 tweets
14 Oct
“History will not be kind…” - “History will judge…” - “History will…” Stop.

What “history” will have to say about today’s Republican Party depends to a large degree on what happens here, now. “History” is not coming to the rescue of American democracy. That’s up to us.
I know why people keep saying this: “History will be our judge.” As a rhetorical device, it lends more weight to the message. And I understand the longing for some form of higher justice and the hope that “history” might be able to deliver it.
But that’s not how it works. What we refer to as “history” is a never-ending struggle, an always-raging debate on the past, informed, shaped, and fueled by ever-changing sensibilities and conflicts in the present.
Read 11 tweets
11 Oct
This is a good example of the pervasive myth of white innocence that has been so foundational throughout the West’s history: economic anxiety, anti-elite backlash, or just liberals being mean – whatever animates their extremism, white people cannot be blamed for their actions.
This is an article about the Far Right in Australia, but countless versions of this piece have been written about rightwing extremism in Germany, in the UK, and of course in the U.S., where this particular genre of apologist tale has been a staple throughout the nation’s history.
The dogma of white innocence holds that we have to go look for innocent explanations, explanations that portray white people as fundamentally decent, leave their innate goodness intact, and depict them as ultimately blameless for their actions and the very outcomes they pushed.
Read 5 tweets
11 Oct
Important thread by @perrybaconjr. Too many people accept the idea that #polarization is the root of all evil that plagues America - when what we should really be doing is to reflect on the limits and pitfalls of using polarization as the governing paradigm of our time.
I’m writing a book about how Americans have tried to make sense of political, social, and cultural divisions since the 1960s, and how the idea of #polarization has come to occupy such a prominent place in the nation’s imaginary, how it has shaped the broader political discourse.
One particularly problematic element of the #polarization discourse is that it often comes with a pronounced nostalgia for “consensus” - ignoring that in many ways, polarization is the price U.S. society has had to pay for real progress towards multiracial, pluralistic democracy.
Read 6 tweets

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