Political scientist and educator Larry Gerston’s latest book is Overcoming Trumpism: How to Save American Democracy, which will be released April 16. In it, he lays out the ways that democratic norms have been weakened — or crushed — and, as the title suggests, he offers guidance on what Americans can do to revive their democracy. The Voice asked him about it.
Why did you write this book and why now?
It seems to me that people are not making the connection between Trumpism and what it has done to democracy. It’s a perilous situation. Unless we sort of roll this out bit by bit — here’s what’s happened, here’s how it happened, here’s why it happened, and here’s what you can do — to me, that sequence was really important. … [This book] begins with the concern for democracy and how fragile it is.
I don’t think people realize that. We all take these things for granted and how easily it is to abuse it, which clearly in my judgment, Trump and his acolytes have done. So recognize that, recognize your role, and let’s deal with it.
Why do you think Trumpism has triumphed or metastasized now and not, say, 40 years ago?
Well, that’s a great question. I think a lot of it has to do with the times. People are shaky about their economy, about their role in society. There’s so many things that have gone on, the impact of social media, Covid, the fact that we emerged from Covid sort of existing in silos instead of in a more common group setting. Then add to that this layer of immigration, which sort of envelops all the above. Americans have a hard time with people who are different, even if their previous generations were the different ones.
So you have all these weak spots in America where they can be taken advantage of. That’s exactly what Trump’s done. He’s brilliant in terms of the way he has managed to take advantage of society’s chasms and just explode them. And people — and this is the hard part for people to understand, I think — we are part of this. Trumpism doesn’t exist without 80 million Americans saying yes. Some of us didn’t vote for Trump, but a lot of us did. And I think when we did, we did not realize exactly what we were doing. What’s amazing, of course, to me as a political scientist, is that you know that old saying [fool me] once shame on you, twice shame on me? We’re at the twice stage.
Would you care to lay any of the blame on the lack of widespread civics education in schools?
Absolutely. That’s so critical. … There’s no question in my mind that we have dropped the ball on civic education. STEM — great; I’m not about to put that down; but we have squeezed out topics that are so important. Again, people sort of take this all for granted. Oh, kids will figure it out. It’s all around us. Parents will talk about it, which they used to but they don’t anymore. That gets back to all the concerns people have with their lives.
Kids don’t understand it. Worse than that, and this is the latest data, when you look at the groups that are most susceptible to dictatorial politics, it’s young people. That’s frightening in itself, that the next generation is the least moored to democracy.
You know that old saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me? We’re at the twice stage.
I recently read Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, because I wanted to get at [how] a very educated, cultured man could be arguing against democracy. [It includes his postwar] speech defending Weimar democracy; he had done a 180 after the war. He gave this speech at a university in Germany, and he kept getting interrupted by students stamping their feet and trying to disrupt him because they so disagreed with anything positive about the Weimar Republic.
I’ve always been worried when people assume “the younger generation will save us.” We’ve never told them why we have democracy, how it works, why it works the way it works. We now also have a lot of folks coming from other countries without democratic backgrounds. If their kids are going through school and they’re not getting “this is why we do it, this is why we have to live together in certain ways,” it boomerangs on us sooner or later.
And that’s a hundred years ago, right? That’s just brilliant in terms of the connection. This whole idea about a strong man — again, the youngest people are the ones who say, “Well, just fix it.” Now the Americans in general are [saying] just fix it, but it’s even strongest with young people. We have to blame us, because it’s our generation really more than anybody else that’s dropped the ball.
USC professor Dan Schnur, when asked about poor political leadership during the Covid crisis, said there’s also an issue of poor followership, citizens who aren’t taking seriously their responsibilities to others or to the overall system. Your book is filled with ways that Americans can reinvigorate democracy through participation in it. Do you really think that’ll be enough to turn the authoritarian tide?
Yes. I think if we get involved, if we accept our responsibility, if we take democracy seriously, we can turn this around. The power of the vote is incredible, but the power of the vote is not enough. Why am I voting this way? What am I attempting to do? What is it that I really don’t like? What is it that I really want? And that doesn’t come just by pulling a lever. So it’s not just voting. It’s buying into the system. It’s being part of it. I’ve said to people, and I guess I’m becoming intolerant in some ways, because when we do get into these conversations, I say, “What have you done about it?” Because they always talk about, I know what the Democrats are doing, what the Republicans are doing. Well, isn’t that nice to offload [responsibility]?
What are you doing about it? I sort of raise hackles sometimes — “What do you mean?” Once you’ve done that, you’ve put the onus on them, and that’s really important. We have to take charge of ourselves instead of leaving it to be comfortably, at least superficially, for others to do it. It boomerangs.
Coming in Part 2: Bay Area tech companies, the role of the center, and Trumpism after Trump.
