How long ago did progressives start using American history to attack the Founding Fathers?

There are a lot of people out there who think I have a lost my marbles for coming to the conclusion that a large percentage of books written prior to the 1900s are the only books you can trust when it comes to American History. What people fail to understand, is that the 1619 Project is actually not new. Sure, it's relatively "new" to use racial issues as the focal point, but manipulating U.S. history to advance progressivism goes back to the Progressive Era itself.

In his book "American inquisitors; a commentary on Dayton and Chicago", Walter Lippmann wrote the following: (page 67)

In 1917 the United States for the first time in its history became the associate of Great Britain in a great war. A part of the American people objected openly to this association. A still larger part, while they did their duty loyally, nevertheless detested the war, and believed in their hearts that the United States had been inveigled into it by the cleverness of British diplomats. The patriotic tradition which they had learned from their school textbooks disposed them to suspect all political contact with Great Britain.

To offset this latent distrust of our associate in the war, a great corps of historians was mobilized, partly under government auspices, who proceeded then and there to revise the whole American historical tradition by obliterating and explaining away the memories of the Revolutionary War. This willingness on the part of well known historians to manufacture a new patriotic tradition to suit the political necessities of 1917 was resented. The prestige of scholarship was injured. It was made plain that history is something that can be cut and shaped to suit the purposes of the moment.

Nevertheless, in the wake of these propagandist historians there came a school of critical and honest historians. Once the authority of the patriotic legends had been dissolved, the opportunity of the critical historians presented itself. American school history, particularly in its bearing upon Anglo-American relations, began to be rewritten, first by those who wished to create a new, a pro-British legend, and then by those who wished to do away with all legends and to tell the truth which objective research had found.

After the war was over, after the peace treaty had been rejected, after the country had violently reverted to normalcy, the popular reaction against the revision of the patriotic legends got under way. No distinction was made, of course, between the revision carried out as propaganda in the interest of the Allies, and the revision carried out by scholars in the interest of the truth.

When I say that 100% of the people reading this were exposed to progressive propaganda while they were in schools, I'm not kidding. Unless you happen to be old enough that you were school age in the 1800s, which is at this point statistically impossible, these issues all go way back prior to the 1960s even. What you read when you were in school was 40% or 70% of the way toward the 1619 Project. It may not have all been a lie, but it was a lot of lies or even mostly lies. I can't tell you how many people I've met who think that "I went to school in the 1950s, I was taught the truth." No. You didn't. What was in the schools in the 1950s was a lie too.

It's important to understand, Walter Lippmann was a progressive. So when he writes "the revision carried out by scholars in the interest of the truth", he means "the revision carried out by scholars in the interest of the progressive truth." This quoted section refers to 3, that's three groups of historians. The original knowledge of the Founders, which he sneers his nose at as promoting "patriotic legends", then there's the government backed propagandists, then there's the new progressive truth tellers. That's three groups of historians. This is crucial to understand. When the progressives who wanted World War I used history to "make progress" were finished, they didn't just flip the switch and go back. No no, they continued to "make progress" and they said "here is the new truth". We progressives already "obliterated and explained away the memories of the Revolutionary War", so over the long term let's not give up our position. We now own this. Let's now tell our own truth. Back then it was only a distortion with subtle attacks, moreso than today's overt attacks, but that doesn't matter. The degree of attack is still an attack on our Founders knowing who progressives are and what they represent.

That's why we are where we are today. The Founding Fathers stink and the Founding Fathers are bad people and the Founding Fathers suck - because of over a century's worth of mud thrown at them by progressives who knew that even back in the 1920s, if there was ever going to be a truly "progressive" United States, those Founding Fathers must, MUST be abolished.

And here we are. The progressives have more patience to achieve their purpose than you or I could ever understand.

May I interest you in an audio book? I'll never charge you for it. I gladly hit these progressives for free.