Rep. Scholten has an elitist and twisted sense of US History

Politicians generally don’t have a great grasp of US history and they often buy into the official narrative about this country’s founding and legacy. In her most recent Monday Minute Email message, Rep. Hillary Scholten wrote:

“This week, we’re getting ready to celebrate America’s birthday–249 years young. We didn’t make it this far by accident. The freedoms we enjoy are because of the brave men and women who served our country in arms.

It’s also because of those who stood up to serve in elected office–brave presidents who held faithful to our principles of democracy, leaders of conscience who represented their people well. 

And last, but certainly not least, it’s because of citizens like you, who have spoken up when you felt this country was getting off track. I hear you every day and respond with action. It’s truly the honor of my life to do this job.”

Rep. Schoten’s words are both revealing and instructive. Her words reveal that she embracing the dominant narrative about US history, a history which is rooted in White Supremacy and imperialism.

Rep. Scholten’s comments just ahead of the 4th of July are also rather instructive. The 3rd Congressional District Representative demonstrates how she prioritizes those she believes have made the US what it is. In one sense, Scholten’s acknowledges three groups of people as essential to US history, plus she prioritizes them within the dominant narrative. What follows is a deconstruction of Scholten’s comments and the three groups of people she decided to acknowledge.

First, Rep. Scholten states – The freedoms we enjoy are because of the brave men and women who served our country in arms. – Here Rep. Scholten wants us to believe that the US military has given people their freedom in the US. Scholten doesn’t have to support her claim, since it is a given that we are all supposed to believe that whatever freedoms we have it is because of the US military.

The reason why Rep. Scholten doesn’t provide any evidence to support her claim is that there really isn’t much. Think about it. The US military early on fought with other colonial powers to expand the US territory, not to defend “our freedoms.” Did the US war with Mexico result in providing greater freedoms in the US? Absolutely not. Besides expanding the US territory, the US went to war with Mexico to protect Texas’s right to continue to practice chattel slavery. I’m going to skip the Civil War, as I will address that in the third response. 

In the later half of the 19th Century, during the so-called Indian Wars, the US also expanded their claim to land and took away the freedom and sovereignty of Native nations. Near the end of the 19th Century, the US begins to look abroad, so I suggest that people look at the excellent list of US military interventions that Professor Zoltan Grossman has put together, from Wounded Knee to the present, linked here. Looking over this list, how many times did the US military actually protect of expand the freedoms of people living in the US? 

Second, Rep. Scholten states that our freedoms were because of, “those who stood up to serve in elected office–brave presidents who held faithful to our principles of democracy.” Again, Rep. Scholten provides not evidence, since this is just a truism within the dominant US narrative. I would argue, as do many historians like Zinn, Chomsky, Dunbar-Ortiz, Mays, Bronski, Marable, ect., that most US politicians have defended systems of power and oppression in the US. To the degree that US politicians introduced legislation that would expand freedoms and civil rights, it was primarily because of the organized social movements that were demanding these freedoms, rights, etc. Take the FDR administration, often cited for adopting New Deal policies. The FDR administration didn’t come up with New Deal policies on their own, they were responded to the massive social unrest in a post-depression era were working class people were not only demanding more rights, but fundamentally challenging the system of Capitalism. In much of the 1930s there were roughly 1000 strikes per year, according to the research in Jeremy Brecher’s book, Strike.

Third, Rep. Scholten states, “it’s because of citizens like you, who have spoken up when you felt this country was getting off track.” Again, Scholten provides no evidence to such a claim, plus the way she frames this third group is blatantly false. The fact that Scholten uses the word citizens is instructive, since Indigenous people were not citizens for a very long time, those enslaved were not citizens and millions of immigrants were never, and still aren’t citizens. 

More importantly, Scholten fails to understand or acknowledged that the expansion of freedoms and rights have always come about because of organized people, often within organized movements. The resistance from those who were enslaved in the US is what forced politicians and the North to eventually go to war to end chattel slavery. The fact that workers have any rights at all in the US, as limited as they still are, is only because of labor organizing since the mid-19th Century, often at great cost to workers. African Americans are the ones who fought, struggled and died to end Jim Crow policies and continue to fight against institutionalized racism. Women had to fight to win the right to vote, to not be property of their spouses, or to have control over their bodies. Queer, trans and other gender non-conforming people collectively fought for greater freedoms and continue to do so today. 

The point here is that organized people have won their rights, they have won their freedoms and their dignity, not because of the US military or US politicians. Social movements in the US have always been central to the expansion of freedoms and we should never confuse the US military or US politicians as being those that have made any of us free. Rep. Scholten once again demonstrates that she perpetuates the dominate narratives about US history. Scholten in no way can claim to be a progressive politician.