Im-Politic: VP Debate Questions That Should be Asked

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1619 Project, African Americans, Barack Obama, Biden, budget deficits, CCP Virus, censorship, China, Confederate monuments, Constitution, coronavirus, COVID 19, education, election 2020, Electoral College, filibuster, Founding Fathers, free speech, healthcare, history, history wars, Im-Politic, inequality, investment, Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, national security, Obamacare, police killings, propaganda, protests, racism, riots, semiconductors, slavery, spending, Supreme Court, systemic racism, Taiwan, tariffs, tax cuts, taxes, Trade, trade war, Trump, Vice Presidential debate, Wuhan virus

Since I don’t want to set a record for longest RealityChek post ever, I’ll do my best to limit this list of questions I’d like to see asked at tonight’s Vice Presidential debate to some subjects that I believe deserve the very highest priority, and/or that have been thoroughly neglected so far during this campaign.

>For Vice President Mike Pence: If for whatever reason, President Trump couldn’t keep the CCP Virus under control within his own White House, why should Americans have any faith that any of his policies will bring it under control in the nation as a whole?

>For Democratic candidate Senator Kamala Harris: What exactly should be the near-term goal of U.S. virus policy? Eliminate it almost completely (as was done with polio)? Stop its spread? Slow its spread? Reduce deaths? Reduce hospitalizations? And for goals short of complete elimination, define “slow” and “reduce” in terms of numerical targets.

>For Pence: Given that the administration’s tax cuts and spending levels were greatly ballooning the federal budget deficit even before the virus struck, isn’t it ridiculous for Congressional Republicans to insist that total spending in the stimulus package remain below certain levels?

For Harris: Last month, the bipartisan Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus unveiled a compromise stimulus framework. President Trump has spoken favorably about it, while stopping short of a full endorsement. Does Vice President Biden endorse it? If so, has he asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to sign on? If he doesn’t endorse it, why not?

For Pence: The nation is in the middle of a major pandemic. Whatever faults the administration sees in Obamacare, is this really the time to be asking the Supreme Court to rule it un-Constitutional, and throw the entire national health care system into mass confusion?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration offer free taxpayer-financed healthcare to illegal aliens? Wouldn’t this move strongly encourage unmanageable numbers of migrants to swamp U.S. borders?

For Pence: President Trump has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese exports headed to U.S. markets. But U.S. investors – including government workers’ pension funds – still keep sending equally large sums into Chinese government coffers. When is the Trump administration finally going to plug this enormous hole?

For Harris: Will a Biden administration lift or reduce any of the Trump China or metals tariffs. Will it do so unconditionally? If not, what will it be seeking in return?

For both: Taiwan now manufactures the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and seems sure to maintain the lead for the foreseeable future. Does the United States now need to promise to protect Taiwan militarily in order to keep this vital defense and economic knowhow out of China’s hands?

For Pence: Since the administration has complained so loudly about activist judges over-ruling elected legislators and making laws themselves, will Mr. Trump support checking this power by proposing term limits or mandatory retirement ages for Supreme Court Justices? If not, why not?

For Harris: Don’t voters deserve to know the Biden Supreme Court-packing position before Election Day? Ditto for his position on abolishing the filibuster in the Senate.

>For Pence: The Electoral College seems to violate the maxim that each votes should count equally. Does the Trump administration favor reform? If not, why not?

>For Harris: Many Democrats argue that the Electoral College gives lightly populated, conservative and Republican-leaning states outsized political power. But why, then, was Barack Obama able to win the White House not once but twice?

>For Pence: Charges that America’s police are killing unarmed African Americans at the drop of a hat are clearly wild exaggerations. But don’t you agree that police stop African-American pedestrians and drivers much more often than whites without probable cause – a problem that has victimized even South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott?

For Harris: Will Biden insist that mayors and governors in cities and states like Oregon and Washington, which have been victimized by chronic antifa violence, investigate, arrest and prosecute its members and leaders immediately? And if they don’t, will he either withhold federal law enforcement aid, or launch such investigations at the federal level?

