Revisionism Is Winning in American Politics

Last week, Jill Biden, the wife of the now–presidential contender Joe Biden, gave an interview to NPR. While she was there as an author—Biden recently published a memoir, Where the Light Enters—she was also there as a surrogate for her husband, and she answered questions about some of the controversies that have followed Joe in the early days of his latest primary run: the allegations of inappropriate touching; his treatment, when he was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of Anita Hill. As for the latter, Jill Biden said: “It’s time to move on.”

This is a familiar kind of pronouncement: Weary and wary, it attempts to curtail further discussion. , Biden was suggesting of in 1991, even though it definitely has not. The rhetoric, in its attempt to impose a statute of limitations on a matter that doesn’t have one, is reminiscent of many of the reactions to Christine Blasey Ford’s against Brett Kavanaugh (“This accusation is 36 years old,” Lindsey Graham , wearily, warily). It’s historical revisionism of an especially cynical strain: an attempt to rewrite the record not by offeringis restless; it is also purposely forgetful.