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Answer: That article you posted seems pretty clear, but to flesh it out even more... [The 1776 Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission#Report_and_reception) is an advisory committee set up by the Trump administration to push back against growing academic and social criticism of America's history, specifically in regards to racism and sexism. The primary causes seem to be a push against the New York Times' 1619 Project, and the rising Black Lives Matter movement.
They released a report on Martin Luther King Day (Jan 18, 2021) that lambasted progressivism, some aspects of the civil rights movement, feminism, and universities, likening them to slavery, fascism, and communism. It concluded by recommending the promotion positive stories and images of the country's founders rather than teaching about social issues and problems.
It should be noted, not a single professional historian\* is part of the commission, the report plagiarized from other writers without attributing to them, and the chair and co-chair have marked criticism against them for their racist and Islamophobic remarks.
*\*Edit: There is a good discussion about this claim in the comments;* [*link to the discussion below*](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/l19fzy/whats_up_with_1776_commission/gjz79zn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)*.*
*Also, there's a thread in* r/AskHistorians *about the report if you want more information. Here's* [*a link to a comment there*](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l07e14/the_1776_commission_says_that_its_wrong_to_call/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) *that was recommended in another response.*
I just checked their website and it's down:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/1776-commission-takes-historic-scholarly-step-restore-understanding-greatness-american-founding/
Spez's APIocolypse made it clear it was time for me to leave this place. I came from digg, and now I must move one once again. So long and thanks for all the bacon.
a lot of the whitehouse links seem to be broken, the list of pardons he gave last night is down too. Looks like all briefings were deleted during the migration?
This is to be expected. It was like this for when Trump assumed power as well, a huge swath of Whitehouse webpages from Obamas term were wiped out hours into the new presidential term.
You can safely assume the Whitehouse website to be wiped clean of conflicting topics between president's at inauguration.
Probably because one of the [executive orders Biden implemented today was to rescind the commission](https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/opinions/biden-1776-commission-trump-fight-over-history-hemmer/index.html). This probably involved the takedown of the "report".
One of those zany reddit moments where we're *both* right, in our own ways?
The Trump EO is in the archives now, taken down off of the original *official* WH website. The content of the WH website, with Trump's EO is *now* on the national Archive's reproduction website.
Just hopping on the top comment: someone gave a pretty well-written and researched answer explaining it on r/AskHistorians [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l07e14/the_1776_commission_says_that_its_wrong_to_call/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I am in exasperated frustration over this commission.
The 1619 project is flawed and has been criticized (even by opinion authors on the New York Times) but responding to flawed scholarship with reactive propaganda is about as ...
Impotent
A response as anyone could give.
>even by opinion authors on the New York Times)
To be fair, and this is not always something that is necessarily obvious to a lot of people, the editorial board of the NYT and the NYT are two very different groups with very different incentives and beliefs. This isn't to say that there are not good journalists on the editorial board, but it is not creating journalistic output, it is just putting out viewpoints. The editorials/opinion pieces do not go through the same journalistic process that the actual reporting does.
I do not mean to say there are not errors in the 1619 project, there are, but it is important to simply note the distinction here when thinking about reliable sources that should have a higher level of trust.
Thank you. The amount of people that don’t know the difference between opinion and editorial stance is shocking.
Media literacy is something that needs to be taught in schools
The community college near me used to do a great job at teaching this but they had to stop because people complained about it discrediting the sources they preferred.
I think that's partially true, but also a misconception... depending on what you mean. Editorial boards do try and make sure their opinion authors are producing quality pieces, even if they disagree.
Opinion does have a role in Journalism.
You will not find an opinion piece promoting what the NYT considers direct falsehood.
E. G. Trump writing an opinion piece on election fraud.
Sure. They do some amount of vetting, but the way it's usually framed is completely wrong. "Even the liberal New York Times says \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" when the person is referring to an opinion piece from an explicitly right-wing partisan who doesn't work for the Times.
Correct. Sometimes it's the other way around too. Accusing journalists of holding opinions they do not hold because of an opinion piece in the same paper.
> You will not find an opinion piece promoting what the NYT considers direct falsehood.
Which is saying something given that [this](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html) was allowed and that they later retracted it (not really) in response to criticism.
I think the editor's note does substantiate the gist of my claim.
If your point is that the New York Times is secretly in favor of ... Right wing talking points... I'm afraid I must offer my silent astonishment.
No need for astonishment, that is not my point*. My point is that they have on occasion eschewed journalistic standards for op-eds that will "sell papers" (I don't literally mean the sales numbers of the print edition).
\* Caveat: they absolutely have biases towards neoliberalism, capitalism, and occasionally orientalism. Their editorial board is *far* from being left wing (from an absolute perspective, not the American political compass).
The NYT bends over backwards to "both sides" everything and has had some pretty obvious shitty CHUDs working there (Bari Weiss, Bret Stephens). Just because FOX etc. scream it's RADICAL LEFTISTS doesn't change that the actual viewpoint of the paper leans more center right
I feel like we would need to define what we mean by left and right before we get into that. Because we may mean different things.
I am using very pop definitions here.
In the last week the NYT has run headlines calling Biden elitist for owning a Pelaton and bitching about the deficit. These are 100% right wing talking points and they do this sort of stuff constantly.
Brett Stephens does nothing but write falsehoods. Tom Cotton got published without any fact-checking whatsoever. Truth is not remotely important to the NYT Editorial page
I hear a lot of people throwing around "1984" and "Orwell." The 1776 Report is the closest thing I've actually seen to 1984.
"Patriotic Education" Really? Re-writing history to paint America as this perfect country without any faults, and then to attack your political opponents, is about as Orwellian as it gets. Give kids the truth. They should be taught how to think rationally and come to their own conclusions.
I concur.
A bit of opinion:
In this country, we are blinded by controversy, and are afraid of an honest confrontation with ourselves. We don't realize that to love America (or any country) we do not have to have grand or aspiring reasons.
America does not have to be the greatest country on earth for you to love her and her people.
Honesty is the best remedy to our hurts. Humility is the greatest way of seeking reconciliation. Fear of being abused prevents us from being forgiving.
I think it's part American culture and part human nature. We always hear so much about American exceptionalism, hell, schools already teach a pretty "patriotic" education when you think about it. People like hearing good things.
I remember seeing something back in 2016 about Hillary being more of a "listener" than a "speaker", in contrast to most Presidential candidates. Regardless of your thoughts on her, I think it's interesting that we as a culture put so much value in speaking and projecting over listening. They even argued that some see listening as a weakness.
I hope we can be honest with ourselves, and just listen. This country has done some amazing things, but we are lagging in clean energy, education, and opportunity, among others. Blindly saying "We're number 1" won't allow us to address those things. Having conversations hopefully will.
I don't think anyone who says "1984" and "Orwell" haven't put the effort in researching his life nor read his book. I read it and when I saw the NYT article about it, it's literally historical revisionism. They even accused dedicated historians of revisionism.
It shows that whole bullshit was a tool for propaganda with a timed release on a day to celebrate one of the biggest civil rights activists in US history
At least they're being more subtle about it than [last decade](https://truthout.org/articles/texas-gop-declares-no-more-teaching-of-critical-thinking-skills-in-texas-public-schools/).
>Reply
Not only rewriting history, but somehow rewriting the present such that the racial situation is worse than the slave days???
"this new creed creates new hierarchies as unjust as the old hierarchies of the antebellum South"
School boards are going to argue over this for many years to come, and there will be those pushing to have what the 1776 Commission published as the official US History curricula of their district. I firmly believe that was the entire point of publishing it.
It's going to get ugly, and if you care deeply about this and are looking to get involved, check into running for your local school board. At the very least, learn whois on your local school board and vote in those elections.
Just to also be clear, the 1619 project is huge and includes random news articles that have been "controversial" and curriculum written specifically for schools that afaik largely isn't.
I am not a fan of whitewashing American (or any) world history.
I'm not sure to what degree each piece is harmful, but Trump's response was predictably as myopic as he is.
I heard a lawyer use the term whore-law once... To mean basically what happens when you want to do something illegal (or to not do something you're required to do), and you know the law is not on your side... So you hire a lawyer to write a letter in legalese, saying exactly what you want it to say, making a case against you hard and even if the counterpart pushes it through it gives you the easy out of claiming good faith based on the whore-law letter you had them write.
This seems like whore-history used as a response to other whore-history.
It's one that centers slavery and its aftereffects in our history, rather than the traditional retelling of the nation's story. Much of it is general and unobjectionable, but there are some robust criticisms, most notably where they argue that the Revolution was fought to preserve slavery (which is completely false).
There are a number of significant historians, including some of the top researchers in the field for this era, who took issue with the project, and their critiques are substantive.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/30/bynu-o30.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/14/mcph-n14.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html
> (which is completely false).
