Post by DrSchadenfreude on Nov 11, 2021 17:33:45 GMT -5
Outstanding interview at Salon.com this week with my fellow Brown University alum, Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean.
(She graduated a few years after I did. We were both Magna Cum Laude.)
Historian Nancy MacLean: We're seeing a right-wing plan built on "decades of disinformation"
MacLean published "Democracy in Chains" four years ago — and says it's "gut-wrenching" to see it come to life
www.salon.com/2021/11/09/historian-nancy-maclean-were-seeing-a-right-wing-plan-built-on-decades-of-disinformation/
November 9, 2021
Excerpts
How are you feeling? For some time, you have warned the American people about the anti-democracy campaign being waged by the libertarian right-wing. That's all coming together right now.
MacLean: It's dispiriting. I believe that more people are understanding what's going on in this country with the democracy crisis, but I do not think it is happening on a scale and in a timely enough way to stop what's unfolding before us. It's just gut-wrenching, to be frank. People who should know better are not behaving as they should. The Biden administration is running into exactly the same roadblocks the Obama administration did.
So the Republican Party won't compromise? What did they think was going to happen when the Republican Party was taken over by libertarian donors and a base that's been fed red meat by Fox News for 25 years?
America's political class continues to behave as though it is shocked and stunned by the Republican attempts to nullify democracy, as seen on Jan. 6 and in the ongoing coup attempt. Are they in denial? Is this willful ignorance? Are they so invested in a broken political system that they refuse to admit the obvious and respond appropriately? How do you make sense of this lack of urgency?
MacLean: First, I do not believe that they are monolithic. It is important to emphasize that fact because there are people who do know better. This includes Pramila Jayapal of the Progressive Caucus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse and others. There have been some bold and outspoken and truth-delivering voices who we should applaud. But it is a real challenge to persuade their colleagues to speak to these truths about the country's democracy crises.
I'm not denying that it's a complicated operation. If the Democrats need 60 senators to get anything substantive done and you're dealing with the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it's a challenge and it's frustrating. But I do believe that the leading Democrats could do more with the bully pulpit to help the American people understand the origins of the democracy crisis — and what is at stake for their day-to-day lives if this right-wing libertarian and larger anti-democracy cause is allowed to advance, as it has been doing for years.
What and who are the elements in this anti-democracy movement?
MacLean: There is an elite element and the voters they count on to advance the goals. The elite elements are parts of the corporate libertarian Koch network. The large number of donors and institutions they fund include the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network and many others.
This network also includes supposed scholars, faculty, and students at over 300 institutions at present. The corporate-libertarian cause knows that the world they want to create is unpopular. Therefore, they have to get the votes to advance their agenda by relying on the religious right.
The religious right has now been boiled down to a base consisting of white nationalist Christian evangelicals in various forms, who are anti-science for example. In my opinion, it was fairly easy to persuade them to reject climate science and to embrace the Big Lie about the 2020 election and all the other lies and untruths being pandered by the right-wing movement and its media.
We are now also seeing the religious right overlapping in significant ways with white supremacists and the larger white power movement. In this country we are in real trouble in that regard because of how these white nationalist identities are being used to promote vigilante actions.
What did you see on January 6th?
MacLean: To my eyes, it was a fulfillment of these decades of disinformation and agitation of the worst impulses held by some Americans. For example, these very self-interested right-wing forces who oppose taking action to stop the global climate crisis are willing to leverage racism, homophobia, sexism and other antisocial behavior and values to achieve that goal.
There is plenty of evidence showing that the Koch donor network has funded and continues to back the politicians who spurred on the events of Jan. 6 and the Big Lie, and refused to certify Biden's election.
The mainstream news media are complicit in so much of this because of their "both sides" script. The mainstream news media needs to recognize that there is an imminent threat of autocracy in the United States.
(She graduated a few years after I did. We were both Magna Cum Laude.)
Historian Nancy MacLean: We're seeing a right-wing plan built on "decades of disinformation"
MacLean published "Democracy in Chains" four years ago — and says it's "gut-wrenching" to see it come to life
www.salon.com/2021/11/09/historian-nancy-maclean-were-seeing-a-right-wing-plan-built-on-decades-of-disinformation/
November 9, 2021
Excerpts
How are you feeling? For some time, you have warned the American people about the anti-democracy campaign being waged by the libertarian right-wing. That's all coming together right now.
MacLean: It's dispiriting. I believe that more people are understanding what's going on in this country with the democracy crisis, but I do not think it is happening on a scale and in a timely enough way to stop what's unfolding before us. It's just gut-wrenching, to be frank. People who should know better are not behaving as they should. The Biden administration is running into exactly the same roadblocks the Obama administration did.
So the Republican Party won't compromise? What did they think was going to happen when the Republican Party was taken over by libertarian donors and a base that's been fed red meat by Fox News for 25 years?
America's political class continues to behave as though it is shocked and stunned by the Republican attempts to nullify democracy, as seen on Jan. 6 and in the ongoing coup attempt. Are they in denial? Is this willful ignorance? Are they so invested in a broken political system that they refuse to admit the obvious and respond appropriately? How do you make sense of this lack of urgency?
MacLean: First, I do not believe that they are monolithic. It is important to emphasize that fact because there are people who do know better. This includes Pramila Jayapal of the Progressive Caucus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse and others. There have been some bold and outspoken and truth-delivering voices who we should applaud. But it is a real challenge to persuade their colleagues to speak to these truths about the country's democracy crises.
I'm not denying that it's a complicated operation. If the Democrats need 60 senators to get anything substantive done and you're dealing with the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it's a challenge and it's frustrating. But I do believe that the leading Democrats could do more with the bully pulpit to help the American people understand the origins of the democracy crisis — and what is at stake for their day-to-day lives if this right-wing libertarian and larger anti-democracy cause is allowed to advance, as it has been doing for years.
What and who are the elements in this anti-democracy movement?
MacLean: There is an elite element and the voters they count on to advance the goals. The elite elements are parts of the corporate libertarian Koch network. The large number of donors and institutions they fund include the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network and many others.
This network also includes supposed scholars, faculty, and students at over 300 institutions at present. The corporate-libertarian cause knows that the world they want to create is unpopular. Therefore, they have to get the votes to advance their agenda by relying on the religious right.
The religious right has now been boiled down to a base consisting of white nationalist Christian evangelicals in various forms, who are anti-science for example. In my opinion, it was fairly easy to persuade them to reject climate science and to embrace the Big Lie about the 2020 election and all the other lies and untruths being pandered by the right-wing movement and its media.
We are now also seeing the religious right overlapping in significant ways with white supremacists and the larger white power movement. In this country we are in real trouble in that regard because of how these white nationalist identities are being used to promote vigilante actions.
What did you see on January 6th?
MacLean: To my eyes, it was a fulfillment of these decades of disinformation and agitation of the worst impulses held by some Americans. For example, these very self-interested right-wing forces who oppose taking action to stop the global climate crisis are willing to leverage racism, homophobia, sexism and other antisocial behavior and values to achieve that goal.
There is plenty of evidence showing that the Koch donor network has funded and continues to back the politicians who spurred on the events of Jan. 6 and the Big Lie, and refused to certify Biden's election.
The mainstream news media are complicit in so much of this because of their "both sides" script. The mainstream news media needs to recognize that there is an imminent threat of autocracy in the United States.
