Recently leftist Bill Maher took on the cancel culture mob, particularly their successful effort to force historian James Sweet PhD, President of the American History Association (AHA), to issue a groveling apology for daring to take on the mob atop his analysis, “Is History History?” Over the subtitle, “Identity Politics and Teleologies of the Present,” Sweet, whose day job is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, challenged the leftist orthodoxy, insisting essentially that we need to stop judging everyone in the past by the standards of the present and then erasing our history. He was immediately and viciously attacked, and the spineless then quickly folded.

The AHA’s mission is as follows: “The American Historical Association promotes historical work and the importance of historical thinking in public life. Incorporated by Congress in 1889, its mission to enhance the work of historians also encompasses academic freedom, professional standards and ethics, innovative scholarship and teaching and international collaboration. As the largest membership association of professional historians in the world (over 11,500 members), the AHA serves historians in a wide variety of professions, and represents every historical era and geographical area.”

According to Maher, in a segment, “New rule: You can get creative with a novel, a TV show or a movie, but history books – that’s not supposed to be fan fiction,” he notes “Liberals [are] accusing conservatives of wanting to whitewash the past…but plenty of liberals also want to abuse history to control the present.” He argued that it’s time to stop judging everyone in the past by the standards of the present, and remove cancel culture’s chokehold on the truth.

As it relates to the history of slavery and cancel culture today Maher declared: “Everybody who could afford one, had a slave, including people of color. The way some people talk about slavery these days you would think it was in a uniquely American thing invented in 1619. But slavery throughout history has been the rule, not the exception. The Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Arabs, the British, early Americans…all had slaves. The word ‘slave’ comes from ‘Slav’ and [Slavics] were as white as the Hallmark Channel! Who do you think gathered the slaves from the interior of Africa to sell to slave traders – Africans, who also kept their own slaves…”

“The capacity for slavery is a human thing, not a ‘white thing’ – that’s the truth even though it doesn’t jive with the current narrative. But in today’s world when truth conflicts with the narrative, it’s the truth that has to apologize. Being woke is like a magic moral time machine and you judge everybody by what you imagine you would’ve done in 1066 and you always win. As for ‘presentism,’ yeah this professor is right, it’s just a way to congratulate yourself for being better than George Washington because you have a gay friend and he didn’t. But if he were alive today, he would too. And if you were alive then, you wouldn’t.”

Giving and example of the academic absurdity besieging elementary and high schools, Maher notes: “Portland public schools has a plan to teach kids that the idea of ‘gender’ being ‘binary’ was brought here by ‘white colonizers.’ The curriculum guide says, ‘when the United States was Colonized by white settlers, their views on gender were forced upon the people already living here.’ It’s like they discovered a unified theory of whiteness, incorporating all their theories about race, gender and colonizers, like the new world was a great big diverse dance club and the pilgrims came in and ruined everything.”

He concluded, “Not to say that there isn’t some truth to the old rubric that ‘history is written by the winners’ and it is subjective [but] it’s also true that much of history is indisputably factual.”

Ironically, sitting next to Maher was his guest, Jon Meacham – who’s historical writings are deserving of accolades despite his Pulitzer award. However his contemporary perspective is as woke as the worst, as is too often the case with those who become pop celebrities. Ironic I note also, because Meacham helped craft Joe Biden’s obscene hate America speech two weeks ago.