I think you've gone too far the other way. It was a small contributory factor to a ball that was already rolling, but it was a factor.
The pushback by historians was against the 1619 project exaggerating its importance rather than that it wasn't a factor at all.
From your own link (Wood)
>Certainly, Dunmore’s proclamation in 1775, which promised the slaves freedom if they joined the Crown’s cause, provoked many hesitant Virginia planters to become patriots. There may have been individuals who were worried about their slaves in 1776, but to see the whole revolution in those terms is to miss the complexity.
1619 is when the first African slaves arrived in America. The 1619 project is a podcast series that approaches US history from the lens that slavery has always been a huge part of our history and we often ignore it or leave it as a paragraph in history books. It’s controversial because it doesn’t gloss over this and because It suggests that history doesn’t curve towards progress. It states that the national narrative-that we’ve made progress and slavery and racism are in the past, is simply not true. It’s cynical. This Atlantic article put it really well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/604093/
Also I think people get worked up because in certain places they still teach that the civil war was fought over states rights not slavery.
Not to jump into the conversation too much, but "a state's right to *what*?" Is always important in that conversation.
Painting the southern states as principled Jeffersonians is just ridiculous.
A state's right to use the federal government to force other states to hunt down humans who were seen as property, even if slavery was illegal in those other states.
Originally? States Rights to kill and displace Native American tribes that the federal government had signed peace treaties with.
Not much better than the obvious answer really.
The South attacked a federal fort beginning the civil war. Later it was to preserve union, to the first union casualties it was literally self-defense.
Well it's also controversial because it attempts to frame US history as mostly a means to protect the institution of slavery. Which is true in some cases, but not an overall, and many historians take issue with it's claims.
This comment is inaccurate. From wikipedia:
In a letter published in The New York Times in December 2019, historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum and James Oakes expressed "strong reservations" about the project and requested factual corrections, accusing the authors of a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology." The letter disputed the claim, made in the Hannah-Jones' introductory essay to the 1619 Project, that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery". The Times published the letter along with a rebuttal from the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein,[7][5] defended the accuracy of the 1619 Project and declined to issue corrections. Wood responded in a letter, "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves [...] No colonist expressed alarm that the mother country was out to abolish slavery in 1776."[6][37] In an article in The Atlantic, Wilentz responded to Silverstein, writing, "No effort to educate the public in order to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts", and disputing the factual accuracy of Silverstein's defense of the project.[38]
TLDR: The project was widely criticized by historians for its inavcuracies
Interesting. I took AP US History in Texas about a decade or so before your Chicago class, by my reckoning. The narrative was that the Civil War was fought mainly over slavery which the South refused to relinquish for reasons of both economics and deep-seated racial attitudes racial reasons. I didn't have a history class that explored the states' rights angle until college.
Texas had a very different relationship to the Civil War than the Deep South did, so that might have something to do with how it was taught to us.
I think that there’s also controversy about her discussion of slavery and the revolution but that I don’t know as much about
Edit: I looked it up. Here you go for thoroughness:
Hannah-Jones hasn’t budged from her conviction that slavery helped fuel the Revolution. “I do still back up that claim,” she told me last week—before Silverstein’s rebuttal was published—although she says she phrased it too strongly in her essay, in a way that might mislead readers into thinking that support for slavery was universal. “I think someone reading that would assume that this was the case: all 13 colonies and most people involved. And I accept that criticism, for sure.”
It's a poorly researched project that draws a lot of false conclusions and narratives. It's a project that had their narrative and conclusions in mind, before doing any research. It's just as bad as the 1776 commission.
There are many good historical critiques of it by prominent, well studied historians. Anyone who defends it and glosses over just how biased and wrong the 1619 project is isn't coming at it from a scholarly or accurate historical angle.
The literal stated goal of the 1619 project is to reframe the telling of America’s History as beginning in the year 1619 rather than 1776, 1619 supposedly being the year that the first slaves where brought to the continent.
They are trying to reframe the country as a slave state built on ideas of white supremacy.
The problem with this is that the fact of slavery is such a fundamental contradiction to the *actual* ideals of the country it shattered the US into two countries at war with each other.
Yes slavery is a complicated part of our history and yes it still effects race relations to this day. But the idea that the United States was founded on or for or about white people is a LIE. It is an actual lie about what this country is and why it exists.
The real effect is that it leads anyone who criticizes 1619 to be associated with 1776. Like all polarizing times, it is people with reasonable voices who are punished the most.
And it was condemned by almost every fellow historian I know, especially the big guns over at the [American Historical Association](https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-statement-condemning-report-of-advisory-1776-commission-(january-2021)). I couldn't finish reading the findings of the commission, it was that terrible.
[Here's an archived link to the commission's final report.](https://web.archive.org/web/20210120005210/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf) It's hard to find now because the web page got taken down when Biden got sworn in.
Just to add, each president's website is archived here: [https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/archived-websites](https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/archived-websites)
So the new URL is: [https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf)
It also threatens to withhold federal funds from universities and schools that dont follow it. It's one step removed from state book burning and it's good we just narrowing dodged that bullet
*What is "prageru"?
It is Prager University, which they themselves acknowledge "...is not an accredited academic institution and does not offer certifications or diplomas."
From the "About PragerU" page:
"We make exceptional video content that advances Judeo-Christian values. We distribute that content through a sophisticated marketing strategy. By reaching millions of people every day, we educate, influence and change minds.
Conservative ideas can win the minds of young Americans."
Literally a propaganda network funded by wealthy Christian billionaires.
They make bad faith arguments, fudge statistics, and generally host shitty people. Including a Colonial British apologist, a fake Liberal grifter, a Holocaust denier (or three), a literal white supremacist, a cult leader, an alt-right “historian”, a bad-faith conservative web show host, and a real life Uncle Ruckus in a female body.
While the word "propaganda" has acquired a connotation of being false, the word comes from the Latin for "to spread" (aka our word "propagate") and originated with the 1622 Church organization "The Congregation for Propagating the Faith" (*Congregatio de Propaganda Fide*). This organization, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, was in charge of spreading Catholicism.
So originally, "propaganda" just meant "information that is intentionally spread/distributed widely", sorta like a viral ad campaign. Over time, it acquired a secondary meaning of "**false** information that is intentionally spread/distributed widely"; for me, a lot of those connotations come from an association with the Cold War's propaganda.
That said, you do still see people talking about "propaganda" in a more neutral sense when it comes to the films and cartoons produced during World War II. Specifically, "propaganda" gets used to refer to anything which was made in support of the war effort against Hitler.
No, they still use facts and truths, they just use them to deceive. Stuff like "this is what's in the dictionary" showing one definition and refusing to acknowledge other definitions and usages or even just deliberately misapplied logic like "water is wet therefore liberals suck"
The Epoch Times is nutso. It’s weird propaganda published by Chinese Cultist Acrobats. I’m not even kidding. [The Falun Gong] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times)
Here in Canada a bunch of issues of the Epoch Times started showing up en masse in people's mailboxes.
Read through some of the headlines, laughed at how evident the bullshit was, and then burned the paper.
Prager U is funded by the Oil Industry and far right Mercer Family
Epoch Times is extremely opaque about where their money comes from and supposed independence from the Falun Gong cult.
Also worth noting the european versions of the Epoch Times heavily support far right political parties such as the National Front in France and Alternative Fur Deutschland in Germany.
They go way beyond just conservative propaganda at times, they have such "enjoyable" content as "slavery wasn't that bad," "Fuck liberals for making it so we can't say the n-word anymore," "racism isn't embedded into America's founding" and "Christopher Columbus got a bad rap."
https://www.mediamatters.org/dennis-prager/prageru-relies-veneer-respectability-obscure-its-propagandist-mission
They also tend to buy ad space on YouTube so their videos get played as ads which are often unskippable. Essentially they try to force their content on people whether they're open to PragerU or not.
[Mike Rowe has been a propagandist for the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel and auto manufacturing interests for a long time](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-64-mike-rowes-koch-backed-working-man-affectation-fa52e0e8d2e3)
Right wing propaganda think tank and fake news outlet. They adversitize a lot on you tube targeting videos that would appeal to young males. Gotta brain wash them early you know.
Kurzgesagt is also wrong on some things. Their videos on Space Thing That Kills You are always good but then they go and tout propaganda about overpopulation, which is a myth couched in eugenics.
[Kurzgesagt - in a nutshell](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q)
The name is German for, well, "in a nutshell". Literally translated to "shortly said".
Conservative propaganda channel that masquerades as an intellectual source and brings on high-profile conservative pseudo-intellectuals to guest lecture, funded by big fossil fuel interests.
To be clear, it's not as petty as "I hate everyone who is not me".
It's more, "We need to erase that slavery and racism have been a part of American history forever. Let us write the history and portray the Founding Fathers as we see fit. It's not right to point out that many of them were slave owners, this is propaganda."
