I’ve been worried about another civil war since 2003. I now believe that the GOP is dominated by people who actively want one, because they think they’ll win.
That probably sounds hyperbolic to people, so I’ll go through the longer version of how I got here.
The process of publishing a scholarly book in the humanities is (unnecessarily) slow. In 2003, I finished the book that would be published as Deliberate Conflict. It took another two years for the book to come out because of how slow academic publishing is, and it sat, finished, for quite a while. That book argues for the value of agonism, and I implicitly endorsed the narrative that the teaching of rhetoric made a bad shift when it went from being about debate to belletristic appreciation and/or expressive writing. Like a lot of others, I believed it led to problems in public discourse. In 2003 or so, iirc, a graduate student in a seminar asked, “Well, if things were so much better when the teaching of rhetoric was about debate, what about the controversy over slavery?”
So, I started looking into it. At that time, I had a smart, accomplished, rhetoric friend who got all their information from Rush Limbaugh, and it was odd to me that this really smart and very good person could be so wrong about basic facts. One of our first interactions was his claiming as a fact something about power plants in California that was simply wrong; since The Economist had recently had an article about the issue, I pointed out that he was wrong. He said, “Where did you get that? From [some lefty demagogue]?” I said, “The Economist.” He said, “The London Economist?” emphasizing London. He was shocked that I would read something non-lefty. (It’s liberal in the British sense, not American.) Clearly, he couldn’t imagine that anyone would read things with which they disgreed. He just relied on Limbaugh.
We had a lot of interactions like that. He’d repeat as a fact something he’d heard from Limbaugh that was completely false. I’d email him the actual clip from a speech, or studies from “conservative” sites, showing he was wrong. He’d admit he was wrong on that point, sometimes, but never stop relying on Limbaugh. The most striking was when he said that Obama claimed to have solved global warming, and I sent him the clip showing that Obama hadn’t said that at all. He emailed back, “Well, he’s still arrogant.”
This is a man who voted for George Bush, probably the most arrogant President until Trump.
This colleague was (and is) a good and smart person. He really tried to be fair in his dealings with colleagues and with the department; he worked to make the faculty more diverse; he gave good grades to students with whom he disagreed politically. But, when it came to his thinking about politics, it’s as though a switch flipped, and he became a person who was more engaged in believing than thinking. He believed what Limbaugh told him no matter how many times people like me (and I know there were several) pointed out to him that Limbaugh was lying.
2003 was a moment when the most arrogant President until Trump was deliberately lying to the US about Iraq. Even The Economist (which supported invasion of Iraq) said that the best case the Bush Administration could make—Powell’s speech to the UN—had some weak points. In fact, it was a very weak case, as could be seen at the time. But media, including mainstream media, presented Powell’s speech as though he had made his case. Instead of saying “Powell said” or “Powell claimed,” they’d say, “Powell showed.” Verbs matter.
More important, the Bush Administration was smearing its critics, and steadfastly, deliberately, and strategically deflecting any calls to deliberate about whether the policy of invading Iraq was reasonable. If you pointed out, as a general did, that their plan violated every principle of what it would take to occupy another country, you would be treated as hating America (smears which continued for over ten years). The Bush Administration, and its supportive pundits and media did everything they could destroy the credibility of critics of the proposed invasion without ever engaging their criticisms.
There were so many problems with the case for invasion, but advocates of invasion didn’t see them because people lived in informational enclaves. People who relied on Fox, Limbaugh, and various other sources literally never saw anything that even mentioned the weaknesses in the Bush Administration case. Many people lived in a world of shared emails that referred authoritatively to events that never happened, and urban legends about events that were about to happen that never did. They thought they were getting “objective” information, but they were in a partisan bubble. I found it impossible to argue with them because their whole case was grounded in claims and data they thought were true only because they’d been repeated so much. So, their beliefs weren’t grounded in anything open to disagreement.
Around that same time, I had to come up with a lower-division seminar writing course, and, given how things were, I decided to teach a course on demagoguery.
Back to the graduate student’s question. Because of that question, I had begun reading about the slavery debate, and pretty quickly what I found was that the dominant narrative—the Civil War happened because of fanaticism on both sides—was indefensible.
