Saturday, October 10, 2026

Authoritarian Populism and Democratic Backsliding: Analyzing the Modern Republican Party and the MAGA Movement

 

Authoritarian Populism and Democratic Backsliding: Analyzing the Modern Republican Party and the MAGA Movement

Abstract

This paper examines the ongoing transformations within the modern American political landscape, specifically focusing on arguments advanced by political scientists and researchers regarding the modern Republican Party and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Scholars increasingly characterize this faction as a manifestation of authoritarian right-wing populism that challenges foundational democratic norms. This paper synthesizes academic perspectives on how the movement impacts election integrity, institutional rhetoric, and public trust, while also evaluating policy implications across reproductive freedom, climate science, and social welfare programs. Additionally, the paper addresses counter-arguments and systemic features that complicate the thesis of an existential institutional crisis.

Introduction

In recent years, political scientists, sociologists, and democracy-monitoring organizations have increasingly directed their attention toward the phenomenon of democratic backsliding within consolidated western democracies. In the United States, a prominent body of academic literature identifies the transformation of the modern Republican Party under the influence of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement as a primary vector of this democratic erosion. [1, 2, 3, 4]
According to researchers analyzing these developments, the contemporary GOP has increasingly sidelined traditional conservative principles—such as limited government, free-market internationalism, and strict institutional adherence—in favor of an illiberal, populist framework. This academic perspective posits that the movement presents significant challenges to the foundational norms of American democracy by systematically targeting election administration, eroding institutional rhetoric, and pursuing a policy agenda that critics argue compromises human rights and public welfare. [5, 6, 7, 8]

The Assault on Election Integrity and Democratic Backsliding

At the core of the academic critique against the modern MAGA movement is its documented relationship with democratic backsliding. Political scientists distinguish democratic backsliding as an incremental, state-led degradation of the institutions and rules that sustain a liberal democracy. [8, 9, 10, 11]
A primary indicator of this decline, as reported by institutions like the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, is the widespread refusal by prominent political figures to accept the legitimate outcomes of free and fair elections. Scholars argue that this posture creates dangerous precedents that subvert the peaceful transfer of power. [2, 11, 12, 13]

State-Level Institutional Shifts

Academic analysis frequently highlights coordinated state-level efforts designed to alter election administration. These actions often include: [8, 13]
  • Restricting Voting Access: Passing legislation that narrows options for mail-in voting, registration, and polling place availability. [7, 8]
  • Politicizing Election Administration: Shifting oversight authority from nonpartisan or bipartisan bureaucrats to partisan legislative bodies. [8, 13]
  • Promoting Conspiracism: Incorporating unsubstantiated election fraud narratives into mainstream party platforms to delegitimize opposition victories. [6, 14]

Erosion of Institutional Norms and Hostile Rhetoric

A functioning republic requires a baseline level of mutual toleration—the understanding that political rivals are legitimate participants in governance rather than existential threats. Scholars note that MAGA leadership frequently utilizes rhetoric that violates this principle. [5, 15, 16]
By framing political opponents as "enemies of the state" or corrupt elites operating a "deep state," right-wing populism deepens affective polarization. Empirical research on political sociology indicates that this polarization correlates with heightened public acceptance of political violence. [11, 14, 15, 17]
For instance, national surveys conducted by the UC Davis Center for Violence Prevention found that individuals identifying as MAGA Republicans endorsed the justification of political violence for specific sociopolitical objectives at significantly higher rates than non-MAGA cohorts. While these findings generally do not indicate a personal willingness by the majority to commit violent acts, researchers warn that such widespread rhetorical endorsement creates a highly volatile permissive environment. [14, 17, 18]

Policy Dimensions and Public Welfare

Beyond structural governance norms, the policy agenda championed by the contemporary GOP is frequently analyzed by progressive think tanks and policy researchers as a challenge to societal stability and individual freedoms. [4, 7]

Reproductive Freedom and Human Rights

Following judicial reinterpretation of constitutional privacy rights, the widespread pursuit of state-level abortion bans and federal restrictions is framed by critics as an rollback of bodily autonomy and reproductive health access. [5, 7]