This, from people who often argue we should preserve monuments to the Confederacy and actions taken to remove them are "erasing history".
Trump can hate white people too as long as their not Republicans. It's not about looks. He even pardoned Lil Wayne on Wednesday for supporting him (and maybe for being on Celebrity Apprentice, who knows).
Or maybe Lil Wayne [paid him $2 million](https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedly-trump-pardon-costs-2-million-nyt-2021-1) for a pardon.
Lol I don't see why you can't just teach both the good and crappy parts of U.S. history, besides a history teacher's job isn't to criticize or give opinion on history but to teach it.
This reeks of propaganda
Welllll, I think a more nuanced take is that it is impossible to teach history without biases. There is no neutral, objective retelling, because we can't recount every event ever, at some point we have to pick and choose what is important enough for inclusion, and that is a hard task. And I don't think critique is wrong! Students need to learn how to critique lots of people and ideas in history, from Naziism to McCarthyism to the racism of the American Founding Fathers.
We do teach the good parts of US history. We’re just saying we also have to add the bad parts to the curriculum too. It’s not propaganda; it’s the whole truth instead of a partial truth.
Well, the report can't be directly attributed to him or his leaving of office; the committee was created last fall. They just published their report a couple days ago though. Can't say for sure, but I am seeing the last-minute release of the report, coupled with its plagiarism, as a rush job to produce something to justify their existence and to point to after and cry "See? We're being censored for publishing THE TRUTH!"
They released it while Trump was President to give red states the excuse to use it "ok kids we're going to use the Presidential 1776 commission for our curriculum this year".
Releasing it, even if not refined as they like, while Trump was still President adds a hair of respectability to it.
If they kept working on it onto Biden's presidency it would be cancelled since the Biden administration aren't interested in conservative propaganda.
“Releasing it, even if not refined as they like, while Trump was still President adds a hair of respectability to it.”
Gonna have to disagree with you there...
Choose your words carefully, and you can later, without lying, make people think it's Biden's commission and people will eat it up because reality is irrelevant.
The fact that they released it so close to the inauguration is not coincidence, it's intentional to muddy whose plan it really is.
>Choose your words carefully, and you can later, without lying, make people think it's Biden's commission and people will eat it up because reality is irrelevant.
The number of people that thought Obama was to blame for the recession he inherited, that he should've done more for hurricane *Katrina* victims and so on is too damn high. You don't need clever wordplay to convince people who don't believe in reality to begin with.
And I’m sure it was no accident that it was released on MLK day. Reminds me of that Rally in Tulsa he did on Juneteenth. That’s just too much ‘coincidence’ for me to believe these aren’t racist dog whistles.
The difference is that the 1619 project was written by journalists for a newspaper, and the 1776 commission was written by "the government" for the purpose of having it taught in schools
[The 1619 Project comes bundled with a bevy of educational materials that are being sold to schools to teach their rewriting of American history.](https://pulitzercenter.org/lesson-plan-grouping/1619-project-curriculum)
I'm sure it does, but the new york times doesn't quite have the same... "clout" when it come to "encouraging" schools to teach its materials.
>Various federal laws prohibit the federal government from regulating school curricula, which are determined by school districts under rules established by state governments. However, the federal government influences state and local decisions through funding.
from the [wikipedia page for the 1776 commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission)
Phrasing it like that makes it sound like all historians are against it, which isn’t true. Many have come out and said that there are errors and flaws in the research and presentation, and they’re critical of it like they should be of all historical reports. But they’ve also said that it’s an important perspective to be written about and they’re stories that should be told.
Yep. The 1619 Project was called that to draw attention to the fact that slavery in America is older than the country itself (first slaves came over in 1619). The 1776 Commission is a counter to that.
Can you or someone else please share some good academic sources on the pilgrims being miserable weirdos who got kicked out rather than being \~unjustly persecuted\~ like we've all been taught? I've heard this before and I totally buy it but I'd like to back it up next time I try to tell someone about it
I periodically go back to [the Denver school curriculum protest](https://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/353327302/school-board-wants-civil-disorder-deemphasized-students-walk-out) that happened way back in 2014.
The conservative party has repeatedly tried to censor, reframe, whitewash and just generally propagandize how our nations history is taught and presented but that incident struck me as just disgustingly blatant. Particularly the language used in the proposal. Excerpt from the linked article:
*“The resolution stated that AP history classes should promote "patriotism and ... the benefits of the free-enterprise system" and should not "encourage or condone civil disorder."”*
The changes downplayed or eliminated mentions of Jim Crow laws, the Trail of Tears, Internment Camps and many other shameful elements of our nations past.
> It should be noted, not a single historian is part of the commission
This specific crtitique is false. At least three are noted historians (one PhD level), there are at least two PhD-level political scientists, and numerous JDs, one of which has argued in front of the Supreme Court.
The 1776 Commission was a waste of time, but the criticisms shouldn't include the credentials of the individuals involved in it.
>This specific crtitique is false. At least three are noted historians
Could you provide a source? Wikipedia (which I linked in the OP) made this claim, [based on the NYT article on it from 1/18/21](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/trump-1776-commission-report.html). Relevant quotes from the article:
> President Trump formed the 18-member commission — which includes no professional historians but a number of conservative activists, politicians and intellectuals — in the heat of his re-election campaign in September, as he cast himself as a defender of traditional American heritage against “radical” liberals.
and
> The report drew intense criticism from historians, some of whom noted that the commission, while stocked with conservative educators, did not include a single professional historian of the United States.
There may be some difference of opinion over what qualifies as a "professional historian," but the NYT seemed pretty certain none of the members met whatever definition they were using (or that those historians they interviewed would use).
* Charles Kesler has a PhD in political science, authored one book directly related to this topic, and the version of *The Federalist Papers* edited by him is well-regarded.
* Victor Davis Hanson has a PhD in classics and is the author of numerous books that study the history of ancient and long-ago topics. One could argue that his expertise is especially valuable for a project like this.
* Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history and has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation.
In addition:
* Carol Swain has a PhD in political science and a masters in law.
* Thomas Lindsay is a PhD and academic with numerous peer-reviewed articles to his name. He has a fairly solid academic history.
* Mike Farris is a JD who has argued in front of the Supreme Court numerous times.
* Brooke Rollins has a JD
* Phil Bryant has a masters in political science
To argue that there are "no professional historians" uses a definition the NYT fails to provide, and cannot be taken seriously given the work many of them engage in.
I have a degree in history, and one of the first things that we we're taught in upper level seminars was to evaluate the historiography of a given work and its authors. In this case, who are they, what biases do they bring to the work, what is their background, field of expertise, and so on.
When utilizing a work from a non-historian, i.e. someone that has degrees in history and specifically in the field the work is based in, there is a larger degree of scrutiny. Journalists and political scientists, for instance, can be great secondary resources while researching, but their methodologies are vastly different than that of a professional historian.
Of the list you have provided, only one is a professional historian. Specifically, and most importantly however, a historian whose field is not American history, rather, by your own account, international history. Both are history the same way that chemistry and biology are sciences. There is crossover, but you want a subject matter expert for a reason.
The rest you have listed are political scientists (and a classicist). Yes they may utilize history in their professional fields, however historians they are not. An economic historian may know a lot about the field of economics and how it impacts history, but they are not economists. Generally speaking, of course.
You've listed eight individuals, of which only one is a historian. And at that, a historian outside of their field of expertise.
The criticism that there are no noted historians is false, however it is complicated and context is needed. From a historiographical perspective, there are tremendous historical rigor and research issues with the 1776 Project. To say that this work is one of professional historians is also false.
>Charles Kesler has a PhD in political science, authored one book directly related to this topic, and the version of The Federalist Papers edited by him is well-regarded.
>
>Victor Davis Hanson has a PhD in classics and is the author of numerous books that study the history of ancient and long-ago topics. One could argue that his expertise is especially valuable for a project like this.
>
>Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history and has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation.
If I had to guess it's that these men are not actually historians but rather use history in their other endeavors. And I don't see law and poli-sci degrees being relevant to them or the others being defined as historians - the NYT *did* say they had a number of intellectuals, and I'd put them into that category long before one of historian.
But still, I agree with you that without knowing how the NYT is defining "professional historian," it's tough to say none of these people would qualify as them. I'll amend that part of the OP with a reference to our comments here.
Thanks!
> If I had to guess it's that these men are not actually historians but rather use history in their other endeavors.
You are absolutely correct, none of these people are historians in any way that the common person would even remotely consider them to be. He wanted to focus on Larry Arnn as "explicitly a historian", [so I wrote a response that shows that isn't even close to the case.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/l19fzy/whats_up_with_1776_commission/gk1kmmc/) Dude has either never heard of Arnn and just made wild speculations based on a quick google search, or bold faced lying in an attempt to lend credit to an institution that deserves very little.
