Thomas ZimmerAug 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
Show threadT.WllmsAug 23, 2023

@tzimmer_history

How America got mean... Newt Gingrich, extremist evangelicals. movement conservatives... they demanded power to rule over America at any and every cost... and here we are....

"Newt Gingrich turned partisan battles into bloodsport, wrecked Congress, and paved the way for Trump's rise."

a basic everyday mans perspective... obviously it's more than that, but... the line form Gingrich to the hate we see today.. pretty direct.

Show threadKinene⭐🐻Aug 23, 2023
@tdwllms1 @tzimmer_history The meanness was always there: See J. Edgar Hoover.
Show threadT.Wllms

@c_merriweather

I was just coming back to say.. we've always been mean... always. @tzimmer_history

Aug 23, 2023 at 5:19pmWeb