Col. Nathan Jessup’s line “You can’t handle the truth!” from “A Few Good Men,” is one of my favorite movie quotes. Who other than Jack Nicholson could deliver such a line? It makes me ponder “How much truth can my fellow Americans and I handle?”
Truth has always been hard to find, particularly in politics. President Trump averages 21 false or misleading statements a day, according to a Washington Post tally from Trump’s first term. In our politics and public discourse, propaganda, disinformation, conspiracy theories and myths rule the day.
Whether we can handle the truth depends on first determining what the truth is. The need for that discernment is needed now more than ever. This year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and Americans will be inundated with myths and sanitized tales from the political left and the radical right about our country’s birth and its forefathers.
Two planning groups for the anniversary are fighting over dollars and the narrative itself. America250, led by a bipartisan board created by Congress two decades ago to mark the semi quincentennial, is facing off against the upstart Freedom250, a public-private partnership created by Trump.
If you ask which group to support, remember the Army’s 250th anniversary last year. America250 focused on the Army itself with grants to states and a float in the Rose Bowl Parade while Trump held a military parade through Washington, D.C. Freedom250 has the highest profile of the two, thanks to Trump’s backing, and is connected with “Freedom Trucks” currently crisscrossing red states and a “Freedom Plane” that took off in early March to showcase the Declaration and other historical documents. According to the Washington Post, the group is also planning a prayer event on the National Mall, an Indy race through the streets of D.C. and a UFC-hosted fight outside the White House on Trump’s birthday.
Both groups rely on private funding, mainly from Big Tech, for programming and will share $150 million allocated by Congress last year, according to the Post. Naturally there is sniping between those on the left and those on the right over where to spend the money. Liberals fear private sponsors will bribe Trump. Conservatives want to stop the spread of “woke” ideology and diversity initiatives. That’s “par for the course” but not the real problem.
The actual programming and messaging are the real hazards. Which partisan interpretation of our history will most Americans see? Who is telling the story and will it honor the traditional white interpretation of our history from our school days or will the story attempt to move beyond stereotypes and include contributions of minorities and immigrants?
The answer is that the Freedom250 version will most certainly include virtue signaling about “traditional values,” thanks to contributions from conservative media group PragerU and Hillsdale College. America250 will also miss the truth with a blend of its own stereotypes and left-leaning interpretations.
Unfortunately, both groups will intentionally and unintentionally cover up the truth about how this country came to be. To get closer to the truth, we must rely on trained historians, in particular public historians. For instance, they can help us understand the crucial years before the Revolutionary War (the actual American Revolution) when the colonists realized the British Parliament was not operating in their best interests. The men who fought at Lexington and Concord did not just wake up April 19, 1775, with an overwhelming desire to throw lead at a bunch of redcoats. It took years of growing resistance and evolving thought and debate before colonials from varying backgrounds and with different views were ready to fight the actual Revolutionary War.
We need historians now because we live in a time where resistance to a dictatorial Trump regime is needed. Historians can help us understand how to resist authoritarianism because this is not the first time (or the second or third) that Americans have faced down tyrants.
As the 250th celebrations take place, keep a sharp eye out for which version of American history you are hearing or seeing. Who is behind that tribute to our founding fathers? What message are they sending? Is a local politician pushing a sanitized version of the American Revolution to promote his or her vision of a country bulging with wholesome white Christian families and covering up the fact that our founding fathers had feet of clay?
American history is rich in resistance narrative. Public historian and teacher Tad Stoermer’s upcoming book “A Resistance History of the United States” has much to say on this subject.
Historians do not always agree and giant egos abound. But those who work every day to show us the truth about our great nation can help us look to the past and find ways that work to oppose Trump’s authoritarianism. They can also help us charter a brighter future for the next 250 years.