Thomas Jefferson has been a target of the left for years. To them, he's a nasty, evil man. He was a slave owner. But who wasn't in 18th Century America? Was it wrong? Yes. Does it mean the entirety of our founding was problematic? No. Slavery isn't unique to America. It's been around for centuries. Get over it. John Adams is the only president out of our first 12 who did not own slaves, and that man signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law under his presidency. The point is not everyone is perfect. Yet, under the "woke" regime, anything problematic the Founders committed in the past deserves cancellation in the present. That's not history or analysis. That's propaganda. So, even in rural Virginia, the woke have invaded.
The New York Post reported on the rumblings of lefty tour guides at Monticello bashing Jefferson. People posted about tour guides "besmirching" our third president on social media.
"Surly" and "dismissive" were other words used to describe the tours of Jefferson's home. One visitor asked if Jefferson had built a particular machine in the house, which drew a nasty reply from the guide who said the former president was not a builder of anything. The person commented that Jefferson built Monticello, along with our nation (via NY Post):
Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s good name in the process.
The Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the Founding Father and America’s third president is one of our best-known national monuments, familiar from its appearance on the nickel since 1938.
But the hilltop mansion designed by Jefferson himself, once preserved as a tribute to the author of the Declaration of Independence, now offers visitors a harangue on the horrors of slavery.
“The whole thing has the feel of propaganda and manipulation,” Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the libertarian Brownstone Institute and a recent visitor, told The Post. “People on my tour seemed sad and demoralized.”
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“Someone asked if Jefferson had built a machine in the house, and the guide said, ‘Nah, he never built anything, he was just a tinkerer,’” Tucker recalled.
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“Our goal is to present an honest, inclusive history of Monticello in all its aspects as well as Jefferson’s contributions to the founding of the country,” said Jenn Lyon, a Monticello spokesperson.
But on a visit this week, The Post found, the grievance has become the predominant theme at Monticello, from the ticket booth in the visitors center — decorated with a contemporary painting of Jefferson’s weeping slaves — to its final gift-shop display.
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“How does that land come to be in European possession?” a guide named Justin asked an unresponsive group of vacationers from Germany. “A lot of violence, right?” he prodded.
Placards with conversation starters on the topic of civil rights festoon a patio outside the snack shop. “Is ‘all men are created equal’ being lived up to in our country today?” one reads. “When will we know when it is?” it continues — supplying a negative answer to the first question.
In general, historical illiteracy is pervasive on the left. They don't have a grasp of it, and because of that—it must be destroyed. It's broken down and remolded through their twisted lens that being America is racist, evil, and a source of suffering.
Thomas Jefferson is a complicated man. Yes, he was a walking contradiction. Aren't we all? There is a way to articulate his contributions to our nation while noting his slave-owning past. But also acknowledge that slavery was still very much the norm in many parts of America.
Only a left-winger would say Jefferson didn't build anything while standing in the residence he created.