Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America Literary Elements

Political Science, Nonfiction

The United States from its founding to the present

Third-person

Tone: steady, rational, lucid, matter-of-fact
Mood: triumphant, hopeful, proud... but also concerned, lamentable, worried

Protagonist: Democrats, proponents of democracy. Antagonist: Republicans, Donald Trump.

Will the true vision of American democracy win out against the forces of authoritarianism that have simmered since the New Deal?

This is not a novel, so identifying a traditional climax does not really apply here. If we do choose to look at history as a narrative, though, we can identify several climaxes in this story of America: the Declaration of Independence, perhaps; the New Deal; Trump's election.

In 1992, an independent prosecutor involved in the Iran-Contra affair worried that the pardons undermined democracy because "it demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences" (65). This foreshadows all of Trump's criminal actions.

"It was hard not to see the error as intentional" (140) in regards to the ad that showed democratic protestors in Ukraine being attacked by an oligarch's forces. It is an understatement because it suggests something profoundly disturbing about the Trump campaign's vision for the country.

1. "siren songs" of fascism and communism (xvii) : a reference to the sirens in "The Odyssey" who lured men to their deaths
2. "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" is a reference to the Gettysburg address, which Richardson does not name outright (xix)
3. "Brooks Brothers" is an allusion to the stuffy, white-collar clothing brand (41)
4. The Tea Party's name is an allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 in order to connote a sort of rogue patriotism

Much of the imagery consists of the heroic actions regular people took to achieve the promises of democracy contrasted with the invidious actions taken by Republicans, especially those in the Trump era, to undermine that democracy and enforce a hierarchical, oligarchical system.

1. "Americans chose a free future by choosing a principled past" (xviii)
2. "From the beginning, the Founders' embrace of equality depended on keeping women, people of color, and Black Americans unequal" (xix)
3. Republicans use immoral tactics and abuse the laws because they believe that "some people are better than others and should direct the economy, society, and politics" (72)
4. "Equality, then, depended on inequality" (164)

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1. "Under Nixon, the U.S. launched a successful operation in Chile that would be a laboratory for overturning a democratically elected leader without leaving obvious fingerprints" (48)
2. "We're history's actors" (72)
3. "To win his cause, he told his followers that they were fighting a war for the soul of America" (141)