In this piece in The Atlantic, Lawrence B. Glickman, the Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professor in American Studies, writes that conservative pundits today are talking about themes that were popular among opponents of Reconstruction.
"In the conservative world, the idea that white people in the United States are under siege has become doctrine. In recent weeks, three prominent figures have each offered their own versions of this tenet," Glickman writes, going on to describe recent statements by Brian Kilmeade and Tucker Carlson of Fox News and Pat Robertson of The 700 Club.
"Kilmeade, Carlson, and Robertson all blamed critical race theory, a school of legal thought developed in the 1980s that has become the latest fixation of the conservative outrage machine," he writes. "But the panic they expressed has a much longer history, with roots going back to white-supremacist rhetoric from before the Civil War—and particularly apparent during the attack on Reconstruction, America’s experiment in interracial democracy that lasted from 1865 until 1877."
