This tension between crisis and the order of liberty supplies important context for the turn to emergency politics in contemporary American life.
In a recent viral Twitter thread, Johns Hopkins political scientist Lilliana Mason argued that many Trump voters fit a quasi-pathological type that has threatened American democracy for nearly two centuries: a "Particular faction of Americans who have been uniquely visible and anti-democratic since before the Civil War.... We need to worry about the very real threat posed by an anti-democratic group that has always existed in the electorate."
If Winthrop argued that entering a "Community of peril" meant that the Puritans would have to rely on each other even more, contemporary emergency politics often pits Americans against one another.
A war on "Bad" Americans offers the illusory clarity that drives social-media engagement but corrodes the deeper sense of responsibility essential for democratic politics.
Of course, the politics of emergency is not particularly new.
Taming emergency politics means addressing some of the policy shortcomings of recent decades: restoring economic vitality in many parts of the country, helping young people marry and start families, diversifying opportunity, confronting the growing sense of precariousness for health care and other issues, rebuilding robust cultural institutions, and so forth.
The intellectual tensions of emergency politics nevertheless should be acknowledged.
https://www.city-journal.org/regular-talk-of-crisis-can-degrade-liberty?wallit_nosession=1
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