Democracy Awakening

Hitler looked to America’s Indigenous reservations as a way to rid a country of “unwanted” people. He called the Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews whom he intended to massacre “Indians.”[4]

In 1858, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience: “I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

Reversing reality, Trump and his allies insisted that he was an innocent victim and that the investigators were the ones who had broken the law. They claimed the investigation was a Democratic “witch hunt,” despite the fact that Comey, Rosenstein, and Mueller were all Republicans and Trump had appointed Rosenstein himself. They began to attack the

Once people internalize their leader’s propaganda, it doesn’t matter when pieces of it are proven to be lies, because it has become central to their identity. As a strongman becomes more and more destructive, followers’ loyalty only increases. Having begun to treat their perceived enemies badly, they need to believe their victims deserve it. Turnin

From the beginning of the New Deal in 1933 until the election of Reagan in 1980, while the economy expanded dramatically for all, the gap between rich and poor in America got smaller. Economists call this “the great compression.” In the years after 1981, the economy continued to grow, but wealth moved dramatically upward in what’s known as “the gre

This is a book about how a small group of people have tried to make us believe that our fundamental principles aren’t true. They have made war on American democracy by using language that served their interests, then led us toward authoritarianism by creating a disaffected population and promising to re-create an imagined past where those people co

The southern strategy marked the switch of the parties’ positions over the issue of race. Johnson knew what that meant: that the nation’s move toward equality would provide a weapon for a certain kind of politician to rise to power. In a hotel in Tennessee after a day spent seeing racial slurs scrawled on signs and an evening of bourbon, Johnson ex

The next year, on September 29, 1987, Reagan attached a signing statement to a debt bill, declaring his right to interpret it as he wished, saying the president could not be forced “to follow the orders of a subordinate.” While few people paid attention to it, this statement was a shot across the bow of American democracy. It advanced the theory of

More often than not, those articulating the nation’s true principles have been marginalized Americans who demanded the nation honor its founding promises. Their struggles have constantly renewed the country’s dedication to the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence. Their fight for equality reveals the true nature of American dem

Days after the first major leak from WikiLeaks, Trump openly invited Russia to hack the U.S. secretary of state’s computer system, which he insisted had important information on it: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.[5] Reporters were shocked at a political candidate openly calling