For Pence: Why should any public places in America honor Confederate figures – who were traitors to the United States? Can’t we easily avoid the “erasing history” danger by putting these monuments in museums with appropriate background material?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration support even peacefully removing from public places statues and monuments to historic figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because their backgrounds included slave-holding?

For both: Shouldn’t voters know much more about the Durham Justice Department investigation of official surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2015 and 2016 before Election Day?

For both: Should the Big Tech companies be broken up on antitrust grounds?

For both: Should internet and social media platforms be permitted to censor any form of Constitutionally permitted speech?

For Pence: Doesn’t the current system of using property taxes to fund most primary and secondary public education guarantee that low-income school children will lack adequate resources?

For Harris: Aren’t such low-income students often held back educationally by non-economic factors like generations of broken families and counter-productive student behavior, as well as by inadequate school funding – as leading figures like Jesse Jackson (at least for one period) and former President Obama have claimed?

For Pence: What’s the difference between the kind of “patriotic education” the President says he supports and official propaganda?

For Harris: Would a Biden administration oppose local school districts using propagandistic material like The New York Times‘ U.S. history-focused 1619 Project for their curricula? Should federal aid to districts that keep using such materials be cut off or reduced?

Now it’s your turn, RealityChek readers! What questions would you add? And which of mine would you deep six?

Im-Politic: Signs That The Mob is Starting to Rule

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cancel culture, Chicago, Christopher Columbus, Confederate monuments, Connecticut, election 2020, freedom of the press, history wars, ImPolitic, Nelson Lee, peaceful protests, press freedom, protests, public safety, Seattle, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Times, shield laws, Ulysses S. Grant, violence, Washington Post

The next time you hear or read that the vast majority of protests during these turbulent times in America are peaceful (which will surely be within the next five minutes if you’re a news follower), keep in mind this pair of developments. They give me the willies and should so unnerve you, even if you (like me) believe that the vast majority of the protests have indeed been peaceful.

The first matters because it makes clear as can be that some of the protest groups contain individuals who make the cohort of brazen looters that’s emerged in so many violence-wracked cities look nearly harmless. What else can be reasonably concluded from this Washington Post account (yes, the same Washington Post whose journalism I slammed yesterday) of a court case in Seattle dealing with whether news organizations in the city could be ordered to turn over to the Seattle Police Department photos and video their staffers had taken of protesters who had “smashed windows, set police cars on fire, and looted businesses.” The cops’ intent – use this material to find the perpetrators and arrest them.

I was hugely relieved to read that the judge presiding over the case did rule that most of the material (all unpublished or posted) must be provided. But I was aghast at the reason given for the news organizations’ resistance. The Seattle Times, for its part, did cite freedom of the press concerns – involving Washington State’s shield laws, which entitle news organizations to protect source materials. These laws, which in various forms are practically universal throughout the United States, are indeed essential for enabling journalists to secure information that governments would rather keep secret for self-serving reasons.

The Times also made the reasonable (though in this case, not necessarily dispositive) claim that such cooperating with the police would put its credibility at risk. As contended by Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores:

“The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public. We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.”

But these weren’t the only reasons cited by the paper. In an affidavit, Times Assistant Managing Editor Danny Gawlowski attested “The perception that a journalist might be collaborating with police or other public officials poses a very real, physical danger to journalists, particularly when they are covering protests or civil unrest.”

Moreover, Gawlowski stated, this danger wasn’t hypothetical. It had already happened. According to the Post‘s summary of his affidavit;

“The request could significantly harm journalists, the Times argued, at a time when reporters already face violence and distrust from protesters. One Times photographer was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester and punched in the face by another demonstrator.”

In other words, the Seattle Times, anyway, wanted to refuse to help law enforcement protect public safety because at least in part it was afraid that some protesters might attack them even more violently than they already had.

That sure sounds like intimidation to me, and successful intimidation at that. And even though the judge thankfully ordered substantial (though not full) cooperation, who’s to say that the Times won’t pull its protests coverage punches anyway? Even more important, what if violence-prone protesters elsewhere in the country read about this case, try to strong-arm local or national news media, too, and succeed? And what if not every judge holds the same priorities as Seattle’s Nelson Lee? Talk about a danger to democratic norms – as well as public safety.

