The Historian Our Democracy Needs Now: The Notorious HCR!

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cast such an outsized shadow that she was affectionately named The Notorious RBG.

I think the same phenomenon is occurring with historian Heather Cox Richardson, whom many of you follow via her “Letters From an American” newsletter on Substack. Her growing prominence is, to me, a good sign for our rocky times.

I’ve often quoted Richardson’s insights, and after stumbling on a video of one of her very popular live Facebook gatherings in June, I described that presentation in detail.

A serious historian, she has a valuable ability to explain the present through detailed references to the past–with plain-spoken clarity.

And she’s a passionate small-d democrat (who used to call herself a Lincoln Republican).

Richardson has just finished a book tour in connection with Democracy Awakening, her newest book—and one geared to the public. I haven’t yet read it, but I plan to. It appears to be essential reading to understand America, 2023.

Why am I calling her “The Notorious HCR”?

On Facebook, she has close to 1.8 million followers. She’s still on Twitter, aka X, with more than 388 thousand followers.

The Washington Post review of her book describes her as “the queen of Substack,” as follows:

“Richardson is a professor of 19th-century history at Boston College and the author of five highly regarded academic books, many of them about the evolution of Republican ideology.

“She is also the writer of Substack’s most successful publication—by far: By one estimate, her ‘Letters From an American,’ rakes in $5 million per year. It could even be called cult-y, if cults had several million adherents who yearned for literate, principled, and clearheaded analyses of the day’s news.” (emphasis mine)

In The Guardian, the reviewer wrote:

“In a media landscape so polluted by politicians addicted to cheap thrills…and the pundits addicted to them…, the success of Heather Cox Richardson is much more than a blast of fresh air. It’s a bona fide miracle.”

I watched a lengthy (more than an hour) discussion about the book and the state of our democracy that Richardson had with her friend RT Stiles, a Pulitzer-prize winning historian, which was held in The Commonwealth Club of California.

For any souls with the time and interest, I thought this exchange was extremely interesting. Here’s the link.

Richardson explained that she wanted the book to be digestible in brief parts. She began writing thirty essays on various aspects of our history “that you can read before you go to bed,” she said. Once they were done, she thought she had a solid first draft and set it aside for a while.

When she returned and reread what she’d written three months later, she found a very different book evolving.

She revised it into three sections, roughly answering the questions she’s often asked: 1) Where are we? 2) How did we get here? 3) How do we get out?

She feels the book is not solely her own. Rather, as the work arose from conversations with her community of readers, who clarified her direction, she dedicated Democracy Awakening to her readers.

Here’s another example of HCR’s impact on a community of readers. Frequent visitors to my blog know that I sometimes cite Robert Hubbell, whose “Today’s Edition” newsletter also appears on Substack.

Mention of Democracy Awakening began when a man in Hubbell’s community posted a comment about the book in October.

Although he thought he’d understood “the depth, breadth, and longevity of the Republican threat to the Republic,” he wrote, reading Democracy Awakening had further opened his eyes. He recommended the book—saying it depicted things as “far worse” than we think.

Hubbell responded that he understood the book is “a tour-de-force of the real history of America,” and he was on his way to buy a copy from an independent bookstore.

As I value Hubbell’s optimistic realism, I wasn’t surprised that he added:

“But I hope there is more to the book than how bad things have been in the past. Somehow, despite all of the dark times that preceded us, we made it to this moment. That should be worth celebrating, and I assume Professor Richardson does so.“

Another commenter responded to Hubbell’s concern, noting that though he’d read just the first few chapters, he felt Richardson’s title—Democracy Awakening—showed that the book went beyond emphasizing the darkness.

This commenter, who identified himself as a chaplain, added that he’d “cheated” and looked at her conclusion, which bears the title “Reclaiming Our Country.”

That exchange apparently sparked Hubbell to become a bit of a Johnny Appleseed for Democracy Awakening. He created a sort of “Let’s give so others can receive Richardson’s book” project, which crystalized after he heard from a reader who expressed interest in reading this “important new book,” but couldn’t buy it because she’s a retiree living on a fixed income and her local library didn’t have a copy. Hubbell reported that he was sending his copy to the reader and would purchase another for himself.

