Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

But here we are, bookended by the likes of Reagan and Trump with, of all things, a black president pinched in the middle, and wondering what will happen next. We stand in the ruins. Modern conservatism has collapsed. Its claims about the value of small government, the importance of tax cuts for the rich, and the benefits of deregulation and privatization have resulted in most Americans drowning in profound uncertainty about their future and their children’s future and have left the planet mortally wounded. All that is left of this once-vaunted ideology are appeals to our lesser angels in order to divide Americans along the fault lines that have been a part of this democratic experiment since the very beginning: “We must keep the proverbial niggers and those like them in their place.” It worked.