This is especially true as we limp, wounded, from the battlefields of the Trump era, when facts were nearly rendered irrelevant. In April, the Department of Education called for a renewed stress, in the classroom, on the “unbearable human costs of systemic racism” and the “consequences of slavery.” In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a formal letter, demanding more “patriotism” in history and calling the Democrats’ plan “divisive nonsense.” Like all great questions of national memory, the latest history war has to play out in politics, whether we like it or not. Once again, Americans find themselves at war over their history-what it is, who owns it, how it should be interpreted and taught.
