As we head to Independence Day and a celebration of this nation’s founding, the angry chorus of haters with idle hands and minds gets loud. They prefer we dwell on the nation’s sins and ignore our great progress toward an always more perfect union. No longer just angry academics and activists, the press too has joined the act. It is a reminder the secular religion that dominates cultural institutions is a religion without grace or forgiveness, perpetually anchored in the grievances of the past.

The New York Times produced its 1619 Project to, in the words of its creator, re-tell the story of our founding. She claimed it was not to be taken as true fact, but narration. She recast the United States and its revolution as about the preservation of slavery. Widely criticized by historians across the political perspective, the damage was done and proudly so. Many people who had grievance and needed a story around which to weave their grievance latched on to the false claims.

The fabulists ignored the Northern colonies moving against slavery long before Great Britain did. They ignored the writings of our founders, including Thomas Jefferson, who knew the institution of slavery undermined the words “all men are created equal” and would have to end. They ignored the reparations paid in blood on battlefields across America as white men from the North killed their kin from the South to set slaves free. //

Reuters has gotten in on the act. A week before Independence Day, it ran a story tying most living Presidents, two Supreme Court Justices, several Governors, and over 100 legislators to ancestors who owned slaves. Ironically, the only President who did not descend from slave owners is Donald Trump, not Barack Obama.