Voting Rights Come Before All Others

Historian and Author Jefferson Cowie spoke to Democrats Abroad

Happy May Day !

My Democrats Abroad book club organized a talk yesterday with Jefferson Cowie. He is the Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author of Freedom's Dominion, which my political book club read in March. We then saw him speak in Berlin where he has been a visiting professor at the American Academy. I am not going to touch on all that he said, but will share some big ideas that I got from hearing him. I will also post the video of his speech once it is available.

Cowie said that based on history, to win a presidency in the US, the candidate must have elements of populism. That is a charisma, and an agenda that is not telling people what they need, but telling people you are going to serve the interests of “the people,” and that might include taking them back to a better time. Populists do not have particular beliefs, it is more about what will win them the popularity and vote. That is why we see Trump switching from being a Democrat to a Republican. In the past it was George Wallace becoming an Independent, or Ross Perot, or more recently Kennedy running as Independents. It is also one that has an enemy, it can be just one enemy, or one above and one below. So, extrapolating from that, your enemy above might be the “educated elite,” and the one below is “immigrants” in the Trumpian playbook. Or, your enemy is just “immigrants.” Cowie points out that Trump is using Reagan’s playbook, but instead of making the bad guys “the Blacks,” it is “the immigrants.” This is why Trump could win without outlining his plans. He could just say, I am going to use my strength to take care of you. Cowie discussed several populists from the right and the left, but says, increasingly the populists are coming from the right.

He told us that both the Republicans and Democrats used to be two parties in one. They each had a Conservative and a Liberal part, which meant that there were sort of like-4 parties interacting with each other. Instead, we are now polarized into just two increasingly different parties, which means that there is virtually no dialogue between the parties any more. He feels that the Democratic party should be 3 parties, but is catering to 2 groups right now; those are the educated elites and the multicultural rights groups. In fact, it is in essence 2 parties right now, with the educated elites being globalists and agreeing to the multicultural goals as well. What is missing is the third group, which is the part that represents the 2/3 of Americans that do not have college degrees. That is working class people, who are not appealed to by the educated elite, or the multicultural goals of the parts of the party that the democrats have been targeting. These are however, the people who respond to a populist message.

Cowie also talked about the need to not be polarized, but to develop a common vision. There are ideals that we share as patriotic Americans, and we cannot allow people on the right to be the only one’s defining our patriotism. He pointed out that even listening to Steve Bannon we would probably agree with about half of what he has to say, whereas the other half might make our toes curl. It is this common ground on which we need to meet. I know that when Steve Bannon said that Musk did not belong in the White House because he is not a native born American and was not elected by the people, I thought, I cannot believe I am agreeing with this man who picked Trump to be our leader. Still, what he was saying about Musk not belonging in the White House rang true to me.

Cowie primarily does his research on labor history, and has talked to unions. He sees that people have been hurt by things like NAFTA and loss of manufacturing jobs. I would say that even if Trump wants to fix this, he does not understand it. He does understand that this is what people in the working class care about. To that extent they do want to go back to the days when one income could support a family. I don’t think that many would disagree. When one of the directors of the school that I taught in came in, in his opening speech he promised us that we would earn enough so that we could support our families from one income. That was in the early 2000s. It resonated with our faculty, which had a very active union even though it was an “independent school.”

What Cowie is saying makes a lot of sense. Many of us are realizing that we need to find common ground, and I think that is why the organization Indivisible is non-partisan. It is about shared concerns and goals and working with people you know so you can see what you care about in common and build trust. Building trust is important. Cowie and Indivisible believe that people can be patriotic, and come from different places. It seems like this is evidenced by the huge audiences that Bernie Sanders and Alexadria Ocasio Cortez are drawing in their Anti-Oligarchy tour. I have heard that with Republicans refusing to meet with their constituencies, these crowds are a mix of people who are dismayed by the early actions of this Trump administration. When surveyed on items in Project 2025, people did not like them. Unfortunately too many people did not connect the ideas with the name Project 2025, and believed Trump when he said he was not going to implement these plans.