Climate Science and Environmental Protections

The systemic rejection of consensus climate science and the promotion of fossil fuel expansion remain central pillars of the "America First" energy platform. Researchers argue that dismantling environmental regulations poses long-term threats to public health, environmental sustainability, and international climate obligations. [2, 4, 6]

Social Safety Net Programs

Proposals and legislative actions aimed at restructuring or defunding bedrock social safety net programs—such as welfare, healthcare initiatives, and social security elements—are viewed by socio-economic analysts as drivers of increased economic inequality and vulnerability among marginalized populations. [7, 19]

Counter-Perspectives and Systemic Resilience

While a substantial volume of literature warns of a profound democratic crisis, other political scientists and conservative theorists offer counter-narratives or point to mitigating factors:
  1. The Systemic Guardrails Thesis: Scholars like those published by the Cambridge University Press argue that the U.S. constitutional framework—characterized by robust checks and balances, federalism, and an independent judiciary—remains highly resilient against personalistic or authoritarian concentration of power. [12, 20]
  2. Populism as Representative Corrective: Some theorists suggest that populism functions as a "thin ideology" that arises to close a genuine representation gap. From this perspective, the MAGA movement represents a legitimate democratic mobilization of a working-class electorate that feels abandoned by globalization, deindustrialization, and entrenched technocratic elites. [19, 21, 22]
  3. The Intact Electorate: Research on mass public opinion, such as findings detailed in The Moderate Majority, suggests a persistent disconnect between the highly polarized rhetoric of political elites and the more moderate, diverse views held by rank-and-file voters, indicating that mass radicalization may be overestimated.

Conclusion

The modern Republican Party and the MAGA movement represent a fundamental shift in American political dynamics, transitioning from standard institutional conservatism toward a potent form of right-wing populism. Academic consensus points toward measurable challenges regarding election integrity, institutional rhetoric, and public trust generated by this transition. However, the ultimate trajectory of American democracy remains a subject of intense debate, caught between clear indicators of state-level institutional backsliding and the structural resilience of the nation's foundational constitutional guardrails. [4, 5, 12, 16, 20, 23]

References

  • Howell, W. G., & Moe, T. M. (2020). Presidents, populism, and the crisis of democracy. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
  • Ricci, D. M. (2020). A political science manifesto for the age of populism. Cambridge University Press.
  • Wintemute, G. J., Crawford, A., Robinson, S. L., Tancredi, D. J., Schleimer, J. P., & Tomsich, E. A. (2025). The MAGA movement and political violence in 2024: Findings from a nationally representative survey. Injury Epidemiology, 12(1), 45–58. [9, 14, 17, 21, 24]
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Thursday, October 8, 2026

Transformation of the GOP to evil.

 The transformation of the modern Republican Party under the MAGA movement represents a structural, illiberal shift that fundamentally threatens American constitutional democracy. 

The Ideological Shift: From Conservative Pluralism to Right-Wing Populism

Traditional conservatism, whatever its policy stances, operated within the boundaries of constitutional pluralism—respecting checks and balances, federalism, and the legitimacy of opposition parties. The MAGA movement replaces this with authoritarian populism, framed around a binary worldview: a "pure" people led by a singular figure fighting an illegitimate, corrupt establishment.

  • Rejection of the "Loyal Opposition": By framing political competition not as a debate over policy but as an existential war between patriots and enemies of the state, the movement delegitimizes the concept of a loyal opposition—a cornerstone of any functioning democracy.

  • Abandonment of Institutional Constraints: Checks and balances (such as an independent judiciary, executive branch non-partisanship, and legislative oversight) are viewed not as safeguards against tyranny, but as obstacles to executing the "will of the people".

Subversion of Democratic Norms and Electoral Integrity

The core mechanism of democratic backsliding in modern states rarely involves military coups; instead, it occurs incrementally through the legal and institutional erosion of democratic safeguards ("autogolpe" or executive takeover).

  • Normalization of Election Denialism: The systematic refusal to accept certified election results breaks the foundational social contract of democracy—that power is transferred peacefully based on popular consent. Once election outcomes are conditioned on political victory rather than institutional process, electoral democracy ceases to function reliably.

