1776 COMMISSION AND AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

As Joe Biden officially took office as the 46th U.S. president, his intentions to clean house of his predecessor’s more questionable orders became instantly evident: He immediately withdrew several of ex-President Donald Trump’s most controversial executive orders, among them a push for an educational program with very clear and specific ideologically nationalist intentions.

The “1776 Commission,” a committee with the goal of providing “patriotic education” as the group so infamously described, exists in contrast to what is widely taught (though arguably not widely enough) regarding the United States’ long, daunting history of oppression toward demographical minorities, something Trump interestingly labeled “a twisted web of lies.”

Though the commission’s life was short and pathetic, indeed, it did manage to successfully release a 40-plus-page statement, “The 1776 Report,” during the literal final days of Trump’s administrative control of the White House. The document tediously yet shallowly references various historical events and figures, frequently labeling nonflattering interpretations of “patriotic” concepts and their consequences as disdain-worthy. Within the report, progressivism and identity politics are baffingly equated to slavery and fascism, in terms of being “challenges to America’s principles” – an obvious deep embrace of a particular kind of Americanism, one that should seem as immune to criticism.

It is well worth noting that the paper’s naming convention and defensive rhetoric is a clear response to The New York Times’ Pulitzer-Prize winning “1619 Project,” a compilation of various works by contemporary journalists seeking to reframe our understanding of our U.S. past through a lens aware of the country’s rich history of involuntary servitude, in particular. Granted, while “1619” has not been without its healthy criticisms, it is clear by the Trump administration’s transparent contempt of that project’s contents and its own standoffishness that it was unwilling to simply join in denouncing the United States’ past sins but rather intensely willing to insist on some sort of inherent virtue (apparently present even during such abhorrent eras) the country will forever hold.

Almost needless to say, the “1776 Report” received immediate backlash from historical academia. The American Historical Association couldn’t help but notice how the document tended to vehemently stand by monuments that “honor either men who committed treason by violating oaths of office and taking up arms against the United States government, or whose main historical significance lay in their defense of slavery or other forms of white supremacy.” The group declared the document as evidently intending to serve as “a form of government indoctrination of American students, and in the process [elevating] ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.”

Though the commission itself is now surely dead, it is deeply troubling to understand how the alarmingly ill-informed perspective that produced such a work of disastrous potential has been allowed to hold so much influence over our everyday lives.

No matter how much one may desire to cover their ears and spout noise-canceling nonsense, prominent American figures and the history they helped create never were, and never will be anywhere near perfect, and it is destructive to cling to such a fantasy. Dogmatic belief in anyone or anything as solely consisting of spotless accomplishment, or only carelessly reciting said accomplishments, leads only to eventual disappointment or delusional denial (accomplishments, of course, a highly subjective title to grant to any particular action).

Patriotism – and therefore nationalism – is the enduring insistence on embracing a sense of belonging, in truth not-at-all influenced by the country you happened to end up in, but by the people who made you feel accepted: the reality being, accepting people exist all over the globe, a type of love that is ultimately borderless. But holding so tightly onto such a concept, with disregard for missteps or blemishes, makes for the inevitable disappointment or denial.

It is only when divisive dishonesty is discouraged to the point of total irrelevance that a grand coming-together can finally be unconditionally possible; a pipe dream to some, sure, but to many others, a dream worth fighting for, nevertheless.