Post ASfvSQidEZXeZJnzsm by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #ASfvS3MA5wty6y7EAK by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:37:42Z
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The State of the Union and the Problem of Unity On Bidenism – and the limits and pitfalls of a unity politics that runs the risk of stifling the response to the authoritarian assault on democracy. A thread, based on my new Democracy Americana:https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-union-and-the-problem
(DIR) Post #ASfvS4CyvZ9WkmpPUm by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:38:19Z
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Biden opened and concluded last week’s State of the Union address with pleas for bipartisanship and unity. Last Tuesday, that was a successful political move: It made him appear “presidential,” especially when contrasted with the Marjorie Taylor Greene-led opposition. 2/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS4kIvfo8Q8Q1R2 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:38:40Z
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Biden did actually go on the attack against Republicans. But it matters where he emphasized differences and embraced conflict: in the “kitchen table” realm; and where he didn’t: in the defense of democracy and civil rights. 3/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS5E58xcvuULnqi by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:39:02Z
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On the socio-economic issues that dominated the speech, Biden was willing to draw some clear lines. He went hard at Republicans who want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act or go after Social Security and Medicare. He even seemed to relish the conflict. 4/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS5nX19z1gQw76W by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:39:27Z
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It wasn’t until the very end of his address that Biden focused on democracy – with only four minutes left, and for only about 120 seconds. Compared with the feistiness with which he defended his socio-economic agenda, these few minutes differed markedly in thrust and in tone. 5/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS6I1BoMzCzCSci by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:39:47Z
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In striking contrast to his democracy speeches from last fall, Biden did not name the enemy. “For the last few years our democracy has been threatened and attacked, put at risk” – passive voice, no mention of MAGA Republicans; a plea for unity in the fight for democracy. 6/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS6nDJpK6ljnNFQ by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:40:09Z
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Biden emphasized the nation’s supposedly exceptional character: “the only nation based on an idea” – which, in this view, guarantees unity underneath all the squabbling, a shared understanding “that all of us, every one of us, is created equal in the image of God.” 7/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS7KXJvyiR5NzBg by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:40:32Z
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There is a striking tension between the diagnosis that democracy is under threat and such myths about America’s exceptional character – what Biden has called “the soul of the nation”: the belief in equality and democracy, in the notion that all people are created equal. 8/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS7nbZrELtEzCUq by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:40:47Z
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If that were truly the case, why would democracy ever be in danger from within? If the exceptionalist story were correct, the fundamental conflict over democracy that defines the country wouldn’t exist. 9/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS8EXxgmVEnaiUS by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:41:08Z
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“Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It’s an American issue,” the president pleaded with Congress and the nation. It was a message that stands in stark contrast with empirical reality. Democracy very much is the defining partisan issue in the United States today. 10/
(DIR) Post #ASfvS8ohnFhl2wVaqm by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-02-14T15:52:05Z
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@tzimmer_history @juergen_hubert Is-ought fallacy. "Must not" does not contradict "is".
(DIR) Post #ASfvS9szomjOMXWXB2 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:42:19Z
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Conflict over how much democracy, and for whom, there should be has been the norm in U.S. history. But until the final third of the 20th century, those who wanted to preserve traditional hierarchies of race, gender, wealth, and religion largely dominated in both parties. 11/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSBreSkqOUwuUMK by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:42:50Z
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The civil rights revolution of the 1960s sped up a process of party realignment by which all those opposed to egalitarian, multiracial, pluralistic democracy united in the Republican Party. Their voices have dominated the GOP since the 1970s. 12/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSFyt9n0fGYKKC8 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:43:12Z
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Whoever may still have harbored doubts about where the parties stood on the question of multiracial pluralism got a clarifying answer during the Obama and Trump presidencies, which fully polarized “the Left” and “the Right” around the core issue of democracy. 13/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSHeOwvoIRakzXU by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:43:30Z
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Joe Biden, however, presented a different story: one that focused on unity and its exceptionalist foundations in the “soul of the nation.” He defiantly clung to the idea of “a nation that embraces light over dark, hope over fear, unity over division. Stability over chaos.” 14/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSLjVlsH56bB83k by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:43:48Z
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America’s elites have indeed often focused on “unity” and “stability.” But this has almost always manifested as a preference for “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice,” as Martin Luther King famously put it. 15/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSOQ7mPY7RL8Bl2 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:44:12Z
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In the history of the United States, the price for racial and social progress has always been political instability. Political “consensus” and “unity” was usually based on a cross-partisan agreement to leave the discriminatory social order intact. 16/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSPaRRXOd3cxwTg by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:44:29Z
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Historically, the political system was stable whenever and as long as democracy didn’t interfere with a political, social, and cultural order in which white Christians – and white Christian men, in particular – got to be on top and got to define what counted as “real America.” 17/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSQidEZXeZJnzsm by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:44:55Z