  • Institutional Capture: State-level initiatives to gerrymander districts aggressively, restrict voter access under the guise of security, and strip nonpartisan election boards of authority in favor of partisan bodies represent a concerted effort to institutionalize minoritarian rule.

Rhetorical Escalation and the Normalization of Political Violence

The movement’s communication strategy actively erodes the informal norms—such as mutual toleration and institutional forbearance—that keep political conflict peaceful.

  • Dehumanizing and Apocalyptic Language: Describing political opponents as "traitors," "vermin," or threats to national existence lowers the psychological barrier for political violence.

  • Sanctioning Extremism: By portraying legal accountability or political defeat as existential catastrophes, leadership implicitly legitimizes unlawful or violent responses, signaling to extremist factions that radical actions are justified to "save the country".

Policy Impact on Rights, Public Welfare, and Institutional Stability

The operational agenda of the modern GOP applies this illiberal ideology across public policy, reversing decades of social progress and institutional protection:

  • Bodily Autonomy and Rights: The rollback of federal reproductive rights and targeted state legislation against vulnerable groups demonstrate a willingness to use state power to enforce majoritarian or ideological doctrine over individual liberty.

  • Institutional Nihilism and Public Safety: The rejection of scientific consensus on climate change and public health, combined with efforts to defund or strip civil service protections from federal agencies ("Schedule F"), weakens the administrative state's ability to protect citizens from systemic crises. 

    REFERENCES: 

    • Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown.

      • Application: Provides the core framework for how modern democracies crumble incrementally from within via elected leaders rather than military coups. Levitsky and Ziblatt identify key indicators of authoritarian behavior (e.g., rejection of democratic rules, denial of opponents' legitimacy, toleration of violence, readiness to curtail civil liberties) and argue that the breakdown of unwritten norms like "mutual toleration" and "institutional forbearance" drives democratic erosion.

    2. Multi-Threat Convergence and Historical Context

    • Mettler, S., & Lieberman, R. C. (2020). Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy. St. Martin's Press.

      • Application: Identifies four historical drivers of democratic fragility—political polarization, conflict over who belongs in the political community, rising economic inequality, and executive power expansion—and demonstrates that the contemporary political environment is the first period in U.S. history where all four threats have converged simultaneously.

    3. Populism vs. Liberal Constitutionalism

    • Müller, J.-W. (2016). What Is Populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.

      • Application: Elaborates on the core mechanics of right-wing populism. Müller demonstrates how populist movements claim a monopoly on representing the "real people," treating political rivals as corrupt enemies and rejecting constitutional checks and balances as illegitimate obstacles to executive authority.


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Modern GOP and MAGA

 

The modern Republican Party and the MAGA movement represent a clear and present danger to the United States, actively threatening democratic institutions, social progress, and the stability of the nation. The movement has fundamentally abandoned traditional conservative principles in favor of an authoritarian right-wing populism that seeks to dismantle the foundational norms of American democracy. At the core of this threat is an ongoing assault on election integrity and democratic backsliding. The widespread refusal to accept the legitimate outcomes of free and fair elections has established a dangerous precedent. This anti-democratic posture is directly coupled with systematic, state-level efforts to restrict voting access, politicize nonpartisan election administration, and promote unsubstantiated conspiracy theories—actions designed specifically to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and subvert public trust in democratic governance. Furthermore, the escalation of hostile political rhetoric has severely eroded essential institutional norms. By routinely framing political opponents not as legitimate rivals, but as existential enemies of the state, MAGA leadership actively deepens social divisions, normalizes political violence, and breaks down the collaborative processes required for a functioning republic. Beyond the degradation of political norms, the policy agenda pushed by the modern GOP poses an urgent threat to human rights, public health, and societal stability. The rollback of reproductive freedoms, the systemic rejection of climate science, and the deliberate dismantling of essential social safety net programs demonstrate a total disregard for individual liberty and public welfare. Far from protecting constitutional principles, the modern GOP and MAGA movement actively undermine the safety, rights, and future of the American people.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026

 

