Politics and Postings

A week ago, I quoted a letter from the Boston Globe that offered a tongue-in-cheek derivation of the modern political term “Tea Party.” That prompted cheers, insults, and complaints about politics on this blog.

Yes, actual politics on a website about a revolution! Imagine the wailing if I’d concluded with statements about exactly how people should vote instead of writing, “Whatever your views, if you’re an American citizen I hope you’ve voted by the end of the day.”

More seriously, I want to address some issues raised by comments on that posting. First, when I consider Revolutionary history, that includes how we remember it and what principles it established. If a politician or political movement quotes, misquotes, or claims the mantle of the U.S. of A.’s founding, that catches my eye. If people invoke or break parts of the Constitution written in the 1700s, that’s relevant. Sometimes I see interesting parallels between events of the past and today.

Still, all Boston 1775 postings pertain to the eighteenth century. I haven’t focused on income tax brackets, prohibition, charter schools, campaign finance, public media, or regulation of financial derivatives, and not because I have no opinions about those topics. Maybe a link will surface, and I’ll be interested. But there would have to be a link.

Second, for Tea Party adherents to object to seeing ideas they dislike on a website they’re reading for free does nothing to dispel the notion that the movement’s emotional energy comes from privileged Americans whining about not getting everything they want. Instead, it looks a lot like evidence of people feeling entitled, unable to respond rationally, and not truly committed to their stated principles about freedoms.

I understand that much of the American right has come to see the nation’s history, and especially the founding era, as their exclusive property. Some Boston 1775 visitors might therefore be surprised to discover that people with other politics, like myself, are just as passionate about it. But learning new things is why we research, right?

Third and most important, I simply don’t agree with the idea that studying and discussing history can be segregated from politics. Especially when it comes to the Revolution and national founding, which is such an influential and emotionally freighted period.

There’s a political dimension to writing about ordinary people’s experiences and desires instead of just those of elite politicians and military leaders. There’s a political dimension to writing about George Washington as a person who needed outhouses and chamber pots instead of just as a paragon. There’s a political dimension to writing about enslaved people, or working children, or Loyalists who lost the war.

Simply sharing evidence that casts doubt on the legend of Declaration signer Richard Stockton has political implications today, as does highlighting how colonial Americans enjoyed burning the revered symbols of despised, suspected foreign religions. Even if I wanted to avoid modern resonance in discussing those topics, I couldn’t. Sometimes reader comments bring out the politics, as in my September posting about a museum in Virginia recognizing early Americans who came from West Africa.

Most Boston 1775 postings touch on political principles and attitudes rather than specific debates today. But political matters are no more than one step away from practically any historical topic. It’s bound up in most research, especially when so many great resources depend on public funding: the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the online Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, access to the Archive of Americana to Boston Public Library cardholders, &c.

As another example, one of my permanent links is to Gen. Washington’s Cambridge headquarters, now Longfellow National Historic Site. That house, maintained by the National Park Service, was once open for tours year round, but its current level of federal funding allows staff to welcome drop-in visitors five months of the year. Last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a., “the stimulus”) sped up some long-delayed repairs. When incoming leaders of the House of Representatives talk about balancing the federal budget without higher taxes and without changes to defense programs or entitlements, they can fulfill those promises only with large cuts to agencies like the Park Service. Access to and maintenance of that historic site depends on decisions within our national political process.

I see those connections floating behind each topic. I know Americans have a range of opinions about how to handle those issues. Rather than try to treat the Revolutionary past as somehow beyond political controversy, I prefer to express my political views sometimes, and recognize that there are other views I disagree with, sometimes strongly. That means occasionally being explicit about politics—because it’s unavoidably implicit the rest of the time.