U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas embarked on a wild and fanciful journey of historical revisionism this week, delivering a speech that portrayed progressivism as a dire threat to America because Woodrow Wilson was a segregationist, and somehow that led to the rise of Hitler.
Thomas delivered the hour-long lecture at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law on Wednesday in honor of the 250th anniversary of the founding of America.
After a fairly routine look back at America’s founding ideals, Thomas settled in particular on the Declaration of Independence, and, for some reason, Wilson, whom he seemed to regard as the only proponent of the early progressive movement who mattered. Thomas made no references to contemporary progressives or policies.
Since Wilson, a southern Democrat who grew up in Georgia, was also an avowed segregationist, Thomas deemed him ― and, therefore, also the modern progressive movement ― to be at odds with the Declaration’s “self-evident” claim that “all men are created equal.”
“Since Wilson’s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life,” said Thomas. “It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.”
