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Wars on history aren’t about winning history. They are about justifying & framing a current course of action, and sketching a vector — a direction — for the future.
Understanding the war on historical narrative: my latest for @SURfdn #defusingdisinfo
/1 https://standuprepublic.com/what-lessons-havent-we-learned-since-2016-lesson-6-the-war-on-history-isnt-about-history-but-justifying-a-contemporary-course-of-action/
Understanding the war on historical narrative: my latest for @SURfdn #defusingdisinfo
/1 https://standuprepublic.com/what-lessons-havent-we-learned-since-2016-lesson-6-the-war-on-history-isnt-about-history-but-justifying-a-contemporary-course-of-action/
Trump’s defense of the Confederacy and American “heritage” — and godawful speechwriting — is lazy and badly informed, but the tactic he is attempting to use is real and quite powerful.
Understanding what his malign historical revisionism aims to achieve is important /2
Understanding what his malign historical revisionism aims to achieve is important /2
Historical revisionism is an essential element of the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere in the modern politics of former captive nations and to disrupt the alliances that can protect those nations from the Kremlin’s hybrid aggression. /3
We joke that the Kremlin tells you what they are going to do and then they do it — but creating the pretext and justification for their behavior is an important part of how they maintain influence and offset potential consequences for their actions despite overt revanchism. /4
The Kremlin is constantly rewriting WWII history. It claims the pact between Hitler & Stalin which launched WWII never happened. It claims Baltic resistance movements, which fought Soviet occupation, were really terrorists. 
Both of these are about modern objectives. /5
Both of these are about modern objectives. /5
Putin has also used a repositioning of Russia’s origin mythology to justify the invasion and annexation of Crimea. /5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/putins-global-ambitions-could-destabilize-europe/2014/03/18/69abb2a2-aec5-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html
Trump tried this tactic when he claimed “the American way of life” started when Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1492...
Nope
Not by any definition or historical timeline is this true.
Unless you just want “American” to “White Europeans vaguely close to the Americas” /6
Nope
Not by any definition or historical timeline is this true.
Unless you just want “American” to “White Europeans vaguely close to the Americas” /6
Which is obviously 
/7
/7
Trump is arguing that Confederate history is American history, and that both must be defended in their entirety by patriots as an essential pillar of a re-election strategy meant to activate a particular identity group.
It’s done in laziest possible way. But it is being done. /8
It’s done in laziest possible way. But it is being done. /8
The way that Trump equates defending monuments of founding fathers with defending Confederate monuments is blatant, believable only by those who want to feel no shame for their own set of beliefs about race and identity. /9
Trump speaks openly of lifting that sense of shame around a belief in tenets that once ripped the nation in two — “heritage” that President Lincoln viewed as the founding sins of the nation that must be paid for w/ blood, purified from the steel of America in the fire of war /10
Trump is not smart enough to present the kind of nuanced argumentations that Putin and Lavrov make on a regular basis to provide historical & legal heft to their justifications of aggression & wrongdoing. You have to know history to sculpt & repurpose it — and Trump does not /11
Everyday we should be grateful for that.
This historical revisionism is nonetheless dangerous as it is founded in a deeper set of beliefs that perpetuate racial inequality in the country, and its purpose is to justify the sins instead of enact the penance. /12
This historical revisionism is nonetheless dangerous as it is founded in a deeper set of beliefs that perpetuate racial inequality in the country, and its purpose is to justify the sins instead of enact the penance. /12
It is a distraction from common dialogue on the future.
It creates the perception of vast and permanent divides.
Every war over a monument is for Trump an excuse not to talk about modern problems or solutions, but to create imaginary villains. /13
It creates the perception of vast and permanent divides.
Every war over a monument is for Trump an excuse not to talk about modern problems or solutions, but to create imaginary villains. /13
American history is as much about analyzing how we got things wrong, and then doing better, and understanding that getting things wrong has to be about eventually getting them right — as it is about any foundational exceptionalism that sets us apart in history. /14
Understanding history does not need to be a partisan pursuit.
This nation is our shared project.
It can only continue to be so if we share truths about the past and the present alike. /15
This nation is our shared project.
It can only continue to be so if we share truths about the past and the present alike. /15
See malign historical revisionism — not adding perspective to history, but realigning basic facts and motivations — for what it is. Call it out. Put it in context. /16
Be able to explain why America can be both great and flawed, and that those two aspects have always been inseparable, in conflict and competition.
Our job is to make sure the scale tips the right way.
Read more: /17 https://standuprepublic.com/what-lessons-havent-we-learned-since-2016-lesson-6-the-war-on-history-isnt-about-history-but-justifying-a-contemporary-course-of-action/
Our job is to make sure the scale tips the right way.
Read more: /17 https://standuprepublic.com/what-lessons-havent-we-learned-since-2016-lesson-6-the-war-on-history-isnt-about-history-but-justifying-a-contemporary-course-of-action/
