The greatest thing about the Trump era is all the historical illiteracy.
It’s just the best.
Consider, for example, this Aug. 10 tweet from political activist Amy Siskind:
A reminder: we didn’t have neo-Nazi rallies until Trump took office – let alone in the light of day in our nation’s capital! Their hate used to be unacceptable and hidden until Trump came along and legitimized them. https://t.co/ahQOpxnKkb
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) August 10, 2018
Where do they even come up with this stuff? The Illinois Nazis are more than a gag in “The Blues Brothers.” There was a 1977 Supreme Court ruling and everything (National Socialist Party v. Skokie). It is pretty famous.
While we’re on the topic of racist weirdos appearing in public spaces, one wonders what Siskind would make of this 2015 CNN report detailing clashes in South Carolina between the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers. Is Barack Obama responsible? Or how about when the Journal Times reported in 1995 that, “Elkhorn residents watched in fascination … as Ku Klux Klan members, skin heads, white supremacists and protesters clashed outside a downtown courthouse.” Is Bill Clinton responsible? What about when the Associated Press reported in 1988 that a KKK demonstration in Dallas “turned into a melee … when a crowd of about 200 people charged the hooded Klansmen and other white supremacists.” Is Ronald Reagan responsible?
As it turns out, the history of the United States doesn’t begin on Jan. 20, 2017.
It takes almost nothing to do some basic background reading on this stuff. A cursory search would show that America has a long and troubled history of racist demonstrations.
This is the thing I don’t understand about the bulk of anti-Trump criticism. There’s enough to go after with this White House without also embracing nonsense. Peddling fact-free proclamations is more self-defeating than anything else. Remarks like Siskind’s suggest either that she’s ignorant or dishonest. Take your pick and hold your nose.
And she’s not alone in peddling anti-Trump fantasies! Historical illiteracy has been a theme of the opposition since the 2016 election.
It’s like when social media blew up at Trump in July 2017 for saying during an address in Warsaw, “The people of Poland, the people of America, still cry out ‘we want God.’” The people who saw the line as nonsensical missed that the U.S. president was referring to St. John Paul II, who the Poles greeted in 1979 in then-Soviet-occupied Poland with chants of, “We want God!”
It’s like when GQ Magazine correspondent Julia Ioffe tweeted on Jan. 12, 2017, that “The events of the last few months are just reminder that America was always Europe’s bizarre, messy, violent, and uncivilized cousin.” Two World Wars and one Holocaust would like to have a word.
It’s like when cub reporters accused House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., of imposing a prudish dress code on female reporters covering the speaker’s lobby. The dress code is decades old. Ryan imposed nothing new.
This stuff isn’t hard to find. A little reading goes a long way.
