Now seems like an opportune time to discuss something about history and government that's been on my mind lately (short thread).

There is a "republican view" of history and a "liberal view" of history.

The republican view is associated with Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli (and the American founders).

It says that all governments decay, become corrupt. When governments become corrupt, then rights and liberties are lost. Therefore, citizens must always be on alert for corruption.

The republican view asks citizens to be watchdogs over their government, to be active and engaged. So doing allows citizens to hold their government accountable.

The freedoms protected by the First Amendment (press, assembly, petition, speech, religion) are the freedoms of citizenship. You have them so that you can be an active republican citizen.

The liberal view of history says that history is unfolding toward ever greater freedom and liberty for all, that rights and liberties will become more widespread. It is a view of government based on progress--the long arc of freedom bends towards justice, for example.

The liberal view doesn't give a role to citizens to make progress happen or to protect rights and liberties. The liberal view is managerial in that it believes that the system is fine, but we should work within it to make changes.

The liberal view accepts citizen apathy as a logical consequence of a system that doesn't particularly need them to be watchdogs over the government to protect their own rights and liberties.

If you think about the GOP since Obama's election (esp the Tea Party wing) and you think about conspiracy theorists like AJ--they work within the republican view of history and they position their followers to act as watchdogs. This is now dominant on Fox.

And, it works. Hella.

And the Dems/progressive left? Since Trump's election they have also recognized the republican view and sought to energize citizens as watchdogs, but prior to that? Not so much. And, obviously, consequences.

If you'd like to read more about these views of history, government, and citizenship, then you'll find it in my book Founding Fictions. https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Fictions-Albma-Rhetoric-Cult/dp/0817357343/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

When I wrote this book I had high hopes that people would read it & be like OMG, WTF & there would be a whole wave of people being more politically engaged. That did not happen, of course.

Trump made it happen because all of sudden we realize that our rights are not secure.

And, if you've heard folks on the right insist that we have a republic, not a democracy and you wondered why that mattered, that's basically the point of the book. "Democracy" was used as a legerdemain, a slight of hand, to make us think we had more power than we did.

We have a republic because the founders did not trust the people to rule. I explain why and how in that book <warning, dangerous book!>

ps: this framework informs my every tweet and the fact that I tweet at all. Public scholarship is an act of citizenship, especially when you are a rhetoric professor.