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Scholars continue to say that history will repudiate Donald Trump. But that cannot be guaranteed.
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American history often leaves out ugly truths and purifies the powerful.
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If we want history to say something, we need to fight for it in the present.
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This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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I know that you have heard this proclamation in the network news and reading in columns for years.
“History will judge us.” “The story will repudiate Donald Trump and the January 6 rioters.” “History will see people like GOP Senator Mitt Romney as heroes for fighting their own party.” “History will show that Democrats were people who defended our democracy and our values.”
That sounds good, but there is a danger of the notion that history will reveal the truth of our moment and separate the good from the bad. Past events do not change, but telling the story is a conversation that continues as long as we exist on this planet. In our own lives, Americans have discovered things they have forgotten and rehabilitated individuals in our history who were previously defamed.
If we want the story to tell the true story of Donald Trump’s violent presidency long after we’re dead, we have to actively and vigilantly reinforce that truth while we’re alive. We cannot guarantee that Americans will understand the story soon after we leave.
A history of holes
The past does not change, but the way we tell it does. Americans are famous for hiding by default. It was only in the last year or two that awareness of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre spread, for example, when racists destroyed “Black Wall Street” and murdered the people who lived there in an organized rage.
This was just one of our country’s multiple genocides against black Americans, but we don’t talk much about them. They are not pleasant and do not fit the narrative that America is the oldest multiracial democracy in the world.
Just as it was easier for Americans in the past to forget the importance of the Tulsa Massacre, it could be easier for Americans in the future to forget the ugliness that led to the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill.
It is also possible that American futures will be able to handle events around January 6. We have seen this happen immediately after the attack. Some right-wing media outlets tried to blame Antifa, and polls indicate that half of Republicans now believe this. It is quite possible that future generations will also believe this.
We already know that the story changes when different people have the power to tell. Almost every president worth thinking about has been imagined and reinvented. President Ulysses S. Grant was maligned as a corrupt drunkard for decades, in part by Americans who wanted to repudiate Reconstruction and its support for the civil rights of black Americans.
It is only in the 21st century that historians try to regain their heroism, not only as a general, but also as president. Not because it has changed (obviously), but because we have changed. As our society embraced racial equality, it became clear to historians that our account of Grant’s presidency was colored by white supremacy. It turns out that he may not even have been an alcoholic, he just liked to drink (who among us?).
All of this is to say that we assume that history will make things right, when in fact it showed us that things are often wrong. It is highly dependent on the people who write it, its power and how they want us to see ourselves in a great American story.
See it be
The story’s ability to be influenced and written in real time is why you can’t have a racist, demagogue or authoritarian in the White House – especially someone who knows the power of the story as well as Trump. If they get a chance to rewrite history, that kind of leader will take it and distort it with lies.
The Trump administration tried to do this in big and small ways. He tried to delay the appearance of Harriet Tubman on the $ 20 bill. This was a way of hiding the importance of Tubman’s work rescuing slaves and serving in the army as a spy, and also a way of preserving the glorification of racist President Andrew Jackson .
And then, of course, there was the “1776 Report” – a brilliant example of what happens when a young man who spends a lot of time in racist chat rooms tries to write a history thesis after never going to class or doing reading. This report, published on the White House website on January 18, was the Trump administration’s attempt at “patriotic education”, a retelling of our history that downplayed the importance and brutality of slavery and demonized the American left.
Upon taking office, the Biden administration promptly removed him. This is the kind of vigilance that we need to keep in mind when telling what happened on January 6 and during the four years that followed. There are powerful and relentless forces in this country that will want to hide or distort it for glorification. It is up to us, now and in the future, to ensure that they do not have a say.
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