{"id":31782,"date":"2026-07-04T09:55:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=31782"},"modified":"2026-07-04T09:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:55:48","slug":"the-horrifying-lessons-of-250-years-of-american-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=31782","title":{"rendered":"The Horrifying Lessons of 250 Years of American History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-intercept-editors-note\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-intercept-editors-note__content\">\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">In his typical<\/span> understated fashion, President Donald Trump has billed his Fourth of July rally in Washington, D.C., as the culmination of the \u201cmost unforgettable birthday party any country has ever seen.\u201d It\u2019s hard to argue any different. From brutal <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/UFC_Freedom_250\">bloodsport<\/a> on the White House lawn to the great emptiness of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/06\/11\/politics\/several-states-not-participating-trump-state-fair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Great American State Fair<\/a>\u201d to his filthy, fenced-in reflecting pool on the National Mall, Trump has offered up semiquincentennial spectacles destined to be etched into the minds of Americans for a generation.<\/p>\n<p>In the lead-up to this sordid circus, Trump has also raced to erase the ignoble aspects of U.S. history. But if you\u2019ve had enough of Trump\u2019s revelry this Independence Day, let me offer a counterpoint to the president\u2019s vision of America: a clear-eyed look at a country that should live in infamy and the prescription of a Founding Father who might offer us all a way out.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2013 Nick Turse, editor of TomDispatch<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h2 id=\"h-a-history-of-violence\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">A History of Violence<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve lived through the last 51 of America\u2019s 250 years. For much of it, I\u2019ve believed that the United States was sick beyond salvation. And yet, I never quite imagined the U.S. would be where it is today. That was a failure of vision because America at 250 is, in my estimation, exactly where it deserves to be. It\u2019s a nation gone rancid, a country polluted by its past, and more so, by the abject failure to reckon with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once, it seemed open to question. Would America be the land defined by Jim Crow? Or by the civil rights movement? The country that made war on innocent people half a world away? Or one that owned up to the criminality of that slaughter and turned swords into ploughshares? A nation that jailed women for sending information about birth control through the mail? Or a country that gave people autonomy over their bodies? The odds were always stacked against the U.S., poisoned at the root as it is by twin original sins: settler colonialism and chattel slavery. From these evils, so many other offenses to humanity have flowed. Maybe no country could overcome such a legacy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, many Americans broke their bodies and laid down their lives trying to atone for the sins of the founders and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/07\/24\/daniel-hale-assassination-program-drone-leak\/\">those that followed them<\/a>. Ordinary people <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/protests-for-black-lives\/\">pressed and struggled<\/a> to gain some measure of the liberties, equality, and the chance at happiness promised, but not delivered, at America\u2019s birth. In return, they <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/06\/10\/la-police-ice-raids-protests\/\">faced<\/a> terror, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/07\/07\/ice-raids-la-violence-video-bystanders\/\">truncheons<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/10\/10\/portland-tear-gas-chemical-grenades-protests\/\">tear gas<\/a>. Year after year, people denied supposedly inalienable rights faced down, for themselves and their neighbors, white-hooded nightriders and bayonet-bearing troops and robber barons and monied interests and hateful bigots and vicious police and craven politicians and foolish experts and infinite hordes of functionaries and good-German-type neighbors willing to do the bidding of oppressors or just look the other way. But because of all these shattered skulls and cracked ribs, endless abuse and arrests and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/07\/03\/antifa-prairieland-protests-terrorism-conspiracy\/\">incarcerations<\/a>, there was a chance for redemption.<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(cta)[0] --><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You could almost see it if you squinted hard enough. That fleeting moment when a panoply of rights movements appeared ascendant, and that long arc of the moral universe was straining hard toward justice, and the volunteers of America \u2014 an unarmed army of the better angels of our nature \u2014 were on the march. For an instant, it was there: a shining wave of promise about to swamp the forces of America\u2019s decrepit order. Maybe you glimpsed it in the raucous joy of an <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/05\/08\/intercepted-student-protests-gaza-columbia\/\">occupied campus<\/a> or park or city block, on a graffiti-scribbled wall, in the smoke of a burning tire, in the frenzied talk of a comrade, in the pages of a banned book, wherever; you sure knew it if you saw it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that shimmering wonder crested, collapsed, and consumed itself. Now you need to crane your neck and strain your eyes to see the bare trace of that high-water mark \u2014 the cruel evidence of the last, best hope for America\u2019s redemption just before it was swept back into the depths. We\u2019ve been drifting ever further from it since.