by Naftali Bendavid
A House vote yesterday involving the legacy of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez highlights one of the more fascinating aspects of U.S. politics–how storylines from our history are continually rewritten by today’s politicians for their own purposes. They’re always trying to reshape old stories as object lessons for the moment.
Conservatives, for instance, worked hard to enshrine President Ronald Reagan as one of the towering figures of the 20th Century from the moment he left office. Franklin D. Roosevelt had long been accepted as a great president, perhaps the only modern chief executive fit to be mentioned alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.
Conservatives believed Reagan deserved equal billing, though, and they fought for it from the moment Reagan left office. They successfully pushed to name a major federal building and airport after him, and they crusaded to put his likeness on a coin or bill. His most fervent admirers wanted to create a Reagan memorial of some kind–schoolhouse, federal building, highway–in every county in America.
The message for today was hardly subtle: Roosevelt was a big-government liberal who created numerous federal programs and agencies. Reagan, his supporters say, was just as great. Therefore, conservatism is just as worthy a philosophy as liberalism.In a similar vein, there was a spate of ceremonies a few years back renaming D.C. federal buildings to honor certain historical figures. What had been simply the Old Executive Office Building in 1999 became the Dwight D. Eisenhower building.
The following year, as Harry Truman’s reputation was rebounding, the State Department’s home transformed into the Harry S. Truman Building. In 2001, the Justice Department building became the Robert F. Kennedy building, dedicated by President Bush in a gracious speech. A couple years earlier, the storied CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., was renamed for President George H.W. Bush.
Naming these impressive government edifices after such figures–recognizing their stature in a visible, literally concrete way–was an implicit endorsement of what they stood for, even if that was not the official reason for the honor.
Also a few years back, some activists wanted to add Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt to the Washington’s Birthday holiday. But that campaign met significant resistance. Advocates suspected that Southerners did not want to glamorize Lincoln further. and that conservatives were opposed to honoring Roosevelt.
Most striking these days, however, is the way the political battle over Iraq runs alongside a simultaneous battle over the meaning of the Vietnam war more than three decades ago.
A widespread view of the Vietnam war has been that the entire idea was misguided, that fighting a shadowy insurgency in a far-off region about which Americans understood little was a tragic mistake from the outset.
To opponents of the Iraq war, the U.S. is making exactly the same mistake in Iraq. In this view, you could substitute “al Qaeda” for “Viet Cong,” “global terrorism” for “world Communism” and “Donald Rumsfeld” for “Robert McNamara” and understand the tragedy that is now unfolding.
As in Vietnam, according to this line of thought, the only answer is to get out of Iraq as fast as possible before more Americans die.
Another powerful faction has found completely different lessons in Vietnam. In its view, the only mistake was abandoning America’s allies too soon, largely because of a left-wing, naive peace movement, and pulling out of Vietnam led to terrible consequences in Southeast Asia.
More Top Picks Best Outdoor Prep Carts
Vietnam’s lesson for Iraq, according to this school is to persevere even in the face of great military and political difficulties. In a little-noticed Chicago speech last April, Vice President Dick Cheney compared today’s Democratic Party to the one led by George McGovern in the early 1970s. “America will not again play out those scenes of abandonment and regret,” Cheney said. “Thirty-five years is enough time to have learned the lessons of that sad era.”
As recently as yesterday, Sen. John McCain–a Vietnam veteran–took to the Senate floor to compare today’s “Out of Iraq” push with the move in 1970 to cut off funding for U.S. troops in Cambodia.
Which brings us back to Cesar Chavez. Chavez, of course, organized and led the United Farm Workers in the 1960s, igniting support for impoverished migrants across the country and inspiring boycotts of grapes and other produce.
Chavez was a controversial figure–revered by liberals for heroically standing up for the disadvantaged, scorned by conservatives for standing in the way of business and farmers. Well, it turns out he still is.
The House Tuesday passed a bill ordering the Interior Department to study sites that played important roles in Chavez’s life, so it could determine an appropriate way to memorialize them. (A stamp has also been issued in Chavez’s honor, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton, and some want to designate a federal holiday in his memory.)
The bill to study Chavez sites never got anywhere when the House was controlled by Republicans. House members from California’s Central Valley declined to co-sponsor the resolution, according to the Los Angeles Times, apparently because he fought large agribusiness.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, according to the Sacramento Bee. “There are plenty of things already named for Cesar Chavez, and he was a controversial figure.” Rep. Hilda Solis, a California Democrat, countered, “I hope that his legacy and memory will someday become a fundamental piece of American history.”
And history is exactly the point. “History is written by the victors” is a well-known aphorism. Today’s politicians understand that, conversely, those who control history have a better shot at becoming the victors.