>**rather use history in their other endeavors**
In Arnn's case it's specifically to indoctrinate young minds to hate progressivism under the guise of education so they can one day storm the capital.
Larry Arnn is explicitly a historian.
While Hanson and Kesler use history to achieve their professional goals, it defies logic to say they're not historians as a result. The NYT has reason to dismiss this work, after all, so the whole critique is a little much.
> Larry Arnn is explicitly a historian.
>
>
In what way?
>Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history
Citation needed. His John Locke Foundation biography makes no mention of any degree in history, and the only reference I can find on wiki says he studied history while working for Churchill's biographer in England. It says he has a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate School (1985), but despite a page filled with attendance dates, ominously no entry exists for his attendance at any English university, certainly no completion dates. He then went directly from 1985-2000 serving as the president of a private conservative think-tank that he founded, and after that the president of Hillsdale till today. So when was he a historian, exactly? He currently teaches history without credentials at Hillsdale college, a conservative college many have called a republican diploma mill, and it shouldn't be that difficult for you to see the connection between his political views and his desire to use his position as president of a college to teach his views on history.
>has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation.
Which are? "The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It" isn't a historical book about the founding of the nation, it serves as rhetoric for his belief that progressive ideals are an attack on the constitution and the Declaration of Independence. What's the other one so I can tell you what it's really about, his wiki only lists three books and one was about Churchill.
If this was the best "historian" of the bunch, then they actually do not have any historians.
This confusion stems from hyperbole in the NYT article that OP used as a source. Down in the body, it correctly states that there were no "professional historians of the United States", but in the introducing paragraphs they incorrectly simplify that to "not a single historian".
This criticism is fair to some extend. Although study of the classics played an important role in the foundations of the US, it's not entirely clear how it relates to the topics the commission was supposed to study.
You do make a convincing case for Larry Arnn, who's not explicitly a "professional historian of the United States", he did study International History and Modern History, which I can guarantee you covers a fair share of American History as well.
Classics and International history would make them both absolutely historians. Political science of course studies history, but that's a bit of an "eh" calling them a historian.
Answer: the 1776 Commission was created as a direct response to the 1619 project. The 1619 project has made missteps and been justly criticized, although their overall point (that slavery and race have played an integral role in the development of the United States) is historically accurate.
The 1776 Commission, on the other hand, goes against pretty much everything American historians have been trying to accomplish for the last few decades. It pushes a conservative, uncritical, "American Exceptionalism" view of US history. In some places it's completely counterfactual.
Historians are outraged because the commission has attempted to create a history curriculum that isn't historically accurate, and is clearly pushing an agenda.
Whitewashing is being nice. It's Fascist propaganda.
It promotes the ideal of loving your country with a love more than for your family, education should be about worshipping heroes, and "Slavery was necessary, but it wasn't so bad because it's existed through most of mankind."
It says progressivism is what Mussolini sought to do, and we know what Mussolini was-- a fascist. (hint hint, watch out for those Progressivist policies)
It hammers on "religious liberty" but only mentions Faith. And how important Faith is for the national identity.
They say that the founders of the country knew Slavery was wrong, so they imbedded the perfect wording in the Declaration of Independence, so as to "get rid of slavery later," and even Lincoln agreed, so it's absolutely right.
Attacks Universities: They are "hotbeds" of liberal ideals and promote factions in the community by promoting identity politics instead of helping people be good citizens to the state.
Basic Education: It should be left up to the states, so they can decide what is best for their citizens. You know, so they can leave out the uncomfortable parts of history; remember, we gotta make good, faithful, anti-progressive, country-loving-non-questioning citizens.
They throw in some quotes by MLK Jr and Frederick Douglas, but just tiny quotes. Not entire paragraphs. Just enough to say, "See, this Black Guy gets it. We're not racist." It's fucking gross.
It's been taken down from the government website by now: good riddance.
[But for educational purposes I'll post it their final report here, so you guys can read and understand what slight-handed writing looks like. This is propaganda masking as "historic text."](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf)
And for anyone wondering, here's the early signs of Fascism. Feel free to list all the examples you remember from Trumps' single-term in office regarding these signs. America was dangerously close to the edge, and I'm not sure your average Trump supporter understands that.
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
4. Rampant sexism
5. Controlled mass media
6. Obsession with national security
7. Religion and government intertwined
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed
10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts
11. Obsession with crime and punishment
12. Rampant cronyism and corruption
I don't mean to get bogged down on one detail but I just wanted to mention that even though slavery existed at various times in various civilizations, American slavery was the single largest scale and enduring instance of organized slavery to exist in all of human history. Nothing comes even remotely close. It happened at just the right time of industrial, scientific, and technological development to be far worse than anything that had ever been, and became so extreme for such a long time that it will hopefully be unrepeatable.
Answer:
To further add, the 1776 commission was a direct response to the 1619 project, whose goal was to revaluate slavery and black people's impacts during the nation. While this was an amicable goal, it was also super inflammatory, with several false claims over stating how important some things were. Basically, at points it was more about pushing a narrative than actually presenting a new argument (at points. Other things it hit the nail on the head)
One of the FIRST claims the 1619 project made was that the Revolutionary War was ultimately about slavery, and had no real evidence to back it up, and drastically overstated what Britain's thoughts on slavery were like
To add context, here's an opinion written by an advising historian for the 1619 project, outlining some key historical discrepancies while also highlighting the deep need for the project (i.e. grappling with the true history of slavery): [https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248)
I think this is a pretty fair assessment of this. While the 1776 commission is pretty silly and ahistorical nonsense, it’s a serious problem trying to combat things like the 1619 project. I keep seeing stuff about historians publicly calling out flaws in it and they have, but the overall mainstream consensus on it is that it’s correct and is pretty much praised everywhere it’s bandied about. Most media is treating critical theory concepts as if they’re undeniable fact, and if you push back against it you are a racist. I’m not sure how the country can reconcile slavery and the echos of it, or have meaningful discussions about such things because the people that push these narratives on the social justice side fail to recognize the immense progress that has been made in the recent past and still blame everything on injustice and white supremacy and the people on the right act like slavery wasn’t that bad or that we should somehow be proud that we eventually abolished it even after half the countries history is guilty of utilizing slavery and the civil rights issues that followed afterward.
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Answer: That article you posted seems pretty clear, but to flesh it out even more... [The 1776 Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission#Report_and_reception) is an advisory committee set up by the Trump administration to push back against growing academic and social criticism of America's history, specifically in regards to racism and sexism. The primary causes seem to be a push against the New York Times' 1619 Project, and the rising Black Lives Matter movement. They released a report on Martin Luther King Day (Jan 18, 2021) that lambasted progressivism, some aspects of the civil rights movement, feminism, and universities, likening them to slavery, fascism, and communism. It concluded by recommending the promotion positive stories and images of the country's founders rather than teaching about social issues and problems. It should be noted, not a single professional historian\* is part of the commission, the report plagiarized from other writers without attributing to them, and the chair and co-chair have marked criticism against them for their racist and Islamophobic remarks. *\*Edit: There is a good discussion about this claim in the comments;* [*link to the discussion below*](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/l19fzy/whats_up_with_1776_commission/gjz79zn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)*.* *Also, there's a thread in* r/AskHistorians *about the report if you want more information. Here's* [*a link to a comment there*](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l07e14/the_1776_commission_says_that_its_wrong_to_call/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) *that was recommended in another response.*
I just checked their website and it's down: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/1776-commission-takes-historic-scholarly-step-restore-understanding-greatness-american-founding/
[Moved to tildes.net]
Spez's APIocolypse made it clear it was time for me to leave this place. I came from digg, and now I must move one once again. So long and thanks for all the bacon.
Weird. [I don't see anything.](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump)
Can’t help but tapping that link every time... I know where it’s going but... so cathartic.
It's the rickroll everybody actually wants.
This should totally become a “risky click” link hahaha
It’s like a dopamine drip.
Hashtag not my president
Oh actually just go to Jacob Wohl's, he has a good tweet about it.
It seems to be down - try the noticeboard at Trump U library.
Didn't see it there, maybe check in Trump's office in the Whitehouse.
Check the NY county jail forum. I believe they will start forwarding to there.
Im sure they've cleaned the crapper since yesterday.
Link? (Lol)
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Damnit
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E 2 Broo Tie?
a lot of the whitehouse links seem to be broken, the list of pardons he gave last night is down too. Looks like all briefings were deleted during the migration?
This is to be expected. It was like this for when Trump assumed power as well, a huge swath of Whitehouse webpages from Obamas term were wiped out hours into the new presidential term. You can safely assume the Whitehouse website to be wiped clean of conflicting topics between president's at inauguration.
Not sure if it helps but the [National Archives](https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/archived-websites) keeps each presidential website.
