Summer Best Books (Part 2) + The Ongoing Threat to Democracy
This issue of The Platypus features more of the best books we read over the last year-ish. You can read our Summer Best Books Recommendations, Part 1 here. And, please do share and subscribe! First, though, some perspectives on the ongoing attacks on our country’s fragile democracy.
Our Democracy Crisis
Earlier this year, we wrote that “For conscious folk living in America, this is a red pill/blue pill moment. . . . [T]he biggest issue facing the country is whether a multi-racial democracy will fall to forces of authoritarianism and white power.” (We also explained how the movie Snakes on a Plane provides the playbook for saving democracy.) An important new academic paper (summarized below) illuminates the depth and seriousness of the threat, and it came out this week just a day before the Supreme Court raised the stakes.
Real democracy in the United States has a brief history. It begins with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. On Thursday, in the case Brnovich v. DNC, six conservative justices gutted Section 2 of that landmark law (the Roberts Court had already gutted Section 5 with its infamous Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013.) Nsé Ufot of the New Georgia Project responded with exactly the right call to action:
“Our elected leaders need to wake up and start acting like the house is on fire—because it is, and this ruling pours more gasoline on the flames,” [Ufot] said today in a statement that was echoed widely by other groups. “Black and Brown communities gave Democrats federal power to protect the vote and passing bills like the For the People Act is what we both expect and deserve.”
Ufot’s quote appeared in Ron Brownstein’s Atlantic piece “Democrats Have 1 Option Left,” which correctly concluded that
Today’s Supreme Court decision further weakening the Voting Rights Act affirmed that the only way Democrats can reverse the wave of restrictive voting laws in GOP-controlled states is to pass new federal voting rights by curtailing the Senate filibuster.
Congressional action has long seemed the only realistic lever for Democrats to resist red states’ surge of voter-suppression laws, which are passing, as I’ve written, on an almost entirely party-line basis. In the state legislatures, Democrats lack the votes to stop these laws. And while the John Roberts–led Supreme Court—which opened the door to these restrictions by eviscerating another section of the Voting Rights Act in his 2013 Shelby County decision—always seemed unlikely to restrain the Republican-controlled states, today’s ruling from the six GOP-appointed justices eliminated any doubt.
Steve Phillips offers a crucial historical perspective in Democracy in Color arguing that
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the country’s political leaders, faced with the opportunity to take [Frederick] Douglass’ critique to heart, dealt with similar questions as we do at this moment: how to punish treason, unite the nation, and secure multiracial democracy and economic justice. Joe Biden is not the first U.S. President to face a divided nation, and whether he handles this moment better than the post-Civil War presidents did will impact the future of our democracy for decades to come. . . .
Biden and Democrats have assessed that pushing for a bipartisan infrastructure bill to demonstrate some imaginary cohesion within Congress is the most important priority for the country at this moment. Meanwhile, one insurrectionist from the January 6th Capitol Riot found guilty of picketing in a Capitol building (but not even tried for insurrection, which carries a 10-year penalty) was sentenced to three years of probation, 40 hours of community service, and a $500 fine. That was the price for her participation in an attempted coup of the United States government by white nationalist terrorists. At the same time, states continue to push through bills that directly target and limit voting rights and ballot access of Black people and people of color.
An important new academic paper, “Activating Animus: The Uniquely Social Roots of Trump Support,” by Lilliana Mason, Julie Wronski, and John V. Kane, appeared in the American Political Science Review this week. The paper makes the case that hostility towards “out-groups” (they focus on African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, and LGBT people) is a driver of support for Trump across party lines and crucially that this animus is a very widespread and potent force in our politics that can be weaponized by other politicians:
Finally, this research reveals a wellspring of animus against marginalized groups in the United States that can be harnessed and activated for political gain. Trump’s unique ability to do so is not the only cause for normative concern. Instead, we should take note that these attitudes exist across both parties and among nonpartisans. Though they may remain relatively latent when leaders and parties draw attention elsewhere, the right leader can activate these attitudes and fold them into voters’ potential judgements. Should America wish to become a fully multiracial democracy, it will need to reconcile with these hostile attitudes themselves.
