Thanks for writing and sharing your concern. The question has always been whose history are we teaching and from which perspectives.

As you note Trump promotes a "Love it or Leave it version of America. He echoes Joseph McCarthy here which is not surprising since they both had the same lawyer.

American patriotism has always had a dissenting note to it. America the beautiful famously contains the stanza,

"O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern impassioned stress

A thoroughfare of freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control

Thy liberty in law!"

The idea is very clear. We are always creating a "more perfect union." Self-control is necessary for freedom and liberty submits to the rule of Law."

For Woody Guthrie, America the Beautiful was patriotic drivel. He wrote "This Land is Your Land" in response. A few of the verses were carefully eliminated from the versions we sing in school.

"As I went walking I saw a sign there,

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing.

That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,

By the relief office I seen my people;

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

Is this land made for you and me?"

The meaning of the American past has always been contested. That is what historians do. They debate and revise our shared story of the past in light of questions that they find interesting today.

Benjamin Franklin famously spoke in favor of adopting the US Constitution while admitting it was a flawed document. He suggested that we could improve it over time. Franklin then became a signatory on the first petition to the US Government to abolish slavery.

No wonder he is often called the first American.

Thanks for writing this. Please keep up the good fight.