6/6/2020
White House Compares Trump-Churchill Leadership Styles, and Historians Scoff
Historians in the Newstags: Winston Churchill, Donald Trump
This week, the White House has likened Donald Trump to Winston Churchill, the hard-drinking and eccentric prime minister who led Britain as it faced off against the Nazis during World War II.
Some historians have responded to that with a resounding: Mr. President, you're no Winston Churchill. Others, meanwhile, have raised Churchill's troubling record on race, saying the American president shouldn't try to emulate the British leader whose disturbing views on race were rooted in 19th-century colonialism.
Historian Warren Dockter, a lecturer in international politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, has been among many to say the two leaders' actions couldn't be more different. Churchill helped unify Britain — in stark contrast to Trump, he said.
....
The Trump-Churchill comparison "verges on obscenity," said the author Erik Larson, who recently published a book about Churchill during the war.
"Churchill wept on these visits; he offered compassion and hope, and helped people find their courage," Larson tweeted about Churchill's visits to communities destroyed by Germany bombs.
Similarly, Princeton historian Kevin Kruse said in a tweet that Churchill's efforts "showed resilience against the Nazi war machine."
Kruse summarized Monday's events as: "Trump wanted to pretend he wasn’t scared of his fellow citizens, so he had protesters gassed and a priest yanked from a church so he could pose outside it."
comments powered by Disqus
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"
Trending Now
- New transcript of Ayn Rand at West Point in 1974 shows she claimed “savage" Indians had no right to live here just because they were born here
- The Mexican War Suggests Ukraine May End Up Conceding Crimea. World War I Suggests the Price May Be Tragic if it Doesn't
- The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of