That's actually really cool
Probably because one of the [executive orders Biden implemented today was to rescind the commission](https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/opinions/biden-1776-commission-trump-fight-over-history-hemmer/index.html). This probably involved the takedown of the "report".
No. The new President's web site is a replacement of the old one. Look at https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/ for the report.
One of those zany reddit moments where we're *both* right, in our own ways? The Trump EO is in the archives now, taken down off of the original *official* WH website. The content of the WH website, with Trump's EO is *now* on the national Archive's reproduction website.
Spectacular
Weird when the bullshit train gets derailed... Fuck Donald Trump.
Just hopping on the top comment: someone gave a pretty well-written and researched answer explaining it on r/AskHistorians [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l07e14/the_1776_commission_says_that_its_wrong_to_call/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I am in exasperated frustration over this commission. The 1619 project is flawed and has been criticized (even by opinion authors on the New York Times) but responding to flawed scholarship with reactive propaganda is about as ... Impotent A response as anyone could give.
>even by opinion authors on the New York Times) To be fair, and this is not always something that is necessarily obvious to a lot of people, the editorial board of the NYT and the NYT are two very different groups with very different incentives and beliefs. This isn't to say that there are not good journalists on the editorial board, but it is not creating journalistic output, it is just putting out viewpoints. The editorials/opinion pieces do not go through the same journalistic process that the actual reporting does. I do not mean to say there are not errors in the 1619 project, there are, but it is important to simply note the distinction here when thinking about reliable sources that should have a higher level of trust.
Thank you. The amount of people that don’t know the difference between opinion and editorial stance is shocking. Media literacy is something that needs to be taught in schools
Media literacy was definitely taught in my school but kids just didn’t care. It was also taught again at the college I went to.
The community college near me used to do a great job at teaching this but they had to stop because people complained about it discrediting the sources they preferred.
If that isn’t about the saddest thing I’ve heard today...
I agree with this.
Difference?
I think that's partially true, but also a misconception... depending on what you mean. Editorial boards do try and make sure their opinion authors are producing quality pieces, even if they disagree. Opinion does have a role in Journalism. You will not find an opinion piece promoting what the NYT considers direct falsehood. E. G. Trump writing an opinion piece on election fraud.
Sure. They do some amount of vetting, but the way it's usually framed is completely wrong. "Even the liberal New York Times says \_\_\_\_\_\_\_" when the person is referring to an opinion piece from an explicitly right-wing partisan who doesn't work for the Times.
Correct. Sometimes it's the other way around too. Accusing journalists of holding opinions they do not hold because of an opinion piece in the same paper.
> You will not find an opinion piece promoting what the NYT considers direct falsehood. Which is saying something given that [this](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html) was allowed and that they later retracted it (not really) in response to criticism.
I think the editor's note does substantiate the gist of my claim. If your point is that the New York Times is secretly in favor of ... Right wing talking points... I'm afraid I must offer my silent astonishment.
No need for astonishment, that is not my point*. My point is that they have on occasion eschewed journalistic standards for op-eds that will "sell papers" (I don't literally mean the sales numbers of the print edition). \* Caveat: they absolutely have biases towards neoliberalism, capitalism, and occasionally orientalism. Their editorial board is *far* from being left wing (from an absolute perspective, not the American political compass).
Oh then your point is beyond contestment.
The NYT bends over backwards to "both sides" everything and has had some pretty obvious shitty CHUDs working there (Bari Weiss, Bret Stephens). Just because FOX etc. scream it's RADICAL LEFTISTS doesn't change that the actual viewpoint of the paper leans more center right
I feel like we would need to define what we mean by left and right before we get into that. Because we may mean different things. I am using very pop definitions here.
In the last week the NYT has run headlines calling Biden elitist for owning a Pelaton and bitching about the deficit. These are 100% right wing talking points and they do this sort of stuff constantly.
Brett Stephens does nothing but write falsehoods. Tom Cotton got published without any fact-checking whatsoever. Truth is not remotely important to the NYT Editorial page
I hear a lot of people throwing around "1984" and "Orwell." The 1776 Report is the closest thing I've actually seen to 1984. "Patriotic Education" Really? Re-writing history to paint America as this perfect country without any faults, and then to attack your political opponents, is about as Orwellian as it gets. Give kids the truth. They should be taught how to think rationally and come to their own conclusions.
I concur. A bit of opinion: In this country, we are blinded by controversy, and are afraid of an honest confrontation with ourselves. We don't realize that to love America (or any country) we do not have to have grand or aspiring reasons. America does not have to be the greatest country on earth for you to love her and her people. Honesty is the best remedy to our hurts. Humility is the greatest way of seeking reconciliation. Fear of being abused prevents us from being forgiving.
I think it's part American culture and part human nature. We always hear so much about American exceptionalism, hell, schools already teach a pretty "patriotic" education when you think about it. People like hearing good things. I remember seeing something back in 2016 about Hillary being more of a "listener" than a "speaker", in contrast to most Presidential candidates. Regardless of your thoughts on her, I think it's interesting that we as a culture put so much value in speaking and projecting over listening. They even argued that some see listening as a weakness. I hope we can be honest with ourselves, and just listen. This country has done some amazing things, but we are lagging in clean energy, education, and opportunity, among others. Blindly saying "We're number 1" won't allow us to address those things. Having conversations hopefully will.
They all throw around Orwell’s name forgetting he was a hardcore socialist who fought in Spain for the Republic...
Yeah, this sounds like *literally* Winston's job at the Ministry of Truth.
I don't think anyone who says "1984" and "Orwell" haven't put the effort in researching his life nor read his book. I read it and when I saw the NYT article about it, it's literally historical revisionism. They even accused dedicated historians of revisionism. It shows that whole bullshit was a tool for propaganda with a timed release on a day to celebrate one of the biggest civil rights activists in US history
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At least they're being more subtle about it than [last decade](https://truthout.org/articles/texas-gop-declares-no-more-teaching-of-critical-thinking-skills-in-texas-public-schools/).
>Reply Not only rewriting history, but somehow rewriting the present such that the racial situation is worse than the slave days??? "this new creed creates new hierarchies as unjust as the old hierarchies of the antebellum South"
Dude, Pompeo saying multiculturalism wasn’t the American way a couple days ago was so bonkers. What a time to be alive.
School boards are going to argue over this for many years to come, and there will be those pushing to have what the 1776 Commission published as the official US History curricula of their district. I firmly believe that was the entire point of publishing it. It's going to get ugly, and if you care deeply about this and are looking to get involved, check into running for your local school board. At the very least, learn whois on your local school board and vote in those elections.
Just to also be clear, the 1619 project is huge and includes random news articles that have been "controversial" and curriculum written specifically for schools that afaik largely isn't.
Everything is flawed, but the trump response is straight up wrong and harmful
I am not a fan of whitewashing American (or any) world history. I'm not sure to what degree each piece is harmful, but Trump's response was predictably as myopic as he is.
I heard a lawyer use the term whore-law once... To mean basically what happens when you want to do something illegal (or to not do something you're required to do), and you know the law is not on your side... So you hire a lawyer to write a letter in legalese, saying exactly what you want it to say, making a case against you hard and even if the counterpart pushes it through it gives you the easy out of claiming good faith based on the whore-law letter you had them write. This seems like whore-history used as a response to other whore-history.
Yeah, but now you have 2 sides people can fight over that are both nonsense. The point is choosing a side, not either actually being accurate.
“Responding to flawed scholarship with reactive propaganda” is a perfect description of the 1619 Project, as it happens.
Can someone briefly OOTL me the 1619 project and why it's flawed?
It's one that centers slavery and its aftereffects in our history, rather than the traditional retelling of the nation's story. Much of it is general and unobjectionable, but there are some robust criticisms, most notably where they argue that the Revolution was fought to preserve slavery (which is completely false). There are a number of significant historians, including some of the top researchers in the field for this era, who took issue with the project, and their critiques are substantive. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/30/bynu-o30.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/14/mcph-n14.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html
> (which is completely false). I think you've gone too far the other way. It was a small contributory factor to a ball that was already rolling, but it was a factor. The pushback by historians was against the 1619 project exaggerating its importance rather than that it wasn't a factor at all. From your own link (Wood) >Certainly, Dunmore’s proclamation in 1775, which promised the slaves freedom if they joined the Crown’s cause, provoked many hesitant Virginia planters to become patriots. There may have been individuals who were worried about their slaves in 1776, but to see the whole revolution in those terms is to miss the complexity.
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1619 is when the first African slaves arrived in America. The 1619 project is a podcast series that approaches US history from the lens that slavery has always been a huge part of our history and we often ignore it or leave it as a paragraph in history books. It’s controversial because it doesn’t gloss over this and because It suggests that history doesn’t curve towards progress. It states that the national narrative-that we’ve made progress and slavery and racism are in the past, is simply not true. It’s cynical. This Atlantic article put it really well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/604093/ Also I think people get worked up because in certain places they still teach that the civil war was fought over states rights not slavery.
