This is a weekly post wherein I write about things I’ve been reading, watching, and thinking about. The first part is free, the rest is for paid subscribers only.
Nick’s essay on American history, with Graham H. Cornwell
Nick Danforth co-authored an essay on American history I found fascinating. They look at American textbooks to see how America has struggled with its history, and how it has long conceded some of its mistakes while trying to hold on to itself as an inherently virtuous country. American textbooks were whitewashing the country’s history, and the added bits of self-criticism served that overall project. In its last version, this was people like Jake Sullivan holding on to the hypocrisy as a way for the country to learn from its past mistakes.
With Trump, that hypocrisy has ended, and vulgar realism reigns. Trump, the authors argue, bought the whitewashed version of American history wholesale. So the self-correcting narrative kind of ate itself.
The United States is now writing a chapter that will be difficult for future historians to sanitize. Many on the left hope that as a result, Americans will be stripped of their illusions and forced to confront how violent and exploitative their country has always been. But then what? The problem is that whether you see the sins of the United States as resulting from misplaced idealism or something much darker, and whether you actually believe the country has shown a unique capacity for self-improvement, there’s still not much to do now besides hope it can do better.
I might have added that the far left in America is also ready to end hypocrisy in its own way, by abdicating power entirely, and repenting of America’s sins.
As one might expect from Nick, there are a lot of great maps in the piece. And foreignpolicy.com is still free, in honor of America’s 250th birthday, so do read it quickly!
