I started writing this review of Democracy Awakening the day after the Presidential election, but I just couldn’t finish it. I was feeling too sad and the writing just made me sadder. So here I am, now almost two weeks post-election and I am better able to talk about this wonderful book.
Ms. Richardson divides her book into three sections: Undermining Democracy, The Authoritarian Experiment, and Reclaiming America. The first section gives us a comprehensive American history lesson, focusing on the words in the Declaration of Independence that she claims set the stage for the unfolding of our commitment to government by and for the people. “All men are created equal.” Certainly an odd statement for 1776, when the only people who would be able to vote (and other marks of democracy) in this new land were white men who owned property. And yet, that statement has resonated throughout our history as we slowly but surely inched forward to expand the categories of people who fall within its reach. But the author also uses this section of the book to demonstrate that this “progress” toward ever-greater inclusion has been a jerky, back-and-forth movement, always interrupted by those of wealth and power who resisted giving decision-making ability to more and more people unlike themselves.
In the second section of the book, Ms. Richardson starts with Donald Trump’s 2016 election. She calls out the worldview of the Trump inner circle, in particular that of Steve Bannon. “Bannon and his allies escalated the long-standing anti-liberal rhetoric of Republican talk radio hosts into hard-right paternalism. Under Bannon’s direction, right-leaning Breitbart News Network had run articles attacking politically active women and Black Americans and yet could insist that Bannon was neither sexist nor racist because in their formulation, a return to a traditional society would be best for everyone…. This worldview struck a chord with disaffected white Americans who felt as if they had been left behind since the 1980s…. A worldview that put Christianity at the center was especially appealing to evangelicals.” Richardson goes further to examine the travel ban, Trump’s increasing closeness to Putin and Russia, the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the first impeachment and Trump’s increasing rewriting of American history. She quotes Trump as saying, “Our country didn’t grow great with them. It grew great with you and your thought process and your ideology.” And, of course, she covers the second impeachment and Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.
Richardson’s third section, Reclaiming America, reminds us, in the words the book’s jacket, “that it is up to us to reclaim the principles on which the nation was founded, principles that have been repeatedly championed by marginalized Americans. Their dedication to the promises embodied in our history has renewed our commitment to democracy in the past. And it is in their commitment where we will find the road map for the nation’s future.”
So here we are. We read this book before the election, as I mentioned earlier. Many of us were hopeful that this election would mark this renewed commitment to democracy that Richardson showcases in this book. But no! So where do we find hope? I find hope going back to the first section of the book and remembering that our progress has always been two steps forward, one-and-a-half steps back. Maybe this step, which I and the people in our book club find a giant leap backward, is just the harbinger of our next progress. We can hope and pray.
–Jeanie Smith
Books, Brews & Banter 