Michael J. Kramer

For the #1619Project debates crowd, some observations: the new wave of scholarship (which sometimes elides the prior 50 years of radical history it is built upon) seems to be about race (and it is) but it is really about democracy America-style. #usih

The debate is about whether inequality is "baked into" (to borrow @catchatweetdown's phrase) the American democratic project or not. It's an anti-Tocqueville stance. Democracy, American-style, was exclusive & exploitative rather than inclusive & expansive. #usih

Liberal version of history of US democracy: a whiggish progress toward expanding Jeffersonian democracy (and oh yeah, well he owned slaves and raped them, but that's the lesser narrative). #usih

Vs. radical version of history of US democracy: inequality and exploitation were built into the founding of the US. This, whether by implication or explicitly, raises questions about the nature of democracy in its American version. #usih

The question becomes: what does this more radical, damning critique of the American democratic project mean for how we understand (and invest in) democracy itself? #usih