What was remarkable about the Trump American history conference was the sense -- at least simply based on the list of participants and Trump's speech itself -- that they've lost the history war, and they know it.

Yes, they're winning their war on education in this country -- hell, the jobs crisis in my field is more or less directly a consequence of this multigenerational campaign.

Yes, they've got deep-pocketed backers, fancy and well-paid sinecures, and the power of the federal gov't.

But they haven't been able to impose their vision. It's actually one of the reasons why there's this common subscription -- even among the scholars at the conference -- to a kind of generalized conspiracy theorism about left-wing cabals brainwashing American children.

How else could they have lost? It must be because of (((Howard Zinn))) and his merry band of well-organized Marxist critical theorists who have turned American schools into conformity factories!

It *can't* be because their ideas don't stand up to serious scrutiny!

Put another way: None of the historians who participated in this conference are exactly giants in their field, and whatever little reputation they have outside of right-wing circles is now effectively dead for having participated in this conference.

And they know it, too.

I mean, the 1619 Project sparked scholarly debate -- and no small share of criticism -- from historians across the political spectrum (liberals, conservatives, even socialists!) for over a year and *these guys* were the best they could come up with?

I've often been critical of how little actual power critical theorists and other (tenure-track) campus radicals have -- that instead of organizing to control the campus, they've just carved out little fiefdoms for themselves in a crumbling infrastructure.

But the flip side is also true -- it's really quite remarkable just how *BAD* this group of right-wing scholars and activists is at spreading their views, despite having literally every conceivable advantage: funding, access, job security, stability, etc. etc. etc.

It's ironic, because in economics, the law, and other policy-related fields right-wing scholars have been chillingly effective, but those fields -- in general -- don't have to deal with public culture in the way that history has to.

It turns out, when you have to face hard questions from people about, for instance, the history of slavery in this country, simply having a rich old white guy in a bow tie from a Christian college assuring us that the Founders were actually opposed to slavery doesn't cut it.

There's something else going, on, too.

The creedalism of American exceptionalism, the Founding Fathers were world-historical geniuses, etc. plays very differently to younger generations whose lives have been defined by a crumbling American polity. https://twitter.com/Joe_Schiller/status/1306683266423042050?s=20

"Patriotic education" isn't going to be as effective in a period of austerity as it was during the height of American prosperity.