The second development concerns decisions by governments in at least two parts of the country to take down controversial statues – a major front in the nation’s history wars. Don’t get me wrong: Elected authorities removing these monuments is sure better than unelected mobs toppling or defacing them – as long as these actions follow legitimate procedures and aren’t arbitrary. And as I’ve written repeatedly, in the case of Confederate monuments, it’s usually not only completely justified, but long overdue.

But in these cases, it’s the rationale for these actions that’s deeply disturbing. In both Connecticut and in Chicago, statues of Christopher Columbus and former President and Civil War Union supreme Union commander Ulysses S. Grant, respectively, were removed (as Windy City Mayor Lori Lightfoot explained her reasoning) “in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner.”

Translation: “I was afraid of the mob. And I decided to let them win.” No better definition could be found of the kind of appeasement that only spurs further violence. And no more important challenge will confront the President and candidates for Congress who will be elected or reelected in November. 

Im-Politic: A Cracked Mainstream Media Window on Reality

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American Revolution, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, China, Colonials, crime, election 2020, Elise Viebeck, George Washington University, history wars, human rights, Im-Politic, J. William Fulbright, James Madison, James Monroe, Jerry Brewer, journalism, Lauren Lumpkin, law and order, law enforcement, Lori Lightfoot, Los Angeles Lakers, mail-in ballots, Mainstream Media, Matt Zapotosky, Out of My Window, Robert Costa, sports journalism, Trump, voter fraud, voting by mail, Washington Post, Winston Churchill, wokeness

When I was very little, one of my favorite books was a new volume from the Little Golden Books series called Out of My Window. It came out when I was a toddler, and although my mother wasn’t an education Tiger Mom determined to teach me to read before kindergarten or first grade, it became clear to Adult Me (and maybe Teenage Me?) that she did use it to build up my vocabulary.

Author Alice Low’s plot was pretty straightforward. She described a typical day for a young girl not much older than Toddler Me looking out the window of her house and ticking off everything visible from that perch: a tree, the house across the street, a dog, a parked car, a neighbor walking by – even an airplane flying overhead. You get the idea. And along the way, while being read to, small children were supposed to start associating images with the relevant spoken word they heard. It was probably a great reading aid, too, once my formal education began.

I start off with this brief nostalgia trip because the Washington Post print edition that arrives at my home every morning is supposed to be a one of my windows out on the world. And today’s paper – as is often the case – is worth reviewing because it’s such a vivid reminder of how cracked, and in fact, distorted the pane of glass provided by this Mainstream Media mainstay so often is.

I still start off each day with the Sports section, truncated and, frankly, depressing, as it is. And on the front page what did I see but columnist Jerry Brewer – who’s overall a pretty sensible type – reporting that

“After George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody, the Los Angeles Lakers [U.S. pro basketball team] made a declaration that speaks for how most players in sports — especially those in predominantly black leagues — feel: “If YOU ain’t wit US, WE ain’t wit Y’ALL!”

Nothing from him, or apparently from the Lakers, elaborating on what “wit US” means. Are the players (and coaches? and management?) telling me and other basketball fans that I need to support the full agendas of Black Lives Matter movements? Police defunding efforts? Defacing or unlawful pulldowns of all supposedly offensive statues? Moreover, what about issues that it seems no one asssociated with the Lakers is “wit”? Like the massive oppression of human rights by China, a market that’s been immensely profitable for the entire franchise.

And finally, what do the Lakers mean when they say “WE ain’t wit Y’ALL”? Will fans need to pass a political litmus test before they’re permitted to attend games once post-CCP Virus normality returns? For the time being, do the Lakers want to prevent anyone “who ain’t wit THEM ALL” from watching or listening to their games once they’re broadcast? Are they to be forbidden to purchase Laker gear? So many questions. And never even asked, much less answered, by Brewer. Maybe tomorrow?

