Author: Eric Meza

In Lizabeth Cohen “A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption” the first few pages explain how marketing changed and mass consumption of goods increased after World War II. Cohen quotes a sociologist and states “Americans were increasingly becoming consumers of politics”(332). Cohen also states that mass marketing techniques in the political environment were seen back in War World I with advertising techniques to get women out to vote. The marketing technique was just the beginning of something much bigger later in the years. For example the television helped Kennedy’s campaign. Where he reached voters and Cohen goes on to say that his physical attractiveness made female voters excited. 

The part that caught my attention was “Americans were increasingly becoming consumers of politics”(332). Cohen also states that Americans value “charisma and glamour over more rational self-interest”. To break this down I think she tried to say that Americans care more about how a politician presents themselves compared to what the politician has to offer. In recent years we saw this with Donald Trump where his supporters voted for him because he was Donald Trump, a businessman that owns a business and knows how to make money. He became president and made a lot of false accusations on different minorities. Republicans voted for a racist and gave him power to make major decisions just because he was Donald Trump. 

In the present time we see a lot of this where people give popularity and support to someone because of how they present themselves. As a society we need to look past the “glamor” and choose leaders who are going to help society prosper. These past few years with Covid impacted everyone and many unemployed. We yet to see what our current president is going to do about unemployment and businesses closing.

In A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner the passage he talked about topics that impacted the reconstruction. For example the Fourteenth Amendment that granted citizenship to all persons born in the United States including former enslaved people. He also states the origin of civil rights and radical republicans. He is illustrating that the reconstruction affected everyone and had a significant impact in many ways. 

The section on the Fourteenth Amendment expanded my knowledge of the different clauses within the amendment. The first clause does not allow states to shorten someone’s equality. The second allows all males to be able to vote so that southern states benefit from having more representation. The “male” part of the clause did not help feminist and felt betrayed. 

I personally never thought about what politicians had to do to keep peace. But Foner mentions that there wasn’t a national police force or permanent military to keep the rights of former slaves. Southern blacks and white loyalists tried to convince Congress that they can not trust Southern states to solve their problems without federal oversight. Former slaves feared that southern states would find loopholes to try to stop former slaves from having their rights. Something that was interesting was President Andrew Johnson. He “had” to veto any bill that had to do with reconstruction because he needed to keep his support between the north and southern states. He knew that the Freedmen’s Bureau would upset white southerners. Foner also states that Johnson believed “giving blacks citizenship was discriminating against whites.” Johnson has obviously picked a side and many northerners are not happy that he was blatantly racist. Foner pointed out major events and topics that were significant to the reconstruction era. At the end everything connected and it seems like there was a domino effect with Johnson trying to keep his support but ended up losing support.

In Gordon Wood letter to the editor of the New York Times. He wants to correct “factual errors’ ‘ in the 1619 Project and makes claims that there isn’t any evidence in some of the statements said in the project. Something that added to my knowledge was the Somerset decision in England. The decision made slavery unlawful in England. Basically freeing thousands of slaves in England. In my other history classes, I was never told that there was a law that freed slaves in England during the same time colonists started to rebel for their independence.

I have to agree with Gordon Wood. I have never heard that colonists wanted to break free from Britain because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. He adds on that Britain did not want to abolish slavery in the colonies. Also that colonists did not know anything about the Somerset decision till later in the year when slaves were already free in England and colonists started to fight for their independence. When colonists started to “fight back” with their assemblies. These assemblies would have duties like taxing residents and managing the spending of the colony’s revenue. The royal governors wanted to limit their power but it only encouraged the assembly’s power to grow. It seems that Britain just wanted to control the colonies, exploit them and benefit from the taxes the colonists paid. Later we see that Britain’s Stamp Act affected people throughout the colonies. This act is another example of Britain wanting to exploit the colonies and the act is one of many reasons that the colonies wanted their independence. Britain tried to suppress them and exploit them.

A question I had while reading the article was why would ending the Atlantic slave trade have been welcomed by the Virginia planters? Would it not benefit the planters?