Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America is a 2023 popular history book by Dr. Heather Cox Richardson. Democracy Awakening approaches historical movements in a non-linear fashion to contextualize larger trends in the evolution—and devolution—of American democracy. Richardson uses an accessible and straightforward tone in Democracy Awakening, which explores how rhetoric and policy have operated through American history from the American Revolution through the 2020s for dual purposes: the gradual trend toward authoritarianism and the persistent push toward democracy. She discusses how women and racialized peoples have led the push toward democracy for centuries, as well as how a primarily white, wealthy elite have used rhetoric and false history to move the country toward authoritarianism.

This guide refers to the 2023 Viking Penguin Random House e-book edition.

Content Warnings: The guide and source text discuss hate speech, racism, enslavement, racial and gender prejudice, genocide and displacement of Indigenous Americans, anti-Black violence, and systemic inequalities through American history. To refer to the collective of Americans who are not of European descent, Richardson uses the phrase “people of color,” which this guide preserves. Both the guide and the source text are specific about race and ethnicity where applicable.

Summary

In Part 1, Richardson focuses on two main movements in American history: the establishment of the liberal consensus and rise of Movement Conservatism. She argues that the latter led to The Throughline of Authoritarian Sentiment in US History. She uses her foreword to discuss Hitler’s authoritarian fascism and to argue that, far from being immune to authoritarianism, American history has facilitated its own systemic forms of inequality that led toward authoritarianism.

The liberal consensus arose from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, which provided public safety nets, worker protections, new jobs, and other federally mandated programs. At the time, many of these acts had bipartisan support: Hence, the belief that the federal government could and should pass federal laws and regulations for the continued health and wellbeing of its citizens became a popular consensus.

The liberal consensus played a large part in the Civil Rights Movement, as activists demanded that the government protect the rights of non-white Americans to vote and end segregation. While many famous civil rights activists were Black Americans, Richardson discusses activists from many racialized demographics. This demand for the federal government to uphold dignity and equality sparked violence from some white Americans, leading to an uptick in The Use of False History to Manipulate Ideology, convincing wealthy, white people that increased rights for poor, non-white, or non-male citizens would take away from their personal liberties. This ideology was espoused by a group called Movement Conservatives, who used popular media images like the cowboy to convince people that patriarchal, religiously motivated independence from the government was the lifestyle of “real” Americans, and the government’s increased environmental regulations and civil rights constituted socialism, anarchy, or communism.

Presidents such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan employed this rhetoric. Nixon’s “southern strategy,” in particular, was a turning point with regard to how the United States’ two major political parties viewed race. Richardson identifies these administrations as key places where authoritarian rhetoric spread, attempting to hierarchize Americans into “good” and “bad” categories. From the 1980s through the 2000s, Republicans invested in strategies like stacking the Supreme Court, courting evangelical votes and ideologies, illegally interfering in international affairs, redistricting, gerrymandering, and undermining elections with claims of voter fraud, moving away from democracy.

In Part 2, Richardson describes how rising authoritarian trends led to the election of Donald Trump, whose presidency led to a flurry of authoritarian action. Richardson summarily details these actions: blanket bans on visitation from predominantly Muslim countries, scapegoating racialized people for economic problems, his administration’s involvement with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, his first impeachment following an attempt to get the Ukrainian government involved in the 2020 election, his refusal to provide federal support during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonization of Black Lives Matter protestors, undermining confidence in the 2020 election, claiming the “big lie” that he won the 2020 election over Joe Biden, and instigating violence in the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol, which led to his second impeachment.

After detailing these events through the Trump presidency, in Part 3, Richardson goes back to the nation’s founding documents and members to investigate whether achieving true democracy is possible in the United States. Her general thesis is that equal democracy has never been achieved, but it’s never been totally forgotten. She discusses the contradiction of having Founders who enslaved people and believed in strict racial and gender hierarchies yet argued compellingly for the freedom of “all men.” Richardson particularly focuses on the women and non-white folks who kept the dream of democracy alive from the origins of the nation, despite the fact they were participating in a system in which they did not have equal power or voices. She traces these trends from the post–Revolution era through the Civil War, Reconstruction, New Deal, and Civil Rights Act. While Richardson proposes that Americans are at a critical crux between authoritarianism and democracy in the 2020s, she believes that the outcome ultimately depends on the actions of the American people.