The shared goals and vision of America is what made Obama popular with voters who later embraced Trump. So, in Obama’s time white, male working class voters did not need to be the white men on top, but they did need to be included in the vision for America. They need to feel like they matter and do not have to be liberal or educated to be a part of us moving forward. Cowie stresses that we cannot be talking down to people. Even words like “oligarch” are not understood by most people, so using plain language is best. I assume “billionaire” would suffice. A friend pointed out that this vision of shared goals targeting all Americans is needed in Germany too.

Richard Rorty, wrote a book called Achieving Our Country 25 years ago predicted these times. Rorty predicted the rise of a strong man and the backlash against women’s rights that we are seeing now. Cowie sees how accurate Rorty’s predictions are and says they were recognized by more people in 2016 when Trump came to power. Cowie has been expecting a backlash against women’s rights sooner than it has happened.

The host of the talk brought up that in Gen Z, we are seeing young men turn more and more towards traditional stereotypes of male and female roles, whereas women continue to be more progressive. The “trad wives” movement is still an outlier. Something many young women watch for entertainment but not for lifestyle advice. My daughter, a Gen-Z-er, has pointed out to me that while Trad Wives disparage women doing anything other than relying on their husbands for support, these women are building a brand and monetizing it, so are making money off the idea of women not making money. She sees this as blatant hypocrisy. I think her feminist friends are of the same mind.

Cowie expressed surprise that Americans have not fought more for voting rights because he sees it as the most important thing. Without the right to vote we lose our other rights. When asked what we can do about our voting rights he told us the most important thing we can do right now is hold onto the voting rights we still have, and the fight of the next decades is the fight for voting rights. That includes getting rid of gerrymandering, the electoral college, and ensuring that people including excons having the right to vote. His book Freedom’s Dominion is about a county in Alabama, which is where George Wallace comes from and gets his start in politics, and about the fight for voting rights of Blacks culminating in the Voting Rights act. He says that if Democrats win in 2026, they will again drop the battle for voting rights, but he still cannot believe this has not been fought to a better conclusion. I agree that we need to get rid of gerrymandering, the electoral college and of course make voting more inclusive and better protected. Without this right we do not have other rights.

I also believe that Black people have known from day one (the day after slavery ended) that this is the most important struggle. In Freedom’s Dominion, Cowie talks about the kind of Freedom that George Wallace was fighting for, that of White men to have dominion over others without interference from others, specifically the federal government. In this history we also read about the period right after the Civil War when Blacks in Barbour County, the Alabama county that is the focus of his research, gain the right to vote after they have been freed, and the struggle that the White citizens of that community have to prevent them from exercising that right. That struggle is ongoing. Right now, Trump is trying to disenfranchise women, Blacks, immigrants, and Americans Abroad as is the entire Republican party. In fact, in their eyes, they are running this country for one group, and one group only, White men.

Cowie has reminded me once again, that I know that the right to vote is fundamental in a democracy. Without everyone having the right to vote, and access to voting, we cannot be a democracy. Democrats Abroad is primarily a voting rights organization which is connected to Vote From Abroad, a nonpartisan version. When we provide people with information about voting we are not telling them to vote for democrats, we are telling them that voting is important even if one is not living in the USA. I am organizing a series of gatherings, and reminding people how important it is to vote is going to be part of that. Right now we are continuing to call and write our members of Congress to say STOP THE SAVE ACT! We have been asking people in North Carolina to check to see if they need to check if they meet the requirements to vote from abroad. We are also encouraging people in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia to register and vote in their 2025 elections.

I have learned from reading and hearing Cowie, and Timothy Snyder, whose book, On Freedom we are currently reading. Also, Heather Cox Richardson, Anne Applebaum, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Kathleen Belew and countless others, that knowing history is important to understanding the direction in which we need to take our future.

If this article interested you, here are other articles I have written that you might like.

This is one I wrote when I was half way through Freedom’s Dominion and had just heard Cowie speak in Berlin. Is Populism the Way to Go?

This is about my experiences voting in the February elections in Germany The German Election This is my analysis of the German election results right after the election. Now that a government has been formed I will be writing about that once it is official. German Election Results