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Defying the Left’s War on US History
Like many other people, I was thrilled to hear about Donald Trump’s formation of the 16-member, President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. Finally, someone was prepared to take on the propaganda and lies that were being taught to our schoolchildren and at last begin to correct the record, but the Left began to fight back almost immediately. This was the purpose of the Commission:
The declared purpose of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission is to ‘enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.’ This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is ‘accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.’ And a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in our founding principles is the path to a renewed American unity and a confident American future.
To demonstrate how powerful the report and its conclusions were, President Biden disbanded the commission immediately upon taking office, and removed the report from the White House website. Fortunately, the Heritage Foundation has made the report available to all of us.
The report addresses the following areas: The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence; the U.S. Constitution; the Challenges to America’s Principles; Discussions of Slavery, Progressivism, Fascism and Communism, Racism and Identity Politics; The Task of National Renewal; Teaching America; A Scholarship of Freedom; the American Mind; and the Reverence for the Laws. They packed a great deal of information into 20 pages plus four appendices.
No conservative should be surprised at the backlash and harsh criticism that the report received, in spite of the credibility of its members (who are listed at the end of the report). I thought it would be a revealing exercise to look at some of the criticisms that were made and compare them to the content and purpose of the report.
One of the complaints was that no historians were included on the Commission; the wisdom of this decision was clear to me. Many historians today are firmly embedded in Leftist ideology and are not interested in facts. From their standpoint, the 1619 Project did an admirable job of correcting American history. Not true. Instead, the 1619 Project invented facts and distorted U.S. history, and its intention to discredit America and its Founders was obvious to anyone who knows anything about American history. A detailed report was written by other historians that explained the distortions and lies that were written into the Project.
As a result, the critics were outraged at the Commission’s goals and its report. Here was one of several criticisms :
‘It’s an insult to the whole enterprise of education. Education is supposed to help young people learn to think critically,’ said David Blight, a Civil War historian at Yale University. ‘That report is a piece of right-wing propaganda.’
I suspect Professor Blight doesn’t understand the meaning of critical thinking (perhaps he thinks it means criticizing someone or something). He also might have felt slighted because, as a historian, he wasn’t invited to join the Commission.
I especially appreciated Carol Swaim’s comment regarding the negative comments the Report received. (She is a former law and political science professor at Vanderbilt University, and co-chair of the Commission):
‘Professional historians take themselves too seriously,’ she said in an interview. ‘I see the criticism as being ideologically driven.’
You think?
The harshest critiques were about the ways the report addressed slavery and race. First, the Report stated that slavery didn’t begin in the United States. Then the Commission wrote a short summary of how the Founders tried to deal with slavery:
The foundation of our Republic planted the seeds of the death of slavery in America. The Declaration’s unqualified proclamation of human equality flatly contradicted the existence of human bondage and, along with the Constitution’s compromises understood in light of that proposition, set the stage for abolition. Indeed, the movement to abolish slavery that first began in the United States led the way in bringing about the end of legal slavery.
The Founders who owned slaves declared that the abolition of slavery must be pursued in this country. They also realized that it could not be abolished overnight without destroying the nation; that was the dilemma that Abraham Lincoln was facing.
The Report was also attacked by a Boston University professor:
Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar and historian of racism at Boston University, called the report ‘the last great lie from a Trump administration of great lies.’
‘If we have commonly been given preferential treatment, then why do Black people remain on the lower and dying end of nearly every racial disparity?’ Kendi said on Twitter. ‘Whenever they answer this question, they express racist ideas of Black inferiority while claiming they are ‘not racist.’
It’s not surprising that Professor Kendi couldn’t resist attacking President Trump as part of his diatribe. And I’m quite certain that Professor Kendi doesn’t see the irony of his next comment. When you give things to people that they don’t earn, they have no incentive to strive for a better life. I’ve not seen evidence of ideas expressed about “Black inferiority” either. But then I expect that the Professor is more interested in attacking Donald Trump and defending his ideology than genuinely wanting to provide a good, honest education for all Americans.
I found this criticism especially telling:
In one passage jeered by historians, the authors [of the Report] draw a comparison between the progressive movement in America and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the report is intended to discredit contemporary public policies rooted in America’s progressive reform movement. He worries that, even after Biden dissolved the commission, its report could end up in some classrooms.
Given the fascistic and socialistic tendencies of Progressivism to date, I suspect Mr. Grossman didn’t think to explore the possible relationships between Mussolini and Progressivism. And I was amused, after all the years of Leftist propaganda being taught as legitimate history, that he was worried that the Report might still show up in some classrooms. What might happen if students learned the truth?