Figure 5. Nonlinear Relationship between Trump Support and Animus toward Democratic Groups
Note: Predicted values from OLS models controlling for party, ideology, education, race, religion, age, gender, income, and political interest. Democratic group animosity is the average feeling thermometer score for African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, and LGBT, coded to indicate less warmth. This figure allows for a nonlinear relationship between animosity and Trump support.
A great strength of the paper is that the authors take emotions seriously as a fundamental driver of politics and that they center racism and other forms of animus as fundamental to understanding our current democratic crisis. Yes, cynical elites manipulate — but the deeper problem the authors point to is the pervasiveness of this animus in society itself, which existed prior to Trump.
We encourage you to read the whole article (including the useful graphs) as well this fascinating tweet thread by one of the authors (Mason) who discusses an “implication of the research that we really only hint at in the conclusion and that I'd like to elaborate on here.” She writes:
First, the people who really like Trump in 2018 are the same ones who really disliked Blacks, Muslims, LGBT+, and Hispanics in 2011. It's NOT THE SAME for the GOP in general, or even for Ryan or McConnell. Trump is drawing on this particular group of people to a unique degree.
He is also doing this ACROSS PARTIES.
The new MAGA/anti-MAGA conflict is not an entirely partisan one. It's about white Christian supremacy versus a fully multi-racial democracy. The Trump effect occurs most powerfully at the most hateful end of the spectrum (above 0.5 on the animus scale).
And it's not happening for anyone on the Democratic side. Hating Christians and White people doesn't predict favorability toward any Democratic figures or the Democratic Party. So it isn't "anti-White racism" (whatever that means) motivating the left. It's not "both sides."
This means that there is a faction in American politics that has moved from party to party, can be recruited from either party, and responds especially well to hatred of marginalized groups. They're not just Republicans or Democrats, they're a third faction that targets parties.
THIS is the faction we, as Americans, should be worried about. "Bipartisanship" is not the answer to the problem. We need to confront this particular faction of Americans who have been uniquely visible and anti-democratic since before the Civil War (when they were Democrats).
We haven't really talked about them — except in extreme and isolated ways like talking about the KKK. But Trump served as a lightning rod for lots of regular people who hold white Christian supremacist beliefs. We neglect to name and identify them at the peril of democracy.
Their current control over the GOP makes it seem like a partisan issue. But this faction has been around longer than our current partisan divide. And calling it partisan is a misdirection (even if it is facially true).
It draws our attention away from the faction and forces us to "both-sides" democracy v. anti-democracy. These two sides are not equivalent. As academics and journalists, who are pressured into non-partisanship, it makes it difficult to speak honestly about the threat.
But this current research locates the faction in 2011, and observes them moving toward Trump himself by 2018, from across the political spectrum. Trump solidified the faction's control over the GOP, but they are not loyal to a party — they are loyal to white Christian domination.
This is the true but uncomfortable conversation we need to start having. It may seem "uncivil" or rude. It may break the norms of objective reporting and research. But these rules and norms have always protected this faction.
More than "polarization," we need to worry about the very real threat posed by an anti-democratic group that has always existed in the electorate, and has taken control of parties to cover for their explicitly anti-democratic aims. When we do point at them, they are indignant.
As long as they can hide behind party labels they are protected by "bipartisanship" and the both-sides implications of "polarization" research. It's time to bring this faction out of the protection of party labels and the veil of political civility, and into the discussion.
The implications of this analysis for our strategy are profound. It suggests that appeals to narrowly defined economic interests, shallow persuasion efforts, naive exhortations to bipartisanship, and avoiding charged topics related to race or immigration won’t defuse the authoritarian threat. This racial animus is, as many have argued (including in different ways, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Heather McGhee, Greg Grandin, and Arlie Hochschild), the deepest taproot of American history. In the medium and long term, success will depend on 1) organizing that fortifies the coalition that supports multi-racial democracy, as Steve Phillips has argued, inside and outside elections; and 2) weaken the anti-democratic coalition through organizing and other interventions that work at the level of emotion and identity, rather than tactics focused on cognition, transactional messaging, and policy programs alone. In the here and now, enacting pro-democracy reforms like the For the People Act should be everyone’s top priority. Under any circumstances, we have a long struggle ahead of us.
