Long, long ago, in a suburb not too far away, I had a teacher for American history who started the year with a striking proposition: specifically, that American history education has been forced into a “good guys versus bad guys” model. (Henceforward, the Model.) He could have named names, but he didn’t. Instead, he presented the Model to us and asked us whether it accurately summarized the way we’d been taught to view American history in our earlier school years.

     It did. It does. It continues to dominate the teaching of American history to this day. It will come as no surprise to my readers that the Model proposes that the “good guys” are on the big-government / international-interventionist left.

     Now, that teacher had a screw or two loose. He thought compound interest on mortgages (especially his) was “unfair.” He felt it was entirely acceptable to belittle those of us who sought careers in science and technology. And he was an ardent, evangelistic political conservative, one of the very few I encountered in my school years. I shan’t describe his idiosyncrasies any further than that. But he did capture the prevailing Model of American history accurately. (Needless to say, he taught from the opposite perspective.)

     One of the implications of the Model is, of course, that those administrations opposed to big government and international meddling are therefore bad. A teacher presenting American history to his students under the Model faces certain challenges. For example, he must reconcile the admiration of the administrations of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Grover Cleveland – three Democrat presidents – with the Left’s disapproval of limited government / noninterventionist sentiments. Preserving the Democrat label from association with limited government and noninterventionism can be a chore, especially when the first genuinely “progressive” president, in the contemporary sense, was Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican.

     To that end, American history before the Wilson Administration is glossed over rather than treated as a serious subject worthy of detailed attention. When the teacher presents details for study, they’re the ones that run counter to the sentiments that prevailed in those years: Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase; Jackson’s support for slavery; Cleveland’s intervention in the Pullman strike. The rest is wrapped in murk, lest the young mind be drawn to the limited government / noninterventionist way of thought.

     The Model can follow the young person into his adult life, and often does. It can warp his perception of social and political developments. It can predispose him against public figures identified with the small-government / America-First ideology. That the big-government / globalist model is antithetical to the principles on which the country was founded doesn’t get his attention, much less serious study.

     This comes to mind this morning for reasons disconnected from most current events. However, it does explain the Left’s sanctification of Democrat administrations starting with Woodrow Wilson, America’s first openly globalist president. It also explains the Left’s vilification of the administrations that have run counter to the big-government / globalist pattern. If the former is Good, the latter must be Evil, regardless of any other considerations.

     A little while ago, I encountered a poster on X / Twitter who claimed, quite barefacedly, that it’s been Republican administrations that have been responsible for America’s involvement in foreign wars. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, as that poster has said many intelligent and observant things. But she had not paid attention to the details of history since 1900:

• World War I: entered by Woodrow Wilson.
• World War II: entered by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Korean War: entered by Harry S. Truman, concluded by Dwight Eisenhower.
• Vietnam War: entered by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, concluded by Richard Nixon.

     Only the grip of the Model can explain that degree of historical ignorance in an otherwise intelligent, generally erudite person.

     If you’re the parent of a young American in high school today, watch for the effects of the Model. Chat with Junior about what he’s being taught about the history of his country. If you sense the Model in operation, do what you can – gently, of course – to correct its influence. Introducing your child to the facts, and to other historical perspectives, is critical. In this regard I heartily recommend the late Clarence Carson’s six-book series A Basic History of the United States, which is suitable for teenaged readers.

     Historical literacy is among the things the Left fears most. Consider only the effects of the Model on contemporary left-inclined Americans. How many fewer would there be, were it not for the tendentiousness of juvenile education in American history?