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I recognize that no one on this site will be surprised by this announcement, but I feel it is worthwhile to point out something that is apparently being forgotten. Adolph Hitler was, in fact, a terrible person. This would seem to be the kind of fact that doesn’t need to be repeated, but here we are in 2022 debating the issues of whether or not Nazis were good people.
There are a couple of claims made here that I think we need to get straight. Ye proclaims that Hitler invented the microphone and highways, and that is simply not the truth. Modern highways have existed in the United States since 1911. If you go back further, the Roman Empire put in a road system that would be the predecessor for all highways today. Inventing the microphone? Well, that is subject to quite a bit of debate, but considering they were in use around 1877, the inventor was not the yet-to-be-born Adolph Hitler.
Hitler’s history is littered with horrors. Everyone may have some moment that was not evil—he might have been cute as a toddler for all we know—but in the end we do not judge a person’s life by the way they cooed at 18 months.
But even the cutest baby pictures don’t redeem someone from being responsible for the murder of millions. I’m sure at one point in his life his mother picked him up and he wasn’t, as a 2-year-old, out slaughtering people. This is why we judge the whole of a person’s life, not just fragments. Kanye and the crew want to decide based on just fragments and ignore the absolute horror show that exists on the other side of the curtain.
The newfound boldness of antisemitism should not be enabled; the promotion of a concept that Hitler “wasn’t all bad” is dangerous.
The moment we start accepting that history can be completely changed and keep future generations from understanding the truth, we have serious, serious problems. We have all come to expect this would happen in the way Republicans treat the civil rights movement as it is taught in schools due to the impact it had on white communities. What I think catches so many by surprise is the way that these redefinitions of history are being applied to World War II, a moment in history that united America in such a profound way that coming out of World War II both parties tried to get the same candidate to run under their banner in Dwight Eisenhower, with both parties engaging in multiple “Draft Eisenhower” moments.
Eisenhower, one of the more popular presidents in history, certainly existed at a different time in Republican politics. Let’s face it, even the 1952 Republican platform had more to say on this issue and leadership that would do something about it than the current crew in the House:
So, wait: In 1952 Republicans were talking about a constitutional amendment for equal rights for women and fair pay? Eventual statehood for Puerto Rico? What we are seeing with Kanye is exactly how twisted the Republican Party has become since that time period.
This is the history Republicans, Kanye, Alex Jones, and everyone else wants you to forget. They want the public to forget a Republican president used the National Guard to integrate schools, whether he did it out of military duty or personal belief, a president who did everything possible to incite racial divides. Now we have Republicans who come from a history that includes the man who helped defeat the Nazi threat and called for equal rights and equal pay to Republicans advocating that women shouldn’t have the right to vote. Ramping up antisemitism is just the latest in exclusionary politics designed to hide even their own leadership of the past.
I’ve heard more than one Republican tell me the best days of America were in the 1950s or 1980s. It is shocking how little they seem to remember about those periods. For some, they forget Iran Contra, the stock market collapse of 1987, and busting of monopolies. For those who miss the 1950s, they miss everything that was present in a government that at least made basic efforts to control military action, that bemoaned external conflicts and that tried to look forward, not back. It was a period where you could have serious disagreements with the Republican Party and not feel as though their president (Eisenhower) represented raw evil. Maybe it was because, again, he helped defeat the Nazis rather than being a leader who praised the Nazis. Is this so difficult to understand?
Markos nails the situation. The Republican Party has sold their soul. They don’t want to “Make America Great Again”—there is no “again” unless you accept a false version of history. The “again” that happens for them is about a past that would endorse these horrific policies. Deny women the right to vote? Well, that certainly is at odds with their own platform in the ‘50s. Expansion of statehood? Good luck getting them to accept that position now.
We cannot forget the journey of history or allow it to be changed if we want to succeed. We owe it to our future to make sure the past is not rewritten and allowed to repeat.