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the question of which America would prevail hadn\u2019t been settled earlier, the reelection of a megalomaniacal, racist, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/17\/trump-iran-war-matt-duss\/\">war-mongering<\/a>, bigoted, vulgar, anti-democratic, authoritarian, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/09\/iran-trump-hegseth-bomb-girls-school\/\">inveterate liar<\/a>, and would-be tyrant to preside over America\u2019s semiquincentennial seemingly resolved it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">America is the \u201cgreatest, strongest, and most exceptional nation the world has ever known,\u201d said President Donald Trump recently in celebrating the country\u2019s 250th birthday with a rally on the National Mall. He added that it was \u201csuperior to any nation that\u2019s ever been built no matter how many years it took.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Trump\u2019s demented, deteriorating mind might not recall George Orwell\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/DVB3upn54AY?si=54xYQVNMkXCtoZOA&amp;t=171\">warning<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0<em>1984<\/em> \u2014 \u201cWho controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past\u201d \u2014 he or his minions certainly understand the concept on some level. Immediately upon taking office last year, Trump began efforts to whitewash \u2014 quite literally \u2014 American history to match his boasts. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/03\/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history\/\">executive order<\/a> issued last March took aim at a supposed \u201cwidespread effort to rewrite our Nation\u2019s history\u201d to \u201cundermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s Trump, however, who has been rewriting history to comport with his claims. For months, to take one example, Trump has fought a pitched battle to censor the history of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/02\/president-george-washingtons-birthday-2026\/\">his presidential predecessor<\/a> George Washington, whom he calls \u201cour foremost American hero.\u201d For his exploits at Trenton and Valley Forge, for his leadership in the turbulence of the Revolution\u2019s wake, the capital bears Washington\u2019s name and in it a giant obelisk stands in his honor. Most Americans have literally, if not figuratively, long embraced his visage since his face adorns the quarter and the dollar bill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In January 2026, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/06\/28\/us\/philadelphia-slavery-exhibit-battle-trump\">crowbar-wielding<\/a> workmen descended on the President\u2019s House site on Philadelphia\u2019s Independence Mall, where Washington and his wife Martha lived in the 1790s \u2014 when the city was briefly the nation\u2019s capital \u2014 with nine of their slaves. On orders from the Trump administration, the workers pried off panels discussing the ownership of people by our foremost American hero\u2122, details about the lives of those enslaved men and women, and information about the broader history of slavery. Recently, a federal appeals court discarded an <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-presidents-house-slavery-exhibit-judge-orders-immediate-restoration\/\">injunction<\/a>\u00a0ordering the National Park Service to restore the site, allowing the Trump administration to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/presidents-house-site-philadelphia-new-panels\/\">replace the slavery exhibit<\/a>. \u201cIt is an attempt to sanitize history and present a version of the past that is more comfortable, but far less truthful,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-presidents-house-court-ruling-replace-exhibit-trump\/\">wrote<\/a> the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which led the movement to craft the original display.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No country can be great, much less the \u201cgreatest,\u201d if it\u2019s afraid of its own people knowing the story of their nation. Trump looks at America and sees an \u201cunparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness,\u201d according to that executive order. He claims that malevolent forces have \u201creconstructed\u201d America\u2019s past as \u201cinherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,\u201d fostering \u201ca sense of national shame.\u201d But no one need rewrite U.S. history to foster a sense of unrelenting disgrace. It\u2019s everywhere, if we have the courage to call it out.<\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n      We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us.    <\/h2>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=519197&amp;referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2026%2F07%2F04%2Fjuly-4-america-250-trump%2F&amp;source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"border border-white !text-white font-mono uppercase p-5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 hover:bg-white hover:!text-accentLight focus:bg-white focus:!text-accentLight\" data-name=\"donateCTA\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n      Become a member      <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n  <\/div>\n<div class=\"group default w-full px-5 hidden\" data-name=\"unsubscribed\">\n<div class=\"px-5 border-[10px] border-accentLight\">\n<div class=\"bg-white -my-2.5 relative block px-4 md:px-5\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-body text-[30px] font-bold tracking-[0.01em] leading-8 mb-0 xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n          <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Join Our Newsletter          <\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Thank You For Joining!          <\/span><br \/>\n        <\/h2>\n<p class=\"text-[27px] mb-3.5 font-bold text-accentLight tracking-[0.01em] leading-[29px] font-sans xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n          <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.          <\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n            Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?          <\/span>\n        <\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=519197&amp;referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2026%2F07%2F04%2Fjuly-4-america-250-trump%2F&amp;source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"group-[.default]:hidden border border-accentLight text-accentLight font-sans px-5 py-3.5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 text-[20px] font-bold\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n          Become a member          <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n        <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"font-sans text-accentLight text-[10px] leading-[13px] text-balance [&amp;_a]:text-accentLight [&amp;_a]:font-bold [&amp;_a:hover]:underline group-[.subscribed]:hidden\">\n<p>By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/privacy-policy\/\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/terms-use\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(newsletter)[0] --><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1779, for example, Washington ordered a scorched-earth campaign against native peoples, to bring about the \u201ctotal ruin\u201d of the so-called Six Nations across hundreds of miles of Pennsylvania and New York. \u201cThe immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements,\u201d he told Maj. Gen. John Sullivan. When the operation was over, Sullivan\u2019s army had destroyed more than 40 villages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such sins of America are legion. Given the time and space, one could name 250 or 250,000 or 2.5 million of them. On this Fourth of July, it\u2019s worth recalling some of those inconvenient truths that Trump would rather you forget and future generations never know.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Col. John Chivington, the head of the Colorado military district led more than 700 troops to attack Cheyenne and Arapaho groups at dawn on November 29, 1864.\u00a0In what he called \u201can act of duty to ourselves and to civilization,\u201d his men unleashed gunfire and artillery on a sleeping village <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/11\/28\/army-native-american-heritage-month\/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=theintercept\">at Sand Creek<\/a>. For almost four hours, they slaughtered the camp\u2019s inhabitants, two-thirds of them women and children.\u00a0Many Native women were also raped, and Native American\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=c8VVDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT87&amp;dq=%22sand+creek%22+scalps,genitalia+and+fingers+smithsonian&amp;hl=en&amp;newbks=1&amp;newbks_redir=0&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjLisTHhPiJAxVLGFkFHfCJM4wQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&amp;q=%22sand%20creek%22%20scalps%2Cgenitalia%20and%20fingers%20smithsonian&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">scalps, breasts, and genitalia\u00a0<\/a>were taken as souvenirs. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/archive\/custer-one-indian-outbreaks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">letter<\/a> to Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis,\u00a0Chivington stated: \u201cIt may, perhaps, be unnecessary for me to state that I captured no prisoners.\u00a0Between five and six hundred Indians were left dead upon the field.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In 1914, striking miners in Ludlow, Colorado, were\u00a0celebrating Greek Easter\u00a0when the Colorado National Guard and a private security company opened fire on their camp with a\u00a0machine-gun-equipped armored car that the miners called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/digital.denverlibrary.org\/nodes\/view\/1131280\">the Death Special<\/a>.\u201d Those miners fought the National Guard for 10 days before President Woodrow Wilson ordered in federal troops. Almost 200 people were killed, according to some estimates.<\/li>\n<li>A two-day attack by white mobs on Tulsa, Oklahoma\u2019s Greenwood district in 1921 began after Black Tulsans attempted to prevent a man\u2019s lynching. Rioting white people, in response, killed hundreds, and more than 30 city blocks were destroyed, including a community known as Black Wall Street. <a href=\"https:\/\/eji.org\/news\/justice-department-finds-tulsa-massacre-was-a-coordinated-military-style-attack\/\">Viola Ford Fletcher<\/a>, a survivor, recalled piles of bodies in the streets and watched a white man execute a Black man and then shoot at her family.