The People Without A Past

Why Americans aren’t going to listen to Putin’s history lecture

Tucker Carlson scored a massive coup with his Vladimir Putin interview. It drew international attention to the former Fox News host, with the European Union even threatening to sanction the conservative commentator. While the interview will be discussed in newspapers across the world, don’t expect many Americans to watch it.

The blame for that doesn’t lie with Tucker–it lies with Putin.

The Russian president decided to give a long-winded history lecture for the first thirty minutes of the interview. The lecture sought to inform the audience of why Russia cares so deeply about Ukraine. But most will tune out when they hear it begins in the Middle Ages and delves deeply into the obscure and confusing turns of Slavic history. Americans will switch to watching more clips about the upcoming Super Bowl. 

Some people appreciated Putin’s history lesson. It’s unheard of for American politicians to display such a thorough grasp of historical knowledge. It’s definitely different from the platitudes and Hollywood history we get from our leaders. And it’s certainly better than our current president mixing up Mexico with Egypt. 

But the people who enjoyed Putin’s monologue are not his intended audience. The Russian president wanted his interview to be a chance to speak with ordinary Americans. He chose the wrong way to reach them.

Not only do Americans know little about Eastern European history, they know little about history in general. And they don’t care about this ignorance. Americans are a people who left the past behind. That’s part of the new American identity. 

This is different from Europeans, particularly those in the East. Their identities are intimately tied with events in the distant past. Serbs, for instance, are obsessed with battles and humiliations that occurred in times before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In the 1990s, Americans could never grasp why Serbs would be so fixated on Kosovo. Yanks certainly couldn’t understand the vicious ethnic hatreds of the region either. A leader like Slobodan Milosevic justifying modern actions with appeals to a 14th century battle could never be comprehended by Americans.

The past is still very much alive in Eastern Europe. It animates the war in Ukraine, regional fear of Russia, and Putin’s ambitions. The strong ethnic identities and hatreds are kept alive by a strong remembrance of the past. Many of the events that drive these passions occurred before the Declaration of Independence was even signed.

Americans, on the other hand, are very different. We left our ethnic traditions and animosities back in the Old World. Many of us have been here for centuries and lost all ties back to Europe. Even more recent arrivals don’t have a sense of the old ethnic identity besides a shirt that declares “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.” Ethnic animosities are a trait of the newer immigrants. Heritage Americans don’t exhibit it.

Much of the mythology surrounding America extols it as a land where you leave the past behind and your new identity was shaped by the frontier or melting pot. The old ethnic grievances were abandoned in favor of caring deeply about the Founders, the Civil War, and the other important events of the more recent past. American history strongly differs from European histories. With a few exceptions, our popular history is one of uplift and progress. It’s an optimistic vision of Americans going from one success to another. We’ve overcome all enemies and have little to be hung up about (this is different for blacks, Indians, and other minorities, however). History, for most Europeans, is full of tragedy, humiliations, lost territory, and unreconciled resentments. There are great achievements and points of pride as well, but it’s not a sunny “City on a Hill” vision. It’s more like Putin’s monologue. 

But Americans increasingly don’t even care about our popular history. We made national parks out of our battles and preserved the houses and buildings where our history took place. The 100th anniversary of the Civil War and the Bicentennial were major events. But this is now the past. The 150th anniversary of the Civil War passed in the last decade with hardly any notice. There were no public remembrances of the 400th anniversary of the Plymouth Rock landing in 2020. Just one third of Americans have enough historical knowledge to pass a citizenship test. The majority of Americans can’t even identify who we fought in World War II. 

This doesn’t really bother the majority of us. That’s because we have a new mythos that’s replaced actual history. Marvel, Star Wars, and other popular franchises serve as our reference points for world affairs. When the Ukraine War broke out, many commentators explained the conflict through the lens of The Avengers. Harry Potter references were frequently deployed by politicians and media outlets to showcase the alleged evil of the Trump administration. Past political leaders utilized allusions from the Bible, classical works, and American history to illustrate their points to the public. Now our leaders cite Spider-Man and Voldemort. World War II is the only historical event most Americans are familiar with due to its inclusion in comic book films and video games. The Nazis stand as the ultimate bad guys in American mythology–our countrymen just might not know which country they ruled. 

If Putin really wanted to reach the American public, he would’ve portrayed the Ukrainian conflict in terms drawn from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This lack of a past is obviously a problem. A people without a heritage are an easily controlled and manipulated people. They will care about little besides filling their belly. They lack any real identity and just live life to consume. They won’t care about mass immigration or cultural revolutions. As long as they can watch the new Marvel movie and smoke weed, life is good for them.

This Last Man scenario is grim beyond belief. It’s a critical task to infuse the historic American people with a sense of their heritage again. It will be different from the past that animate Russians and Ukrainians. It will be unique to the American experience, but it will be a past nonetheless. Without one, Americans are greatly susceptible to turning into libtards. With one, they’re capable of resisting their own replacement. 

Reviving our heritage is a critical task for our side. Only a people with a past can have a future.