Historians in Denial of the 2024 Election – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
After attending the Organization of American Historians annual conference in Chicago, IL earlier this year, I felt compelled to compose a reflection of the event, primarily focusing on one session — a session titled “The Election of 2024.” As a historian who followed the presidential election closely, I was eager to hear how some of my colleagues viewed the roles of media and money on the election, as well as how they portrayed the most important issues to voters in 2024 (e.g. inflation, immigration, and national security) that led Donald Trump to winning the election over a candidate who was appointed, rather than elected, to serve as the Democratic party’s representative in November.
Moreover, it seems their response to these fears is to fabricate histories … and ignore significant historical details and evidence.
I was also curious how my colleagues viewed the mainstream media’s and Democratic leadership’s failure to confront Biden’s health problems — issues that ultimately led to his resignation as the party’s presidential candidate. Fresh revelations from former Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and reports that leaders practically had to push Biden out piqued my interest.
Alas, none of these topics were addressed by any of the five panelists, nor by the Chair, and not by a single person in the audience when the floor was opened to questions. Indeed, when one member of the audience approached the microphone, he proudly announced he was hosting an Anti-Trump Rally the following day and encouraged attendees to join.
In fact, I do not recall the names Joe Biden or Kamala Harris ever being mentioned throughout the entire discussion. I admit, I felt that I must hold my tongue for fear that I would be attacked, and attacks in such a public venue could perhaps cost me professional opportunities and even compensation in the future.
To start, when Marsha Barrett, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, took her turn at the microphone, she spent much of her time addressing alleged racial discrimination. She challenged the narrative that Trump performed better with African Americans, claiming that Trump fared about the same with the black vote in 2024 as he did in 2020. Barrett even contended that votes were still being counted (in April of 2024), as though there might have been a different outcome had we waited for all votes to be counted, giving the impression that African Americans might have been disfranchised.
I do not recall her making these claims blatantly, but rather she seems to have alluded to these arguments. Unfortunately, Barrett failed to break down the numbers by state. Going into the 2024 election, it was clear that there were only seven swing states whose outcomes were for all intents-and-purposes not predetermined — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, exit polls indicate Trump earned approximately 17 more percentage points from black male voters in 2024 than he did in 2020, and in North Carolina, Trump gained 12 points.
Another panelist, Melani McAlister, focused her presentation on Trump’s attempts to restrict immigration during his first term in office. McAlister portrayed Trump as anti-Islamic and rabidly pro-Israel, while she, herself, exhibited a great deal of pro-Palestinian sentiment. She gave Trump a minimal amount of credit for the ceasefire that was broken in March when Benjamin Netanyahu grew dissatisfied with Hamas’ hesitation and refusal to release hostages, both living and dead.
Even though the panel was supposed to address the 2024 election, little of this was connected to Trump’s campaign, and nothing was said about Biden’s or Harris’ actions or lack thereof. Truly, it was difficult to understand what actions Harris might have taken had she been elected, and pro-Palestinian protests spread like wildfire and were frequently front-page news under Biden’s administration.
Moreover, Harris repeatedly praised Biden’s policies when she campaigned, frequently finding it difficult to separate her own prospective policies from Biden’s, despite Biden’s low approval ratings. When asked in an Oct. 8 appearance on ABC’s The View what she would do differently than Biden, Harris answered “not a thing.” Nevertheless, McAlister ignored how Americans viewed specific policies and spent much of her presentation empathizing with the Palestinians.
Another panelist, Felisha Kornbluh, proclaimed herself to be a proud leftist, but indicated she reluctantly had to use a more liberal perspective in preparing for this session. She focuses most of her work on LGBTQIA+ issues, so she used most of her time advocating for the transgender community. Meanwhile recent polls show support for transgender issues has declined — particularly in youth sports.
From what I recall, none of what she said used historical evidence to support her contentions, and never did she address how Americans viewed the transgender issue leading up to the 2024 election. One of Trump’s most successful ad campaigns was a commercial that showed Harris supporting taxpayer funded transgender surgeries, yet the effects of this ad campaign were left unexplored.
As I remember, the only panelist who said anything relevant to the 2024 election was Sarah McNamara. McNamara correctly pointed out that the Democratic party took the Latino vote for granted, focusing on Florida and deep South Texas where Republicans faired particularly well. Despite this correct assertion, she still failed to use much historical evidence from the 2024 election, but instead she leaned heavily on her own understanding of the Latine community. I am familiar with McNamara’s work, and I respect her knowledge and understanding of Latino/a issues, but she certainly could have provided more depth and explained her research program on the political nuances of Latino Americans.
Remarkably, one of the recurring themes of the conference was an expressed fear that history teachers in K-12 and professors in higher education may not be able to teach accurate histories in the near future due to suppression from conservative political leaders. Repeatedly in conference sessions and in networking conversations, attendees decried the idea that both state and federal government leaders are clamping down on academic freedom.
Indeed, the opening plenary consisted of historian-after-historian claiming they are afraid for the lives of academics, the historical profession, and underrepresented communities, with many claiming they cannot sleep at night because of the current administration. While I too believe that governments and academic institutions, in their attempts to address a variety of problems in higher education, might be going too far and threaten academic freedom, I think most of their concerns are blown out of proportion.
Moreover, it seems their response to these fears is to fabricate histories for their own purposes and ignore significant historical details and evidence. Their arguments are based on emotion and not inspired by data and facts. They fail to recognize what is true by creating their own “truths.” In essence, it seems that historians have willfully abandoned what it is to be historians, sacrificing their reputation as scholars for the sake of promoting anti-Trump and anti-Republican propaganda.
The fear expressed by attendees at large was that they are witnessing the birth of a fascist, totalitarian government. My fear is that academia is already suffering under a leftist totalitarianism that prefers subjectivity over research, consensus over debate, and irrationality over reason and empiricism. In other words, maybe we’re already there.
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