PDF Summary:These Truths, by Jill Lepore

America was founded on ideals of equality and freedom, yet its history reveals deep contradictions between these principles and reality. In These Truths, historian Jill Lepore examines how the nation's founding values have clashed with practices like slavery and racial injustice from the country's earliest days through the present.

Lepore traces the long struggle to align American ideals with practice, from the Civil War era through the civil rights movement. She then explores how the Internet age has reshaped politics and society, contributing to economic inequality, political polarization, and the erosion of truth. The book raises questions about whether American history ultimately supports or contradicts the nation's founding principles, and what the future holds for truth and self-government in an increasingly divided digital landscape.

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(Shortform note: During the 1950s, the Cold War bolstered the fight for civil rights because the US government was concerned that the Soviet Union would use the US’s racial discrimination as propaganda to undermine America’s image as a leader of the free world. To counter this, the US government supported civil rights initiatives to improve its international reputation. This led to increased support for civil rights legislation and court decisions that advanced racial equality, such as the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.)

In 1957, the first civil rights law since Reconstruction was considered by Congress: the Civil Rights Act. The legislation created a civil rights committee that could receive complaints without the authority to take action on them. In 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic group was formed to challenge the all-white delegation of the Democrats at their nominating convention. In 1965, demonstrators vowed to travel the 55 miles from Selma to Montgomery, a trek that would lead them through a county with a population over 70% Black, but where almost no African Americans had tried to vote since Jim Crow began. On March 7, 1965, 500 Alabama state troopers awaited them on the other side of the Pettus Bridge, following George Wallace's command to detain any crossers.

Television News and the Civil Rights Movement

The 1950s and 1960s were a time of great change in American politics, and the events Jill Lepore describes here were pivotal moments in the civil rights movement. One important development that set the stage for these events was the rise of television news. In The Race Beat, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff explain how the advent of nationwide television news and the expansion of northern newspapers into the South transformed racial conflict from a regional story into a national crisis. Photographs and moving images of beatings, bombings, and defiance of federal authority were suddenly appearing on front pages and on evening newscasts across the country. This created a new mass audience whose outrage and moral concern, in turn, forced presidents, members of Congress, and party leaders to take up civil rights as a central question of national politics rather than a problem they could leave to local officials.

The Breakdown of Reality and the Strains on Self-Government

Lepore contends that the Internet's emergence contributed to the erosion of truth and the decline of self-government. The Internet—a boundless ocean of data and concepts—deeply impacted how knowledge spread, particularly in terms of its rapidity and extent, both of which were sped up by smartphones. It advanced academics, science, medicine, and learning, and it aided business and trade. However, the financial and political fallout in its initial two decades was frequently severe and unintended.

(Shortform note: In The Misinformation Age, Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall argue that the Internet has undermined truth and self-government. They use models of scientific and political communication to show how communities can become entrenched in false beliefs. They argue that when these distorted beliefs influence policy decisions, they undermine the shared understanding and trust necessary for effective democratic governance.)

While the Internet wasn't the reason the U.S. middle class fell apart, it contributed to its deterioration. It contributed to economic expansion and made a few people immensely wealthy, even as poverty increased and the middle tier was vanishing. Antimonopoly laws from the industrial era were not obsolete; they were crucially necessary for the information age. The highly praised Internet connectivity, envisioned by libertarians and anarchists as leading to a government-free world, ended up mainly causing a world that's fragmented and distressed. The Internet stands in contrast to a system governed by rules, as it's characterized by a lack of laws, regulation, and accountability.

The Internet as a Vehicle for Economic and Political Transformation

Some scholars and technologists have argued that the Internet can foster broad-based prosperity and healthier democratic life. In The Wealth of Networks, legal scholar Yochai Benkler argues that the networked information economy, when supported by legal and institutional arrangements that keep communication networks open, interoperable, and conducive to commons-based production, can enable large numbers of individuals and loosely coordinated groups to create, share, and innovate on information and cultural goods in ways that broaden economic opportunity, enhance individual autonomy, and deepen democratic participation, making more egalitarian and participatory forms of both markets and politics practically attainable rather than merely utopian.

Now, we’ll discuss how the public sphere has changed, sociopolitical polarization, legal and constitutional developments, socio-economic and political shifts, plus the future of truth and self-government.

The Transformation of the Public Sphere

Lepore explains that the digital age reshaped the public arena without making politics more democratic. It blurred the distinction between the ruling class and the general populace and accelerated political shifts that were already underway. A version of civic engagement through discussion and reflection had already been replaced by one of consumption and influence. With the Internet, that model yielded to a view of citizenship characterized by the extreme individualism of blogging, posting, and tweeting—elements of a new culture of narcissism—and by the intense aggregation of the analysis of information, instruments of a new authoritarianism.

