NOTHING I LEARNED AS A HISTORIAN OVER 45 YEARS PREPARED ME FOR THIS MOMENT

[appalachiablue]

- By Stone Age Brain. History News Network, Columbian College, GWU, Aug. 9, 2021. - This blog post was written by Rick Shenkman, the founder of George Washington University’s History News Network, & author of Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics. - Ed.

I spent the last 45 years studying the history of this country. But after the last 4 years I can truly say I didn't understand it, cynical though I often was about the ugly disfiguring patches that no Band-Aid could hide. McCarthyism – sure. Racism – of course. Xenophobia – duh. Misogyny – hell yes. America had it all. But a mass cult built around an old man known for lying and grifting who bronzes his face each day? Didn't see that happening. Nor did I anticipate that tens of millions would refuse a free vaccine that could save others' lives – and their own.

And cynical as I was I never thought that the politicians these millions elected would be so cowed by their chosen leader that almost every one of them would go along with his wild schemes and lies. But with each passing day I can't escape the feeling that it's the present I don't understand. Knowing our history hasn't made it easier to come to terms with the present. If anything, it's been a hindrance. It's gotten in the way of me seeing what is in front of my own eyes. It's made me want to excuse what's happening or to downplay it. Realizing that this country is not what I thought it was is disillusioning. Which is strange. I spent my whole career trying to see things clearly as they are and not as I'd wish them to be.

I wrote 3 books bursting the myths of American history. George W. Bush convinced Americans that the leader of Iraq was connected somehow to 9-11, so I wrote a book, Just How Stupid Are We? I spent years searching for answers about human behavior. Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics is a discussion of our susceptibility to lies. The literature shows that human beings are capable, productive - and often plain wrong. They think they are good at detecting lies but aren't. They believe they have empathy for others but often don't. They are confident they can read other people but often can't. This is true of human beings around the world living in vastly different environments.

And still nothing I learned prepared me for the country I find myself living in today. History had convinced me that Americans wouldn't elect a wild demagogue as president and wouldn't stand by him after it was proven (over & over again) that he lies to them. History was wrong. It's heartbreaking. I haven't felt like writing lately, but this needed to be written on historians' debate about Trump: Is he sui generis or inevitable? As a historian I have always believed that everything has a history & that events don't just happen. Through careful analysis of the past we can demonstrate how the events that capture the headlines emerge from changes over time in a particular place. Sometimes, to be sure, contingency is the cause. Nothing's inevitable, after all. Individual human beings acting in one way rather than another can affect the course of history, sometimes with positive outcomes (think FDR) & sometimes with bad outcomes (think Hitler)...

Read More, https://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/154523
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- 'The Dictator and The Democrat,' FDR- 4 Freedoms. Among the leaders of Western democracies, Franklin D. Roosevelt was perhaps the first to recognize a terrible threat in Adolf Hitler’s rise to absolute power in Germany. “Hitler is a madman,” FDR bluntly told the French ambassador to the U.S. in April 1933, just a month into his presidency, “and his counselors, some of whom I know personally, are even madder than he is.” A few weeks earlier, the German government had given Hitler dictatorial powers—a situation FDR characterized as “alarming.”...
https://fdr4freedoms.org/wp-content/themes/fdf4fdr/DownloadablePDFs/IV_StatesmanandCommanderinChief/09_TheDictatorandtheDemocrat.pdf

[Lovie777]

1. K & R . . .

[appalachiablue]

2. Also by Rick Shenkman, author & historian:

*'The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy.*

Human brains aren’t built for self-rule, says Shawn Rosenberg. That’s more evident than ever. By RICK SHENKMAN, Politico Magazine, Sept. 08, 2019. - Excerpts:

.. Then, the mood changed. As one of the lions of the profession, 68-year-old Shawn Rosenberg, began delivering his paper, people in the crowd of about a hundred started shifting in their seats. They loudly whispered objections to their friends. Three women seated next to me near the back row grew so loud and heated I had difficulty hearing for a moment what Rosenberg was saying. What caused the stir? Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, was challenging a core assumption about America and the West. His theory?

Democracy is devouring itself—his phrase — and it won’t last.

As much as President Donald Trump’s liberal critics might want to lay America’s ills at his door, Rosenberg says the president is not the cause of democracy’s fall—even if Trump’s successful anti-immigrant populist campaign may have been a symptom of democracy’s decline. We’re to blame, said Rosenberg. As in “we the people.” Democracy is hard work. And as society’s “elites”—experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule—have increasingly been sidelined, citizens have proved ill equipped cognitively and emotionally to run a well-functioning democracy. As a consequence, the center has collapsed and millions of frustrated and angst-filled voters have turned in desperation to right-wing populists.

His prediction? “In well-established democracies like the United States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and will eventually fail.”

The last half of the 20th century was the golden age of democracy. In 1945, according to one survey, there were just 12 democracies in the entire world. By the end of the century there were 87. But then came the great reversal: In the second decade of the 21st century, the shift to democracy rather suddenly and ominously stopped—and reversed.

Right-wing populist politicians have taken power or threatened to in Poland, Hungary, France, Britain, Italy, Brazil and the United States. As Rosenberg notes, “by some metrics, the right wing populist share of the popular vote in Europe overall has more than tripled from 4% in 1998 to approximately 13% in 2018.” In Germany, the right-wing populist vote increased even after the end of the Great Recession and after an influx of immigrants entering the country subsided...

More,
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045/

[aggiesal]

3. I can answer his questions in 1 word. FOX n/t

[BootinUp]

4. There are no rules in politics. That's the epiphany

I have experienced.

[JHB]

5. We've never had anything quite like the propaganda machine of the Right...

...and the weaponization of bile, axe-grinding, and outrage by -- let's face it -- the Reagan Coalition.

It has produced an insular groupthink that hasn't been seen since, well, Southern politicians and racial ideologues kept breathing and re=breathing their own hot air to wind themselves up to the point of secession 160 years ago.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Kicked and recommended. Thanks. ❤

[BeckyDem]

7. This is a very good read. Let's remember something, humans can and do

rationalize anything. The holocaust, murdering millions of Jews in a systematic way was possible because human beings gave themselves the green light. Their leader shaped it, no doubt, but the Nazi's would not have been able to accomplish such insanity without the willful acceptance of the people.