<\/li>\n<li>During the 20th century, coerced and forced sterilization became a method of controlling \u201cundesirable\u201d populations: disabled people, immigrants, people of color, the poor, unmarried mothers, those with mental illness, and others. This included federally funded sterilization programs in 32 states. Over 70 years in California, for example, approximately 20,000 men and women were sterilized in state institutions, often without their full consent.<\/li>\n<li>From 1932 to 1972, 399 black men, many of them sharecroppers and poor, in Alabama were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by doctors from the U.S. Public Health Service as part of the Tuskegee syphilis study. Despite the availability of penicillin beginning in the 1940s and the fact that syphilis can damage the heart, brain, and other organs, government officials ensured the men received no medical care while telling them they were being treated for \u201cbad blood.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/12\/20\/magazine\/peter-buxtun-tuskegee-study.html\">128 of the men<\/a> are estimated to have died from syphilis and related complications.<\/li>\n<li>In a horrifying echo of the Tuskegee syphilis study, U.S. government and Guatemalan doctors in the 1940s intentionally infected more than 1,300 Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners, hospital patients, and sex workers with three sexually-transmitted infections \u2014 chancroid, gonorrhea, and syphilis \u2014 to study potential treatments. The researchers also paid sex workers to transmit the diseases. Left untreated, all three can be fatal.<\/li>\n<li>The U.S. government conducted thousands of radiation experiments on Americans, including children, from 1944 to 1974. They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1994\/10\/22\/us\/thousands-of-human-experiments.html\">included<\/a> the injection of plutonium into people\u2019s bodies, marching troops into the wake of a nuclear explosion, and releasing radioactive substances into the air to track their movement or effects.<\/li>\n<li>U.S. troops from the \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d committed tens if not hundreds of thousands of rapes in Europe during and after World War II. Around 190,000 German women alone were raped between the U.S invasion of Nazi Germany and 1955, when West Germany regained its sovereignty, according to one estimate. In reports compiled by Bavarian priests in the summer of 1945, the youngest victim mentioned was a 7-year-old child. The oldest was a woman in her 60s.<\/li>\n<li>On August 6, 1945, the U.S. launched the world\u2019s first nuclear attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Around\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/04\/books\/review\/fallout-hiroshima-hersey-lesley-m-m-blume.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">70,000<\/a> people, nearly all of them civilians, were vaporized, crushed, burned, or irradiated to death almost immediately. Another 50,000 probably died soon after. As many as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/the-reporter-who-revealed-the-truth-about-hiroshima\/2020\/08\/06\/bed947e0-c7a4-11ea-a99f-3bbdffb1af38_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">280,000<\/a>\u00a0were dead, many of radiation sickness, by the end of the year. An atomic strike on the city of Nagasaki, three days later, is thought to have killed as many as 70,000.<\/li>\n<li>The FBI\u2019s infamous COINTELPRO program targeted the civil rights movement, the New Left, and anti-Vietnam War protesters, among others in the 1960s and 1970s. According to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/sites-default-files-94755-iii.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1976 Senate<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/sites-default-files-94755-iii.pdf\"> report<\/a>, it \u201cturn[ed] a law enforcement agency into a law violator.\u201d The FBI, the committee found, \u201cwent beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to \u2018disrupt\u2019 and \u2018neutralize\u2019 target groups and individuals,\u201d using \u201cwartime counterintelligence\u201d techniques that \u201cwould be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity,\u201d which they were not.<\/li>\n<li>On March 15, 1968 in South Vietnam, U.S. troops were briefed by their commanding officer, Capt. Ernest Medina. The Americans were told they would find enemy troops in the village of My Lai and, as one unit member recalled, Medina \u201cordered us to \u2018kill everything in the village.\u2019\u201d When the troops arrived, they encountered only civilians: women, children, and old men. Nonetheless, Medina\u2019s order was carried out. More than 500 civilians were slaughtered over the course of four hours. The soldiers even took a break to eat lunch amid the carnage. Along the way, they also raped women and young girls, mutilated the dead, and systematically burned homes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no way not to view these \u201chistorical milestones in a negative light.