Tyler McCubbin’s Reviews > Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America > Status Update

“A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool for authoritarians. It allows them to characterize anyone who opposes them as an enemy of the country’s great destiny” (251).

“In an era of pervasive and violent repression, people who were legally excluded from equality kept the idea of American democracy alive for everyone. They also suggested a way forward” (219).