Last week, Tucker Carlson broke the internet—again. This time, he did so by interviewing the popular historian podcaster Darryl Cooper (aka Martyr Made) who made some controversial assertions about World War II—namely, that Winston Churchill was a warmonger who instigated the war, authorized inhumane attacks on civilians, and ignored Hitler’s many peace proposals. This set off a firestorm in the media, with a number of critics and even a White House spokesman calling Cooper and Carlson Nazi sympathizers deserving cancellation for daring to challenge the official narrative of WWII.
Lincoln As He Really Was
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And while an instance of history nerds arguing with one another might seem “too online” for most normal people to care about, it actually reveals a great deal about today’s political culture. As Cooper himself noted in the interview, the popular beliefs about Churchill and the Allied Powers in WWII are critical to the Western identity today. As the story goes, the Americans and British were liberators who championed freedom and justice while the Germans and Japanese were genocidal monsters that would enslave humanity. As for the Russians, who were also genocidal monsters enslaving humanity, they’re generally not part of the conversation.
On the one hand, this narrative has benefitted Americans, who can take pride in being part of a nation that exterminated fascism from the world. Considering that leftist historical revisionists continually cast America and the West as forces for evil, World War II stands as one of those positive moments where they actually helped make the world a better place. Thus, to tarnish this popular view in the name of “just asking questions” only serves to embolden America’s enemies in their hatred of the “Undefeated 2-Time World War Champ.”
On the other hand, this narrative has become the basis of nearly every bad foreign policy position since WWII. Every foreign enemy is supposedly Hitler, thus necessitating costly intervention. By extension, everyone who seeks peaceful resolutions is treated as ignominious traitors and stooges who hate their country and side with the enemy.
This is to say nothing of Leftists who use Hitler to demonize every conservative politician and policy, which in turn justifies every dirty, unconstitutional tactic that they routinely take against the other side. To paraphrase Dostoevsky, “If every opponent is Hitler, everything is permitted.”
Thus, when Cooper suggests that Hitler was unnecessarily provoked to aggression and that a world war was actually the worst possible way to deal with this problem, he effectively calls into question the current Western political order.
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Then again, maybe the current Western political order isn’t the best of all possible worlds. Maybe the U.S. would do better to remain neutral in foreign conflicts, seek diplomatic means of resolving conflicts, and scale down its defenses in a purely defensive capacity. Instead of blowing our surplus wealth trying to be Team USA: World Police, we could update our infrastructure, improve our education and healthcare systems, and help poorer nations through foreign investment and collaborative projects rather than military occupation.
Perhaps leftist politicians might think twice before calling their opponent Hitler, recognizing that doing so fosters violent extremism and endangers constitutional norms. In a healthy democracy where all actors act in their rational self-interest, political opponents would first seek common ground and find areas of compromise. In an unhealthy democracy (or more accurately, an oligarchy), political opponents use any available means to attack the other in a fight for political survival—much like it happens in a world war.
And, if Americans recognize that Churchill was not the hero they imagined and that protracted global conflict was not the only answer, let alone the best one, maybe Americans could transcend their differences and see who their real enemy is. Based on Cooper’s interpretation, the real threat in World War II was the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Hitler seemed to believe that he could unite the Western nations against the communist menace to the east, but Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sided with Stalin, thinking him the lesser evil whom they could work with.
