The Third American Republic
By I’m always looking for productive frameworks to use in analyzing our national situation. Over the weekend, the Bluesky account called Shower Cat Love (a friend of the blog) came up with one that resonates with some things I’ve been thinking. I won’t claim any great insight or one weird trick, just a potentially useful way of thinking about our situation.
They suggest that the United States has had two Republics:
A commenter on the thread suggested a slightly different division of Republics.
Today, as Erik noted in a Bluesky thread, is the anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Lyndon Johnson, who came from a place where he knew racial bigotry very well, said to his young aide Bill Moyers “Well, I think we may have lost the South for your lifetime – and mine” because of that signing. Moyers died last week, Johnson long before. The turmoil doesn’t look like it will end any time soon.
And, it turned out, it wasn’t just the South. Donald Trump has tapped into a rich national vein of bigotry.
As the sixties moved on, the momentum for human rights slowed under the weight of the Vietnam War. Reaction began. It has long seemed to me that there was a turning point somewhere in the late sixties when the forces of opposition grew stronger.
What then was the end of Shower Cat Love’s second Republic? The signing of the Civil Rights Act? Or will we not reach it until we defeat the forces of reaction?
We’ve gone through a number of ways to consider the reactionaries/ radicals. We didn’t want to believe that it was bigotry, so we talked about economic anxiety. But yeah, it’s bigotry left over from Reconstruction and activated by the Civil Rights Act.
Trump is unusually talented in stirring up the fear of the other. Yesterday he was bragging about a potential system of detention camps in which to keep people – not just migrants – in inhumane conditions. His supporters in the Senate voted to take food and medicine from children to give Jeff Bezos more money.
JD Vance gives us the bottom line. Don’t think he wouldn’t give up Usha and his children in his auto-da-fé.
And in case you were in any doubt, Laura Loomer makes clear what she would do with the entire US population of Latinos.
The Second American Republic has failed. We’ve been working up to this since the 1960s. My preferred Third American Republic would be a democratic, multicultural society that protects its people. Now we have to make that happen.