\u201d Nor the sins of the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/the-911-wars\/\">global war on terror<\/a> and the countless crimes they spawned. In the five-plus years Trump has been in the White House, alone, the U.S. has been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/30\/trump-secret-wars\/\">embroiled in more than 20<\/a> military interventions, armed conflicts, and wars. We\u2019ve also watched as Black women and men were murdered in cavalier fashion and anti-ICE protesters were gunned down in the streets. We\u2019ve seen immigrants deported to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/05\/09\/trump-bukele-kilmar-abrego-garcia-el-salvador-cecot-prison\/\">foreign prisons<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/07\/08\/ice-deportation-louisiana-south-sudan\/\">war zones<\/a>, and human rights-violating pariah states for <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/08\/25\/trump-kilmar-abrego-garcia-deport\/\">spite<\/a>, and rights disappeared as if they were panels detailing historical truths.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-ft-photo is-style-default alignright\">\n<div class=\"photo__container\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?fit=778%2C1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?w=778 778w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?w=195 195w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?w=768 768w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?w=664 664w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9781645030393.jpg?w=540 540w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 1300px) 650px, (min-width: 800px) 64vw, (min-width: 500px) calc(100vw - 5rem), calc(100vw - 3rem)\" alt=\"Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America -- By Ibram X. Kendi\" width=\"778\" height=\"1200\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><figcaption class=\"photo__figcaption\">\n      <span class=\"photo__caption\">I recommend reading \u201cStamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,\u201d by Ibram X. Kendi<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"photo__credit\">Available on Bookshop.org<\/span>    <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere has never been anything like the United States of America,\u201d Trump said recently. It\u2019s lucky for the world. Because for every landing at Normandy, there is a massacre at <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/11\/28\/army-native-american-heritage-month\/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=theintercept\">Bear River<\/a> or Sand Creek or Samar or No Gun Ri or My Lai or <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2017\/09\/28\/the-ken-burns-vietnam-war-documentary-glosses-over-devastating-civilian-toll\/\">Le Bac 2<\/a> many <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/27\/pete-hegseth-mark-kelly-investigation-vietnam\/\">times over<\/a>. I\u2019ve spoken with hundreds of survivors of these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/la-na-vietnam6aug06-pg-photogallery.html\">types of atrocities<\/a>. I know <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/05\/23\/kissinger-cambodia-deaths-neak-luong\/\">the story<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/05\/23\/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors\/\">America\u2019s impact abroad<\/a> better than most.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump believes that he resuscitated the U.S. \u201cA short time ago we were a dead country,\u201d he said during semiquincentennial festivities. \u201cWe were dead.\u201d Those comments about America\u2019s death resonated with me \u2014 even if I don\u2019t think they\u2019re true \u2014 because the other side of that coin is rebirth. While I don\u2019t believe this country can be redeemed, that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t be reborn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Washington isn\u2019t the only predecessor Trump loves. He\u2019s also besotted with, as he put it, \u201cthe late, great Thomas Jefferson, one of our most important Founding Fathers.\u201d Although in Trump\u2019s version of history, Jefferson was a \u201cprincipal writer of the Constitution.\u201d (He actually authored the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/07\/04\/at-245-america-is-old-enough-to-be-honest-about-its-founding\/\">Declaration of Independence<\/a> \u2014 the anniversary Trump is celebrating these days.) Perhaps if Trump knew what Jefferson, another slaveholder, actually wrote, he would be less enamored. Whatever his grave faults, Jefferson offered a prescription for an ailing nation. What country \u201ccan preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?\u201d he asked in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monticello.org\/encyclopedia\/tree-liberty-quotation\">1787 letter<\/a>. Noting the necessity of \u201crebellion,\u201d he continued, \u201cThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two hundred and fifty years in, during the presidency of a sick-minded, wanna-be despot, and despoiler of history, it\u2019s worth considering the endless sins of America, its sheer brutality, its staunch resistance to reform, and how one of Trump\u2019s favorite founders thought about sending a message to \u201crulers.\u201d A country that won\u2019t face its crimes and instead tries to disappear them can\u2019t be saved. Even rebellion, at this late date, might be only a half-measure. But if there is any wisdom left in Jefferson\u2019s words, it could be somewhere to start.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Horrifying #Lessons #Years #American #History<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his typical understated fas&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}