The Media Are Lying About The 1776 Report

President Trump created the 1776 Commission by executive order last year as part of an effort to counter the leftist narrative taking over our public schools. Unsurprisingly, the commission’s first report has been met with nothing but hostility. 

Spurred in part by the New York Times’s ahistorical 1619 Project, the 1776 Report seeks to correct some of the central claims made by the 1619 Project’s authors and provide an answer to the Left’s overly negative interpretation of American history. 

Contrary to what the 1619 Project might suggest, the American Revolution was not fought to preserve the institution of slavery, the commission says. Rather, America’s founders fully intended to put slavery on the path toward extinction and believed that the country was already heading in that direction. 

The report continues: To take slavery out of its necessary context is to do a disservice to America’s principles. To be sure, slavery was an ugly reality that deeply stained this country’s character. But it was not a uniquely American evil, and its perpetrators ultimately failed to overthrow the value that defines America to this day: the Declaration of Independence’s claim that “all men are created equal.” 

“Neither America nor any other nation has perfectly lived up to the universal truths of equality, liberty, justice and government by consent,” the report states. “But no nation before America ever dared state those truths as the formal basis for its politics, and none has strived harder, or done more, to achieve them.” 

The 1776 Report’s goal is simple: It makes the case for the American founding and against the ideologies that seek to overturn it, such as identity politics. It does so quite successfully, which is why it should come as no surprise that the media are up in arms about its release. 

CNN published a news article that labels the report a “racist school curriculum” because of its critique of identity politics. The New York Times claimed the report “defends” the institution of slavery. The Washington Post characterized the report as “largely an attack on decades of historical scholarship” and quoted several disgruntled historians who disproved of it without once mentioning the many historians who publicly opposed the 1619 Project. 

Besides the abject bias, there are also several factual errors the media do not seem interested in correcting. The New York Times claimed the 1776 Commission “includes no professional historians but a number of conservative activists, politicians, and intellectuals.” The chairman of the commission is Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, who is, in fact, a quite distinguished professional historian, as are Victor David Hanson and Dr. Charles Kesler. 

What the New York Times means to say is that none of its preferred intellectuals, such as reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones (hardly a renowned historian), were involved in the writing of the 1776 Report. Therefore, they should all be disregarded. 

The 1776 Report is not perfect. It misses the mark on some subjects and downplays the importance of others. But its central thesis is exactly right: A good education will teach students to understand one’s country and aspire to its ideals in spite of its flaws. “Thoughtful citizens embrace their national community not only because it is their own,” the report says, “but also because they see what it can be at its best.” 

Unfortunately, many in the media aren’t interested in the honest introspection this kind of education requires. They would rather promote a curriculum that fosters a hatred of one’s own country because at least then they could finally do away with the pesky American ideals that stand between this nation and a social justice-driven, identity politics-obsessed agenda.

Tags: Beltway Confidential, Opinion, 1776, Donald Trump, Education, History, Media, Slavery

Original Author: Kaylee McGhee White

Original Location: The media are lying about the 1776 Report