The Ideological Architecture of Contemporary American Christian Nationalism

Abstract: This analysis examines Christian nationalism as a distinct political ideology seeking to merge American civic identity with a specific, culturally bounded expression of Christianity. By evaluating empirical survey data and historical frameworks, this paper outlines how the movement's core tenets directly challenge foundational democratic norms—specifically pluralism, universal franchise, and institutional checks and balances.
                  [ STRUCTURAL CONCEPTUALIZATION ]
              Institutional Fusion of Church & State
                                 │
         ┌───────────────────────┴───────────────────────┐
         ▼                                               ▼
[ DEMOGRAPHIC HIERARCHY ]                     [ SYSTEMIC EXCLUSION ]
• Ethnoracial In-Group Elite                  • Restricted Voting Rights
• Traditionalist Patriarchal Roles            • Rationalized Authoritarian Control
• Capitalist/Nationalist Confounding         • Divine Sanction of State Policy

Conceptualizing Christian Nationalism

Christian nationalism is not merely the presence of religious values in the public square; it is an explicit ideological framework demanding that governmental institutions at all levels validate and protect a specific cultural identity as the definitive core of American citizenship, public policy, and social belonging.
Crucially, the "Christianity" invoked within this ideology does not align with historical, orthodox, or ecumenical theological traditions. Instead, sociological data demonstrates that the term operates primarily as a cultural and ethnic marker characterized by five distinct impulses:
  1. Traditionalist Hierarchies: A commitment to maintaining rigid social, gender, and patriarchal structures.
  2. Ethnoracial Boundaries: The enforcement of strict, exclusionary definitions regarding native national belonging.
  3. Authoritarian Social Control: A high degree of comfort with utilizing state mechanisms to enforce moral and social order.
  4. Economic Moralism: The conflation of unregulated free-market capitalist principles with divine intent.
  5. Populist Grievance: A structural reliance on populist rhetoric that cultivates zero-sum feelings of victimization and conspiratorial thinking.

The Three Operational Pillars Against Democratic Pluralism

While robust democracies rely on widespread civic participation, unhindered franchise, and equal protection under the law, longitudinal survey data over the past decade reveals that high adherence to Christian nationalism correlates with a systematic opposition to these democratic variables across three core dimensions.

1. The Construction of the "Preferred Citizen"

The ideology relies on a revisionist historical narrative asserting that the United States was divinely established by and for a specific demographic: White, male, Christian, able-bodied, heterosexual capitalists. Empirical research indicates that individuals who strongly subscribe to this ideology demonstrate highly exclusionary sociopolitical attitudes:
  • Pluralism as Fragmentation: Viewing racial, ethnic, and religious diversity as existential threats to national cohesion rather than democratic assets.
  • Civil Rights Curtailment: Opposing equal civil protections, anti-discrimination laws, and political candidacy for LGBTQ+ individuals.
  • Gendered Leadership Ideology: Exhibiting a strong preference for patriarchal leadership in both the private family structure and public governance.

2. The Reconceptualization of Suffrage: Privilege vs. Right

Because the movement views the nation as the inheritance of a specific demographic in-group, full civic participation is treated as a conditional privilege for the "deserving" rather than an inalienable right for all citizens. This theoretical framework manifests in distinct institutional preferences:
  • Franchise Restriction: Strong statistical correlation with beliefs that voting is "too easy," that voter suppression is non-existent, and that voter fraud is pervasive.
  • Disenfranchisement Mechanisms: Broad support for legislative barriers to voting, including the reintroduction of civics tests or expanded crime-related restrictions.
  • Democratic Subversion and Political Violence: An increased willingness to tolerate unethical political behavior, bypass unfavorable electoral outcomes, or sanction political violence to preserve a perceived "White Christian" cultural hegemony.

3. Theological Legitimation of Authoritarian Statecraft

The potent political utility of Christian nationalism lies in its capacity to frame socio-political objectives as divine mandates. When policy goals are sacralized, democratic compromise is no longer viewed as a pragmatic necessity, but as an act of spiritual apostasy.
This absolute moral framing provides the necessary ideological justification for sweeping institutional overhauls of civil society. It underpins contemporary systematic efforts, such as the policy frameworks detailed in initiatives like Project 2025, which seek to deconstruct independent bureaucratic agencies and consolidate executive authority to enforce an exclusionary social order.

