'We can fight like the world depends on us' — academics try to stave off government attacks

"I got DOGEed today," said an academic sitting next to me last week at the opening session of the Organization of American Historians. Meaning, the National Endowment for the Humanities grant funding her job had been axed by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, part of the general dismantling of our government, like a house being torn down with the family still living inside.

With higher education and honest American history also under siege, I decided to attend the OAH's plenary session, "Historians and the Attacks on Education."

David W. Blight, of Yale, president of OAH, opened the evening.

"We as historians perhaps never have faced this kind of assault that we are facing now," he said. "We have to figure out: How do we defend ourselves? Do we know how? We're not terrific at leading social movements. We're terrific at research about social movements."

Four panelists expressed themselves well enough. Then Nancy MacLean, of Duke University, author of "Democracy in Chains," got up and briefly explained how we got here. I don't often hand my column over to someone else, but will do so now, editing her remarks for space.

MacLean said:

"The carnival of cruelty enabled by 47’s reelection has very deep roots. Three key groups have been: 1) predatory capitalists; 2) white supremacists; and 3) religious conservatives, led by conservative Protestants oblivious to the actual ethics of Jesus.     

"Their combined political power has waxed and waned over more than two centuries. It surged in the run-up to the Civil War, as enslavers and their allies aimed to hold power at any cost, including treason. It was subdued for a time by Reconstruction, then rose again after its members violently defeated America’s first taste of multiracial democracy. 

"During the Great Depression, that coalition’s partners were routed by mass working-class movements and new federal policy, only to resurge with the red scare after World War II, then be beaten back by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, despite what was proudly called 'massive resistance.'

"Out of that 'massive resistance' came much more intentional coalition building over the last 50 years, building toward today’s bloody-minded determination and unified national power not seen since the 1850s.

"Why so venomous and hell-bent now on revolutionizing America, no matter the toll?  Because all three coalition partners are desperate. They see this as their last chance to impose their agenda. They know they won’t have another. Hence, the frenzy to act fast and break things.   

"Since the 1990s, predatory capitalists — above all from the fossil fuel sector — have seen their trillions in investments and expected future profits imperiled by social movements and international government action. So they have cultivated partners.   

"White supremacists who had never accepted civil rights victories then panicked at the election of Barack Obama in 2008, because they rightly saw the imminent end of white numerical and cultural dominance in a multiracial democracy.   

 "And the religious right leaders had lost the ability to impose their dogma on their own straying children, let alone on government policy. So they’ve radicalized into Christian nationalists.   

"They are all desperate — and showing it in the reckless vengeful rage of their 'counterrevolution,' as they depict it.   

"Now, the early investors have been bolstered by the billionaire bro-ligarchy of Silicon Valley, above all the South African apartheid spawn Elon Musk. 

"These combined forces are taking aim at every progressive movement achievement of over more than a century now — and every public good from education to the postal service and Social Security and Medicare to national parks and libraries.   

"What we need to understand, urgently, is where all this ends if they have their way. ... Each partner group in this coalition believes they have a right to dominate — to trample — those they consider less valuable, expendable peoples, people whose voices should be silenced, in school, at work, and in politics.   

"The white supremacists, we know only too well in this room. And the Christian nationalists share a Calvinist conviction that God favors the wealthy — and that it is a sin to help the damned.     

"And it’s also global, with transnational allies in country after country enlisting and aggravating racism, nativism, gender anxiety and homophobia to achieve power they cannot win by persuasion. 

"The plans have been circulating for years now. The real surprise is that so many leaders of these institutions— from legacy media, to colleges and universities, to law firms and members of Congress — have folded so quickly. That they have taken pains to prostrate themselves to the authoritarians, whose actions don’t even carry the backing of law. 

"We can do better. We can fight like the world depends on us. Because it does."