Next I turn to the main news section.  Today’s lede story is headlined “Trump stirs fear he won’t accept an election loss.” The President’s recent statements to this effect are undeniably newsworthy. But did the article, by supposedly straight news reporters Elise Viebeck and Robert Costa tell a straight story? Grounds for skepticism include their decision to award the first color quote to a long-time Clinton-ite think tanker, to write of Mr. Trump “seizing” on “the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic” – as if this development raised no legitimate questions about voter fraud – and to turn somersaults trying to avoid flatly acknowledging that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore did indeed challenge the decisive Florida results in the 2000 election, not to mention their failure to note that all manner of Democrats and many other Americans have spent the better part of the last three years trying (and failing) to prove that the President’s own election was illegitimate because of interference from Russia with which the Trump campaign colluded.

Nor did tendentious front-page reporting end there. Post headline writers also told me that the President is “framing” his recently announced law enforcement operations in major cities as a “crime-fighting tactic.” And although headlines sometimes don’t perform swimmingly in capturing the essence of what reporters are trying to convey, this wasn’t one of those times, as reporter Matt Zapotosky began his story with “President Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more federal law enforcement agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, casting the effort as one meant to help fight crime while delivering a speech that appeared designed to score political points against Democratic leaders and burnish his law-and-order image.”

In other words, according to Zapotosky (and his editors, it must always be noted), we live in a world where politicians who claim that the dispatch of federal agents to areas where crimes are unmistakably being committed, and whose own political leaders (e.g., Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot) have – after a burst of posturing –  declared that they welcome a federal presence, bear the burden of proof that these actions actually are intended to fight these crimes. Even if you’re a Trump hater, you’ve got to admit that this is downright Orwellian.

Sometime, however, the front page coverage is downright incoherent. Thus the headline for the companion piece to Zapotosky’s proclaimed “Right’s Depictions of push for ‘law and order’ boost Trump – for now.” But do you know how much evidence the article contained for this declaration? Try “none.” Maybe that’s why the header on the “break” portion of the article (the part that continues on an inside page) was “Trump’s effort to ‘dominate’ cities risks bipartisan backlash.” Is everyone clear on that?

For the longest time, this native New Yorker ignored the Post‘s Metro section – because for many years after moving to the D.C. area, I clung to the hope of returning home, and saw no point in following local news. But since I’ve come to terms with my geographic exile, I’m now a Metro regular reader, and this morning was especially struck by the Post‘s report of the latest developments in George Washington University’s ongoing debate as to whether the school should drop “Colonials” as its mascot and erase the term from the numerous buildings on campus using the name.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, some of the anti-Colonials sentiment stems from the fact that the many of the American colonists held the racist views regarding black slaves and native Americans all too common (and even prevalent) among whites during the late 18^th century. But although reporter Lauren Lumpkin amply described this reasoning in the third paragraph of the article, nowhere was it mentioned that “Colonials” is also how the American colonists who decided to rebel against British authority have long been routinely described – especially in accounts of the American Revolution before independence was declared. After all, during those years, there literally was no United States of America. Indeed, if you Google “colonial forces” and “American Revolution,” you come up with more than 61,000 entries.

So although, as just mentioned, many and even most of the colonists held offensive views on race, there’s no evidence that the name “Colonials” has been intended to honor or even normalize those attitudes.

I’d like to close on the optimistic note that Lumpkin (and her editors) did bother to note that “The histories of” the men whose names some members of the George Washington community also want to expunge from the university’s physical footprint “are complex.” These include former U.S. Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, 20^th century Arkanas Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Winston Churchill (who I trust I don’t have to describe).

I just wish that Lumpkin’s efforts to provide perspective were a little less threadbare than noting that Fulbright “championed international exchange and education” (ignoring his early and influential opposition to the Vietnam War) and that Churchill “helped steer his country through World War II” – if only because it’s all too possible that many of George Washington University’s and other name-changers don’t know their full stories.

I won’t include here any criticism of the Post‘s editorials or opinion columnists here because opinion-ating is the job of these offerings, they make no bones about it, and no thinking reader could possibly view them as transmitters of straight news. (I mentioned sports columnist Brewer just because I’m so sick and tired of the politicization of sports in general lately, and because I really do read it first – so it makes a special impression on me. If you believe that’s not very sound analytially, you could be right.)

But the paper’s hard news coverage needs to provide a much less varnished picture for its readers. In the meantime, I’ll be grateful that I haven’t yet seen any sign that a Woke version of Out of My Window has come out. Yet.

