The U.S.A. was established on a system of White supremacy, meaning specifically the subjugation and subordination of people of African descent and Native peoples. Many people have fought and died trying to change this system, occasionally even having some success but never overturning white supremacy’s basic structure. Consequently, many, if not most, societal issues revolve around race and racism.
In their timely book in 2018, How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explained the company (of countries) the United States was beginning to keep. In their latest book, Tyranny of the Minority, they dig a little deeper to explain how the United States was going even further along the authoritarian path than they expected.
To begin their arguments, they describe events on two consecutive days, January 5th and 6th of 2021. January 6th, of course, was the infamous coup attempt by Trump and his followers. The day before, January 5th, according to Levitsky and Ziblatt, the U.S. moved significantly toward a complete participatory democracy as it voted into office a Black U.S. Senator from Georgia, Rafael Warneck, the second one since Reconstruction from the South.
While Levitsky and Ziblatt note that the coup attempt was a blow to this progress, they did not link the events of the two days. Yes, the election in Georgia suggested racial progress, but January 6th was at least partially a response to this kind of progress.
One notable fact about U.S. history is that each time it appears that the country is moving toward more inclusiveness of its Black citizens, something happens to halt that movement. Of course, the January 6th insurrection was not solely about race. However, race was a significant underlying feature.
Race was not the sole reason for the advent of the so-called Tea Party in 2009; however, it was a significant factor. The Tea Party showed itself in 2010, provoked by the election of Barack Obama as president. Many Americans thought we were advancing toward a more enlightened racial time. How wrong they were. With this Black man as president, racism came out of the woodwork with a vengeance.
Barack Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, and organizers of the so-called “taxpayers’ march” began planning a few weeks later for a march in Washington that September. Thousands attended this Tea Party march protesting “big government,” “the so-called dismantling of free market capitalism,” and Obama’s health care reform and federal spending proposals. These were the issues of the Koch brothers behind this movement, capitalizing on perceived grievances. To the Tea Party participants, who had no vested interest in most of these issues, any knock against Obama was okay.
And then came Trump and the insurrectionists. As Levitsky and Ziblatt explain, in 24 hours on January 5th and January 6th, 2021, the full promise and problems of American democracy were on display. There was a glimpse of a possible multiracial democratic future, followed by an unprecedented assault on our constitutional system. They summarized it as follows.
Multiracial democracy is hard to achieve. Few societies have ever done it. A multiracial democracy is a political system with regular, free, and fair elections in which adult citizens of all ethnic groups possess the right to vote and basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association. It is not enough for these rights to exist on paper: individuals of all ethnic backgrounds must enjoy equal protection of democratic and civil rights under the law. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act finally established a legal foundation for multiracial democracy in America. But even today, we have not fully achieved it.
I would add that the coup was intended to ensure we never achieve a multiracial democracy.
