Trump v tyranny
Politico got Trump’s script for the National Archive harangue.
“We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny,” Trump plans to say, according to his prepared remarks. “We will reclaim our history, and our country, for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed.”
Every religion? What was the Muslim ban about then?
“America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history,” the prepared text states.
No it didn’t. The chain wasn’t unstoppable, and anyway it’s pretty rich to say the founding of a slave state set in motion the abolition of slavery. How about skipping the middle part and just abolishing slavery at the founding? Eh?
The Office of Management and Budget recently disseminated a directive to federal agencies to stop any use of “critical race theory” or “divisive, un-American propaganda training session.”
Racist rallies on the other hand are just fine; good people on both sides.
The EPA has put off an internal speaker series on environmental racism to review its compliance with the OMB memorandum, and POLITICO reported last week the Department of Education is scouring a host of internal forums, ranging from book clubs to training documents, to root out “Anti-American propaganda” in service of the White House’s directive.
BEE MOAR RACIST!
Now it’s getting started in earnest.Here is ver it shtarts to look vamiliar!
CCP, China; Minitru.
Yep.
Around a month ago a (French) friend of mine decided to get a British passport. He recieved among other thing a small booklet on British history that he had to memorize for a test.
Oh Boy…
Anyway a few weeks later a German-born historian wrote this in the TLS (it’s behind a paywall but I think you get a few free articles a month): https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/official-history-of-united-kingdom-according-to-home-office/
He is clearly angry, but not quite as much as my mate…
But that rosy view of British history has always been part of the conservative makeup, it’s no surprise to see replicated in Trumpism. I am only surprised that it took him so long! (Although it just goes on to demonstrate how little truck Trump has with any sort of intellectual debate…)
#4 Arnaud
Unsurprising; historical revision is the best friend of all revanchists.
Arnaud, when I was in college, one of my friends was from London. She could simultaneously dismiss the United States as a nasty, brutal imperial power (who happened to be paying the bulk of her education, but I don’t believe you automatically have to be grateful for that; she was working for the school for peanuts, and that was part of her salary. Still, people did want to point that out) and extol the beauty and genius of a tiny island that managed to conquer much of the world. She often said that British imperialism was much more benign than other imperialists. That may be true, but that does not make it a sweetness thing that was good for the colonized countries.
The US actually doesn’t really have an “empire” in the classical sense, in that all the countries we control are (ostensibly) under their own form of government; we just interfere a lot. So you might be able to say that ours is better than the British…or you might not. The thing is, British, French, Dutch, American…imperialism is the denial of self-government to another people considered inferior to yourself and needing your guidance. My friend was wrong. But even as a staunch Labour Party voter, she had her own forms of pride and nationalism.