Destroying America’s History
One Icon at a Time
Columbus Day brought a refreshing reminder that leftists are effectively erasing America’s heritage as an important step in transforming America into a socialist state.
As I look, “Happy Indigenous Peoples” day is approaching 100K tweets, which is simply advancing the narrative that was already set in motion by leftists across America.
A teacher posted some of the proud pictures from her propagandized little ones with sayings like “Christopher Columbus didn’t find America,” and “Christopher Columbus is a really mean man.” How charming.
A Christopher Columbus statue was torn down in Los Angeles in 2018 and several others were vandalized this year.
Americans were furious in 2001 when they saw that the Taliban had destroyed Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan. The prevailing cultural zeitgeist at the time ran clearly against toppling statues. Don’t these third-world barbarians know that they are destroying world culture? It helped elevate the Taliban’s evil in the eyes of the world.
Murderous Islamist thugs harboring terrorists? That’s pretty bad. Destroyers of world culture? Call in the Marines! Even the liberal American media were outraged.
Less than twenty years later, destroying monuments is becoming a national sport in America with little outcry and support from the media. Leftists have become the Taliban, which is no surprise since the goals are similar. When attempting to force a twisted worldview on society, overthrowing perceived enemies and any connection to a different past is essential.
When a 200-year old monument of Christopher Columbus was smashed in Baltimore a couple years back, a sign was hung on it that read, “The future is racial and economic justice.” In case anyone thought this was just America’s youth acting out as opposed to Marxist-inspired destruction, the act was narrated on YouTube and referenced “capitalist exploitation of labor.”
The leftists started with Confederate monuments, which made a good test to see what kind of resistance they would face. It was a crafty and evil first play. The statue destroyers weren’t terribly discriminating. Monuments to peace and to those who opposed slavery were torn down next to the others.
Kicking a toppled Confederate monument in Durham, NC (Twitter video screen grab)
Few Americans roused themselves to resist, especially after media lies and manipulation around Charlottesville.
The Left’s effort was never about destroying America’s legacy of slavery. Democrats have been on the side of slavery and then racism at every turn in America’s history. They were simply starting with the easiest target to normalize their far more insidious goal, which was overthrowing America’s attachment to its history and the ideals this represented.
The shock effect is long gone. Tearing down a statue in America is now treated as little more than background noise. This attack on American history will not end until every monument that can’t be co-opted for the leftist agenda is overthrown.
Of course, it starts before the toppling of the statues. While on the official tour for George Washington’s Mount Vernon homestead, it was hard not to notice that more time was spent talking about Washington the slave owner than Washington the great general or founding father.
The momentum to overthrow a national icon starts subtly, but it builds once the ground is set. Tear down Columbus and then start mentioning Washington’s history fighting American Indians. He becomes just another offender of a mythical “Indigenous People’s Day.” This couples nicely with the already rampant attacks on him as a slave owner. It was seen as good news when a San Francisco school chose only to cover a George Washington mural instead of destroying it.
My daughter recently told me that she was writing an essay on Thomas Jefferson in her high school class. The topic? Jefferson’s problematic history with slavery. That Jefferson is the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of history’s greatest thinkers is irrelevant in the leftist mind.
Icons are flawed men and women of their time. But, they are icons because they did something great and meaningful for America. We study George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because of the incredible contributions these great men made to freedom, liberty, and self-governance. The Left uses them as an opportunity to destroy America.
It’s not just monuments on the menu of destruction. Kate Smith is a woman who was once awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor for her patriotism and powerful renditions of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” Her statues are now being torn down even as teams like the Yankees and Flyers refuse to play a song that was once representative of America itself.
A colleague told me that he considers Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” to be a racist anthem because it is sung by people he considers racists. If such a thing existed, I’m sure he would gladly tear down a Greenwood statue. But, that’s not necessary. There is already cultural pressure to avoid playing Greenwood’s powerful patriotic anthem in any place that is not a distinctly conservative setting. The very idea of being patriotic and proud of America is under attack.
All of this is an attempt to erase America’s history and it should be opposed fiercely. It is part of the overall effort to undermine America’s values and freedom and is par for the course on the socialist menu. It is also the toxic offspring of political correctness and racial tribalism. It all serves the same purpose, which is the fundamental transformation of America into a Marxist state.
If you can damage Thomas Jefferson enough, then the Declaration of Independence must be compromised by extension. I was mildly surprised when touring the University of Virginia recently that our tour guide spoke so positively about Thomas Jefferson and what he meant to the school. That won’t last. In a few years, that beloved statue will be either covered or vandalized, which will serve as a depressing bookend in the same town where American statue destruction exploded into the national consciousness.
If you can do enough damage to the founding fathers, then it is far easier to overthrow the Constitution, or just ignore it.
I was at Hillsdale College for their 175th Anniversary a couple weeks back. While there, I walked past all the statues on campus; statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and a “Last Full Measure of Devotion” statue dedicated to the many students who died fighting for the Union in the Civil War. There are also two statues of non-Americans who advanced the ideals of liberty; Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. The students study the great words of all of these patriots who contributed so much to America and freedom.
It was a stark reminder of what is being lost in this country. The school looks to its past and the unchanging values that have sustained America since its founding. It is inspiring to see. But, it is also a sad reminder that it is now an anomaly. In today’s America, a student would learn more about America’s history and government by watching a couple hours of School House Rock videos than what they will get in twelve years of school.
Americans need to recognize these attacks on America’s history for their intended purpose. A made-up Indigenous People’s Day is not intended to honor American Indians. It is just one more front in the war to destroy America.
Fletch Daniels blogs at deplorabletouchdown.com and can be found on twitter @fletchdaniels.