Historical Precedents and Contemporary Frameworks

Comparative political scientists and sociologists frequently locate the mechanics of modern American Christian nationalism within broader historical patterns of authoritarian consolidation. Most notably, scholarly parallels are drawn to the Gleichschaltung (co-optation) strategies utilized during the rise of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany. In that context, the state successfully co-opted a culturally dominant form of "Positive Christianity" (Positives Christentum) to manufacture a uniform national identity, strip minority populations of civil rights, and legitimize a totalitarian state.
In contemporary American politics, analysts argue that these historical methodologies are actively mirrored in the rhetoric and policy agendas utilized by Donald Trump, his administration, and the platform of the modern Republican Party. By aligning executive power with Christian nationalist anxieties, these political actors utilize historical populist scripts to erode democratic guardrails and systematically reconstruct the state.
If you would like to develop this paper further, please let me know if we should integrate specific sociological data (such as references to the Baylor Religion Survey), expand the historical analysis of the German Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church) resistance, or flesh out the legal arguments surrounding the First Amendment.

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Sunday, October 23, 2022

Propaganda and psychological warfare helped perpetuate false narratives about the Confederacy that still persist

 




The violence broke out after the losing side in a presidential election refused to accept their defeat. No, we're not talking about the January 6th Capitol Riots, but the American Civil War. On a basic level, the Civil War was little more or less than 11 states violently seceding from the Union after the 1860 election because they opposed the victorious candidate, Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln. Correctly or otherwise, they feared that Lincoln was an abolitionist and opponent of white supremacy, both ideals that they held to be central to their Southern identity. Despite Lincoln's repeated reassurances that he only wished to limit the expansion of slavery and would otherwise leave it untouched, the newly-formed Confederate States of America waged bloody war to form their own country so they could keep slavery intact.

Four years and 620,000 deaths later, slavery had been abolished anyway and the South had been defeated — on the battlefield, that is. In the equally important war of public relations, the South slowly yet assuredly won a considerable victory: They created a romanticized myth about their defeat known as the "Lost Cause" narrative. Coined by Southern author Edward Pollard in 1866, the phrase "Lost Cause" referred to a narrative that refused to acknowledge how Confederates committed treason and were primarily motivated by a desire to preserve slavery, in a war catalyzed by a refusal to accept a lost election. The Confederates and their sympathizers insisted on being told they had fought a valiant and heroic crusade for "states' rights" against unprovoked aggression from the North. The Lost Cause narrative was given a boost when the controversial 1876 presidential election proved so close that, to prevent a second Civil War, Republicans and Democrats struck a so-called "Compromise of 1877."  This agreement ended the remaining federal attempts to dismantle systemic racism in the South in return for allowing Republican Rutherford Hayes to win the presidency. Before long, all mention of slavery related to the Civil War was downplayed or rationalized away, at least in mainstream culture; the focus, perhaps best epitomized by Hollywood epics like the 1930s novel and film "Gone with the Wind," was on a supposedly chivalrous golden age tragically lost. Blacks, by contrast, were depicted as the enemies of both northern and southern whites, a notion that underpinned discriminatory racial laws and laid the foundations for a strong trend toward racism among police officers. Even though Black Americans had suffered as slaves for more than two centuries, Lost Cause advocates claimed that they had actually liked slavery. Some even perpetuated the myth that there had been Black Confederates.

In other words, the South and its supporters engaged in large-scale psychological manipulation against the rest of America so they could save both their dignity and their white supremacist society — and it worked like a charm.

"Imagine being a newly freed slave having to pass by an outsized monument of your enslaver," Lecia Brooks, Chief of Staff and Culture at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), wrote to Salon. Brooks was referring to the mass production of Confederate monuments (which often occurred in Northern states), a process that reached a peak in the 1890s and occurred alongside a surge in white supremacist terrorism against Black Americans.

