“Revenge of the Yankees” History of the Origins of the Woke Movement in America

The ideas here are interesting and suggestive but far from definitive and could be cut in different ways. History offers a lot of different ways to look at a series of events, so the fact that looking at things with this lens or that lens is suggestive of one narrative doesn't make it true.

But there's some guesswork to making sense of history, always, so that's not a knock to the author.

There are definite elements of truth here, there are cultural divides among whites that play a heavy role in partisan politics, the Social Gospel did have a heavy influence on the Progressive movement and some of that remains in Progressivism today.

However, I don't see "this is only a competition between sections of White America" as the best way to analyze politics and history. For instance, the author's argument about the post-WWII presidents belonging to the Southern+Ethnic faction of the Democratic party, if you expanded that to Southern+Ethnic+Black (ie, not Northern Protestant), then you can cover all of the Democratic presidents post-WWII including Barack Obama.

While he concludes his argument saying that the real fight is between sections of whites, nothing in his argument really excludes the possibility of the fight having minorities involved.

My view is that there are always many simultaneous conflicts going on, and while some conflicts may be prominent for a certain period, it doesn't mean the others are irrelevant.

Interesting viewpoint, a lot of info that I don't really have time to check. If nothing else, he sold me his book.