An online discussion entitled “Hating Woodrow Wilson” hosted by The New York Times is being used by the Left as a way to attack and sully Fox News personality Glenn Beck who has been sharply critical of the former president and the progressive era in general. But it does offer a number of engaging nuggets that are worth reviewing.
Some of the liberal commentators make the point that Beck and company are too fixated on Wilson and do not take into proper account the progressive contributions of Teddy Roosevelt and others. The discussion does open some worthwhile historical considerations that serious thinkers on both sides of the political spectrum should peruse.
Michael Lind with the New America Foundation throws down the gauntlet with this dig at conservatives:
“Each faction on the right has had its
own view of the past, with its own canon of heroes and its own list of
villains. While many conservatives claim to be ‘constitutionalists,’
some states’ rights theorists argue that not only the Civil War but also
the Founders’ Constitution of 1787 led to a tyrannical consolidation
of power in the federal government. For decades highbrow cultural
conservatives have accused the 18th century French philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau of wrecking Western civilization with his cult of
the primitive. For most conservatives, however, the fall of America
from the paradise of small government to the hell of statism came with
the New Deal and the Great Society. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon
Johnson, one would think, would be more natural targets of the right
than Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps someone should tell Glenn Beck.”
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