In fact, what happened was that, as early as the late 1820s, ambitious political figures in the slaver states figured out that demagoguery about slavery was a great way to mobilize support. Perhaps they really believed that slavery must be defended at all costs; perhaps not. The most effective Machiavellians lie to themselves first. But, what they did was make fanatical commitment to slavery the sign of white southern identity, especially white southern manhood. They moved the many issues related to slaver states’ commitment to slavery out of the realm of pragmatic deliberation into a question of loyalty to southern identity. Like the pro-invasion rhetors.
And they were able to do so because various shifts meant that people were living in partisan informational enclaves (specifically cheap printing and improved mail service). Media repeated and promoted reports of events that never actually happened—the AAS pamphlet mailing, the Murrell plot, poisonings, abolitionist conspiracies, and so many other urban legends.
Since I was teaching a course on demagoguery, and I was drifting around the internet (as I intermittently have for years), as well as reading pro-GOP sources, I got worried.[1] Our current media culture looked a lot like the antebellum media culture—one in which deliberation was actively dismissed as unnecessary and often actively demonized. People could inhabit a media enclave and never see any of the information that might complicate what they were being told.
In the 1830s, the slaver states and politicians declared that the situation was one of existential threat—the vast conspiracy of abolitionists were determined to destroy Southern (aka, slaver) civilization. The demagoguery of pro-slavery media insisted that, if any President were elected who was not actively pro-slavery, the Federal Government would abolish slavery. Pro-slavery political figures enacted a gag rule in Congress–silencing any criticism of slavery–and many started advocating secession. Like the Iraq invasion, this was was advocated as preemptive when it was actually preventive (that matters, and I’ll come back to it). When Lincoln was elected, the demagoguery was comparable to what happened when Obama was elected. The difference was that, when Lincoln was elected, slaver states began seceding.
Buchanan tried to negotiate with them, as did Lincoln. But the slaver states wanted war, and nothing could have stopped them from getting their war. That’s important. You can’t appease people who are determined on war.
From the 1830s on, there were a lot of people in and out of the slaver states that were engaged in what scholars in International Relations call “defensive avoidance“–they didn’t like any of their options, so they did nothing, and hoped it would solve itself. There were people who didn’t own slaves, objected to slavery in their area (often for racist reasons), but who didn’t really care about what “the South” did, since they thought it didn’t affect them, and so didn’t want to do anything to “provoke” slavers. Some people really objected to slavery, and especially the “Slave Power”—the way that slavers, although a numerical minority, could silence criticism of slavery, force “free” states to institute proslavery “black codes,” and enable the enslavement of free people through the Fugitive Slave Law. But even some of people who resented the Slave Power were hesitant to “provoke” slavers.
And that’s interesting. There were violent anti-slavery actions, ranging from Bloody Kansas to John Brown’s raid, but there was no public discussion about the need to keep from provoking abolitionists. And, really, that’s how concern about “provoking” violence works–people worry about “provoking” authoritarians, but no one worries about policies that might “provoke” other groups. Violent protests help authoritarians, whether the protests are pro- or anti-authoritarian.
Another form of defensive avoidance was to declare that “both sides are just as bad.” People who just wanted to avoid war thereby enabled and ensured one. Again: it is pointless to try to placate people who are determined to use violence to get what they want. You aren’t preventing violence, but just delaying it.
The slaver states always had the pretense of being democratic, as did the segregationist states (which weren’t just in the “South”), but it was a democracy of the faithful. Like the USSR or GDR, which also claimed to be democracies, it was a democracy of people who remained within a limited realm of disagreement. It was “law and order” only insofar as the law wasn’t applied equally. It was the notion of justice that Plato famously criticized: justice is helping my friends and hurting my enemies. Jesus also criticized that notion of justice, but neither slavers nor segregationists cared very much about Jesus.
Nor does the current GOP. The GOP has gone full authoritarian and anti-democratic; “law and order” doesn’t mean holding everyone equally to the law (why did Clinton have to testify before Congress, but not any of Trump’s appointees?), but of using the power of the law to protect the in-group and punish everyone else. And they’re justifying their exempting themselves from following democratic norms and the law on the grounds that this is war–so, like Bush, and like the slavers, they’re engaged in preventive war (trying to keep Democrats from gaining power) while claiming it’s a preemptive (Democrats are about to kick down your doors and take your guns).