Best Books: Summer Reading Recommendations, Part 2
Katherine Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. A historian at the University of Chicago, Belew chronicles the rise of the white power movement from the period after the Vietnam War, when aggrieved veterans sought to “bring the war home,” to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, revealing how Timothy McVeigh was not a “lone wolf,” as he was so often described, but a soldier in a secret army committed to “leaderless resistance” and revolutionary violence to create a white ethno-state. For anyone seeking to understand the deeper history behind the insurrection on January 6th, Belew’s book is essential reading, and we are eagerly awaiting her forthcoming anthology, edited with Ramón Guttiérrez, A Field Guide to White Supremacy, due out in October.
Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Deepak read this book cover to cover in one sitting and found it one of the two best and sadly most accurate stories of the role modern philanthropy plays in reproducing America’s grotesque inequality. (The other is Megan Ming Francis’s work on the distorting effect of philanthropy on civil rights agendas. You should check out her must-read article “The Price of Civil Rights: Black Lives, White Funding, and Movement Capture.”) Giridharadas argues that philanthropy is too often a salve for guilty consciences, that it feeds the inflated egos of those who give or helps the super-rich change the subject from the underlying structures of exploitation that generate wealth at the cost of great poverty. He points back to the need for collective solutions, through government, for the problems of our time. On this same topic, we’re very excited to read the new issue of The Forge, guest-edited by Gara LaMarche, which brings together leading movement practitioners, donors, and academics to consider contradictions, imperatives, and opportunities at the intersection of philanthropy and social justice.
Andre Gorz, Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work. This little-read gem from the author best known today for the idea of “non-reformist reforms” takes on the question of what human freedom really consists of. Gorz challenges the work-centered visions that have dominated left thought for generations.
Pramila Jayapal, Use The Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics. One of the most effective progressives in America tells her own fascinating story, including her education as a highly accomplished movement activist, her decision to run for office, and her peerless navigation of the “inside-outside” game. She also offers compelling visions for three areas in which she has been a leader: immigration reform, Medicare for All, and the Fight for 15. Jayapal models the kind of progressive, principled, accountable, and imaginative leadership we need.
Bruno LaTour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. This is a very French book, and we mean that in the best sense. LaTour, a prominent philosopher of science, connects the dots between overlapping crises of inequality, climate change, forced migration, and rising authoritarianism in a novel and utterly compelling way, pointing the way to an emergent (if sketchy) form of “terrestrial” politics. His take on what the 1% are up to – decamping for Mars, floating stateless on billion-dollar yachts, and seeking eternal life, essentially, seceding from the rest of us and heading to the very well-appointed lifeboats, assuming climate disaster to be unavoidable – seems sadly accurate. Sweeping in its ambition and grandiose in its claims, the book works as a diagnosis of our global and civilizational crisis, and while its solution is somewhat opaque, it at least points in the direction of a prescription for what ails us.
Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. Mazzucato explains how the way we measure wealth favors private interests and disguises how much wealth today is really the result of “value extraction” rather than productive economic activity. Neoliberal policies favor predatory wealth extractors rather than true wealth creators. She centers the crucial role of government in creating wealth, laying the predicate for a new economic paradigm – parts of which are evident in the boldest parts of Biden’s economic plans.
Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Written with admirable clarity and a gift for telling stories of individuals who reveal the real-world consequences of public policies, McGhee’s book is surely one of the most important books on American politics to appear in years. Her central argument is that time after time white Americans have harmed themselves by destroying or preventing the creation of public goods — from public swimming pools to universal healthcare — and they’ve done so in the deluded belief, stoked by mendacious politicians, that any gain for minorities, especially Black Americans, would mean a loss for them. She also shows in a series of hopeful case studies how organizing can help move beyond such “zero-sum” thinking and yield policies that truly benefit everyone. Her chapter “Never a Real Democracy” is a must-read primer on the history of attacks on voting rights that is extremely relevant in our current moment. But what is perhaps most impressive about the book is how McGhee’s “race-class analysis” offers profound insights on a huge range of policy debates and topics, including the fight for 15, education reform, student debt, the struggle to rebuild the union movement, the housing crisis of 2008, and the movement to stop climate change.
Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. If you believe, as we do, that new technologies deployed by mega-corporations constitute an assault on our minds, hearts, and humanity, this book provides a framework for thinking about the conscious use of technology through the lens of “resistance” to our corporate overlords. It also offers some very helpful specific strategies to regain a modicum of control and agency.
Ruth Milkman, Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat. This pathbreaking book offers evidence that immigrants do not take jobs from native-born workers. The “immigrant threat narrative” that demagogues have deployed for decades is just wrong. Milkman studies several sectors, such as meatpacking and construction, and finds that employers crushed unions, cut pay, and otherwise degraded working conditions, leading native-born workers to leave whole industries. Only then did those industries see an influx of immigrant workers. This argument should revolutionize the way we think, talk, and make policy about the issue.
Todd Miller, Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration and Homeland Security. Journalist Todd Miller travels the world to explore the realities of growing climate migration and the chilling corporate security state that is cashing in by militarizing borders and preparing for apocalyptic defenses of Global North countries from migrants seeking to survive.
Cecilia Muñoz, More Than Ready: Be Strong and Be You … and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise. In this amazing book, Muñoz tells her own story, including her journey to becoming one of the most renowned and effective advocates for immigrants in the country, inside and outside government. She also talks with other women of color leaders and distills critical lessons for being good, doing good, and feeling good.
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Path to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Menakem, a practicing therapist, explores racism from the perspective of trauma and somatic psychology. He explains how racism reshapes our bodies and he provides concrete practices for unwinding the impact of generational trauma through somatic work. We also recommend an excellent On Being podcast discussion with him here.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future. Deepak is two-thirds of the way through this masterpiece. Robinson imagines how our world –culture, politics, and economy– will change in the not far off future because of global warming. The range of topics he covers, from science to ecology to economics to political strategy, is amazing. The book is sobering but also incredibly inspiring (at least two-thirds of the way in!).
Eli Saslow, Rising Out of Hatred: the awakening of a former white nationalist. Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow tells the astonishing story of Derek Black, heir apparent to lead the white nationalist movement in the U.S., a godson of David Duke, and son of Don Black, the founder of Stormfront. When Derek began his undergraduate years at New College of Florida (Harry’s alma mater), he led a double-life: hosting a white nationalist radio show with his father while slowly, almost imperceptibly, being deradicalized by his new friends, including a Peruvian immigrant, a Jew whose grandparents had died in the Holocaust, and a psychology major who became his girlfriend and devoted herself to freeing Derek from the hateful ideology he was raised with. His transformation holds deep lessons for dealing with white nationalism writ large.
Keeanga-Yamhatta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and The Combahee River Collective. The authors of the Combahee River Collective statement made a remarkable contribution to social change and thought in the U.S. –including introducing ideas like “interlocking oppressions” and “identity politics.” In her preface, Taylor points out many of their distinctive contributions, including the idea that “if you could free the most oppressed people in society, then you would have to free everyone,” and the authors’ critique of capitalism as playing a crucial role in Black women’s oppression. Reading this piece (and interviews with Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Demita Frazier, Alicia Garza, and comments by Barbara Ransby) is especially illuminating now.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. This collection of essays and conversations speaks to the intersection of spiritual practice and social change through the lenses of Buddhism and communities of color. It proposes that a socially and politically engaged spirituality is necessary – both for spirituality to be real and for social change to have roots. We also recommend Lama Rod Owens’ Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, which shows how we can accept and purify anger as a vital energy for creation, change, and clarity.
(As a reminder, The Platypus is mostly hibernating this summer, but you can expect it to pop its bill out of its burrow on a highly unpredictable schedule).