Historic Political Narratives You Disagree With

[All Along The Watchtower]

"Versailles caused the rise of the Nazis and WW2" is a popular one that is blatantly false.

A related myth: the "clean Wehrmacht."

[All Along The Watchtower]

“Neocon” meaning internationalist and the Iraq War being an internationalist war. Does anyone remember “freedom fries”?

Also the claim that Republicans were ever for open boarders.

Good calls. The invasion of Iraq was pretty blatantly illegal under international law. But muh "coalition of the willing."

The internationalists in the Bush administration ie. Colin Powell and others primarily at the State Department were marginalized. Of course plenty of those who aggressively championed the invasion and mocked the UN and OLD EUROPE at the time have condemned the likes of Trump along with Russia for undermining the Rules-Based Liberal International Order. Counting on short memories, and all that.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Super-low hanging fruit, and it's already been largely cast aside by academic historians, but it must be mentioned since it is still firmly emblazoned in the mind of the public; 476 AD as the end point of the Western Roman Empire.

Appreciated you putting this here.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The notion that the 1950s was the most prosperous decade in US history, that America had a stronger welfare state and it was some sort of progressive epoch with Eisenhower being to the left of Bernie Sanders. A quarter of the country lived in poverty and Medicare and Medicaid were non-existent. Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative who refused to deficit spend even in the midst of a recession. The only reason he kept the tax rate as high as it was was because fiscally conservative dogma was balanced budgets at the time rather then supply side.

Related : people getting confused between Eisenhower and the median republican of his time, and erroneously concluding the GOP of that era were defined by their good natured moderation

A conclusion that gives both Eisenhower and most (ie. to Ike's Right) Republicans of that era way more credit from a liberal-left view than they deserve!

Oh, and Nelson Rockefeller was Bad, just ftr

[All Along The Watchtower]

The notion that the 1950s was the most prosperous decade in US history, that America had a stronger welfare state and it was some sort of progressive epoch with Eisenhower being to the left of Bernie Sanders. A quarter of the country lived in poverty and Medicare and Medicaid were non-existent. Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative who refused to deficit spend even in the midst of a recession. The only reason he kept the tax rate as high as it was was because fiscally conservative dogma was balanced budgets at the time rather then supply side.

Related : people getting confused between Eisenhower and the median republican of his time, and erroneously concluding the GOP of that era were defined by their good natured moderation

There were some very hard right Republicans, especially in the Midwest. The strength of the unions in elections like 1958 washed them out of office.

Noted Moderate Nice Guy FFs like *checks notes* Robert Taft, John Bricker, William Jenner, literally Joseph McCarthy...

[All Along The Watchtower]

Many German-Americans in these places and elsewhere did go to fight the Nazis. That does not change that these voters (not all German-Americans) voted out of opposition to Roosevelt’s anti-Nazi foreign policy and continued these patterns while their country was at war with Germany. This is not a ‘bad historic narrative’ but a fact.

So you claimed that Nazi-sympathizing German-Americans drove

a lot of that rural Midwestern support for the Republicans

which is a pretty sweeping claim. Not denying that there were Nazi-sympathizing German-Americans, perhaps especially in these areas, but as Yankee alluded to, it seems reasonable to assume that German-American immigrants and their children would be especially less likely to support American involvement in another calamitous world war in which their country of origin was on the opposing side.

Not saying they were right to oppose it, but that didn't necessarily make them Nazi sympathizers.