(Shortform note: Historian Christopher Lasch was an early critic of the “culture of narcissism” in American public life. In his 1979 book of the same name, Lasch argued that the rise of consumerism and the decline of traditional values had led to a society in which individuals were more concerned with their own self-interest than with the common good. He argued that this shift had undermined the foundations of democracy by eroding the sense of shared purpose and civic engagement that had once characterized American society. Lasch’s analysis remains relevant today, as the rise of social media and the decline of traditional institutions have further exacerbated the trends he identified.)

Data collected online allowed websites, search engines, and eventually social media companies to profile "users" and—acting as companies selling products rather than as news organizations concerned with the public interest—to feed them only the news and views with which they agreed, and then to radicalize them. Gathering and analyzing data supplanted phone-based opinion polling.

(Shortform note: In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff uses internal documents and interviews to show how companies use data to shape what users see. She argues that this data-driven approach has made traditional phone polling less useful because it’s slower and less detailed.)

Polarization in Politics and Society

Governmental and Legal Developments

Lepore explains that conservatives used originalism to reinterpret the Constitution and shape the judiciary. Originalism is a method of interpreting the Constitution that aims to discover the document's meaning as it was initially understood and the original intentions of its founders. Conservatives thought that from the 1930s onward, liberals had dominated federal governance, academia, the media, and the judiciary. They believed a conservative uprising needed to seize those organizations or create alternatives. They executed this strategy with particular care in the judicial arena.

(Shortform note: Some legal scholars have argued that originalism is not inherently conservative. In his 2011 book Living Originalism, constitutional theorist Jack M. Balkin argues that originalism can be used to create a progressive constitutional order. He explains that the Constitution’s original meaning is not static but rather provides a framework for future generations to build upon. Balkin argues that this framework allows for the evolution of constitutional principles in response to changing social and political circumstances.)

In the 1970s and 1980s, this movement was expressed through reinterpreting the Second Amendment, founding the Federalist Society, and developing originalism. Originalism was largely a response to privacy rulings from the Supreme Court concerning abortion and contraception. It flourished in legal education, particularly via the Federalist Society, established at Yale and Chicago's schools of law in 1982. Within a year, over seventy law schools had chapters. Most of the federal judges selected by the three Republican presidents after Reagan—George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump—were either part of the Federalist Society or endorsed by it.

(Shortform note: In The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, Steven M. Teles explores the origins and development of the conservative legal movement in the United States. He argues that this movement was not a spontaneous reaction to liberal legal dominance but rather the result of deliberate efforts by conservative intellectuals and organizations to build a counter-establishment within the legal profession. Teles traces the movement's roots to the law-and-economics programs funded by conservative foundations in the 1960s and 1970s, which provided the intellectual foundation for later conservative legal initiatives. He explains that these programs were designed not only to promote free-market principles but also to create a network of conservative legal scholars and practitioners who could challenge the prevailing liberal legal orthodoxy.)

The Justice Department under Reagan, led by Edwin Meese as Attorney General, adopted originalism as its formal stance. The Justice Department under Meese functioned as an informal think tank for right-leaning individuals. In 1985, Meese declared that the administration's method of interpreting the Constitution would rely on the text, explained by the original drafters, proposers, and ratifiers. He termed this approach a "jurisprudence of original intention" and differentiated it from the "misuse of history" by judges—whom he defined as liberals—who interpreted the Constitution's "spirit" to include concepts like "human dignity," thus transforming the document into a "charter for judicial activism."

(Shortform note: What did it mean in practice for the Justice Department to adopt originalism as its formal stance? It meant that when the department took a position on a constitutional issue, it was expected to justify that position by appealing to the text of the Constitution and the historical context in which it was written, rather than to policy goals or moral ideals. For example, if the department was defending a law in court, its lawyers would be expected to show that the law was consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution, rather than arguing that it was good policy.)

Judgments such as Griswold and Roe, which invoked an alleged right to privacy, went against the principles of originalism. But arguably, so did the Brown v. Board decision and various rulings from the Warren Court. Conservatives promoted originalism as constitutionally logical through an ongoing effort involving direct mail, talk radio, and cable television. Many Americans started thinking that originalism itself originated as a way to understand the Constitution back in the 1790s instead of the 1980s. Reagan embarked on reforming the judiciary. One way they sought to reverse Warren Court decisions was through originalism.

(Shortform note: Since Lepore wrote this book, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). The majority opinion in Dobbs cited 18th- and 19th-century laws prohibiting abortion as evidence that the Constitution never protected a right to abortion. This method of interpreting the Constitution is associated with originalism, which Lepore discusses in connection with Roe.)

