Guelzo’s 1619 Mistake

If Hollywood is a problem for an accurate portrayal of the South, don’t count on “conservative” academics to save the day.

Take Allen Guelzo for example.

He was hired a Princeton a few years ago to “balance” the history department. In other words, Guelzo is the token “conservative” on staff.

Except he agrees with his leftist colleagues on one fundamental point: the United States is a “proposition nation” where all men are created equal.

And Abraham Lincoln should be worshiped.

He recently appeared on the History Channel Lincoln extravaganza produced by the plagiarist Dorris Kearns Goodwin featuring every leftist you can name, including Barack Obama.

They are his people.

Guelzo attempted to refute the much maligned 1619 Project a couple of years ago by writing a rejoinder littered with his own misconceptions and fabrications of American history.

You can’t refute lies with lies.

In fact, I would argue that Nikole Hannah-Jones has a better grasp of the proposition nation myth than Guelzo, for if Guelzo is correct that the United States was founded on an idea–equality–then Hannah-Jones and every other progressive nincompoop are perfectly justified by arguing that we’ve never lived up to that lofty standard and every founder should be condemned for being a “racist.”

Guelzo attempts to wiggle around the issue by arguing that they did the best they could for the time and eventually abolished slavery by subjugating evil proto-fascist Southererns.

The left doesn’t care. That’s the problem. Guelzo is just adding fuel to the fire.

You can’t extinguish this five alarm blaze by saying, “Well, you’re right, these people were racist, but these people were less racist, and these people, while racist, were interested in ending slavery and saving the day.”

The left’s response will always be: “Ok, so you admit they’re racist. Cancel them.”

As I’ve said countless times, we’re playing two different games on two different fields by two different rules.

The proper response should be, “So what?”

Regardless, there’s much more to his essay that made me laugh out loud, so I made it the focus of Episode 595 of The Brion McClanahan Show.