UNC graduate discusses history of the political divide in America during lecture event

Honors Carolina recently hosted a lecture with UNC graduate and Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse about how the history of American politics correlates with the present.

The Hillard Gold ’39 Lecture, called The Making and Unmaking of Politics in Contemporary America, was held Sept. 30 over Zoom. 

Kruse specializes in the history of the 20th century with an interest in the making of modern conservatism and conflicts on race, religion and rights. 

During his lecture, Kruse discussed American history post-1970s and how it correlates with the trends of the 21st century elections and partisan issues in the government.  

Kruse said that history since 1974 has had a significant impact on how Americans view the media, economy, racial division and issues of bipartisanship within the government.

He said the different aspects of the 1970s can be broken down into three categories that helped change the course of American history: economy, media relations and the polarizing views on bipartisanship within the government.

First, Kruse said that since the 1970s, America has unraveled a new and expanding economy that pulls the old working class into a new middle class with the rise in union jobs.

“(This period) lifted large numbers of Americans out of the working class and into a middle-class lifestyle of comfort and stability,” Kruse said. “That sense of an expanding economy and that promise of American capitalism helped paper over a lot of other divisions.”

He said some divisions include the divide between the American population and the faith in the federal government post-Watergate and post-Vietnam war.

The last point he brought up was the importance of the post-war period marked by mainstream media. Kruse said because of the rise in media platforms, there was a creation of a national conversation that could be utilized to put the American people in the shoes of their government.

“They controlled the national dialogue by establishing a shared set of basic facts and first draft interpretation of them,” Kruse said. “Our new media climate accentuated through models.”

Jim Leloudis, a member of the history faculty and associate dean for Honors Carolina, asked what the lack of bipartisanship, especially during the 2020 election, will mean for the future of a two-party system.

“I will say looking back to elections in the past, this question about what happens to the current system is going to depend on what happens in this election,” Kruse said. “If we return to the origins, a presidential race in which two candidates claimed the same common ground in the middle, we can remember the lines dividing us today are (in) many ways drawn with their own hand.” 

Kruse wrapped up the lecture by discussing how Americans have started to realize the importance of politics. He said he appreciates the younger generation for stepping up and taking action to be involved in their nation’s politics, instead of standing on the sidelines and making politics to be a distant aspect in their daily lives.

“The silver lining of the Trump era for me, and I mean this sincerely, is that so many Americans have woken up,” Kruse said. “Americans realized after the 2016 results that democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Shandol Hoover, director of Honors Carolina student development and special projects, said Kruse has taken a new perspective on how history frames American politics today. 

“It was wonderful to see current students, faculty and staff, alumni and community members all engage in this important talk," Hoover said. 

As a major public figure on Twitter, Kruse also gave advice on how he gathers his news and forms his own opinions, based on the content he sees. He said that he tries to reach out to both sides of the political spectrum and sees what other people have to say, no matter if he disagrees or agrees.

“When you are in an echo chamber, your thoughts become dull, your arguments become weak,”  he said. “Even if your only goal is to win political arguments with people on the left or the right, you’re better at that if you’re doing sparring practice with people on the left or the right regularly.”

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