Im-Politic: Ivy League Princeton Turns Bush League in the History Wars

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cancel culture, Christopher L. Eisgruber, Founding Fathers, history wars, Im-Politic, Ivy League, James Madison, Princeton University, race relations, racism, slavery, Washington Post, Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Full disclosure: Although I graduated from Princeton University and believe that I got a great education there (for a princely sum, to be sure), for various reasons, I never felt much affinity to the place (except for the basketball and other athletics teams – long story). As a result, I’ve never given it a dime . Even so, it’s depressing to learn that for the last seven years, the school as been run by a leadership team that’s full either of guilt-driven liberals, ignoramuses, utter ditzes, or some combination of the two.

I know this because the university’s president, Christopher L Eisgruber, has just explained in an op-ed in today’s Washington Post why he persuaded Princeton’s Board of Trustees to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s School of Public and International Affairs.

My scorn for this move and those responsible for it has nothing to do with any doubt concerning the racist views and policies of a figure who was not only President of the United States, but president of Princeton. I’ve fully recognized Wilson as a racist here and here. Nor do I hold the former Woodrow Wilson School in any special regard. In fact, I’ve long considered “public and international affairs” as being about as legitimate a university course of study as sports communications.

Instead, I view the Wilson name removal as (to quote Eisgruber) “an excess of political correctness” precisely because he’s also expressed strong agreement with one of the few sensible notions that have emerged from America’s recent history wars – that there’s a crucial distinction between figures who are known only or mainly for supporting treasonous and racist and other odious views and policies, and those whose role in U.S. history entailed much much more. More.

In this vein, Eisgruber acknowledges explicitly that Wilson “is a far different figure than John C. Calhoun or Robert E. Lee, people whose pro-slavery commitments defined their careers and who were sometimes honored for the purpose of supporting segregation or racism.” He recognizes that many of Wilson’s achievements both at the university and in the White House can legitimately be called “genuine” and even “grand.” And he goes on to admit that “I do not pretend to know how to evaluate his life or his staggering combination of achievement and failure.”

Weirder still: As Eisgruber explains, responding in 2015 to student demands that the university “de-Wilson-ize” itself Eisgruber asked the Board to study how Princeton was presenting Wilson’s record and legacy, and the school ultimately decided to “recount its history, including Wilson’s racism, more honestly.”

In my view, that’s exactly the right way to handle the matter, and I’ve since urged that participants in the national debate to think harder about similarly thoughtful ways to deal with other historical figures who also deserve to be remembered as more than racists whatever flaws on the issue they demonstrated or embodied.

But Eisgruber and the Princeton board have taken the easy, and simplistic way out. Although nowadays the concept of “slippery slope” is abused way too often (because it too conveniently defines out of existence any need and ability to make intelligent choices or draw important distinctions), Princeton’s decision raises the question of why Abraham Lincoln or the Founding Fathers, with their own problematic racial records and actual slave-owning, shouldn’t be expunged from the nation’s public places as well (or from whatever private places honor them).

According to Eisgruber, he changed his mind because even with the 2015 changes, Princeton was still honoring Wilson

“without regard to, and perhaps even in ignorance of, his racism.

“And that, I now believe, is precisely the problem. Princeton is part of an America that has too often disregarded, ignored and turned a blind eye to racism, allowing the persistence of systems that discriminate against black people.”

But of course, the university had taken specific steps to (as Eisgruber told us) “recount its history, including Wilson’s racism, more honestly.” So what’s changed between then and now?

Similar questions arise from Eisgruber’s associated contention that “When a university names its public policy school for a political leader, it inevitably offers the honoree as a role model for its students. However grand some of Wilson’s achievements may have been, his racism disqualifies him from that role.”

If so, however, why keep Wilson’s name on one of its residential colleges and on it’s “highest award for undergraduate alumni”? (As Eisgruber calls the Woodrow Wilson Prize. Unless that, too, has changed? Eisgruber didn’t specify.)