Another tactic was to start substituting conservative justices for liberal ones in the subordinate courts. During his campaign, Reagan promised to nominate judges who upheld "family values." Liberals interpreted it as a euphemism for being Christian and white. Edwin Meese oversaw the nomination of 369 judges for district and appeals courts, a record number for any previous president. Only twenty-two of the 369 judges were not white. When Reagan's term ended, close to half of federal judges were his appointees. In 1982, Reagan appointed University of Chicago law professor Antonin Scalia to the DC Circuit Court, then four years later selected him for the Supreme Court. Scalia became the foremost advocate for originalism on the Supreme Court. He argued that constitutional guarantees aim to prevent laws from embodying shifts in core values that the Constitution-adopting society considers fundamentally undesirable.

Brennan’s Attack on Originalism

In 1985, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. published an article in the Harvard Law Review attacking the Reagan administration’s jurisprudence of original intention. He argued that constitutional guarantees must be “contemporarily ratified” by each generation. He also rejected the idea of a “Constitution-adopting society,” arguing that the Constitution’s meaning must be interpreted according to evolving standards of decency and justice. Brennan’s article was a direct response to the Reagan administration’s efforts to appoint conservative judges and promote originalism. He argued that originalism was a flawed and dangerous approach to constitutional interpretation that would undermine the rights and liberties of Americans. Brennan’s article was widely read and discussed, and it helped to shape the debate over constitutional interpretation in the years that followed.

Socio-Economic and Political Shifts

Lepore argues that economic disparity and political division have increased in America. In 2013, the United Nations reported that increasing income inequality was a cause of political instability and a slowdown in economic growth worldwide. In 2014, Americans identified disparities as the top global threat. In 2016, Bernie Sanders made inequality the centerpiece of his campaign for the Democratic nomination, while Hillary Clinton, the eventual Democratic nominee, was unable to gain any momentum on the issue. Donald Trump, the GOP candidate, blamed immigrants for the issue.

(Shortform note: Since 2016, scholars have increasingly argued that the Republican Party has used “plutocratic populism” to gain and maintain power. In Let Them Eat Tweets, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that Republican leaders have used polarizing culture-war conflicts to gain support for policies that entrench economic inequality. They argue that this strategy has led to a situation where the party’s economic agenda is unpopular with the majority of Americans, but its cultural agenda is popular with a significant minority. This has created a situation where the party is able to maintain power despite its economic policies being unpopular.)

Political division has also increased. Political scientists have evaluated congressional polarization by studying voting records. They found that polarization in Congress began decreasing post-Civil War and continued to drop for much of the 20th century, when Republicans became more moderate. Republicans grew more conservative in the 1970s, leading to a spike in polarization. Southern Democrats joining the GOP accounts for just 33% of this shift. The rest stems from abortion becoming a politicized issue. From 1978 to 1984, Democrats who were anti-abortion and Republicans who supported abortion rights were ousted from their respective parties.

(Shortform note: Some political scientists argue that the rise in congressional polarization after the 1970s is due to a broader “conflict extension” across multiple issues, not just abortion. Alan I. Abramowitz and Kyle L. Saunders argue that as Democrats and Republicans became more divided over economic, social, and cultural issues, their party coalitions became more ideologically consistent and homogeneous. This means that partisan differences now cover a wide range of issues, not just a few isolated policies. This perspective suggests that the increase in polarization is due to a broader ideological divide rather than a single issue like abortion.)

A gender gap emerged following Reagan. From 1920 until 1980, women often voted more for Republican candidates in presidential races than other candidates. That shifted in 1980, when Carter received more female votes than Reagan, likely due to Democrats framing themselves as champions for women. Republican strategists believed that swapping white female voters for white male ones was advantageous for them. By the late 1980s, both parties forsook a political compromise crucial for maintaining the Republic's stability—gender equality—and entered into a political era of seemingly endless division. Social media has heightened everyday Americans' political alienation, while increasing division across the political spectrum, creating identity politics automatically, and adding to a disengaged, ambiguous, and powerless form of political involvement.

Social Media and Political Power

Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci disagrees with the idea that social media creates powerless political involvement. In Twitter and Tear Gas, she argues that social media has given ordinary people the ability to organize large, disruptive protests. She explains that social media allows people to quickly share information, coordinate actions, and mobilize large groups of people. This has led to the rise of movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter. Tufekci argues that these movements have been able to challenge powerful institutions and bring about social change. She acknowledges that social media has its limitations, but she believes that it has fundamentally changed the way people engage in politics.

The Future of Truth and Self-Government

Lepore asserts that what's ahead for truth and self-government is uncertain. The American experiment is based on three political ideas: equal rights, rights granted by nature, and the people's authority. These concepts have been revered, condemned, and discussed. The question is whether American history confirms these truths or disproves them.

(Shortform note: To determine whether American history confirms or disproves these three political ideas, we can use political scientist Robert Dahl’s criteria for a “polyarchy,” or a government that is as democratic as possible. In How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Dahl argues that a polyarchy is a government in which all citizens have equal power over government decisions.)