Control the past

 Having polluted the foreign service, the postal service, the public health establishment and every department under Cabinet control, Trump is turning his limited attention to the teaching of history.  Still enraged about the 1619 Project, he (Stephen Miller) has responded with the cleverly named 1776 Commission, dedicated to the promotion of "patriotic" (i.e. rightwing) American history.  At last "patriotic moms and dads" will no longer have to worry about their children learning the unpleasant facts about slavery, genocide, lynching, bigotry, and how the Electoral College prevents democracy.  As he read this campaign speech at the National Archives, the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence failed to crumble into dust behind him; we may be 27th out of 82 countries in social mobility but we're number one in preserving eighteenth-century manuscripts.

I've googled the hell out of "White House History Conference" and I can't find out who gave cover to this farrago -- maybe they wore face masks and hats and turned up their collars.  Apparently one was Larry Arnn, who has turned Hillsdale College into a right-wing fink tank.  Then I came across this tweet from David W. Blight:  "DT's claims for 'patriotic' history yesterday finally drew me into twitter.  Will I regret this?  Shame on Guelzo for lending himself to that stunt, and helping profane the National Archives."  That would be Allen Guelzo, who is connected with the Heritage  Foundation and attacked The 1619 Project as "revisionist history."  I imagine self-described historians Bill O'Reilly and Newton Gingrich were there, if only in spirit.  

All history is "revisionist."  Otherwise there would be no point in adding to it.  We already have Herodotus and Gibbon and Taine, right?  Who needs another damned square thick book, eh?

All people need to know their history.  Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain always a child, said someone (Cicero?  Groucho?).  America's problem, surpassing all others, is that it's full of large, ignorant, angry, undisciplined children who can own guns, make babies and, at certain terrible times, live in the White House.  Welcome to terrible times.

Most Americans know less about history than they do about virology, so they have little choice but to believe nonsense.  These people tend to vote for people who know as little as they do, because the ignorant are encouraged to dislike experts.  They probably wouldn't hire a plumber who didn't know how a Stillson wrench works,  but being a Leader is easy, ain't it?  And so we end up with senators like Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who clearly doesn't believe in revision.  She tweets, "We will never rewrite the Constitution of the United States," blissfully unaware of the twenty-seven revisions (or Amendments) which have accrued since 1789.  They took away her right to own people but they gave her the right to vote, so she's doing fine.  I should send her a list.

The most appalling thing I read this week had nothing to do with the millions of deaths Trump is prepared to accept in the name of "herd inanity" or whatever he calls it.   It was an article which said a majority of young adults never heard of the Holocaust or think it's a myth.  How is this possible in the face of overwhelming evidence, some from living survivors?  Anti-Semitic hate crimes are the highest since the Anti-Defamation League started keeping records in 1979.  Only the need to report on the killing of Black people keeps this from being more widely noticed, which is far from comforting.  Trumpers display swastikas as casually as Confederate flags.  This is not even to speak of crimes against Asians, Native Americans, Muslims and, perpetually, women.  Those who forget the past...but it's the present, and if we teach the young that all's for the best in this best of all possible countries, we're doomed to repeat it and repeat it.  I'm not a historian or a teacher, I don't know how to do this -- re-release Schindler's List every year?  I only know how not to do it.  

Let's start by agreeing that nothing is "worse than slavery" and stop slinging the word around.  Can we do that much?  Baby steps.