According to the SPLC, there are roughly 2,000 Confederate monuments still in the United States today. "While the term 'domestic terror' did not exist back then, the actions of those who championed the so-called Lost Cause mirror what we see today," Brooks added. In addition to building statues and other memorials, Confederate sympathizers and other supporters of Jim Crow policies renamed streets, courthouses, schools, parks and military bases after either prominent Confederates or the Confederate cause more broadly. They targeted public property in both Union and neutral states to make sure their message spread far and wide.

"All of this iconography was used as racist props to intimidate and remind African Americans of their place, first and foremost," Brooks explained. "Their widespread placement allowed the Confederacy to reimagine its treasonous acts as a noble effort while minimizing their brutal role in preserving slavery."

In addition to terrorizing racial minorities and tricking whites into misremembering their own history, Confederate sympathizers had more personal psychological reasons for engaging in this campaign.

"Developmentally speaking, shame develops before guilt, and at the societal level we can speak of shame cultures and guilt cultures," social psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee wrote to Salon. "The American South is a shame culture, where feelings of shame and humiliation are central, and the perception of being disrespected, dishonored, rejected, or treated as inferior — what psychological professionals call 'narcissistic wounds' — can be powerful drivers of violence. Hence, there will be a great incentive to create a narrative that signifies the opposite — pride, self-love, and innocence — even if it is false."

Dr. Edward Blum — a historian at San Diego State University who wrote the book "Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898" — told Salon by email that it was not simply Southern white pride and racism that made their "Lost Cause" mythology so persuasive. White Americans outside the South were all too willing to acquiesce for their own reasons.

"I think northern whites had the very real problems of governance after the Civil War," Blum explained. "They needed to govern the northern states who had lost men and money to the war; they had to somehow convince former Confederates to remain at peace; they had to determine the legal and civil status of African Americans (those who had been enslaved and those who had been free, but relegated to marginal status)."

"As these northerners dealt with of-the-moment social issues, they had less time and energy to fight a culture war with Lost Cause enthusiasts," he continued. On top of that, some saw there was money to be made off of it, but others were less blatantly cynical. The Civil War had drained America's energy as well as its manpower; many whites simply had no more stomach for rehashing what seemed to them to be dead conflicts. Even if they didn't agree with the Lost Cause characterization, the path of least resistance was often simply ignoring it — even if the price of letting it go unchallenged was lending credibility to a lie.

Of course, it is difficult to morally square abandoning millions of people to the apartheid conditions that existed in Jim Crow America. As Blum explained, white Americans had a "a lot" of rationalizations to get around that conundrum, "which is an indication that they knew better."

"Some used flat-out racism, the idea that white people (however defined) were just better than non-whites," Blum wrote. "Then there were culturalists, those who believed the environment from which people came directed how they would be in society. So well-educated northerners saw themselves as better to lead, better to run the country, than uneducated African Americans. The direct reasoning was not nature, but nurture. Then there were those who invoked tradition. This is how things had been in the past, and things in the past were somehow more moral or better."

Yet among all these groups, the one that Blum observed "seemed to really win out" were those who argued that it was simply unrealistic to hope to create a racially equal society. In their mind, "the price of change was simply too high," Blum argued. "The cost to transform the United States, to genuinely recognize African Americans as equal Americans would have meant massive shifts to the economy, large-scale penalties and imprisonments for those who stood in the way, and ultimately a willingness to change the entire course of the past."

While this decision likely seemed practical at the time, that sense of necessity existed because the South and its supporters abused the rest of the country into accepting its own Big Lie. The Lost Cause narrative prevailed in America by, in essence, resorting to the oldest bully tactic in the book: Win by psychologically wearing down the opposition. Confederate sympathizers repeated their lies so often, and engaged in both figurative and literal violence so often, that white America gave up in a state of collective exhaustion.

Even today, there are still many American whites who are prone to being psychologically manipulated by Confederate sympathizers. The only thing that has really changed are the tactics.

"People feel protective of their lineage and culture," Brooks wrote to Salon. "So, when Confederate supporters claim they only want to protect their heritage, that resonates. Further, it is implied that anyone venerated by a statue or a building name has done something worthy of honor." Yet all of this ignores that the Confederacy existed for no other reason than a large group of states wanted to keep and spread white supremacist slavery and believed that the winner of the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln, threatened their "peculiar institution." By definition, this means that the cause was, as Brooks put it, "actually rooted in an ideology of hate." Despite this, Brooks added that "the Confederacy continues to be branded as a victim of the 'War of Northern Aggression,' whose soldiers fought a noble effort solely to protect states' rights. Anyone who romanticizes the Confederacy chooses to ignore what history has already proven – the Civil War was fought entirely to maintain chattel slavery for the Confederacy's own selfish purposes."

Lee broke down the dynamics at play in the continued embrace of Lost Cause ideas by using directly psychological terms.

"When a shame culture becomes pathological — that is, no longer affirming life — it will use the same maladaptive manipulations that narcissistically-disordered individuals use: denial of reality, reversal of victim-perpetrator status, and exploitation of others for self-interest," Lee explained. "Denying that Black slaves were treated badly, insisting that the South was the valorous and righteous party, and using a myth of victimhood to continue subjugating others through racism, sexism, and religious authoritarianism are such features."

 

REFERENCES

 

Bernath, Michael T. "Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (review)." Civil War History 53, no. 1 (2007): 96-98.

Historian Christopher A. Graham describes the Lost Cause as “a historical ideology and a social movement created by ex-Confederates that characterized the Confederate experience and defined its value for new generations.” For more, see Christopher A. Graham, “Lost Cause Myth,” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook, May 13, 2020, accessed Dec. 23, 2021. See also Michel Paradis, “The Lost Cause’s Long Legacy: Why Does the U.S. Army Name Its Bases After Generals It Defeated?” The Atlantic, June 26, 2020, accessed January 21, 2022.

 “Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed January 21, 2022; and “Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy,” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 1, 2019.

 “SPLC Reports Over 160 Confederate Symbols Removed in 2020,” February 23, 2021.

Scholar Karen Cox has written expertly on both why Confederate memorials were dedicated and how Black activists have long challenged these symbols of hate. She argues, “the Daughters, as UDC members were known, raised the stakes of the Lost Cause by making it a movement about vindication, as well as memorialization. They erected monuments, monitored history for ‘truthfulness,’ and sought to educate coming generations of white southerners about an idyllic Old South and a just cause—states’ rights. They did so not simply to pay homage to the Confederate dead. Rather, UDC members aspired to transform military defeat into a political and cultural victory, where states’ rights and white supremacy remained intact.” See Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. 2nd ed. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019). For more on the long history of Black activism and protest, see Karen L. Cox, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2021).

According to Cox, “African Americans have participated in a tradition of protest against Confederate monuments and the Lost Cause since the late nineteenth century.” For more, see Cox, No Common Ground, 25.

For more on how the Confederate battle flag was used, see Cox, No Common Ground, 121-122. See also Clare Corbould, “Why Is the Confederate Flag so Offensive?,” The Conversation, July 23, 2020.

 “Breaking the Color Line: 1940 to 1946,” Library of Congress website, accessed January 24, 2022.

 “Whose Heritage Educational Materials,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed January 24, 2022.

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, Third Edition, Equal Justice Initiative, accessed January 24, 2022.

Micki McElya, “Commemorating the Color Line: The National Mammy Monument Controversy of the 1920s,” in Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, eds. Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson, 2nd ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019), 203-218.

Kimberly Probolus, “Why Does the U.S. Military Still Glorify the Confederacy? A Conversation with Professor Matthew Delmont,” Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Sounds Like Hate,” Southern Poverty Law Center podcast, accessed January 25, 2022.

Hunter Ingram, "Wilmington’s Confederate Statues Are Gone, So What Now?,” June 30, 2020.

Historians generally eschew an exact definition of cultural history, instead preferring to describe its characteristics. For an in-depth analysis, see Geoff Eley, A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005); and Lawrence B. Glickman, “The ‘Cultural’ Turn,” in American History Now eds. Eric Foner and Lisa McGirr. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011).

Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters; Karen Cox, No Common Ground; Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Matthew D. Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis, eds., The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998); and Andrew Shanken, “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States During World War II,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (March 2002): 130-147.

