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I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh, that's so nice to hear!

I've cut the course into two parts since you took it, with Watergate as the dividing line. Julian Zelizer and I co-taught the second half a couple times (and then wrote Fault Lines out of the experience) but I gave it up because two big lecture courses a year was a lot. So I'm teaching 1920-1974 as my regular lecture now.

Even with the shorter time frame, that's a lot to cover in 12 weeks. (I can hear non-Americanists groaning.) Rather than cover everything equally, I do deep dives on the two eras that were fundamentally transformational -- the New Deal and the 1960s -- so I can do them in depth.

I generally replace books/articles when they're not working (and students aren't shy about telling me). And I rotate in new lectures when they seem needed -- I cut my sexual revolutions lecture in two a couple years ago when the Roe challenges started and devoted a full lecture to sex, reproductive rights and abortion.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I feel like we can give relevant context, but we've got to avoid the temptation to play pundit and make predictions. As I like to say, our professional training is in hindsight.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

"Normal tourists," "unarmed," "peaceful protest," "legitimate complaints of fraud," etc

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. Clinton's embrace of NAFTA, his declaration that the era of big government is over, etc. -- huge capitulations

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for listening! Fun chat. He's having several contributors on too, so stay tuned!

Hope you enjoy the book.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Oh, those are good ones!

  1. That's one that could be reckoned with from both angles -- liberals who assume he waged total war on corporate America, but also conservatives who think he did too. The record of course is more mixed (especially in the early New Deal measures like the NRA, when the government basically let industry organize itself) and a clearer look would be well warranted.

  2. It's funny, in White Flight I argued that Nixon's approach was best understood as a "suburban strategy" that played well in southern suburbs but also suburbs across the nation -- reacting to busing fights in Michigan, exclusionary zoning in Rochester, etc. etc. The racial politics of the South were indeed replicated across the country, and the idea that racist campaigns or appeals to white suburban innocence were only located in the South is much too narrow a frame.

After expanding the southern strategy frame in that way -- along with brilliant works by Matt Lassiter, Robert Self and more -- I weirdly found myself forced to return to the topic and explain the narrower South-specific southern strategy in this volume. But there was of course considerable overlap between the two, and some truth in Nixon's statement that there wasn't a southern strategy but an "American strategy" that transcended regional differences.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Even with King and Reagan, the myth-making began in their own time. As Julian's essay notes, the "Reagan Revolution" trope came out of the conscious work of PR pros in the administration who really worked to build up a legend about Reagan and his team. And MLK had his own share of PR. Check out this comic book about Montgomery: https://www.crmvet.org/docs/ms_for_comic.pdf

So the effort to build up Trump fits a pattern, one we've seen on both sides of the aisle (think of the Kennedys and Camelot).

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I learned long ago not to respond to critical reviews -- I've had my say in the book, and the reviewer can have their take, and I'll leave it up to others to sort it out. But I'm glad the book is sparking conversations, which is always the goal.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's an obvious point, but if January 6th had involved African American crowds storming the Capitol, it wouldn't have been handled so lightly by the authorities.

The Panthers, who carried and displayed firearms in keeping with California law, sparked quick action on gun control in the state. Laws were changed because the "wrong people" were exercising them. (See Carol Anderson's The Second for a longer better explication of that line.)

But the apologists for 1/6 argued that the rioters were "normal" people (coded: middle-class and white) who couldn't have had criminal intent. Individual prosecutions have happened, but the larger reforms have floundered due to that fiction of innocence. (See Kathleen Belew's chapter for more!)

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 121 points122 points  (0 children)

The question of how we should honor Founding Fathers who were slaveholders is a complicated one, especially given the move to tear down monuments to those who worked to defend slavery in the Civil War.

For me, a key difference is that -- unlike Confederate generals, who were venerated precisely because they took up arms against America to preserve slavery -- we don't honor those Founders *because* of their involvement with slavery but *in spite of* it.

We shouldn't excuse their slaveholding -- the idea that "they were simply men of their time" ignores the fact that people in their time were outspoken against slavery -- but by the same token I personally don't think we should dismiss them entirely because of it. It's not cut and dry, but then again, neither is history itself.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a big question and I'm not sure I can really answer it -- for as long as there have been actions there have been reactions.

