Mastodawn

Thomas Zimmer Aug 23, 2023

Moralizing Nostalgia Leads to Bad History – and Helps the Anti-Democratic Right

David Brooks’ “How America Got Mean” offers an ahistorical tale that obscures rather than illuminates – and provides fertile ground for a politics of reaction.

A thread, based on my new piece: https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/moralizing-nostalgia-leads-to-bad

Moralizing Nostalgia Leads to Bad History – and Helps the Anti-Democratic Right

David Brooks’ “How America Got Mean” offers an ahistorical tale that obscures rather than illuminates – and provides fertile ground for a politics of reaction

Democracy Americana

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Eddie the Bulldog

@tzimmer_history Brooks lives in a fantasy world. He still thinks there are "moderate Reagan conservatives" out there ... which is just wrong AND completely ignores the role Reagan had in the hateful rhetoric of the right, the tilting of the economy to massively benefit the wealthy and foreign policy that was at times completely illegal and unconstitutional. Further, THOSE policies are at the root of a lot of the instability today in central America and our "refugee crisis" at the border.