Finally, why have Eisgruber and the Board stopped with Wilson? The university also still honors the slave-owning (and pretty consistent slavery supporter) Founding Father and former President of the United States James Madison in at least two ways: a scholarly program called the James Madison Society, and a dining option called “Madison Society”. What the heck is so special about him? Why not kick this racist SOB’s name off the campus, too? 

Nothing could be clearer than that Eisgruber has no rational answers to these questions – and may not have even asked them. In fact, the only intellectually honest or competent sentence in his entire article is his confession that “I do not pretend to know how to evaluate [Wilson’s] life or his staggering combination of achievement and failure.”

In other words, Princeton’s decision stands as a monument – to ignorance. And you can probably throw in intellectual cowardice and faddism as well.

Following Up: Another Confederate Statue Mess

Tags

Albert Pike, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clarence Williams, Confederacy, Confederate monuments, D.C., D.C. Police, District of Columbia, Following Up, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, history wars, National Park Service, peaceful protests, Perry Stein, Peter Hermann, protests, Trump, U.S. Park Police, vandalism, Washington Post

There is so much shameful behavior by various government and law enforcement authorities reported in this morning’s Washington Post account of the illegal takedown of a statue of a Confederate general (Albert Pike) in the District of Columbia (D.C.) that it’s hard to know where to begin.

But let’s begin on a positive note: There was nothing shameful in the Post‘s own account. Quite the contrary:  reporters Perry Stein, Clarence Williams, and Peter Hermann – and their editors – provided an unusual amount of useful information. Hopefully we’ll see much more journalism like that going forward.

In fact, the Post article taught me something that shows I made a significant mistake in a tweet yesterday. When I learned of the statue’s removal by a mob, I tweeted, “Let me get this straight: The #DC government is so #racist that #peacefulprotest-ers had no choice but to take the law into their own hands & tear down the #AlbertPike statue. Plus, DC cops stand by and watch. Totally disgraceful #vandalism & vandalism coddling. #murielbowser.” (Bowser is D.C.’s Mayor.)

The mistake has to do with jurisdiction. As the Post reported, the D.C. police noted that “The statue in question sits in a federal park and therefore is within the jurisdiction of National Park Service and the United States Park Police.” So the District’s government didn’t, as I implied, have the authority to remove the statue.

Yet although I apologize for the D.C. government reference, I still stand behind mob point (about the need always to follow lawful procedures for removing such monuments) and the D.C. police point. Unless everyone should applaud officers who stand by and do absolutely nothing when flagrant lawbreaking is not only within plain sight, but scarcely a block away? What if the D.C. police saw a murder being threatened in a federal park? (By the way, as a longtime District resident, I can tell you that the parks in which these monuments stand are mostly vestpocket-size parks, and aren’t watched or patrolled regularly by anyone at any time of day.)

Moreover, there’s evidence that the D.C. police were aware that something was wrong – and weren’t even positive that they lacked the authority to act. The Post  quoted a National Park Service spokesman as claiming that “D.C. police had called U.S. Park Police dispatch to ask about jurisdiction. He said in an email that when Park Police officers arrived, ‘the statue was already down and on fire.’ The toppling of the statue is under investigation, he said. Litterst [the spokesman] did not address whether the Park Service thinks D.C. police should have intervened.”

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that monuments to traitors like Confederate generals have no place on public grounds, it’s clear that the federal government has been brain-dead on this issue (to put it kindly). But the Post account also reveals that this disgraceful neglect long predates the presidency of Donald Trump (who continues to oppose any changes in these statues’ placement or even renaming U.S. military bases named after such treasonous figures).

Specifically, “District officials have been trying to get the statue removed for several years. The D.C. Council petitioned the federal government to remove the statue in 1992.”

From then until Mr. Trump’s inauguration, four Presidents have served – including recent liberal and Mainstream Media darlings George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Why didn’t they remove the statue? Why haven’t they even commented on the matter? And why haven’t they been called on the carpet for their records on this matter, and for their silence?

But let’s close on a positive note, too. One question raised by this statue controversy – what to do with it – is pretty easily answered. Either stick it in a museum (with a full description provided of this minor Confederate figure) or throw it in the city or some federal dump.