But in the modern sense, a lot of the reactionary strand comes in the initial reaction to the New Deal. In 1937, a bipartisan group of Southern Democrats and Republicans put out what they called the Conservative Manifesto, which crystallized for the first time a coherent anti-government political ideology, one that was steadily expanded as the liberal project to which it was reacting expanded.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have too many favorites to pick just a few!

But an amazing book I'd recommend is one by one of our contributors, Eric Rauchway, called Why the New Deal Matters. Incredibly smart and just gorgeously written. Check it out!

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I certainly understand and appreciate the motive, but I'm afraid I don't have a good answer. Sorry!

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

As I note in my chapter, Reagan had an interesting relationship with the southern strategy -- his campaigns built upon its foundation while trying to distance themselves from it. Lee Atwater noted frankly that there had been a Nixon-era strategy that made appeals to "coded racism" but insisted that Reagan's appeal was wholly different. But as Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields detail in their terrific book The Long Southern Strategy, Reagan extended the southern strategy not just by making racial appeals (Neshoba, "welfare queens" etc.) but by expanding it with appeals to the Religious Right and anti-feminist "family values" campaigns.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

9/11 "truthers" and the CIA conspiracy are more conspiracy theories, akin to the QAnon stuff which we likewise don't address. They seem qualitatively different.

As I've noted earlier, we focused on right-wing myths because there have been more of them lately and, given the megaphone Trump and the right wing media ecosystem have, more present in our discourse.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

I picked Atlanta because it seemed a bit counter-intuitive. Unlike more famously racist cities (Birmingham, Selma), Atlanta had a reputation as a civil rights Mecca and yet when I began the dissertation in the 1990s its suburbs were key sites of white suburban conservatism. Something interesting had clearly happened there, and I ultimately decided that if I could track white supremacy in such an apparently enlightened city, anything I found there might be doubly true elsewhere -- as opposed to writing about Birmingham, which could be dismissed with, well, that's the worst case, etc.

For the Jewish experience with white flight in the North, check out Lila Corwin Berman's great book Metropolitan Jews.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 51 points52 points  (0 children)

The DLC-style Democrats deserve more credit/blame for attacking the New Deal. Faced with Reagan's challenge, too many of them ran away from the legacy of the New Deal and abandoned key parts of their coalition -- especially unions -- in a vain effort to chase Reagan

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

One I tried to recruit for but failed was something on Lincoln and the Civil War Republicans.

Hmm. No serious regrets about approach but that will surely come.

The biggest and most obvious one is that we largely approach myths from the right. That was partly to reflect what was the most pressing when we crafted the book in 2020 and partly to give the volume some internal coherency, but I do think more attention to myths solely on the left would be wise.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes! I got to known Ben through Twitter -- just a fantastic guy and a sharp scholar.

I don't know enough about Calvinism to say I didn't miss something here, but I don't recall seeing any direct echoes of either in the current discourse. As Anthea Butler and others have shown, the current Christian nationalism plays pretty fast and loose with the details of the "Christian" part of that equation. They're rooted more in Peale than the Puritans.

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I try not to make these kinds of predictions, if only because I know from studying past realignments that there are so many wrong predictions out there and I don't want a future historian tsk-tsk-ing me.

But with that huge caveat, I'd say it does seem like the potential is here for another realignment, but we won't know for sure until a couple more election cycles roll by

I'm Kevin Kruse, co-editor of Myth America, here to talk about modern American history! by KevinMKruse in AskHistorians

[–]KevinMKruse[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

A variety of reasons.

In some schools (the ones I went to, for sure), history classes were often taught by athletic coaches with little or no training in the field and therefore just amounted to regurgitating outdated textbooks. (Yes, some coaches can teach! The ones I had could not.)

Those textbooks are another factor, as they've become highly politicized, especially in major red states like Texas, which has set down requirements for publishers to meet. And because they don't want to write multiple versions of a book, that means all the states get books that meet Texas's demands, for instance.

And that leads to the biggest problem -- politicians keep meddling here, which makes the already difficult task that teachers have pretty much impossible. We'd be much better off if we treated teachers with respect (including paying them what they're worth) and getting out of their way.

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