Too ignorant of history
Ignorance of history is no crime, but if it were, this administration already would have been convicted.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos compared post-Civil War black schools to the modern trend of “school choice.” Post-Civil War black colleges were founded largely due to sanctioned racial codes that forced segregation of schools.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson likened slaves brought to America in shackles and chains to immigrants who arrived freely with dreams of a better life. White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred to concentration camps as “holocaust centers” and tried to claim that Hitler never used chemical warfare.
President Donald Trump asks why the Civil War happened and claims that had President Andrew Jackson — who left office in 1837 and died in 1845 — lived, he would have prevented it. Perhaps Trump was absent in history class when it was explained that the South’s entanglement with slavery made conflict unavoidable. Perhaps he failed to notice that Jackson was a slave owner.
Trump and his billionaires-club administration would have had no reason to have empathy for the struggles of slaves or the groups persecuted by Hitler, but this lack of empathy is very unsettling.
Ernie Whisman
Rogers
This story was originally published May 17, 2017 at 7:47 PM with the headline "Too ignorant of history."