Thread by @tzimmer_history

ICYMI over the holidays:

What happens to democracy if Trump goes to jail - and what if he doesn’t?

And: How the terms #CultureWars and #IdentityPolitics have been weaponized to delegitimize the claims and voices of traditionally marginalized groups. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-…

@LilyMasonPhD, @perrybaconjr, and I discuss the larger implications of the January 6 Committee’s decision to recommend prosecution: the potential pitfalls as well as the role of legal procedures in solving a political problem like Trumpism more generally (minute 2:45-29:00).

https://twitter.com/USDemocracyPod/status/1606277860921995264

That sparked a rant about the “History will judge” fallacy: “History” is a never-ending struggle, an always-raging debate on the past. Don’t wait for it to deliver justice. That’s on us, now.  “History” is not coming to the rescue of American democracy (at the 29:00 minute mark).

Also: Now that the January 6 Committee has finished its work, we reflect on what it has and has not achieved, about the story the Committee has decided to tell, and on the dangers of focusing too narrowly on Trump as the threat to democracy (minute 32:15-53:00).

The biggest threat to democracy is not just Trump, but a Republican Party obstructing all attempts to hold anyone accountable, remaining fully committed to the quest of installing authoritarian rule by a reactionary minority. That was decidedly not the Committee’s focus.

And: Culture wars! Identity politics! We dissect the origins and implications of these terms, assess their utility for making sense of the current moment, and discuss how they’ve been weaponized in service of a reactionary political projects to obscure more than they illuminate.

What some like to deride as “empty culture war stuff,” a mere distraction, is actually a struggle over what “America” should be, who should get to define it – and therefore, who gets to dominate politically, culturally, economically. The stakes are enormous (minute 53:00-1:09:30)

The term “identity politics” has been weaponized to delegitimize the voices of traditionally marginalized groups. But all politics is identity politics – only we don’t call it that as long as it’s shaped by the sensibilities and interests of white men (from minute 1:09:30).