American History–The Ugly Side

“Fox & Friends” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy is upset that she was made to feel “ashamed” and “guilty” when she visited Monticello, the home of late President Thomas Jefferson, and was told that Jefferson was a slaveholder.

Campos-Duffy’s fellow co-host, Pete Hegseth, began the whining by claiming the “whole tone” at Monticello has now turned to Jefferson’s owning of slaves:

“It’s overwhelmingly negative! You go to visit the legacy of Thomas Jefferson and you learn about what a terrible person Thomas Jefferson was.”

And then Campos-Duffy joined the conversation:

“I visited many of these homes. And that is definitely what I picked up from all of this, that there is a reorienting, reconstructing of the history to basically make sure that the idea that they had slaves is on the same level as what they did for our country.”

But she was far from finished, adding:

“There are slaves across human history. I get that. It’s a terrible history we should talk about but we should not feel guilty or ashamed of our leaders when we go and visit the people who brought us the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. You leave feeling that way.”

Co-host Joey Jones then added his voice to the matter:

“These were great men as far as their ideas go but they were able to build this on the backs of slaves and we honor that. And we talk about that. That’s different than re-writing the importance of Jefferson, the importance of Washington or whoever it may be. And why have Monticello at all if you’re only going to use it for grievance?”

All of this, Campos-Duffy interjected, is part of a plan by the left to rewrite history:

“Where’s all this coming from? The homes of these presidents are being populated — this is a very diabolical plan on the part of the left. So what they’ve done is they’ve taken their donors on the left and they’ve populated the boards of these estates with leftists.”

Yes, let’s tell our children what a great man Thomas Jefferson was, but not that he owned slaves. They don’t need to know that the man who wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” was, in a very real sense, a hypocrite. Better to just let them think Tom was a great guy and not explore the fact that he likely had children by at least one of the women he owned as a piece of property.

Conservatives are truth deniers who want to pretend the United States has never done anything wrong. But that’s not accurate. And if Rachel Campos-Duffy doesn’t like that fact, then she needs to stay away from Monticello, grab a fluffy blanket, and go find her safe space.

Here’s the video:

Over the years, there’s been some absolutely moronic, absurd, and misleading shit said on right-wing media, most notably Fox News, which is infamous for trafficking in lies and conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact or grounding in reality.

But in today’s wide-open media bouillabaisse of anything goes inanity — fueled in part by the explosion of social media platforms and ubiquity of the internet everywhere you go — we have even more extreme mutant strains of nutbaggery such as Newsmax, where today’s batshit, head-shaking headline originated with a discussion of “critical race theory” which led to a guest warning that teaching about slavery and how whites have treated blacks in the United States over the centuries will result in “death camps” for white people.

Those words came from right-wing radio host Michael Savage, who told Newsmax hosts Steve Cortes and Jenn Pellegrino that there’s already violence against whites all over the country:

“And now they’re beating up white children in schoolrooms. And I’m not going to mince words. You can cut me off if you have to. I know you probably agree with me. I can’t take this anymore. And there’s only one solution to it—sue the goddamn schools if they do it to your child for child abuse, and you will win.”

Yeah, kids didn’t start beating each other up until racism became a topic of discussion, right, Michael? As for suing for child abuse, can we also sue parents who voted for Trump and believe his bullshit? Seems only fair, don’t you agree?

Rather than provide proof of his specious assertions, Savage went full douche and brought up Nazi Germany and the Holocaust:

“The same kind of thing started in Germany. The Jews were no good. The Jews did this. The Jews did that. The next thing you know they were being excluded from swimming pools. They didn’t put them in concentration camps overnight.
“I studied this intimately. I am Jewish. I know how this starts. Attacks on white people is exactly what was done to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. Don’t fall for this garbage. This is the road to the death camps. Stand up to these bastards and sue them!”

Newsmax guest says critical race theory is "the road to the death camps," adding "attacks on white people is exactly what was done to the Jews in Germany in the '30s" pic.twitter.com/jus8XSqz2Q
— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 22, 2021

Jewish Americans were once excluded from public swimming pools, clubs, and schools in this country, too. Did it lead to concentration camps? No. It led to reforms, change, and a growth in American consciousness that allowed this country to evolve and realize the ignorance of such discrimination.

We have to understand where we’ve been as a nation in order to make sure we don’t repeat the past endlessly and lose our souls. Learning from history — even the dark and controversial parts — is how we prevent repeating it.