It comes as no surprise that the history taught in government schools serves to further the image of the State. Outside of compulsory schooling, one might expect that influence to wane over time, but through careful manipulation, the conventional narrative is allowed to permeate our everyday media programs. A fitting example of this was exemplified by a recent CBS Sunday Morning Show segment, which presented a blatantly oversimplified history of social change and was so full of Great Man mythology, that it was more properly fit for a junior high classroom than a weekend news and opinion show. The segment, presented by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, was a shining example of sentimental imperialism, buttoned up all nice and neat, devoid of detail, yet full of flowery imagery ready for mindless repetition by the masses.
Fittingly enough, Abraham Lincoln was at the forefront of the Great Men lineup, followed by Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, all three of the former making an appearance twice in this short narrative. Goodwin encourages the listener to reflect on how these Great Men were able to overcome such bleak and discouraging situations, how they were able to guide this great nation that was teetering on the brink of calamity and how individuals, only by banding together along with these Great Men, have been able to change things for the better. The narrative begins innocently enough, with Goodwin stating that, “Everywhere I go, people stop to ask, are these the worst of times? No, they’re not. History reassures us.” It is true that these are not the worst of times in our nation’s history. Donald Trump is not the worst President and is he not the most uncouth. Should you find yourself listening to a talking head boisterously proclaiming that some Presidential action is unprecedented, it’s a safe bet that it most certainly is precedented and very normal, thanks in large part to the actions of previous administrations.
Abraham Lincoln
Diving right in, Goodwin asks us to, “Imagine, Abraham Lincoln, entering office, with the country about to rupture into a Civil War that would leave more than 600,000 dead…” and implores of the listeners that, “It is time for us to heed Abraham Lincoln’s plea, that we engage together in calm and enlarged consideration ranging far above personal and partisan politics.” This is a rather odd assertion, given the reality of Lincoln’s actions as President. Lincoln placed severe restrictions on dissent, ordered soldiers to destroy newspaper plants and sent the Army to arrest thousands of citizens for expressing differing opinions. Those dissenters found themselves held in military prisons and were denied due process of law, not exactly the mark of someone who is engaged in calm consideration ranging above politics. This was a man who, as historian Tom Woods recently described, “favored an amendment to the Constitution forever preventing the federal government from abolishing slavery, [and who] searched until well into the war for an acceptable place to colonize the soon-to-be-freed slaves.” There is also no mention of the Emancipation Proclamation not being issued until two years into the war, how it only applied to the slaves in the South or the possibility that it was a calculated war measure to encourage insurrection and rebellion. These are all left out of the standard narrative.
Goodwin does attempt to encourage and inspire “we the people,” when she states that, “What we as individuals do now, how and if, we unite, can make all the difference.” This part is true, but perhaps not in the manner that Goodwin is intending. There is no mention of what individuals did on their own, in direct violation of federal authority, when nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. One of the more notorious nullification efforts was the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional, but nullification efforts happened to various smaller degrees all over the Northern States. Vermont, for instance, passed the Habeas Corpus Act which allowed evidence to be presented in court proceedings that the Fugitive Slave Act expressly prohibited while the people of Ohio arrested a Federal Marshal and his agents who were attempting to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. In Michigan and Massachusetts, if you were licensed in the state as an attorney and you represented a slave catcher, you would be disbarred. These stories of open defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act are numerous, but are rarely talked about in the standard history textbooks. Fortunately, they are covered extensively by Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center on two recent podcasts here and here.
Theodore Roosevelt
Moving along, Goodwin asks us to, “Imagine Theodore Roosevelt, thrust into office, when conflict between the rich and the poor had grown so intense, that talk of revolution filled the air,” and who, “warned that the rock on which democracy would founder, would be when regions, classes, races and parties regarded one another as the other, rather than as citizens marked by fellow feeling, banding together for the best interests of our country.” Certainly, talk of revolution filled the air, but Teddy Roosevelt, that captain of jingoism and champion of U.S. exceptionalism, undoubtedly encouraged the “us versus them” mentality, wherein WE (the U.S.) are in the right and YOUR revolution is wrong. The U.S. will force its will upon any and all, violently, if necessary, be it local neighbors or populations well beyond its shores (i.e. Cuba and in the Philippines, respectively). The Teddy Roosevelt might-makes-right mentality ushered in the Woodrow Wilson era of excessive government expansion and a century of perpetual war. Surprisingly enough, Wilson did not make the cut in Goodwin’s list.
This is what is so infuriating: the whitewashing of our so-called Great Men by a mainstream historian, presented in bite sized sound bites that are easily repeated in the office break room, only serves to encourage the masses to accept ideology and abstract principles over the reality of the actions. Do as we say, not as we do.
