There is very little new under the sun. The monument and statue destruction that we are witnessing has been witnessed in other times and other places. A tyrant’s first battlefield is to rewrite history. Most notable were the political purges of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet government erased figures from Soviet history by renaming cities — such as the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg to Petrograd and Leningrad and Stalingrad — and eradicating memories of czarist rule. Stalin’s historical revisions also included changing photographs and history books, thereby distorting children’s learning within educational establishments.
Most of the effort to rewrite American history has its roots among the intellectual elite on our college campuses whose message has been sold to predominantly white college students who have little understanding of how they are being used. Much of their current focus is on tearing down statues and changing names that they deem offensive. They have denounced George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Without much understanding of history, they have demanded that Princeton University remove the name of Woodrow Wilson, who was a progressive, from its public policy school and residential college. Some are urging Yale University to change its name because its benefactor Elihu Yale was a slave trader.
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