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These Three Books Help Put the US Election in Perspective [1]

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Date: 2024-12

When Yahoo News polled Americans last year about their feelings ahead of the 2024 presidential election, their most common response was “dread.” The least common response? “Delight.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll this year found that over two-thirds of those surveyed said they feared political violence after the election. Respondents also expressed concern about the actions of political extremists and questions about election fairness and legitimacy.

Below are three extraordinary books that explore these themes in detail. Each in its own way offers validation for voters’ fears, as well as rational and hopeful recommendations on how to address them.

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War II, 1939–1941

By Lynne Olson

2014, Random House

An ideologically polarized nation with a shaky economy and an aging president struggles to tamp down disinformation, hateful rhetoric, and periodic eruptions of violence ahead of a pivotal election, while warily eyeing a devastating combination of wars overseas. This is the United States—in 1940.

Lynne Olson’s Those Angry Days recounts the story of a deeply divided America in the years preceding its official entry into World War II. The escalating debate between the country’s isolationists (led by famed aviator Charles Lindbergh) and its interventionists (led by President Franklin Roosevelt and his Republican opponent Wendell Willkie) was what noted historian Arthur Schlesinger called “the most savage” of his lifetime.

Willkie, it should be noted, was an honorary cofounder of Freedom House, as was first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Willkie’s grandson, Wendell L. Willkie II, currently serves as cochair of Freedom House’s Board of Trustees.

Olson’s remarkable book reminds us that nostalgia and history are not interchangeable. Nostalgia remembers Roosevelt as an unrepentant interventionist, US factory owners as boldly manufacturing the arsenal of democracy, and ordinary Americans as united in the struggle to defeat fascism. History remembers things differently.

Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s commerce secretary at the time, complained that the president was “loathe to get into the war.” Roosevelt’s initial reluctance to burden Americans with personal sacrifice gave manufacturers no incentive to flip their assembly lines from consumer goods to war materiel. And not even Roosevelt’s own party was united around the preparations for war. Representatives Martin Sweeney and Beverly Vincent, both Democrats, came to blows on the House floor during a heated debate regarding a military draft.

In the end, as former secretary of state Dean Acheson wryly observed, “our enemies, with unparalleled stupidity, resolved our dilemmas ... and unified our people.” The isolationists gradually lost ground as the global situation grew more menacing, and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we return to the more familiar history of wartime solidarity, now augmented by Olson with the context it deserved.

To borrow a phrase commonly attributed to Mark Twain: history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. In our own angry days of 2024, it’s all too easy to be paralyzed by fear, division, or the false promises of isolationism. But we clearly have a knack for pulling ourselves together. As former British prime minister Winston Churchill allegedly observed, Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing, after they’ve exhausted all other possibilities.

How Civil Wars Start—And How To Stop Them

By Barbara F. Walter

2023, Crown

Even before former president Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassin’s bullet at a campaign rally in July, experts were pointing out the threat that divisive political rhetoric poses to US elections, and to American democracy more broadly. After the shooting, leaders from across the political spectrum appealed for cooler heads and calmer tongues.

We know that heated political rhetoric is a means of radicalization. But in How Civil Wars Start—And How to Stop Them, Barbara F. Walter points out that such speech is also a means of factionalization.

She argues that factionalization—the proliferation of exclusionist political groups defined by racial, ethnic, and/or religious identity—is one of the most reliable precursors to civil conflict. While factions aren’t a new phenomenon, their prominence has benefited immeasurably from social media, which Walter calls “the perfect accelerant.” She explains that social media’s capacity for hypersegmentation and their tendency to create echo chambers make these platforms an ideal environment for the spread and germination of divisive rhetoric and fake news, leading to further factionalization and, ultimately, violence.

Is the United States “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,” as Walter claims? That’s debatable. But it’s obvious enough that US democracy is growing more fragile, and factionalization is on the rise. According to Walter, the problem can be addressed by reestablishing Americans’ faith and trust in democratic principles and procedures, starting with the ballot box. US elections must be free and fair, and the country’s electoral systems must be secure and dependable. Voter access should be expanded and protected. And importantly, citizens should see their voices and desires reflected in their government, as proof that their vote matters.

To quote Walter quoting Eric Liu, “democracy works only if enough people believe it works.”

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

By Timothy Snyder

2018, Tim Duggan Books

Efforts by the Russian government to unduly influence America’s recent presidential elections have been well documented, and new reports indicate that a similar campaign is underway ahead of the 2024 vote.

But what does the Kremlin stand to gain through election meddling?

In The Road to Unfreedom, historian Timothy Snyder argues that the dark worldview embraced by Russian president Vladimir Putin fuels his desire to undermine democratic processes in the United States and Europe. Putin has adopted what Snyder calls the “politics of eternity,” a fear-based mindset that envisions a future of perpetual threats. Against this backdrop, he has cast himself in the role of Russia’s lone defender and savior, for whom all freedoms must be sacrificed.

Democratic leaders have embraced an opposing, more hopeful worldview: the “politics of inevitability.” Adherents envision a future much like the recent past—a pattern of steady progress toward liberty and prosperity. The foundational principle of inevitability is succession, the idea that a state outlasts its current leader. In democracies, succession is achieved through free and fair elections.

As Snyder explains it, the politics of inevitability is a direct threat to Putin’s hold on power. Functional and peaceful democracies make a mockery of his form of leadership and serve as aspirational models for Russian citizens who seek to live in freedom. To justify his regime, Putin must undermine the politics of inevitability, disrupt democratic order and progress, and attack the principle of electoral succession. This is why Russian operatives have sought to scramble US elections through targeted disinformation and divisive rhetoric, both supercharged by social media.

What can democracy’s defenders do in response? Call out and repudiate false information, and curb its spread on social media. Invest in and prioritize high-quality, local journalism. And make it clear that voters want their leaders to guard against election meddling, prioritize election integrity, ensure the protection and expansion of citizens’ access to the polls, and accept the electorate’s will once it has spoken.

In this sense, you can consider your “I Voted” sticker a rejection of Putin’s politics of eternity. You’ll find one at your local polling station.

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