(RightWing.org) – Learning and knowing American history is central to understanding how America arrived at this moment in time. Nothing today occurs in a vacuum without context. There are themes that weave throughout America’s conscience that date as far back as the late 1600s. Not all was good or right in our nation’s history — that’s true of every country around the globe. Still, America is the one place in the world founded on the idea that we seek a more perfect union, as enshrined in the US Constitution, as we try to correct the mistakes or misdeeds of the past.
The good, the bad, and the ugly are part of the American story. To achieve the aim of the founding father’s vision, it’s vital that historians, teachers, and politicians not manipulate history to gain a foothold over America’s political leanings. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to take a moment out of time and misapply historical context to a current event. That’s exactly what popular historian Doris Kearns Goodwin did on Sunday, February 20.
Democrats Allege Republican Voter Suppression Over Last Year Despite Severe Blue State Restrictions
For nearly a year, Democrats cast Republican efforts to reform voter laws as racist and voter suppression. Last summer, the US Supreme Court affirmed lower court rulings that found no such evidence. Republicans in Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, among other states, moved to make mail-in voting more secure, expand early voting hours, and ensure that voters could trust the integrity of their vote.
While the Left decried the move, Democratic Northeast states are much more restrictive. For example, in Connecticut, there is no early voting. New York, New Jersey, and Delaware’s voting laws are much more restrictive than GOP-led state voter laws. So, what’s this all about?
It’s political posturing.
Historian Missaplies Lincoln to GOP Voter Reforms
On Sunday, Doris Kearns Goodwin equated GOP voter reforms with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. To make the stretch, Goodwin said that in the last speech Booth overheard from Lincoln, the president called for Congress to give blacks the right to vote. For that, John Wilkes Booth decided it was the last straw and that it was time to kill Lincoln.
Goodwin expanded her argument to say that 150 years after Booth killed Lincoln, Republicans are trying to do the opposite of the iconic president by pulling back voter rights. She added that Republicans wrongly argue that Biden didn’t fairly win and that Lincoln would say today that voting rights is the fight of the day, and it’s central to America.
Where Goodwin goes wrong is that she’s so busy trying to force the past to fit today, and she may not know what’s going on. For one, there’s the issue of Democratic state voting restrictions, as previously mentioned. She completely bought into the Left’s narrative, which was exposed in late January as a political stunt when Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) admitted to their limited definition of voter suppression. He said that rolling back ballot boxes and eliminating 24-hour drive-through voting was voter suppression. This is what Kearns says America needs to fight for.
Second, regarding the 2020 election, a court in Wisconsin ruled that the state elections board broke the law when it illegally allowed ballot boxes without legislative approval. In Pennsylvania, a state court ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) administration violated the state Constitution when it allowed no-excuse mail-in voting under a bipartisan law passed in 2019 known as Act 77.
So, is Goodwin talking as a historian or a Democratic operative?
You decide.
Don Purdum, Independent Political Analyst
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