Thread by @tzimmer_history

Charlie Kirk is one of the silliest people on the Right - it’s a devastating indictment of the conservative movement that he’s one of its leading activists. His raging against #Juneteenth, however, is interestingly revealing - as it channels the reactionary worldview perfectly.

I wrote about this in my newsletter today:

Reactionaries who oppose Juneteenth are the political, ideological, and spiritual descendants of those who were defeated in 1865. They dominate today’s Republican Party.

Why the Right Has a Problem with #Juneteenth:

There is a direct line from those who fought for their right to enslave others in the name of “freedom” to today’s reactionaries who insist they have a right to define the national story and American identity in a way that upholds discriminatory traditional hierarchies.

I also reflect on how the Right’s critique of Juneteenth and insistence on a white nationalist version of U.S. history compares to the German struggle to work through the Nazi past - and specifically the struggle to establish May 8, 1945 as a Day of Liberation rather than defeat.

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