From there, he developed a gifting request/supply chain among readers who couldn’t get the book and those willing to buy it for them.

Richardson’s publisher, Viking Press, donated copies, augmented by Hubbell’s readers, whom he encouraged to purchase their books from independent bookstores at the locator link, which I’m appending here.

If I haven’t yet convinced you about HCR’s rock star status, Hubbell noted that

“Members of Heather’s Herd have volunteered to mail the two dozen books donated by Heather’s publisher.”

Heather’s Herd? See the image at the top of this post.

Hubbell amplified:

“Heather’s Herd describes itself as ‘aspiring activists who are inspired by Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ newsletter. It is a great group. Click on the link above if you are interested in joining. And thanks to Heather’s Herd for volunteering to send the books donated by Heather’s publisher.“

Hubbell accurately called this campaign “a win-win-win situation for everyone!”

That winning situation inspired me: I’m ordering two copies of Democracy Awakening from an independent bookstore and will give one to my local library.

Here’s a bit more about Democracy Awakening from The Washington Post review:

“She has an intriguing origin point for today’s afflictions: the New Deal. The first third of the book, which hurtles toward Donald Trump’s election, is as bingeable as anything on Netflix.

“Democracy Awakening starts in the 1930s, when Americans who’d been wiped out in the 1929 stock market crash were not about to let the rich demolish the economy again. New Deal programs designed to benefit ordinary people and prevent future crises were so popular that by 1960 candidates of both parties were advised to simply “nail together” coalitions and promise them federal funding. From 1946 to 1964, the liberal consensus — with its commitments to equality, the separation of church and state, and the freedoms of speech, press and religion — held sway.

“But Republican businessmen, who had caused the crash, despised the consensus. Richardson’s account of how right-wingers appropriated the word ‘socialism’ from the unrelated international movement is astute. When invoked to malign all government investment, ‘socialism’ served to recruit segregationist Democrats, who could be convinced that the word meant Black people would take their money, and Western Democrats, who resented government protections on land and water. This new Republican Party created an ideology that coalesced around White Christianity and free markets.

“But winning voters without serving their interests is always a tall order. So in the early ’70s, in Richardson’s telling, Republicans began to harbor doubts about democracy itself. They developed nasty backup plans for when elections didn’t go their way, including gerrymandering, cheating and packing the judiciary with right-wing ideologues. The elections of Richard Nixon in 1972 and George W. Bush in 2000 exposed forms of electoral gameplay that didn’t require delivering anything of value to voters.”

“And then a boom-bust businessman famous for allegations of racial bias and sexual misconduct won the presidency as a Republican with no coherent policy platform at all. Some of Nixon’s marquee tricksters even rode sidecar in Trump’s victory. ‘In 2016,’ Richardson writes, ‘the Republicans would ride the theme of the past forty years to their logical conclusion.’”

I also listened to Richardson’s podcast interview with Alan Alda on Clear & Vivid, in which she offered what I felt was a brilliant and important insight I hadn’t previously heard.

She speaks of the Constitution as the document for those who have rights–and the Declaration of Independence as an affirmation for those who seek rights.

Richardson referred to the 1858 speech in which US Senator James Henry Hammond stated the widely held conviction that eventually the North would accede to the South because they needed southern products for their manufacturing. This was the much heralded “Cotton Is King” speech.

Richardson makes the critical point that just five years later, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, speaking “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In that essential American speech, he was giving voice to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The emphasis was on expanding rights, not just enumerating them.

What’s next for the USA?

Richardson is telling us it’s time for “Reclaiming Our Country.” As Heather’s Herd stresses:

“We the People…All of us, this time.”

I do believe, as we’ve been seeing in elections since 2016, that Democracy is awakening.

And despite all the obstacles, as our rock star historian—the Notorious HCR—warns and teaches, it’s up to us to make sure our democracy not only stays awakened, but also grows and matures.

Annie