Historical Comparisons

 It's hard to win an argument with this administration by drawing historical analogies—when they themselves seem so eager to embrace all the worst chapters of American history. 

Just yesterday, I was writing on this blog that the administration's actions in Venezuela were all too reminiscent of U.S. expansionism in the 1846 Mexican-American war. 

I quoted Emerson's words at the time about that despicable conflict—which combined imperial aggression with an obvious bid on the part of slave states to expand their power: 

"Behold the famous States," Emerson wrote with scorn, "Harrying Mexico / With rifle and with knife!"

I've also quoted James Russell Lowell's immortal words about this evil and fratricidal conflict (from the Biglow Papers): 

"Ez fer war, I call it murder/ There you hev it plain an' flat;/ I don't want to go no furder/ Than my Testyment fer that." 

I thought we were pretty much all in agreement at this point that the Mexican-American war was bad. So, if I could link the administration's actions today to it, I thought, I would win the argument. 

But earlier this week—I learned yesterday—the administration went ahead and drew the same comparison themselves! 

On Monday, the White House published an official statement celebrating the anniversary of the war. 

It was larded with this administration's usual white nationalist rhetoric—their megalomaniac vision of a providential U.S. destiny to conquer and subdue the Western hemisphere. 

"Guided by the steadfast belief that our Nation was destined by divine providence to expand to the golden shores of the Pacific Ocean..."

"With the promise of Manifest Destiny beating in every American heart..."

Good God. 

This is the way Hitlerian mass murderers talk: the purported right of the Master Race to obtain "living space" for itself—at the cost of the blood of the various untermenschen who happen to be in the way.

Apparently it does no good, then, to accuse this administration of murder, of racism, of imperialism, of unprovoked aggression and of echoing the worst chapters of our nation's past—

Because to each of these charges, every time, they say: yes, and yes, and yes, and yes, and yes!