I’m going to share some vague similarities I’ve been noticing between our current moment and the 1760s/1770s. During the imperial crisis, Parliament passed unprecedented legislation aimed at greater control of the colonies, which created deep senses of instability & uncertainty. https://twitter.com/jbf1755/status/1318007593944682497

Partly influenced by the common law, colonial political culture (and culture generally) gave great weight to the power of tradition, custom, & precedent, which in turn gave them a sense of stability in an otherwise rapidly evolving Atlantic world.

If Parliament was bound by the precedent of their long-standing customary relationship to the colonies, as colonists believed it was, the latter could develop expectations about the present and future, which fostered a sense of certainty and stability in their political culture.

Colonists had inherited this “history culture” from their 17c ancestors who brought it with them to NA. But over the 18c, that had changed back home. Many in Britain believed their own new circumstances of being the largest empire in the world justified unprecedented measures.

That makes sense. But when Parliament’s 1760s/1770s legislation signaled they did not believe that, it seemed to colonists that all bets were off. How do you play a game when the rules can change at anytime?

For the last 4 years our own political culture has experienced the seismic shock of a string of unprecedented behavior that broke otherwise unwritten or unenforceable norms & customs. Many feel the instability & uncertainty of the current political moment in their everyday lives.

It affects our civic understandings & political decisions, not totally unlike for colonists in the 1760/70s. In addition, we are watching one side engage in unprecedented acts of voter suppression & election obstruction & wondering, “If they’ll do this, what won’t they do next?”

The irony, of course, for colonists was that their commitment to keeping things the same with Britain led them to their own unprecedented act of independence.

Far right-wing media has fostered paranoia by convincing many Republicans that they are living in a time of unprecedented threat from the Left, who are gleeful baby killers and pedophiles engaged in a global conspiracy to steal their freedom.

Colonists too were convinced that each act of Parliament was part of a broader, hidden plan to not only change the relationship between the colonies & Britain but to do so in ways meant to take away many liberties that colonists had long enjoyed under the previous relationship.

Because far-right media has to keep their audience’s fear at constant fever pitch, many Reps fear some kind of imminent attack from the Left of which BLM protests are just the beginning. As such, they are willing to support unprecedented actions by their politicians to stop this.

The brazenness & unashamed way in which GOP politicians are currently engaged in outright election obstruction is a sign that they already are well down a new and very dark authoritarian road & will go as far as GOP voters are willing to let them. And who knows how far that is?

I don’t have some grand insight about what this might mean for the present or future. I’m a historian, not a psychic. But perhaps it might foster some historical empathy on our part as well as a realization that, in such a moment, we can take nothing for granted about the future.