The Atrocity of Trump’s Ideological Revisionism at 250 Years of American Empire

Two hundred fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 men of the era—all of them members of the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1776. The declaration indicted King George III as a “tyrant,” despite conflicting evidence and accounts. A political elite of white male property owners characterized the king as a criminal.

According to the book “The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III” by Baron Andrew Roberts, the Declaration of Independence was simply replete with “inaccurate, repetitious, unfair, and wildly exaggerated political propaganda.” While I don’t diminish the key, monumental successes of our nation in reaching this 250-year milestone, it is incumbent upon us to address our history truthfully and honestly, including the country’s founding. While the debate over George III’s stance on issues, such as slavery, remains disputed, Roberts depicts a contradictory and sobering depiction of a monarch we in the U.S. are socialized to view as evil.

History is not one-dimensional. On the issue of slavery, Roberts proposes that George III was an opponent of slavery and abhorred the practice. The king eventually signed an 1807 act abolishing the slave trade, but it was not until later in that century that slavery was abolished in the empire.

I also point out the same type of progression of events in the United States. George Washington is viewed as a person of supposed semi-divinity in the United States. He is presented, like George III, as having moral and personal opposition to the institutions of slavery and human bondage. Both, though, are direct and indirect beneficiaries of slavery, including the practice’s role in establishing an American empire. Both were also flagrantly racist, as was expected for the time frame. As demonstrated, this shows the truth that two of the leading personalities in the American Revolutionary War and its era were not dissimilar. This is factual, as it demonstrates the magnitude of the profound moral contradictions that illuminate official and revisionist interpretations of our shared history.

What was most alarming to me as we celebrated July Fourth this year was the current framing narrative of national history, albeit neither the first nor the last attempt at such framing. Consider the fact that President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order early in his administration calling for what he presents as a “restoration” of United States history and the story of the nation’s founding. He established a framework through Executive Order (EO) 14253, aptly titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” to promote problematic historical framing that I allude to. Trump is whitewashing and revising history in favor of misleading or, as plainly put, false interpretations.

He does this to present an ultranationalistic, patriotic narrative that resonates among his political base. And I do believe Trump openly ordered the desecration and pillaging of the national effort to responsibly promote and communicate to the world an inclusive and representative accounting of history, recollecting our arrival to a formal 250 years. I chose to mention the work of Trump’s administration to target scores of nuanced interpretations of our country’s history in the middle of the column because I wanted to furnish a “mirror” of sorts at the beginning. That mirror isn’t intended to demean the reader by any means. Rather, this mirror serves as a symbolization of the type of narratives we are all socialized to never question in the name of a patriotic discipleship.

Patriotism in the United States remains quite low, but it is hardly the real crisis at hand. Revisionism is a concept that is thrown around among the political parties of every country, it seems, very often. The same can be said about our country, especially when we consider the actual act in practice. If I am being intellectually honest myself, I engage in revisionism to challenge the rising far-right dogma that has swept the United States. In fact, if we boil down the complexity of revisionism to its most basic form, it is simply interpretation and reinterpretation. Nevertheless, my practice of the concept is to apply a humanist approach to understanding such complexities of contradiction.

Marxist humanism of the Praxis school explains that there is a need for a “creative praxis,” which is defined as an active fusion of theory and action. More specifically, a praxis theory-practice loop is perpetual, meaning that there needs to be a need for free, creative, and self-reflective emphasis on human activity. This runs counter to many right-wing ideologies jockeying for dominance and directly contradicts far more repressive derivatives of Karl Marx’s theories like Marxist-Leninism and Stalinism. The individual is key, not the state or the markets.

This is crucial to understanding my analysis. Trump is openly engaging in a revisionist enterprise I would consider to be negative and counter to positive revisionism. As a product of an overt and clear demonstration of negative revisionism, Trump’s EO 14253 is the personified incarnate of a far-right “approved” historical narrative that he and his allies wish to impose on their citizenry.

Consider what is presently happening in Philadelphia. The site of our nation’s momentous independence from the British is still shrouded in the evil legacy of slavery. As a part of the executive order, Trump ordered displays and exhibits dealing with subject matter such as slavery at national parks and monuments managed by the U.S. federal government removed because they disparaged the administration’s preferred narrative of the national founding. For example, the commemoration of the nine slaves George Washington purchased to serve him at the President’s House during his tenure as president of the early U.S. confederation was one such exhibit taken down.

The City of Philadelphia sued the National Park Service in federal court in January of this year because of the removal of the outdoor exhibit detailing the lives of the nine people enslaved by Washington during his tenure.

A preliminary injunction was issued by a federal judge ordering the restoration of the exhibit while litigation played out, but the federal government appealed to the more-conservative-leaning U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Third Circuit sided with Trump and the White House when arguing that Philadelphia doesn’t have the authority to dictate programming and exhibits at a national historical park. Legal processes aside, the entire fact that this is even a point of contention speaks to this negative revisionism I mention. Tying in those examples from the beginning of this column, that is a true act of ideological imperialism with Trump flair.

That is a true atrocity for our era. The greatest betrayal of the United States is such deliberate erasure. A nation that censors its own history in the service of political mythology ceases to be a republic; it is a pauper’s grave of racists, bigots and leaders covered in orange bronzer.