What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday night, Trump was busy preparing to pardon a number of old cohorts, cronies, and other people who could probably be useful during what may be a financially and legally questionable future. One of his last acts — dropping the “1776 Project,” a patriotic pamphlet that, among other things, minimized slavery and lumped progressives in with fascists — had recently gone live, to much mockery and disdain. Jump a day and Trump is no longer president and already many of his more controversial moves are being reversed. And that “1776 Project”? Already deleted.
https://twitter.com/_loganmcdonald/status/1351941117672124420
The report was created as a rejoinder to The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which set out to write a corrective history of America, one that viewed it through the lens of slavery. Its introductory essay earned its author, project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer. But it predictably rankled many in conservative circles, especially Trump, who wanted one that taught a more generic “patriotism.”
When it landed — on MLK Day, no less — it was met with immediate scorn. It attacked colleges, which “peddle resentment and contempt for American principles and history alike.” It asserted that the founding fathers were not hypocrites for preaching equality while owning slaves. It attacked the civil rights movement, at least post-Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.
And now it’s gone. You’ll just have to trust the many screengrabs it inspired over social media, accompanied by appalled “Can you believe this?”-type responses. When people noticed its disappearance, only two days after its arrival, there was much rejoicing.
LOL, Biden has already deleted the 1776 Report from the White House website.
— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) January 20, 2021
Bravo to the Biden staffer who got the logins and immediately took the 1776 commission report and page down. Well played, my friend. pic.twitter.com/BfhXyyxOUK
— Shark-Fu (reanimated) (@SharkFu) January 20, 2021
And just like that, here's what's left of the 1776 Commission page.https://t.co/c8ZrqVzqaw pic.twitter.com/hooRHQ8mVQ
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) January 20, 2021
https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1351972771811700736
Among those glad it was gone was the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.
The 1776 Commission page is down.
That’s good for this nation and for humanity.
We won’t heal without honesty.
And we can’t skip justice and get to peace.
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” #MLK#Inauguration2021 pic.twitter.com/6PszyuWSpJ
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 20, 2021
It was one of many Trump items Biden reversed in his first hours as the nations’ 46th president. Among them are: stopping our withdrawal from the WHO and the Paris Climate Accord; cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline; requiring non-citizens to be counted in the latest Census; reversing the “Muslim ban”; undoing his expansion of immigration enforcement; and stopping work on the incomplete border wall. So it really is morning in America.