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Another great essay from Heather Cox Richardson [1]

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Date: 2024-08-05  

Once again Heather Cox Richardson has written a powerful essay, this time about how the actions of today’s Republican party are echoing what the Democratic party did during the time leading up to the Civil War.

It is often said that

progressives: want to move forward into the future

radicals: want to burn everything down and rebuild from scratch

conservatives: want everything to remain the way it is now

reactionaries: want to return to the past, to some imagined “golden age.”

By that understanding, the Republican party today has become the very embodiment of “reactionary.” They want to return the role of government to what it was in the 1920s and before, immigration policy to what it was following the 1924 Immigration Act, tax policy to what it was in the 1910s and before, and race relations to what they were in the late 1800s. Nothing that they stand for is “new” except for the parts about lauding, rather than condemning, the actions of a man who in the 1960s would have been considered a criminal rich guy and a far more unhinged politician than Joseph McCarthy ever was.

Some highlights from the essay:

To some fanfare, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign today launched Republicans for Harris, which will kick off with events this week in the swing states of Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Their goal, campaign officials told Zeke Miller of the Associated Press, is to make it easier for Republican voters put off by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to back Democratic presidential nominee Harris. Curiously, though, in their embrace of the nation’s growing democratic coalition, Republicans crossing the aisle in 2024 are returning to their party’s origins.

The Republican party and the Democratic party have completely traded places since the 1800s. Back then, as Cox shows, it was Democrats who were rejecting the declaration that “all men are created equal” as they championed the ideas and policies of white supremacy, while the Republicans were standing firm for Jefferson and “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

She continues:

The Republican Party itself began as a coalition that came together to stand against an oligarchy whose leaders were explicit about their determination to overthrow democracy. As wealth had accumulated in the hands of a small group of elite southern enslavers, those men had turned against American democracy. “I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are created equal,’” South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond said. [emphasis added]

and:

The present looks much like that earlier moment when people of all different political backgrounds came together to defend the democratic principles of the United States. In today’s moment, when someone like J.D. Vance backer billionaire Peter Thiel says, “Democracy, whatever that means, is exhausted,” and the Republicans’ Project 2025 calls for replacing democracy with Christian nationalism, it makes sense for all people who care about our history and our democratic heritage to pull together.

So once again history is trying to repeat itself. Let’s work to make sure that does not happen.

Heather Cox Richardson’s Facebook page is here, and if you are not already subscribing to her daily email newsletter, you should go here to start your subscription.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/5/2260785/-Another-great-essay-from-Heather-Cox-Richardson?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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