history

Pat’s Corner: Lessons from Hannah

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September 10, 2025

To the Editor:

Since Hitler and Stalin threw the world into chaos and ultimately the deadliest of all wars, scholars have studied how democracies fail and autocracies prevail. The great pioneer in this field was Hannah Arendt, who fled the Nazi regime herself and devoted much of her career to explaining how good people can be convinced to follow evil leaders. As she noted, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

Please note: My argument is not that Trump IS Hitler, only that he is following the same pattern that an important field of scholarship has being describing in case study after case study for the past 80 years. 

First, wannabe autocrats turn political opponents into “enemies within” who must be destroyed, not just defeated at the polls.  (“You won’t have a country anymore;” “No one is safe;” “They’ll stab you in your kitchen,” etc.)  To weaponize fear and demonize opponents all such powermongers target the same people: the press, historians, lawyers, college professors, scientists, theologians, even entertainers, anyone who might help people make “the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false.” People unite against external enemies; they divide to combat “the enemy within,” (“radical left lunatics.”) For that, they will allow a wannabe autocrat to destroy democracy and assume absolute power based on fictional threats.

As Trump follows this playbook, most of us have pretended it is normal behavior for politicians or that it’s just a temporary challenge to our otherwise safe democracy or even that he is the hero of the hour.  He began his career on a lie (“Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud”), proceeded to undermine the integrity of elections (“The system is rigged”), convinced a segment of the public he will protect them (“Only I can save this nation”), and is now moving to consolidate his power.  It’s time to face the fact that this is not normal.

In times past, the Texans I knew were too independent minded to take orders from a wannabe dictator, but Trump has now demanded that our state “deliver” five more loyal Representatives by re-gerrymandering our congressional districts. Apparently because Democrats are “destroying our country,” our congressmen must represent Trump, not Texans.  Texas Republicans didn’t even pretend they were drawing districts to better represent our state; instead, they proudly declared they were manipulating districts to consolidate one man’s power to rule over us.  Trump even shamelessly declared, “We [not Texans] are entitled to five more seats.” Fiction trumps truth. 

As Hannah Arendt noted many years ago, the aim of autocrats “has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.” Texas Republicans have just verified her political theory.

“Oopsie:” The Dangerous Idiocy of the Alien Enemies Act

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Guest post by Pat Ledbetter, Professor of History and Human Rights

Almost sixty years ago, I discovered a way to make a living doing what I love: exploring America’s complicated past and sharing that journey with successive generations of aspiring scholars.  I knew I wouldn’t make much money along the way, but college teaching was a respected profession, the subject was endlessly fascinating, and I loved the students. I had a Ph.D. before I turned 30, not because I wanted prestige or a title, but because I was having too much fun to quit. Even as I approach my eightieth birthday, I’m still having too much fun to quit.

But I never expected the time would come when the vice president would ominously declare, “The professors are the enemy,” and the president would condemn historians as “radical leftist Marxists.”  Although my profession is under attack, I still believe America has been made great, not only by patriots who glorify its past but also by the critics who acknowledge its mistakes and demand an even “more perfect union,” one that continuously strives to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave” and delivers “justice for all.” 

A case in point is President Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.  As a historian, my concern is that this Act is currently being applied with hardly a nod to its tortured history. That’s what happens when historians are demonized: Those in power can ignore us and the story we tell.

This Act passed in 1798 in response to a perceived threat to national security, both at home and abroad. John Adams had followed George Washington into the presidency with the support of the Federalist faction. Meanwhile, an opposition faction, Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson, was also being organized.  In general, Federalists believed in strong central government headed by a relatively powerful chief executive; the Democratic-Republicans called for a diffusion of power, not only among the three branches of government but also between state and national authorities. In these early days of political party development, each side viewed the other as an existential threat to the Republic.  Federalists warned that if the Democratic-Republicans prevailed, the nation would degenerate into anarchy and moral decay; the Democratic-Republicans warned that Federalists were conspiring to install a tyrannical government that would restore monarchy. The public had to choose: anarchy or tyranny.

When the British and French went to war, these divisions grew more dangerous, especially since the Federalists favored the British and the Democratic-Republicans sided with the French. Then the French began attacking U.S. ships to disrupt trade with their enemy. Although Adams refused to ask Congress for a formal declaration, a naval war with France ensued. For such a young, inexperienced, and ill-prepared nation to be fighting a war with one of the superpowers of the day was a truly terrifying experience, especially with such extreme internal polarization.   