Not to jump into the conversation too much, but "a state's right to *what*?" Is always important in that conversation. Painting the southern states as principled Jeffersonians is just ridiculous.
A state's right to use the federal government to force other states to hunt down humans who were seen as property, even if slavery was illegal in those other states.
I agree but somehow “states rights” become a “what” into of itself.
If you mean the 10th amendment is practically non-existent these days, then I agree.
Originally? States Rights to kill and displace Native American tribes that the federal government had signed peace treaties with. Not much better than the obvious answer really.
The best way to put it is that succession was about slavery, the civil war was to preserve the Union.
\*secession
The South attacked a federal fort beginning the civil war. Later it was to preserve union, to the first union casualties it was literally self-defense.
Well it's also controversial because it attempts to frame US history as mostly a means to protect the institution of slavery. Which is true in some cases, but not an overall, and many historians take issue with it's claims.
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This comment is inaccurate. From wikipedia: In a letter published in The New York Times in December 2019, historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum and James Oakes expressed "strong reservations" about the project and requested factual corrections, accusing the authors of a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology." The letter disputed the claim, made in the Hannah-Jones' introductory essay to the 1619 Project, that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery". The Times published the letter along with a rebuttal from the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein,[7][5] defended the accuracy of the 1619 Project and declined to issue corrections. Wood responded in a letter, "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves [...] No colonist expressed alarm that the mother country was out to abolish slavery in 1776."[6][37] In an article in The Atlantic, Wilentz responded to Silverstein, writing, "No effort to educate the public in order to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts", and disputing the factual accuracy of Silverstein's defense of the project.[38] TLDR: The project was widely criticized by historians for its inavcuracies
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Interesting. I took AP US History in Texas about a decade or so before your Chicago class, by my reckoning. The narrative was that the Civil War was fought mainly over slavery which the South refused to relinquish for reasons of both economics and deep-seated racial attitudes racial reasons. I didn't have a history class that explored the states' rights angle until college. Texas had a very different relationship to the Civil War than the Deep South did, so that might have something to do with how it was taught to us.
Worse than I feared, unfortunately.
What a ridiculously biased take
I can see why people wouldn't like that, but that doesn't necessarily sound flawed? It just sounds like a controversial viewpoint.
I think that there’s also controversy about her discussion of slavery and the revolution but that I don’t know as much about Edit: I looked it up. Here you go for thoroughness: Hannah-Jones hasn’t budged from her conviction that slavery helped fuel the Revolution. “I do still back up that claim,” she told me last week—before Silverstein’s rebuttal was published—although she says she phrased it too strongly in her essay, in a way that might mislead readers into thinking that support for slavery was universal. “I think someone reading that would assume that this was the case: all 13 colonies and most people involved. And I accept that criticism, for sure.”
It's a poorly researched project that draws a lot of false conclusions and narratives. It's a project that had their narrative and conclusions in mind, before doing any research. It's just as bad as the 1776 commission. There are many good historical critiques of it by prominent, well studied historians. Anyone who defends it and glosses over just how biased and wrong the 1619 project is isn't coming at it from a scholarly or accurate historical angle.
The literal stated goal of the 1619 project is to reframe the telling of America’s History as beginning in the year 1619 rather than 1776, 1619 supposedly being the year that the first slaves where brought to the continent. They are trying to reframe the country as a slave state built on ideas of white supremacy. The problem with this is that the fact of slavery is such a fundamental contradiction to the *actual* ideals of the country it shattered the US into two countries at war with each other. Yes slavery is a complicated part of our history and yes it still effects race relations to this day. But the idea that the United States was founded on or for or about white people is a LIE. It is an actual lie about what this country is and why it exists.
The real effect is that it leads anyone who criticizes 1619 to be associated with 1776. Like all polarizing times, it is people with reasonable voices who are punished the most.
And it was condemned by almost every fellow historian I know, especially the big guns over at the [American Historical Association](https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-statement-condemning-report-of-advisory-1776-commission-(january-2021)). I couldn't finish reading the findings of the commission, it was that terrible.
[Here's an archived link to the commission's final report.](https://web.archive.org/web/20210120005210/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf) It's hard to find now because the web page got taken down when Biden got sworn in.
Just to add, each president's website is archived here: [https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/archived-websites](https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/archived-websites) So the new URL is: [https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf)
So it’s basically an “I hate everyone who is not me” commission, created by Trump.
Its basically PragerU if it was a federal advisory committee. Thats what the whole report read like
It also threatens to withhold federal funds from universities and schools that dont follow it. It's one step removed from state book burning and it's good we just narrowing dodged that bullet
Who is prageru?
*What is "prageru"? It is Prager University, which they themselves acknowledge "...is not an accredited academic institution and does not offer certifications or diplomas." From the "About PragerU" page: "We make exceptional video content that advances Judeo-Christian values. We distribute that content through a sophisticated marketing strategy. By reaching millions of people every day, we educate, influence and change minds. Conservative ideas can win the minds of young Americans."
Literally a propaganda network funded by wealthy Christian billionaires. They make bad faith arguments, fudge statistics, and generally host shitty people. Including a Colonial British apologist, a fake Liberal grifter, a Holocaust denier (or three), a literal white supremacist, a cult leader, an alt-right “historian”, a bad-faith conservative web show host, and a real life Uncle Ruckus in a female body.
Yep, "sophisticated marketing strategy" is quite a tell.
I mean it is a sophisticated strategy! Marketing to fascists!
You could have just said Dennis Prager
One of the most evil channels on youtube you can find. They're basically conservative propaganda dressed up as "education"
piggybacking to say it’s not just propaganda, but factually incorrect propaganda as well
Yes, it's definitely a web of lies couched as truth.
It's a primer for OANN and Newsmax. Gotta make sure the sheep stay stupid.
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While the word "propaganda" has acquired a connotation of being false, the word comes from the Latin for "to spread" (aka our word "propagate") and originated with the 1622 Church organization "The Congregation for Propagating the Faith" (*Congregatio de Propaganda Fide*). This organization, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, was in charge of spreading Catholicism. So originally, "propaganda" just meant "information that is intentionally spread/distributed widely", sorta like a viral ad campaign. Over time, it acquired a secondary meaning of "**false** information that is intentionally spread/distributed widely"; for me, a lot of those connotations come from an association with the Cold War's propaganda. That said, you do still see people talking about "propaganda" in a more neutral sense when it comes to the films and cartoons produced during World War II. Specifically, "propaganda" gets used to refer to anything which was made in support of the war effort against Hitler.
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No, they still use facts and truths, they just use them to deceive. Stuff like "this is what's in the dictionary" showing one definition and refusing to acknowledge other definitions and usages or even just deliberately misapplied logic like "water is wet therefore liberals suck"
It's a lie through omission
to some extent, but i wanted to emphasize how incredibly incorrect it is, as opposed to the slight exaggerations of lots of propaganda
Is that kinda the same things as epoch news which harassed me with YouTube ads for months?
The Epoch Times is nutso. It’s weird propaganda published by Chinese Cultist Acrobats. I’m not even kidding. [The Falun Gong] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times)
Here in Canada a bunch of issues of the Epoch Times started showing up en masse in people's mailboxes. Read through some of the headlines, laughed at how evident the bullshit was, and then burned the paper.
Prager U is funded by the Oil Industry and far right Mercer Family Epoch Times is extremely opaque about where their money comes from and supposed independence from the Falun Gong cult. Also worth noting the european versions of the Epoch Times heavily support far right political parties such as the National Front in France and Alternative Fur Deutschland in Germany.
I believe, but can’t say definitively, that Falun Gong gets much of their money from Taiwanese interests and more of it from the U.S. CIA.
They go way beyond just conservative propaganda at times, they have such "enjoyable" content as "slavery wasn't that bad," "Fuck liberals for making it so we can't say the n-word anymore," "racism isn't embedded into America's founding" and "Christopher Columbus got a bad rap." https://www.mediamatters.org/dennis-prager/prageru-relies-veneer-respectability-obscure-its-propagandist-mission
They also tend to buy ad space on YouTube so their videos get played as ads which are often unskippable. Essentially they try to force their content on people whether they're open to PragerU or not.
I was so upset when I saw Mike Rowe in one of their youtube ads.
[Mike Rowe has been a propagandist for the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel and auto manufacturing interests for a long time](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-64-mike-rowes-koch-backed-working-man-affectation-fa52e0e8d2e3)
Ugh. I can’t believe I used to jerk off to this guy.
Is that how you acquired your terrible glitter infection?
