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the same people saying "history will judge trump harshly" also say trump is The Worst President The U.S. Has Ever Had sooooo that tells you a lil somethin bout how u.s. history already judged past presidents just sayin'
as a society we lionize presidents who owned slaves, who orchestrated genocide, who ordered mass deportations and drone bombings, who oversaw countless deaths.
lincoln ordered the largest mass execution in u.s. history and he has a gleaming memorial downtown and has practically been canonized by u.s. civil religion.
it is hard to be more bloodthirsty genocidal than andrew jackson and he's still on our currency, there's probably a billion streets and civil buildings named after this absolute monster.
people practically excoriate you for even pointing out obama's campaign of drone strikes or how he ramped up deportations and that's not even the "distant" past (there's no part of u.s. history that is "distant" this nation's a baby)
trump isn't out of office yet and people are saying to forget and move on. people stay acting like "history" is a passive thing that just... happens, that the facts will just immutably be handed down from generation to generation.
even though that's never been true; history as a discipline is written, by people who have interests and slants and bias and we're watching in real time as people CHOOSE what to say and not say, how even in the MIDDLE of things happening folks try lying to our faces.
and still people want to pretend "history" (all by itself) is gonna step up and tell some kinda accurate story. for so many people in u.s. schools we get a distorted view of history told through a white-centric lens.
and that's gonna continue for a majority if we don't dismantle the systems that enable it! it's not like "history" is one thing written in a book somewhere.
it's going to school and getting taught that the south fought for "state's rights" and having to unlearn that shit later. it's having confederate statues in your statehouses. it's having genocidal, slave-owning rapists on your money.
it's living in a colonial settler-state built on stolen land, built on genocide, built on the backs of slaves.
what will it be in future? i don't know. but being surrounded by people both-sidesing violent confederate-worshiping conspiracy-obsessed fascists probably is gonna affect how "history" characterizes all this.
a large chunk of the country agitating for genocide at the fascist-in-chief's urging while another large chunk tells the people they want to kill that we need to learn to reach out to them better is probably gonna affect how "history" characterizes all this.
i mean, history is written by whoever's doing the writing. ionno how y'all think "history" is gonna come down hard on white supremacists if... we don't come down hard on white supremacists. that's just not realistic.
