History of Political Grievance in America:
What is the Direction of Our Democracy?
March 17, 24, 31, April 7, 14, 21
Hybrid – Tuesday 1:10 pm – 2:50 pm
Class preparation (optional): Watch the 90-minute movie Lions for Lambs, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x24XpF8Kuiw
Why is Donald Trump our President and why is half our country firmly loyal to the MAGA message? In this course we do a deep-dive, exploring how disruptive changes over the past half century generated MAGA grievances. This complex story weaves together the effects of changing social values, business relocation, the ‘diploma divide,’ cost of living, immigration, social media, globalism and loneliness. Importantly, we examine how these changes have affected Americans differently, benefitting some, while hurting others. As a result, resentment and distrust exist against ‘other’ Americans, our government and big business. Are there really two incompatible Americas? Is Constitutional government evolving into something different?
- Week 1 – Seeing American history as a ‘Stream of Time’
Make America “Great Again” – Return to the 1950s? - Week 2 – Benefits and Grievances –
MAGA and Liberalism, MAGA and Conservativism - Week 3 – Early MAGA candidates – Wallace, Perot, Buchanan
Post 9/11 chaos – Iraq to 2008 Crash - Week 4 – Movie Review – Lions for Lambs (attitudes about citizen engagement in society) Rural attitudes towards government
- Week 5 – 2008 – Obama’s election and its aftermath – bailouts, healthcare, Tea Party
2016 – Why Trump won - Week 6 – Trump’s first term – Disrupter-in-Chief
2021-25 – Biden and the Return of MAGA
Jordan Kolovson earned a Master of Political Science and an MBA in International Business from the University of Connecticut. Before retirement he worked as a Senior Research Manager for RTi Research, a market research company in Norwalk. A lifelong enthusiast of American political history, he is an avid reader of historical analyses, with particular interest in learning different perspectives of events and leaders in US history.