Slaver states were determined to get a war in order to have a nation purely and completely committed to slavery. After about 1850, there was probably no way to stop them from starting that war. What could have been different, and what might have prevented a Civil War was if the various people who didn’t support slavery, and didn’t want a war for it, had been more openly committed in their opposition to slavery. There was no way to placate slavers. In the antebellum period, there were a lot of political figures whom the proslavery media and rhetors called “doughfaces.” They were political figures whom the proslavery media and rhetors could force to say anything they wanted.
The doughfaces were mostly out for their own political careers, but, like all careerists, they might have told themselves it was for the greater good. They could have prevented the war. They didn’t. The current doughfaces, who are going along with what they know to be lies about the 2020 election, need to stop thinking about their careers and think about democracy.
We are in a situation in which Trump has already once tried to incite his base to violence in order to force a coup. He almost succeeded. The GOP has decided to back his play, but in ways that aren’t quite as crude—they’re moving to allow state legislatures to assign electoral candidates different from how the popular vote would suggest, for instance, or find ways to inhibit or disempower non-GOP voters. People who care about democracy need to stop that–regardless of your political party.
Here’s Trump’s plan. The 2022 elections will be all about getting a GOP majority in Congress and control of enough state legislatures to shift the US to “competitive authoritarianism” (when there are elections, but it’s systematically impossible for any but one party to win most or all of them). First, there will be a constitutional convention (so much for originalism). Second, SCOTUS will rule that state legislatures can override the popular vote. Third, state legislatures will override the popular vote. If, for some reason, there is resistance to his election, or resistance to any part of his plan, he will sic his storm troopers (and I mean that) on anyone who disagrees.
There is nothing that will stop Trump or his supporters from violence. Nothing. That’s their plan. So, there is no reason to keep from doing the right thing because it might provoke them.
As I hope is clear from this post, I’m interested in how various rhetorical practices have worked out historically[2]. And I can say that reasoning deductively (this practice will work because it should work) is exactly the wrong choice. We need to look at what has worked in the past.
There are actions that might alienate the hand-wringing people engaged in deflective avoidance. There are people who don’t like Trump, but don’t like the Dems, or who don’t like Trump but like tax breaks, or who think politics doesn’t matter. Violent protest alienate them. And, to be honest, violent protest helps the “law and order” crowd. It shouldn’t but it does. It doesn’t mobilize allies, and it alienates potential allies. (That’s a historical claim—if anyone wants to show times that, in the US, violent protests have helped non-authoritarian policies, I’m open to it.)
We can’t find a rhetoric that will persuade his fanatical supporters that they’re wrong. There is none. They’re in a cult. But, there are actions that have worked in the past to topple dictators, and that’s what we should be engaged in now: holding him and his supporters (whether our state rep or our drunk uncle) accountable, non-violent protesting, making common cause with other opponents, voting, giving money and time to his opponents, boycotting his supporters, being willing to violate norms of politeness with his supporters, telling stories that complicate what he’s saying.
Trump and the GOP fully intend to use the police, mobs, a GOP Congress, and GOP-dominated state legislatures to force him into the Presidency. We need to stop that.
[1] In 2003, I started writing a book about demagoguery; since the proslavery book was my first concern, the ms. wasn’t done until 2013. It was rejected by the press. (One reviewer said it was a dead issue.) But, Martin Medhurst had published an article of mine about demagoguery, although the readers were unanimous it should not be published. He published it, and their responses in 2004 or so.
In 2016, when people were interested in demagoguery, that article was one of few things out there, and so I was asked to write a short book about it. I did. That generated interest, and so the rejected ms. was accepted by SIUP and published in 2017.
I mention all this simply because I think it’s a cautionary tale about how the unnecessary delays in scholarly publishing virtually ensure the irrelevance of our work. We should be faster. No one actually takes six months to read an ms.
[2] Every once in a while, I run across someone who says I can’t be an authority on history because I don’t have a degree in history. Meanwhile, they make claims about rhetoric, without any degrees in rhetoric. As it happens, I took two classes as an undergrad and two as a graduate student on the rhetoric of history (not offered by the history department at Berkeley). Two of my committee members had degrees in history, another had a degree in American Studies (from Yale), and my director was a student of Kuhn’s. The other member was a Romanticist, which mattered since I was writing about John Muir.