The whitewashing of our so-called Great Men by a mainstream historian…only serves to encourage the masses to accept ideology and abstract principles over the reality of the actions.
It is worth noting that the Teddy Roosevelt might-makes-right mentality extended not only to foreign populations, but to U.S. citizens as well. In Tom Woods’s book Who Killed the Constitution, Roosevelt explained his philosophy of the presidency as follows, “the president’s power is limited only by express prohibitions, and since the President occupies a political office for which the entire country votes (unlike senators and representatives, whose votes come only from their own states or districts), he is the unique representative of the American people. The president thus embodies the will of the people and must do what is necessary to carry it out.” [p.187] This statement begs the question: how does one define “the will of the people”? For Roosevelt, it was the fact that they had elected HIM, so he shall do whatever he wants. Not surprisingly, he amassed 1,006 executive orders during his nearly two terms in office, far outpacing the previous seven Presidents combined by orders of magnitude. I know what is right for you people, constitution be damned.
National Mythology
What we see in action from Goodwin is the all too familiar act of camouflaging U.S. imperialist tendencies and policy failures, both domestic and foreign. This can been seen in real time with the recent passing of former President George H.W. Bush, with politicians of all political stripes coming out in lock step to lionize a man who ruined countless Latin American nations, kickstarted a war in Iraq in 1990 that is still ongoing today and whose reckless support of U.S. hegemonic imperialism spans decades and and has devoured countless innocent lives. Those in power would prefer to be judged solely on their rhetoric and the self fulfilling prophecy that they have been pre-ordained to lead the masses. Christopher Black, in his essay Western Imperialism and the Use of Propaganda, articulates how this message is reinforced thusly, “The primary concern they [U.S. government officials] have, in order to preserve their control, is for the preservation of the new feudal mythology that they have created: that the world is a dangerous place, that they are the protectors, that the danger is omnipresent, eternal, and omnidirectional, comes from without, and comes from within. The mythology is constructed and presented through all media…All available information systems are used to create and maintain scenarios and dramas to convince the people that they, the protectors, are the good and all others are the bad. We are bombarded with this message incessantly.” Never is this messaging stronger than when a venerated statesman dies. The coverage is non-stop and all encompassing, permeating all news outlets, social media feeds and even sports pre-game shows. The message is manufactured to be consistent and you are to be ostracized if you stray from the narrative.
The mythology is constructed and presented through all media…All available information systems are used to create and maintain scenarios and dramas to convince the people that they, the protectors, are the good and all others are the bad. We are bombarded with this message incessantly. – Christopher Black
Lyndon Johnson
Continuing on, Goodwin then pivots to Lyndon Johnson, who gets an obligatory positive review for taking over after the Kennedy assassination and for ushering in the Civil Rights movement. Oddly, there is no mention of the Vietnam War, an obvious and calculated oversight, which was an abject failure when it came to the civil rights of a foreign people in a faraway land. As Scott Horton put it on a recent episode of the Bob Murphy Show, “The Vietnam War was really the Great Society on an international basis. Yes, government can decide everything for everyone and make everything better…and only the U.S. government is powerful enough to make things right for the world and you are immoral if you don’t want to spread our great democracy to the world.” Get on board and be on the right side of history.
Franklin Roosevelt
Perhaps saving the best for last, Goodwin asks us to, “Imagine Franklin Roosevelt, coming into power when the Great Depression had paralyzed the economy and the spirit of the country.” FDR certainly inherited a mess from Hoover, but he essentially doubled down on government intervention and took it to a whole new level. FDR campaigned on fiscal reform, ending welfare and farm subsidies, reducing deficits, reducing spending and then upon being elected, he immediately reversed course. Some of his first actions in office included declaring a bank holiday, instituting the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Company) and most notoriously, forcibly seizing gold from U.S. citizens, which effectively enabled the Federal Reserve to have unchecked discretion in inflating the money supply. These actions emboldened the financial sectors to take on risks previously unimaginable, for it was now known that government would provide bailouts and manipulate the money supply to the bankers’ benefit.
FDR also continued Hoover’s interventionist farming policies, which led many farmers to stay in certain sectors on the expectation that government would bail them out too, when in a true market economy, they would have moved on to other lines of work. FDR’s government would buy up surplus farm goods, pay farmers not to plant or even pay them to turn over crops that had already been planted. Ultimately, the government would dump those very same surplus goods back onto the market with devastating results. Speaking of paralyzing the spirit of the country, as Goodwin put it, there is nothing more paralyzing than watching food being dumped when you are starving. The popular misconception is that this was the fault of unbridled capitalism is just a continuation of the FDR mythology. Furthermore, the spirit of the country was one of uncertainty, especially within the business sector. With FDR, you never knew when your business might be seized on account of alleged profiteering. In discussing his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, economist Bob Murphy described that, in 1939, “businesses were afraid to take a military contract, because for all they knew a few years into it, government could come in and accuse them of profiteering. And government wouldn’t honor the contract price, for this is what FDR had been doing [throughout the previous years].” Under the FDR administration, the rules were continually changing, businesses weren’t sure if they would be able to keep the profits from their enterprises and many were afraid to put any profits back into the U.S. economy.