The Federalists reacted by tying the threat abroad (the French) to the enemy within (the Democratic-Republicans) and passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act negated the 1st Amendment by making it illegal to criticize officeholders. The Alien Enemies Act upended the 5th Amendment’s promise of due process to all persons (not citizens) so that the president could deport immigrants whom he perceived to be a security risk in wartime.  Since it applied only during a declared war, Adams did not invoke the Alien Enemies Act, but his administration did prosecute opposition newspaper editors and even one member of Congress under its companion piece, the Sedition Act. A panicked public was willing to limit freedom for security. 

Fortunately, by 1800, the people had seen through the Federalists’ use of fear to maintain power and swept Democratic-Republicans into office. The Alien and Sedition Acts seemed to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

However, the Alien Enemies Act remained on the books and has been periodically resurrected to initiate some of the most shameful chapters in our history, most notoriously the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, an injustice we came to regret. 

At least we were at war then so that the terms of the Act did apply.  Now we have President Trump invoking it when we are not at war against people whose most serious crime is that they don’t align with his politics. And he’s not just sending them to a “relocation camp” but condemning them to the most brutal prison in this hemisphere in collusion with a tyrant known for his violation of human rights. Once again, fear has prepared us to surrender freedom.

If you think President Trump can negate the rights of some but you are safe, you need to ask a historian how power works.  Our only hope is that the American people today will ultimately be as aware and defensive of their rights as our forefathers were in 1800.  Tyranny wins only when the people fail to defend “liberty and justice for all.”

Gilded Flush

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Guest Post by P. Ledbetter

Finally, we know what MAGA means when they promise to “Make America Great Again.” It’s now obvious that “again” refers to the Gilded Age, the late 19th century.

From the 1870s through the 1890s, industrialization launched economic growth beyond any prior generations’ imagination, creating a new class of super-rich magnates (Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Gould). By the turn of the century, their one percent of the population controlled over half of America’s wealth and an even greater share of its political power. America was indeed “great” and very rich, but most Americans were left mired in poverty, under the control of a few men who rigged the system against them.

Under the Trump administration, we see a parallel super-rich class, the tech giants, concentrating wealth and power beyond most of our imaginations (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg).  Since President Trump’s election, Musk’s wealth has increased 69%, approximately $70 billion. (Estimates vary but when the numbers get that high, what difference can it make?) Just as with the magnates of old, today’s super billionaires know that with great wealth comes great power: witness Musk’s near total control of our government.

The late 19th century was the most corrupt era of American politics, but it looks like we are on track to match or exceed its record. Today’s billionaires even use the same tactics to gain and keep power. In the first Gilded Age, outright bribes assured control of both state and national governments; today’s bribes are thinly disguised as “campaign contributions” but the results are the same. Gilded Age taxes also mirrored Trump’s plan. Import tariffs assured that only working- and middle-class Americans paid the country’s bills, while the tax advantages went to those who could pay the biggest bribes.  Turns out tariffs are a great way to build a strong political base while shifting money from the poor to the rich.

The 19th century overlords also understood that the best way to control people is to scare them and keep them divided among themselves. In the South, this meant the establishment of the Jim Crow regime that almost universally disenfranchised Black citizens. Meanwhile, vicious attacks on immigrants further frightened and divided those who might otherwise have challenged the super-rich’s power. In today’s climate, if the public’s focus can be kept on DEI and CRT, they won’t notice that they don’t have health care or decent wages. 

The clearest evidence that we are on the road to another Gilded Age is the attack on the administrative state, the so-called “Deep State.”  In the 19th century the super-rich played their game with no rules and no limits. Those were the “good old days” that today’s billionaires long for.  All they need to do is convince the people that their government is their enemy and that rules checking the power of the wealthiest are unwarranted tyranny, and their oligarchy is empowered beyond measure.

The good news is that the first Gilded Age ended with the Populist uprising (real populism, not the fake variety Trump claims.) Interestingly, that resistance to concentrated wealth and power was led in large measure by an unlikely group: Texas farmers. They even saw through the racist regime that kept both races down so that they “may be separately fleeced of their earnings.”  (See Gregg Cantrell’s detailed account, The People’s Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism.)

Can we do it again?