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Conversely, moments of racial and social progress – or even just perceived progress – have always been conflictual, have always led to reactionary counter-mobilizations fueled by those who would rather abolish democracy altogether than accept multiracial pluralism. 18/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSRnzC9Q1wDJmro by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:45:19Z
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“Unity” and stability sound good in a vacuum. But in the reality of U.S. history, they have almost always been in tension with the goal of moving the country closer towards the democratic ideal of egalitarian multiracial pluralism. 19/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSSxwsayxXOzG2C by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:45:55Z
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This tension was once again apparent in Biden’s speech. As the president set out to renew his promise of uniting America under the umbrella of Bidenomics, there was little room for the struggle for equality and equal respect for women and traditionally marginalized groups. 20/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSWff6WjP1qSi5Q by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:46:16Z
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In the first State of the Union address after the reactionaries on the Supreme Court abolished the right to bodily autonomy in the Dobbs decision, Biden’s address of roughly 75 minutes contained merely four sentences on abortion. 21/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSXjb9NTSKLJMrQ by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:46:33Z
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As the crusade to demonize the LGBTQ community and strip trans people, in particular, of their fundamental protections and even their liberty to exist in the public sphere is escalating, the State of the Union included one sentence - one - on LGBTQ rights. 22/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSYr4z33JnporA0 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:46:50Z
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Not a word on the authoritarian takeover of education in Florida and elsewhere, and nothing on the accelerating red-state campaigns to ban “divisive” books that dare to criticize the sensibilities of reactionary white Christians and their understanding of what America is. 23/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSaORGVKaZaR0nQ by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:47:12Z
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Is this all about messaging - or are Biden and those who are shaping Democratic politics actually convinced there is a shared consensus around the principles of egalitarian democracy, that whatever conflict exists can be solved by focusing on the mythical kitchen table? 24/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSb4Gkyn8fK0Pzs by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:47:32Z
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Is this all about strategic politics - or does the White House actually believe the assault on civil rights is downstream from economic anxieties and basically just a distracting sideshow from the issues that *really* matter? If it’s the latter, democracy is in big trouble. 25/
(DIR) Post #ASfvScCoWhDkC70kxE by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:47:58Z
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“We just have to remember who we are,” Joe Biden concluded. But that will not be good enough. Who are “We,” and who gets to define the boundaries of that which is accepted as “Us”? There has never been a unified answer to these questions. 26/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSf8fcYglI85zPc by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:48:26Z
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The central fault line in U.S. history has always been the one between those who envision “We, the people” in accordance with egalitarian democratic principles – and those who aren’t willing to accept “America” as anything but a land of and for white Christians. 27/
(DIR) Post #ASfvSgBti2reYQc556 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:49:00Z
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One party is dominated by reactionary forces that do *not* believe in equal representation and equal rights; a sizable portion of the electorate is not willing to accept those values and favors traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth instead. 28/
(DIR) Post #ASfvShK5V50g47S8UC by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T14:49:26Z
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The defense of democracy should be built not on the false comfort of exceptionalist myths, but on an unflinching admission of the nature of the conflict in which we find ourselves. More here:https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-union-and-the-problem
(DIR) Post #ASg3URPQRDkevDI9FQ by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T16:51:58Z
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@Hyolobrika Interpreting sentences from a speech while ignoring the context in which they were appeared - that’s also a fallacy. In a vacuum, you are right. This wasn’t said in a vacuum though.
(DIR) Post #ASgAwMQjF6aRGdA4rw by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-02-14T18:47:46Z
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@tzimmer_history This is the thread as it looks like on my end. As you can see, I didn't see any context.
(DIR) Post #ASgFTmNUBrHz7DprCi by TonChryso@mastodon.world
2023-02-14T16:33:17Z
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@tzimmer_history Great analysis but missing an important point IMO. It's not just a question of strategic politics. He also needed to game the media who happily distort the news to make it fit with their narratives. Every time Biden said obviously important and true things about MAGA destroying the country, the media took it as an occasion to feed it into the both-sides-horserace machine. Delivering a traditional speech and baiting Rs got the media to report the important things for a change.
(DIR) Post #ASgHI5SXcTcqjGkiI4 by tzimmer_history@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T19:05:27Z
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@Hyolobrika Every entry in the thread is numbered, the whole thing, as is clearly stated in the beginning, just a snapshot of what I am outlining in more detail in the piece. When you decide to jump on number 10 without paying attention to anything else, “I didn’t see any context” is very much on you.
(DIR) Post #ASgIqPfT5iQLCkjMYq by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-02-14T20:17:54Z
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@tzimmer_history No it's not. Fuck you. I literally could not see the rest of the thread.
(DIR) Post #ASgIqUCwDDZbHiQ9Hk by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-02-14T20:19:16Z
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@tzimmer_history If I scroll up all the way, I see No. 10.
(DIR) Post #ASgIqVqK8GfkM9r7JY by Hyolobrika@berserker.town
2023-02-14T20:20:14Z
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@tzimmer_history Look: https://berserker.town/@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social/109863611194711294That's the thread as seen from here.