Perhaps the worst aspect of FDR’s legacy was the realization that his unpredictable process of continually changing the rules, also known as “regime uncertainty,” was causing harm in the business sector. FDR came to understand that he must get big business on board with any government policies and that a constant demonization of businessmen would result in continued economic ruin. FDR began pulling people from Big Business to get them involved with and put in charge of, government programs for the war effort. This solidified a permanent government/business war partnership that certainly stabilized the economy, but ushered in an era of business feeding off of a continuous warfare state, which would come to be known as the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in the ensuing decades. The cartoon version of FDR that Goodwin wants us to remember is absent of any critical thought into the reality of his actions and we haven’t even gotten to his threats of packing the Supreme Court to influence rulings, the rounding up of American citizens into internment camps and the root causes of America’s entry into WWII (for more on these topics, listen to this short episode of The Agora podcast, with Sal Mayweather). Or, just put all that aside and remember this: times were bad, then FDR came, then WWII, then salvation – the end.
History for “Presentist” Purposes
The implication of Goodwin’s narrative is that President Trump doesn’t live up to our perception of a Great Man, like our previous Presidents have with their duplicitous rhetoric and pre-ordained self-righteousness. You, citizen, must rise up and change that for the better. This is your moral purpose, this is how America, that great beacon on the hill, works. Goodwin reminds us that, “At each crisis, healing change percolated from aroused citizens joining together, with their leaders, toward a moral purpose.” Quite often, it is the opposite, with citizens acting independently, in open defiance of proclamations from on high. Think about individuals openly defying the Fugitive Slave Act, individuals rebelling against that great progressive cause of Prohibition, or individuals trading with each other in black markets when government interventions into farming and finance had wreaked havoc on the economy.
The takeaway from this narrative is summed up best by Sir Herbert Butterfield, in a passage from The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), via an article from historian Samuel C. Smith. In speaking of history and more specifically, the historian’s task, which is, “a rather…complicated “labyrinthine network” that calls for careful and—as much as possible—objective investigation. The historian’s task is to make sense of past complexity and then draw appropriate relevance, not to over-simplify and dramatize it for presentist purposes. To do that is to cheapen history.” Goodwin gave us the cheap history, we would all do well to always question the narrative and look beyond the whitewashed imagery of our National Mythology.
Below is a transcript of the narrative in its entirety. You can listen to the narrative via podcast here (fast forward to the 43:30 mark).
Narrator: What to make of this complicated time in our nation’s history? Some thoughts from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Everywhere I go, people stop to ask, are these the worst of times? No, they’re not. History reassures us. Imagine, Abraham Lincoln, entering office, with the country about to rupture into a Civil War, that would leave more than 600,000 dead. Imagine Theodore Roosevelt, thrust into office, when conflict between the rich and the poor had grown so intense, that talk of revolution filled the air. Imagine Franklin Roosevelt, coming into power when the Great Depression had paralyzed the economy and the spirit of the country. Imagine Lyndon Johnson taking office in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, when the civil rights bill was mired in Congress and racial issues seared the country. Although these four leaders possessed skills and strengths uniquely suited to guide us through, leadership in a democracy requires a two-way street. At each crisis, healing change percolated from aroused citizens joining together, with their leaders, toward a moral purpose. The anti-slavery movement, the progressive movement, the civil rights movement, all laid the foundation for enduring change. While today’s disunity is not as dire, it is potentially deeply damaging. Theodore Roosevelt warned that the rock on which democracy would founder, would be when regions, classes, races and parties regarded one another as the other, rather than as citizens marked by fellow feeling, banding together for the best interests of our country. We must remember, as Franklin Roosevelt insisted, that problems created by man can be solved by man, so long as we pull together toward a common end. And there are many encouraging signs of healing, a wide and deep burst of citizen activism, young voices, a diverse raft of new candidates, including record breaking numbers of women. Whether the change we seek will be positive and inclusive, depends not only on our leaders, but on us. What we as individuals do now, how and if we unite, can make all the difference. It is time for us to heed Abraham Lincoln’s plea, that we engage together in calm and enlarged consideration ranging far above personal and partisan politics. I believe the renewal of the moral vision and purpose that built and sustained us in past turbulent times can do so again.
