The weekend preceding Memorial Day (observed on the last Monday of May) is not only the time when Americans host their first barbecue of the summer season, but also when—during religious services, parades, and speeches—they commemorate those who have fallen in all American wars. In local cemeteries, flags and flowers are placed upon the graves of veterans. It is one of those annual occasions when patriotism becomes engulfed by nationalism.

While patriotism can be defined as a sense of love and devotion to one’s own country, nationalism is an ideology that emphasizes the interests and identity of a nation, often prioritizing it above that of others. The two concepts may sometimes overlap, yet nationalism is frequently regarded as more divisive, focusing instead on cultural unity and independence.

In Trump’s America, this is clearly the case today. “A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians. It allows them to characterize anyone who opposes them as an enemy of the country’s great destiny,” writes Heather Cox Richardson—historian and professor—on page 251 of her book, “Democracy awakening: Notes on the State of America“—the very book I am reading during these memorable days.

The book argues that Trump is not an anomaly, but rather the inevitable, logical outcome of a historic process, given the support the Republican Party has lent—over the preceding seventy years—to Christian nationalism, racism, and corporate interests. The epigraph Richardson chose to open her book comes from Walt Whitman—”the most famous American poet of the nineteenth century”—who, in his 1871 work *Democratic Vistas*, observed: “We have frequently printed the word Democracy. Yet I cannot too often repeat that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawaken’d.”

Thus, this book is “the story of how democracy has persisted throughout our history despite the many attempts to undermine it. It is the story of the American people, specifically those whom the powerful have  to marginalize, who first backed the idea of equality and a government that defended it, and then, throughout history, have fought to expand that definition to create a government that can, once and for all, finally make it real” (p. xxi).

For anyone feeling lost amidst Trump’s media campaigns—described by his advisor Steve Bannon as “flooding the zone” (“This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation”)—Richardson’s book comes highly recommended as a must-read.

Heather Cox Richardson has described herself as a “Lincoln Republican.” She earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard and previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is currently a professor at Boston College. She has authored seven books on history, political democracy,........

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