* * * * *
The report was meant to be a beginning for a legitimate, meaningful, and truthful story of America’s early years. The people who served on the Commission are dedicated to ensuring that their efforts are not in vain. Some of them will make certain that the report is available on other websites. I suspect that Larry Arndt, co-chair of the Commission, is currently ensuring this type of curriculum is available at his Barney Charter Schools which are being built all over the country. The report concluded with this statement:
To be an American means something noble and good. It means treasuring freedom and embracing the vitality of self-government. We are shaped by the beauty, bounty, and wildness of our continent. We are united by the glory of our history. And we are distinguished by the American virtues of openness, honesty, optimism, determination, generosity, confidence, kindness, hard work, courage, and hope. Our principles did not create these virtues, but they laid the groundwork for them to grow and spread and forge America into the most just and glorious country in all of human history.
May our children one day finally learn the truth about, and have reason to be proud of, our great country.
Published in Education
I hope everyone has had a chance to read Wilfred M. McClay’s Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. It is a great read, and I think it would be a good book to work from regarding US history. As he says, “The state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious consequences. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding; and it needs to be able to convey that narrative to its young effectively.”
Of course, he’s another white male.
“…a realization of the degree of brainwashing that is going on.”
In an ideal world, that would be true. However, in today’s America, I suspect that many parents are so wrapped up in their own “self-actualization” (which, for many, includes regular viewing of the Jerry Springer Show) that they couldn’t care less what is in their children’s textbooks.
Also, while the 1619 Project might be the most blatant example of the Leftist war on U.S. History, it’s worth remembering that there has been a ton of other such writing; for instance, Arming America by Michael Bellesiles, which actually won the Bancroft Prize. The award was subsequently revoked when it was revealed that the author had fudged virtually all his research so that he could arrive at a Leftist conclusion. One would think that his reputation as a historian would have been forever tarnished but I see he is still publishing books (to glowing reviews) and he is still teaching at Trinity College.
I wonder if there is a way to get the report into school libraries? I’d send money to an effort like that.
That’s a great idea, Doug. Why don’t you drop a line to Larry Arnn at Hillsdale? I think they will look at multiple ways to get it out there, and I hope others will build on their beginning!
How’s your strength?
18(78).
I was thinking more along the lines of the strength of ten.
Susan and @douglaspratt and @stad, I have been spending a fair amount of time studying the report and commentary about it, and one of the best (as usual; it is no secret that one of my top 3-4-5 analysts on the scent today is Roger Kimball) is by the inestimable Mr. Kimball in a piece entitled “Transmitting the Truth About America’s Founding” which can be found here, and from which I learned that the publishing house he heads, Encounter Books, will be publishing the report, as he noted in the column as follows:
This was very welcome news to me as I am sure it will be to you, as I plan to order enough copies for all the children in our family so they will have a copy of the REAL history of this, the greatest Nation ever created by the mind of man, and all we can do is pray that they will want to , on their own, actively seek out that history.
My superpower is natural ability indistinguishable from dumb luck. In the fight with the Red Knight of Quinqueroy, Red was in the middle of bragging how great a knight he was and how short and one-sided the coming fight would be when he caught a javelin – with his mouth. He really should have closed that visor.
This is an all-out assault. The 1619 Project is now jammed into more and more schools. The blindingly stupid assertions about how the entire American economy, the stock market, and every political and legislative event was caused by slavery are foisted on the young. They are not going to be allowed to find anything positive in the Revolution, the Constitution or to admire any white historical figure. All those suckers who fought with George Washington for eight years were really fighting to keep the British from outlawing slavery.
The enemy seeks to advance stupidity and malice to sever all connections to our legacy.
The 1776 Project was a small response. People need to be angry and intolerant of this ideological attack.
It was a small response, OB. But it was a response. And if enough people get angry, they can initiate their own efforts or promote the 1776 Project. I think that may be the only way we can save this country: person by person, project by project.
What a terrific idea, @jimgeorge. I hope others will do the same!
By “deleting” the report, the Dims have elevated it to the level of the first American samizdat.
We should rename the Streisand effect to the Biden effect.
I have, with respect, a different take on the importance of this report and the solid, extensive and persuasive research on which it is based, not to mention the eminence of the authors of this remarkable offering. Here is the message with which I sent friends the link to the report, from which one may surmise that my opinion of this work is that it is the very opposite of a “small response”, but could be invaluable, if only enough educators would learn of its value and use it in their classes instead of the racist (yes, it is that, and I assume we can use that incendiary word as well as the lunatic left), hate-America-first 1619 report, by now thoroughly discredited and debunked by greatly respected and highly regarded historians.
Here are my comments about the report to friends:
I had to delete the last part about the report being published by Encounter Books due to space limitations. Sincerely, Jim
What a terrific tribute, @jimgeorge! Whether we call it a small response or a big one, we both hope that it will have a huge impact on American citizens. Well done!
It appears that good ol’ Kendi isn’t going to be going away soon; as a matter of fact, Netflix is about to give him a ton of money to spew even more garbage to an even younger audience:
https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/26/netflix-to-spread-racist-indoctrination-with-3-new-ibram-x-kendi-projects/
So, don’t be surprised if your infant is humming some tunes from “Antiracist Baby”.
Ah, it’s good being a race hustler.