Archiving the “strange death of Europe,” as Douglas Murray put it, and the West more broadly, at the hands of the neoliberal technocracy.
Thomas Jefferson’s alleged grandson throws grandpa under the bus for social clout
Some guy who is allegedly the distant descendant of Thomas Jefferson and his notorious slave-lover Sally Hemmings, Shannon LaNier, is apparently important enough for The Guardian to do a lengthy human interest story on — just in time for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, published on July 1 — on the condition that he allow himself to be used to demonize the Founding Fathers.
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Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
LaNier is the sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who wrote the Declaration of Independence and became the third president.
He is also a direct descendant of Sally Hemings, who was enslaved by Jefferson and bore several of his children. The exploitative relationship began after she joined him in Paris at the age of just 14 and lasted for decades.
Mind you, no one under the sun would care what this guy had to say if it weren’t for the accomplishments of his alleged forefather, who literally architected the model of governance copied the world over for centuries by aspirational democracies and upon whose name LaNier has built his career as an “influencer.”
Yet here he is throwing him under the bus all the same for social brownie points from self-hating liberals he hopes will buy his book.
Continuing:
“I wish he would have done more to free the enslaved people and practise what he actually preached,” LaNier, 47, says by phone from New York. “I know he tried to but he was the most powerful man in the country and he could have done more and he was living a double life so it’s unfortunate.
“Sometimes I appreciate what he’s done for this country and how much of a genius he was,” Lanier continues. “Other times I hate what he did and that he didn’t do more, and the hypocritical aspects, because we could have been so much further along as a society if he would have done what was right instead of what was profitable.”
LaNier has carved out a career as a television personality, actor, social media influencer and public speaker. He is a co-author of Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family.
Trashing the Founding Fathers — and, frankly, any white male historical figure of note — is basically catnip to the progressive left and has been for many years, a trend which accelerated dramatically during the 2020 Summer of Love when countless statues of national icons across the West were vandalized.
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Recently, Barack Obama came about as close as any Democrat in the last decade has come to praising the Founding Fathers, even while offering the obligatory denunciations.
Via Reality Tea (emphasis added):
Speaking in an interview with MSNOW on Sunday, Barack Obama framed the Founding Fathers’ legacy as inseparable from their contradictions, not despite them. “I think sometimes we get confused in thinking that these two stories are separate. They’re intertwined, right? Which is why it’s possible for me to be a great admirer of George Washington, and also acknowledge he was a slaveholder.”
Obama drew a line between accountability and erasure. “That does not negate [Washington’s] greatness; it simply acknowledges that there’s a profound, deep flaw in these Founding Fathers who were also geniuses and gave us these tools,” he said. “It’s that we’re this mixed bag, we’ve got contradictions. And embody the country’s contradictions.”
This nuance is obviously a bridge too far for progressives — and you can almost see Obama realize he’s crossed the line before the end of his little soliloquy.
Over at the dumpster fire that is Reddit, in the “Late Stage Capitalism” subreddit, users satirically summarized Obama’s nuanced reflection: “Satan has his contradictions but you cannot deny his greatness.”
