Thread by @jbf1755

1/ Pondering the conspiracy-theory-history-mongering being tossed at historians by a few on the right recently.

2/ It takes several forms. One popular one is the “historians have been hiding the TRUTH” attack—often laughable because historians have written about the given topic at great length, w/some even countering such goofy charges by pointing folks towards those writings via tweets.

3/ A variation of the “historians hiding the truth” attack is the “broad sweeping generalization that is wrong” attack.
Confronted w/facts that prove those generalizations wrong, such attackers often ignore/dismiss facts & fall back on attack mode #1–historians hiding the truth.

4/ Like much conspiracy thinking, such charges are often grounded on emotion—often fear and defensiveness.

Those emotions lead the way, sometimes despite—or in direct contradiction to—the facts.

In fact (heh!), facts get in the way.

5/ It’s another wrinkle in our current fact-challenged times, when verifiable facts—sometimes that people have seen with their own eyes—are denounced as “fake.”

6/ Experts on authoritarianism have spoken, written, & tweeted eloquently about how authoritarians create their own truth and peddle it, despite all evidence.

Such emotion-rousing, fact-denying charges are a kind of power grab.

7/ Outlandish charges that get believed display the power of the person making the charges.

“They believed THAT? Wow. Look at the hold I have on these people. Look at my power. With that kind of popular belief on my side, I can take what I want.”

8/ We know about the dangers of such plots because they’ve worked in the past.

Which is clear if....you know some history.

History as a whole doesn’t repeat, but repeating patterns can reveal a LOT—one handy-dandy kind of knowledge you get by studying history.

9/ Because—you know—HISTORY MATTERS.

10/ I’ve been pondering this because of the recent praise of #twitterstorians attacking some such conspiracy-thinking (like the piece that @rebeccaonion did in Slate.)
google.com/amp/s/amp.slat…

11/ In a fight against unsubstantiated sweeping claims that fly in the face of facts for the purpose of stoking passions, actual historical FACTS are a vital kind of weapon.

12/ I remember when DJT claimed a Civil War battle had been fought on land that was now part of one of his golf courses.

Historians stepped up & said: no, there was no battle fought there .

google.com/amp/s/www.nyti…

13/ I remember feeling the looming threat of his response to those historians:
“How would they know that? Were they there?”

And here we are, living through a full-fledged assault on facts.

/End