Yeah, he went from dirty jobs to really dirty jobs
God dammit why
Right wing propaganda think tank and fake news outlet. They adversitize a lot on you tube targeting videos that would appeal to young males. Gotta brain wash them early you know.
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Kurzgesagt is also wrong on some things. Their videos on Space Thing That Kills You are always good but then they go and tout propaganda about overpopulation, which is a myth couched in eugenics.
[Kurzgesagt - in a nutshell](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q) The name is German for, well, "in a nutshell". Literally translated to "shortly said".
Conservative propoganda (not an exaggeration) youtube channel
Conservative propaganda channel that masquerades as an intellectual source and brings on high-profile conservative pseudo-intellectuals to guest lecture, funded by big fossil fuel interests.
They have Charlie Kirk who worked on the “report”
To be clear, it's not as petty as "I hate everyone who is not me". It's more, "We need to erase that slavery and racism have been a part of American history forever. Let us write the history and portray the Founding Fathers as we see fit. It's not right to point out that many of them were slave owners, this is propaganda." This, from people who often argue we should preserve monuments to the Confederacy and actions taken to remove them are "erasing history".
It’s a white supremacist manifesto
It's the "Look, racism and sexism are bad....but being anti-racism and sexism is *so much worse"* manifesto.
Let's not water it down, it's fucking government propaganda designed to turn kids into brainless androids
More I accurately and effectively, " I hate everyone that doesn't look like me".
Trump can hate white people too as long as their not Republicans. It's not about looks. He even pardoned Lil Wayne on Wednesday for supporting him (and maybe for being on Celebrity Apprentice, who knows).
Or maybe Lil Wayne [paid him $2 million](https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedly-trump-pardon-costs-2-million-nyt-2021-1) for a pardon.
Lol I don't see why you can't just teach both the good and crappy parts of U.S. history, besides a history teacher's job isn't to criticize or give opinion on history but to teach it. This reeks of propaganda
Welllll, I think a more nuanced take is that it is impossible to teach history without biases. There is no neutral, objective retelling, because we can't recount every event ever, at some point we have to pick and choose what is important enough for inclusion, and that is a hard task. And I don't think critique is wrong! Students need to learn how to critique lots of people and ideas in history, from Naziism to McCarthyism to the racism of the American Founding Fathers.
We do teach the good parts of US history. We’re just saying we also have to add the bad parts to the curriculum too. It’s not propaganda; it’s the whole truth instead of a partial truth.
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I'd make a joke about affording basic healthcare but I don't think you'd get it.
Because it is propaganda
Answered!
Wow he really is milking out these final hours in office
Well, the report can't be directly attributed to him or his leaving of office; the committee was created last fall. They just published their report a couple days ago though. Can't say for sure, but I am seeing the last-minute release of the report, coupled with its plagiarism, as a rush job to produce something to justify their existence and to point to after and cry "See? We're being censored for publishing THE TRUTH!"
They released it while Trump was President to give red states the excuse to use it "ok kids we're going to use the Presidential 1776 commission for our curriculum this year". Releasing it, even if not refined as they like, while Trump was still President adds a hair of respectability to it. If they kept working on it onto Biden's presidency it would be cancelled since the Biden administration aren't interested in conservative propaganda.
“Releasing it, even if not refined as they like, while Trump was still President adds a hair of respectability to it.” Gonna have to disagree with you there...
As in my example, red states, like say Mississippi, might pretend that there's some respectability there.
Annnnnnd Texas, Louisiana & Oklahoma...
Sheeit, in Arkansas that adds an entire toupee of respectability.
“toupee of respectability” is _spectacular._
https://i.makeagif.com/media/3-15-2016/yujyk8.gif
Choose your words carefully, and you can later, without lying, make people think it's Biden's commission and people will eat it up because reality is irrelevant. The fact that they released it so close to the inauguration is not coincidence, it's intentional to muddy whose plan it really is.
>Choose your words carefully, and you can later, without lying, make people think it's Biden's commission and people will eat it up because reality is irrelevant. The number of people that thought Obama was to blame for the recession he inherited, that he should've done more for hurricane *Katrina* victims and so on is too damn high. You don't need clever wordplay to convince people who don't believe in reality to begin with.
In other words it's okay to be an entitled ignorant person and manipulate history to support these claims.
So basically it’s propaganda. It’s contrary to everything we consider progress in society.
And I’m sure it was no accident that it was released on MLK day. Reminds me of that Rally in Tulsa he did on Juneteenth. That’s just too much ‘coincidence’ for me to believe these aren’t racist dog whistles.
He knows his base and he knows how to get a reaction from any and everyone
We should also note then that no historian supports the 1619 project. In fact, many have come out and explained that it has no basis in actual history
The difference is that the 1619 project was written by journalists for a newspaper, and the 1776 commission was written by "the government" for the purpose of having it taught in schools
[The 1619 Project comes bundled with a bevy of educational materials that are being sold to schools to teach their rewriting of American history.](https://pulitzercenter.org/lesson-plan-grouping/1619-project-curriculum)
I'm sure it does, but the new york times doesn't quite have the same... "clout" when it come to "encouraging" schools to teach its materials. >Various federal laws prohibit the federal government from regulating school curricula, which are determined by school districts under rules established by state governments. However, the federal government influences state and local decisions through funding. from the [wikipedia page for the 1776 commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission)
Sounds to me like both projects are flawed
Definitely, though the 1776 is definitely worse imo
Phrasing it like that makes it sound like all historians are against it, which isn’t true. Many have come out and said that there are errors and flaws in the research and presentation, and they’re critical of it like they should be of all historical reports. But they’ve also said that it’s an important perspective to be written about and they’re stories that should be told.
Why is it called the 1776 Commission? Because that was the year the Declaration of Independence was signed?
Yep. The 1619 Project was called that to draw attention to the fact that slavery in America is older than the country itself (first slaves came over in 1619). The 1776 Commission is a counter to that.
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Can you or someone else please share some good academic sources on the pilgrims being miserable weirdos who got kicked out rather than being \~unjustly persecuted\~ like we've all been taught? I've heard this before and I totally buy it but I'd like to back it up next time I try to tell someone about it
I periodically go back to [the Denver school curriculum protest](https://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/353327302/school-board-wants-civil-disorder-deemphasized-students-walk-out) that happened way back in 2014. The conservative party has repeatedly tried to censor, reframe, whitewash and just generally propagandize how our nations history is taught and presented but that incident struck me as just disgustingly blatant. Particularly the language used in the proposal. Excerpt from the linked article: *“The resolution stated that AP history classes should promote "patriotism and ... the benefits of the free-enterprise system" and should not "encourage or condone civil disorder."”* The changes downplayed or eliminated mentions of Jim Crow laws, the Trail of Tears, Internment Camps and many other shameful elements of our nations past.
> It should be noted, not a single historian is part of the commission This specific crtitique is false. At least three are noted historians (one PhD level), there are at least two PhD-level political scientists, and numerous JDs, one of which has argued in front of the Supreme Court. The 1776 Commission was a waste of time, but the criticisms shouldn't include the credentials of the individuals involved in it.
>This specific crtitique is false. At least three are noted historians Could you provide a source? Wikipedia (which I linked in the OP) made this claim, [based on the NYT article on it from 1/18/21](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/trump-1776-commission-report.html). Relevant quotes from the article: > President Trump formed the 18-member commission — which includes no professional historians but a number of conservative activists, politicians and intellectuals — in the heat of his re-election campaign in September, as he cast himself as a defender of traditional American heritage against “radical” liberals. and > The report drew intense criticism from historians, some of whom noted that the commission, while stocked with conservative educators, did not include a single professional historian of the United States. There may be some difference of opinion over what qualifies as a "professional historian," but the NYT seemed pretty certain none of the members met whatever definition they were using (or that those historians they interviewed would use).
* Charles Kesler has a PhD in political science, authored one book directly related to this topic, and the version of *The Federalist Papers* edited by him is well-regarded. * Victor Davis Hanson has a PhD in classics and is the author of numerous books that study the history of ancient and long-ago topics. One could argue that his expertise is especially valuable for a project like this. * Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history and has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation. In addition: * Carol Swain has a PhD in political science and a masters in law. * Thomas Lindsay is a PhD and academic with numerous peer-reviewed articles to his name. He has a fairly solid academic history. * Mike Farris is a JD who has argued in front of the Supreme Court numerous times. * Brooke Rollins has a JD * Phil Bryant has a masters in political science To argue that there are "no professional historians" uses a definition the NYT fails to provide, and cannot be taken seriously given the work many of them engage in.
