In case you missed it, my creepy stalker @DineshDSouza is back, repeating his bizarre claim that "progressive historians" never write about how the Democratic Party was the party of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

Let's all dig in on this

It's a laughable claim, as anyone who took US history in college or even high school knows, but it seems D'Souza never did that.

He's been pushing it for years, and whenever I ask him for examples -- like this thread from July 2018 -- he runs away.

https://t.co/c8H4pw8b3b
D'Souza has repeatedly promised he'll show examples of this trend he insists is incredibly widespread -- examples that are surely at his fingertips! -- but it's been years now.

(He *does* apparently have plenty time to tell everyone else in his replies how very important he is.)
Perhaps we can all help D'Souza out here by identifying any "progressive textbooks" that do, in fact, acknowledge the Democrats' past ties to slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

That way, he can rule those suspects out and move more quickly on to the others.

I'll start.
Howard Zinn probably looms large when people think of leftist histories of the US, so let's start there.

"Democrats were the party of slavery and segregation."

Huh, seems like Zinn gave up the secret. Well, he's probably the only one.
How about Eric Foner?

He's a huge name and his textbook is one of the more widely used ones. I bet *he* hides the Democrats' ties to --

Yikes, the Klan was effectively the "military arm of the Democratic Party in the South."

Huh. That seems bad.

OK, OK, that's two.
OK, let's try Liberty, Equality, Power, the textbook that several of my former colleagues like Jim McPherson and John Murrin and huge figures like @glgerstle wrote.

They're suspiciously progressive, so I bet they hid the Democrats' role in Jim Crow and ... nope.

Three for three
Hmm, let's try David Henkin and Rebecca McLennan, two historians from the godless leftist world of UC-Berkeley.

I bet *they* can be counted on to hide the Democrats' very secret --

Goddammit.
Well, let's try These United States, a recent textbook by progressive historians @GilmoreGlenda and @TomSugrue.

I'm sure *they* hid Democrats' role as the party of white supremacy in the South, because --

Nope.
All right, I bet I can find an example for D'Souza if I look for a textbook that *explicitly* identify themselves as "progressive histories" because they'll surely be in on this very real scam and ...

Damn, really?
Maybe it's a generational thing?

I bet younger leftist scholars like the ones behind the online textbook of @AmericanYawp are pushing this thing. Dinesh always knows what the kids are up to, right?

Well, let's see and ... no.
Well, crap.

Zinn. Foner. McPherson, Murrin, Gerstle, et al. Henkin & McLennan. Gilmore & Sugrue. Carroll. Even the Yawp crew.

They *all* let this really big secret about Democrats' history with slavery and segregation right out of the bag.
I'm not sure where else to look.

Maybe you all can help @DineshDSouza out by providing screenshots here of more books that actually acknowledge this very secret history, so he can cross those off his list too.

Historians, add your own work! Everyone else, check your libraries.
Weird, I write about Democrats being segregationists in my book. And you wrote about Democrats’ support for slavery in *your* book?

Hmm, it’s almost like D’Souza doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

https://t.co/eacYPdHfuo https://t.co/TgK9Tm66mJ

More from Culture

I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x

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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991."
https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.