Shelby M. Driskill, “‘A Season of Discipline’: Enslavement, Education and Faith in the Life of Robert Ryland,” University of Richmond Inclusive History Project, January 29, 2021.

David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 2.

“Andrew Shanken,” University of California, Berkeley, website, accessed January 24, 2022.

It is not surprising that the media would be more inclined to report on stories about monuments. In fact, during the Civil Rights movement, the media was far more likely to cover dramatic stories featuring racial conflict and violence. The bureaucratic, everyday actions and organizing that facilitates change does not always make for a great media story. Similarly, conflicts over Confederate monuments provide compelling visualizations to illustrate debates over history and heritage. For more on the relationship between the media and the Civil Rights movement, see especially Aniko Bodroghkozy, Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012); and Matthew F. Delmont, Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016).

Aaron Untiveros and Jessica Wokng, “UCLA, UC Consider Cutting 2 Scholarships Connected With Confederate Heritage Group,” Daily Bruin, August 5, 2020.

Kevin M. Levin, “United Daughters of the Confederacy in Boston?,” Civil War Memory: The Online Home of Kevin M. Levin, accessed January 24, 2022.

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Saturday, September 4, 2021

Food for Thought.

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Thursday, August 27, 2020

As of recently, every single one of the 50 states has participated in some form of protest. The Black Lives Matter movement has swept across the country following the death of George Floyd, even inciting peaceful protests in foreign countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, and Japan, to name a few. The message is clear: end police brutality against African Americans by making real reforms, or protests will continue.

For background, protests began in the wake of George Floyd’s death, where former police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck for close to nine minutes, causing his death. Floyd's family conducted an independent autopsy, and the cause of death was asphyxiation due to sustained pressure. The United States Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees every citizen the right to a fair trial, but this right, and the right to live, was stripped from Floyd as a cause of our faulty law enforcement system.

Too little officers are held accountable: approximately four in 400 police officers are charged for killing; of these four, only one is ever convicted. I acknowledge that oftentimes, these killings are not against the law, and sometimes police officers must make split-second decisions to protect the safety of themselves and other civilians. However, too many stories have made the news of Black Americans being killed while posing no threat to police officers, and most of the time the officers in questions are not charged with any crimes. The law states that a person must pose a reasonable threat to others to justify using deadly force. With the help of videos and surveillance, we see that too often officers use such force without reasonable threat posed. This causes repetitive tragedies that stem from our failure to hold officers accountable.

These protests have gathered thousands of people every day. In some cases, police officers have kneeled with protestors; in many others, they have retaliated with tear gas, rubber bullets, and even police vehicles. Most protests have opted for a peaceful route. The small minority has turned violent: riots in Minnesota have caused fires and destruction. There have also been many recent occurrences of looting, or taking of goods by force and causing destruction to stores and public buildings. For those living in Palo Alto or near it, such occurrences have hit close to home; curfews have been set to keep people safe, and potential looters have been apprehended.

It is important to note that those who participate in looting during the night rarely overlap with those who march peacefully as protestors during the day. Reporters on scene have made this clear. Looting cannot be tolerated; it is simply bad people riding on this wave of protests who seek to steal, damage, and wreck property with an excuse.

Oftentimes, this can ruin the life’s work of small businesses, and the cost of losing people’s entire means of making money is unimaginable, leaving business owners hopeless and impoverished. Large chain stores like Target, Starbucks and Apple are able to use their large funds to buy policies that insure all losses. However, for small businesses, not all merchandise and property is insured. Business owners who have to pay out-of-pocket for these damages may never recover. In one night, they go from having a stable income to not even knowing how to patch their lives back together.

We cannot confuse these people with those who are trying to peacefully enact change and raise awareness. The actions of looters have corrupted the message of those who are demonstrating without violence, and we must recognize that this should not serve as an excuse to stop listening to the pleas of the vast majority.

Distinguishing these two groups is essential to uncovering the truth: the Black Lives Matter movement is not about inciting violence. It is about justice and equality, and putting an end to police brutality that systemically fails to be held accountable, as well as countless other injustices that black people face on a day-to-day basis.  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/2020-not-1968/

 

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