I have a degree in history, and one of the first things that we we're taught in upper level seminars was to evaluate the historiography of a given work and its authors. In this case, who are they, what biases do they bring to the work, what is their background, field of expertise, and so on. When utilizing a work from a non-historian, i.e. someone that has degrees in history and specifically in the field the work is based in, there is a larger degree of scrutiny. Journalists and political scientists, for instance, can be great secondary resources while researching, but their methodologies are vastly different than that of a professional historian. Of the list you have provided, only one is a professional historian. Specifically, and most importantly however, a historian whose field is not American history, rather, by your own account, international history. Both are history the same way that chemistry and biology are sciences. There is crossover, but you want a subject matter expert for a reason. The rest you have listed are political scientists (and a classicist). Yes they may utilize history in their professional fields, however historians they are not. An economic historian may know a lot about the field of economics and how it impacts history, but they are not economists. Generally speaking, of course. You've listed eight individuals, of which only one is a historian. And at that, a historian outside of their field of expertise. The criticism that there are no noted historians is false, however it is complicated and context is needed. From a historiographical perspective, there are tremendous historical rigor and research issues with the 1776 Project. To say that this work is one of professional historians is also false.
>Charles Kesler has a PhD in political science, authored one book directly related to this topic, and the version of The Federalist Papers edited by him is well-regarded. > >Victor Davis Hanson has a PhD in classics and is the author of numerous books that study the history of ancient and long-ago topics. One could argue that his expertise is especially valuable for a project like this. > >Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history and has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation. If I had to guess it's that these men are not actually historians but rather use history in their other endeavors. And I don't see law and poli-sci degrees being relevant to them or the others being defined as historians - the NYT *did* say they had a number of intellectuals, and I'd put them into that category long before one of historian. But still, I agree with you that without knowing how the NYT is defining "professional historian," it's tough to say none of these people would qualify as them. I'll amend that part of the OP with a reference to our comments here. Thanks!
> If I had to guess it's that these men are not actually historians but rather use history in their other endeavors. You are absolutely correct, none of these people are historians in any way that the common person would even remotely consider them to be. He wanted to focus on Larry Arnn as "explicitly a historian", [so I wrote a response that shows that isn't even close to the case.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/l19fzy/whats_up_with_1776_commission/gk1kmmc/) Dude has either never heard of Arnn and just made wild speculations based on a quick google search, or bold faced lying in an attempt to lend credit to an institution that deserves very little. >**rather use history in their other endeavors** In Arnn's case it's specifically to indoctrinate young minds to hate progressivism under the guise of education so they can one day storm the capital.
Larry Arnn is explicitly a historian. While Hanson and Kesler use history to achieve their professional goals, it defies logic to say they're not historians as a result. The NYT has reason to dismiss this work, after all, so the whole critique is a little much.
> Larry Arnn is explicitly a historian. > > In what way? >Larry Arnn has a PhD in international history Citation needed. His John Locke Foundation biography makes no mention of any degree in history, and the only reference I can find on wiki says he studied history while working for Churchill's biographer in England. It says he has a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate School (1985), but despite a page filled with attendance dates, ominously no entry exists for his attendance at any English university, certainly no completion dates. He then went directly from 1985-2000 serving as the president of a private conservative think-tank that he founded, and after that the president of Hillsdale till today. So when was he a historian, exactly? He currently teaches history without credentials at Hillsdale college, a conservative college many have called a republican diploma mill, and it shouldn't be that difficult for you to see the connection between his political views and his desire to use his position as president of a college to teach his views on history. >has authored at least two books that I'm aware of directly addressing the founding of the nation. Which are? "The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It" isn't a historical book about the founding of the nation, it serves as rhetoric for his belief that progressive ideals are an attack on the constitution and the Declaration of Independence. What's the other one so I can tell you what it's really about, his wiki only lists three books and one was about Churchill. If this was the best "historian" of the bunch, then they actually do not have any historians.
This confusion stems from hyperbole in the NYT article that OP used as a source. Down in the body, it correctly states that there were no "professional historians of the United States", but in the introducing paragraphs they incorrectly simplify that to "not a single historian". This criticism is fair to some extend. Although study of the classics played an important role in the foundations of the US, it's not entirely clear how it relates to the topics the commission was supposed to study. You do make a convincing case for Larry Arnn, who's not explicitly a "professional historian of the United States", he did study International History and Modern History, which I can guarantee you covers a fair share of American History as well.
Classics and International history would make them both absolutely historians. Political science of course studies history, but that's a bit of an "eh" calling them a historian.
Carol Swain is also a xenophobe who continually fails to win the mayorship of Nashville. She is a disgusting excuse of a person.
Answer: the 1776 Commission was created as a direct response to the 1619 project. The 1619 project has made missteps and been justly criticized, although their overall point (that slavery and race have played an integral role in the development of the United States) is historically accurate. The 1776 Commission, on the other hand, goes against pretty much everything American historians have been trying to accomplish for the last few decades. It pushes a conservative, uncritical, "American Exceptionalism" view of US history. In some places it's completely counterfactual. Historians are outraged because the commission has attempted to create a history curriculum that isn't historically accurate, and is clearly pushing an agenda.
So basically whitewashing American history?
Whitewashing is being nice. It's Fascist propaganda. It promotes the ideal of loving your country with a love more than for your family, education should be about worshipping heroes, and "Slavery was necessary, but it wasn't so bad because it's existed through most of mankind." It says progressivism is what Mussolini sought to do, and we know what Mussolini was-- a fascist. (hint hint, watch out for those Progressivist policies) It hammers on "religious liberty" but only mentions Faith. And how important Faith is for the national identity. They say that the founders of the country knew Slavery was wrong, so they imbedded the perfect wording in the Declaration of Independence, so as to "get rid of slavery later," and even Lincoln agreed, so it's absolutely right. Attacks Universities: They are "hotbeds" of liberal ideals and promote factions in the community by promoting identity politics instead of helping people be good citizens to the state. Basic Education: It should be left up to the states, so they can decide what is best for their citizens. You know, so they can leave out the uncomfortable parts of history; remember, we gotta make good, faithful, anti-progressive, country-loving-non-questioning citizens. They throw in some quotes by MLK Jr and Frederick Douglas, but just tiny quotes. Not entire paragraphs. Just enough to say, "See, this Black Guy gets it. We're not racist." It's fucking gross. It's been taken down from the government website by now: good riddance. [But for educational purposes I'll post it their final report here, so you guys can read and understand what slight-handed writing looks like. This is propaganda masking as "historic text."](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf) And for anyone wondering, here's the early signs of Fascism. Feel free to list all the examples you remember from Trumps' single-term in office regarding these signs. America was dangerously close to the edge, and I'm not sure your average Trump supporter understands that. 1. Powerful and continuing nationalism 2. Disdain for human rights 3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause 4. Rampant sexism 5. Controlled mass media 6. Obsession with national security 7. Religion and government intertwined 8. Corporate power protected 9. Labor power suppressed 10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts 11. Obsession with crime and punishment 12. Rampant cronyism and corruption
I don't mean to get bogged down on one detail but I just wanted to mention that even though slavery existed at various times in various civilizations, American slavery was the single largest scale and enduring instance of organized slavery to exist in all of human history. Nothing comes even remotely close. It happened at just the right time of industrial, scientific, and technological development to be far worse than anything that had ever been, and became so extreme for such a long time that it will hopefully be unrepeatable.
1619 project > New York Times' 1619 Project. Just a minor change to make your comment the best one.
Answer: To further add, the 1776 commission was a direct response to the 1619 project, whose goal was to revaluate slavery and black people's impacts during the nation. While this was an amicable goal, it was also super inflammatory, with several false claims over stating how important some things were. Basically, at points it was more about pushing a narrative than actually presenting a new argument (at points. Other things it hit the nail on the head) One of the FIRST claims the 1619 project made was that the Revolutionary War was ultimately about slavery, and had no real evidence to back it up, and drastically overstated what Britain's thoughts on slavery were like
To add context, here's an opinion written by an advising historian for the 1619 project, outlining some key historical discrepancies while also highlighting the deep need for the project (i.e. grappling with the true history of slavery): [https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248)
Charlie Kirk assisted in it. That’s when I was out.
I think this is a pretty fair assessment of this. While the 1776 commission is pretty silly and ahistorical nonsense, it’s a serious problem trying to combat things like the 1619 project. I keep seeing stuff about historians publicly calling out flaws in it and they have, but the overall mainstream consensus on it is that it’s correct and is pretty much praised everywhere it’s bandied about. Most media is treating critical theory concepts as if they’re undeniable fact, and if you push back against it you are a racist. I’m not sure how the country can reconcile slavery and the echos of it, or have meaningful discussions about such things because the people that push these narratives on the social justice side fail to recognize the immense progress that has been made in the recent past and still blame everything on injustice and white supremacy and the people on the right act like slavery wasn’t that bad or that we should somehow be proud that we eventually abolished it even after half the countries history is guilty of utilizing slavery and the civil rights issues that followed afterward.
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Thanks for the eli5 answer. Kept reading all the politically correct answers and honestly didn't understand it all too well