The Way We Were.

• Date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Lueders, Bill
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Lueders, Bill

Anyone who thinks that we are living in dark times is correct: The nativism and mass delusion Donald Trump has nurtured pose a real threat to our democracy. The point of Adam Hochschild's powerful new book is that we've been here before.

American Midnight catalogs the abuses that erupted on a mass scale between 1917 and 1921, a period that included the United States' participation in World War I, the Red Scare following the communist takeover of Russia, and inflamed racial tensions throughout the country.

"The toxic currents of racism, nativism, Red-baiting, and contempt for the rule of law have long flowed through American life," Hochschild, a journalist and historian, writes in his prologue. "My hope is that by examining closely an overlooked period in which they engulfed the country, we can understand them more deeply and better defend against them in the future."

Patriotism, during this time, was ruthlessly enforced. The American...