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Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
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6 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Aren’t we all glad that all these concerned parents are standing up to these mean Critical Race Theorists and their Un-American liberal enablers who want to taint and destroy that beautiful history.
!!!
In case anyone thinks this type of “history” is passé: At a reception at the German Historical Institute in DC in November 2018, a middle-aged man from Virginia explained to me that slavery couldn’t have been so bad, seeing that people d always take care of their property.
Specifically, he said: “If I own a car, I want to keep it in good condition, and I see no reason to assume that slave holders would have looked at their property any differently.” He also claimed that these ideas were confirmed by his high school history education - in Virginia.
This was a wealthy middle-aged man who frequented the DC history scene, describing himself as a “history buff.” Lack of intelligence or formal education were certainly not the issue here. Anecdotal evidence? Sure. But look around: This “history” is still out there and powerful.

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More from @tzimmer_history

Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
5 Nov
Excellent dissection of the way rightwing panics work and why it’s difficult to counter them effectively. I suggest we need to focus not on refuting specific claims, which never works with bad-faith actors, but on highlighting the reactionary political project behind them.
Instead of playing defense by trying to intercept every accusation rightwingers fire off (No, that’s not what CRT is! No, it’s not actually taught at school!), what does shifting the focus to analyzing these rightwing moral panics as political projects look like?
It means, first of all, we should focus on the people behind this reactionary crusade, and the forces associated with this project - starting with the rightwing activist who has been loudly and proudly telling the world for months why and how he got the CRT panic going.
Read 13 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
4 Nov
Even leaving aside the fact that this is asking the Democratic Party to adopt the Right’s campaign of turning a famous Black intellectual into an “Un-American” bogeyman: Is there *any* evidence from the recent past that this this type of appeasement would actually work? Image
Because there certainly is *a ton of evidence* that rightwing propaganda campaigns are entirely unaffected by whatever Democrats actually do or say. Yes, it’s slightly harder to demonize Biden, but that’s because he’s an old White man, not because of anything he’s saying.
And again, I want to emphasize this one more time: “Let’s join the Right in demonizing and scapegoating certain Black intellectuals” is a position that people who consider themselves “progressives” or “on the Left” really shouldn’t legitimize as “savvy advice.”
Read 4 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
1 Nov
This is indeed exactly what they are referring to: A bunch of unsubstantiated claims, all driven by ideologically motivated fear of what *might* be, with zero evidence presented and absolutely no interest in the empirical reality of what actually *is* happening in the classroom.
History teachers at all levels: “This is absolutely not what is going on inside the classroom.”

David Brooks: “But I heard from people [Republican operatives and conservative activists] that they *sense* it *might be* and I’m totally sticking with that!”

Just bizarre.
It’s the same pattern over and over again. And not once will the “moderates” propagating these false stories as evidence of leftwing “illiberalism” conclude that they might want to be more cautious the next time they encounter some dubious cancel culture anecdote. Not once.
Read 9 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
31 Oct
Another massive advantage the Right has, in addition to the one @drvolts emphasizes, is the fact that it’s a much more homogeneous coalition, almost all white and conservative, easier to unify behind a single project of preserving “real” (read: White Christian-dominated) America.
By contrast, if what we mean by “the Left” here is roughly the Democratic coalition, then that’s a much more diverse beast - ideologically, racially / ethnically, in terms of cultural sensibilities. Much harder to get everyone on the same page on anything, harder to mobilize.
Crucially, the Right also has cultivated an image of “the Left” as this radically Un-American threat for decades, can built on decades of demonization of “the Left” as a fundamentally illegitimate force that is out to destroy “real” America. No equivalent to that among Democrats.
Read 7 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
28 Oct
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.
Read 7 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
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

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