Im-Politic: Why Most of the U.S. History Wars Shouldn’t Even Be Fought

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Founding Fathers, history, history wars, Im-Politic, political correctness, Princeton University, racism, Robert E. Lee, slavery, Woodrow Wilson

Last week I wrote about my experiences with the political correctness and free speech disputes at my alma mater Princeton University in the mid-1970s and, what do you know? They reappeared on the campus this past week in their “history wars” form. It’s worth covering – but not because the demands for more or less erasing the physical legacy of former university and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from the campus were especially novel or unusual according to the standards of our time. Nor was the university’s response, which could be interpreted in various ways ranging from a polite brushoff to an instance of kick-the-can-ism.

Instead, this episode is worth covering because it provides a good opportunity for presenting some common-sense guidelines on depicting historical figures in public spaces or within private communities when such a private controversy arises (as in the case of a private university).

The Princeton students protesting the university’s longstanding showcasing of Wilson base their position on the former president’s segregationist views on racial subjects and on the segregationist policies he approved during his White House tenure. There’s no legitimate doubt that their accusations are accurate.

Defenders of the university status quo have pushed back with equally accurate points – noting that some of Wilson’s decisions on a related question – the role of Jews in American society – both on the campus and in Washington, D.C. were enlightened by the standards of his time. Indeed, they legitimately go even further, and argue that, in both these positions, Wilson was a major champion of many progressive values. (Here’s an excellent summary of this case.)

In my view, the pro-Wilson forces have the better argument, by a considerable margin. But they don’t deserve victory for the reasons they emphasize – i.e., because their opponents have failed to recognize what how exemplary Wilson really was. Instead, their position is stronger because it makes clear what should matter most in evaluating and acknowledging the role of historical figures: the sum total of their records and significance. As a result, leaders like Wilson deserve recognition because their impact on university and American history far transcended characteristics rightly regarded as shortcomings today, and that were hardly impressive even in their own eras.

That is, Wilson was not simply a racist. He was someone whose actions shaped American politics and higher education in ways felt even today. And because this record was at worst lamentable in some (but hardly all) respects, it’s fitting and proper that the nation – and the university – have decided to honor him.

In this way, therefore, Wilson resembles the Founding Fathers. As widely known, Washington and Jefferson were slave-holders. But obviously they were so much more. It’s somewhat less widely known that Lincoln held racist views about black people. But he was so much more. This point might seem indistinguishable from the debate over merits that I just belittled, and obviously they’re very close. The essence of it is, though, that for figures of wide-ranging importance whose legacy was not overwhelmingly malevolent, these debates simply shouldn’t be necessary. Therefore, when they break out, the kind of common sense that’s essential for sound decision-making inevitably and damagingly takes a back seat.

Moreover, in this way, Wilson, the Founders, Lincoln, and others in this category fundamentally differ from, say major Confederate leaders. Although Robert E. Lee, for example, served America admirably in the Mexican War (which was not an especially admirable venture), his name wouldn’t be on roads, public schools, and even university campuses all over the country because of that role, or even because he became commander at West Point. He’s only widely remembered at all because he was a leader of the greatest single act of treason – and one motivated overwhelmingly by racist considerations – in American history. So he clearly belongs in the textbooks – along with other prominent Confederates. But honoring their memory, and that of their cause, is disgraceful.

Not every such decision is an easy call. Andrew Jackson, for instance, embodied many praiseworthy populist impulses, and was certainly a consequential president. He also rose above sectional interests and perspectives by opposing southern claims of states rights over federal law, and would have enjoyed great ratings had opinion polls existed back then. But his Indian expulsion policies were reprehensible, and arguably so even for the early 19^th century.

If the common sense rule is invoked, however, Americans shouldn’t be faced with too many of these hard calls. Because the essence of history is change, and because it’s vital to keep learning about and rethinking the past, judgments about various historical events and individuals should never be fixed in stone or so viewed. But unless you think that the basic, admirable narrative of American history is fundamentally wrong, or that most of our leading forebears were in fact generally contemptible, you’ll agree that the overwhelming burden of proof is on the revisionists to overturn the current consensus on events and individuals that Americans have chosen to honor – and that far more often than not, this burden has not remotely been met.