[4] In September 2019, Richardson began writing a daily synopsis of political events associated with the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Originally posting late every evening or in the early hours of the next day on her Facebook page, Richardson later moved to add a newsletter, entitled "Letters from an American.

[7] As of December 2020, Richardson was "the most successful individual author of a paid publication on... Substack" and on track to bring in a million dollars of revenue a year.

"[5] In 2023, Richardson published her seventh book, entitled Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America that she described as having grown from writings she began in 2019 and subsequent interactions with her readers.

[11] The book examines the roots of fascism in American history leading up to the democratic backsliding that many fear could bring America to the brink of losing its democracy.

[12][13] The book makes the case that Trump was not an outlier, but inevitable given the support the Republican party had given over the last 70 years to Christian nationalism, racism, and corporations.

Those traditions—a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color—have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the promise of America unfulfilled.

Dana Elizabeth Weiner of Wilfrid Laurier University found the book beautifully written, with valuable insights about oligarchy in American politics since the 1600s.

[20] Believing a small group of men who controlled all three branches of government were turning the country into a slavocracy, the party's founders united against "slave power".

A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans under Robert A. Taft sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy.

However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to stop (temporarily) this trend, first with Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jacob Javits, and Nelson Rockefeller, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal.

To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war.

This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality.

According to Professor Michael W. Fitzgerald, at St. Olaf College, it "is an important book" offering a reinterpretation of how the North abandoned freed slaves during reconstruction.

She contended that their efforts to create an activist federal government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology.