By James Banakis | May 22^nd, 2026

I’ve always been a devotee of history. I think that’s because for me it’s always been someone telling a story. History as a study is at its best a TRUE story without an agenda. Those of us who study it understand that is because we accept the good and the bad of it as an examination of our very mortal ancestors navigating through the ages. Because we’re all human, we’re flawed. That’s what makes the stories so compelling.

History class for me was story hour, and I never missed class. Of them all, the best history professor I ever had was Dr. William Maehl. The great thespian held his audience in suspense, evoking laughter, tears, anxiety, and at times, spontaneous applause. He ended his lectures by giving his students a synopsis of how the subject of his discourse affected our lives and lessons we could take from it. He made us all feel that history was entrusted to those that chose to study it as a sacred text to be protected and passed on to our descendants. That’s why I detest historical revisionists. Those that pervert the past to promote their own agenda.

In the past 15 years we’ve seen those in the Marxist wing on the left want to tear down statues of historical figures who they chose to cancel. Every notable American honored with a statue erected over the past 250 years has been under attack for not being pure enough, woke enough.

We’ve also become aware of an interesting phenomenon propagated by their throngs of true believers, Gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a form of determined psychological maneuvering and emotional abuse where a person or group makes someone question their own memory, perception, or sanity. By denying facts or distorting reality, the manipulator gains power and control, leaving the victim confused and anxious.

The term was made popular in the 1944 film Gaslight, in which the protagonist is made to feel that she’s going insane. The term was often used by pundits during the Biden administration government officials for example, said our border was secure while millions of illegal aliens poured across unvetted. The other beauty was that Biden was running circles around his young staff at the White House, and that no one was able to keep up with his razor-sharp mind.

George Orwell perceptively said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”  The Neo Marxists understand this, and they constantly promote their agenda by corrupting our founding principles.

The 1619 Project is a journalistic brainchild that reframes US history around the arrival of enslaved Africans in 1619, highlighting slavery’s central role and the efforts of black Americans. Its imagined premise is that the country was founded in 1619 on slavery and forced, unfair labor and continues to hold to these principles today.  It’s a veiled attack on our true founding and our capitalistic values.

Always aspiring Marxist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, has no apparent understanding of any discipline, yet she always confidently delves into economics, history, law, as if she were an expert in the field. She tripled down on her critique of billionaires last week, claiming that the American Revolution was fought against the “billionaires of their time.”

I want to talk about how this is in the heritage of our country, because

America was founded… you look at Thomas Jefferson writing to

Madison in revolt of British aristocracy,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. “The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time. And were declaring independence from such an extreme marriage of wealth and power and the state that the voices of everyday people did not exist.” Ocasio-Cortez was responding to criticism she received for her comments arguing billionaires didn’t earn their fortunes and likely built their fortunes and their businesses on abuse. A Marxist belief shared by Barack Obama, “You didn’t build that!” She attempted to portray our founding fathers as the proletariat workers rebelling against the capitalistic British Empire, the billionaires of their time.

This bastardization of our heritage enrages me. Students and facility at U of C Institute of Politics cheered Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks. Think about that!  I have sympathy for the parents that have paid a minimum $385,000.00 for U of C tuition, only to receive a flawed education.  It just demonstrates what the political climate of our major universities is today. It might be interesting to have John Kass and Jeff Carlin get Professor of Political Science Emeritus Charles Lipson’s comments on this discourse.

The United States was established 250 years ago in 1776, and if you want to know why, just read The Declaration of Independence. There’s no nuance in that perfect document about being envious of, “the billionaires of their time.” In fact, most of the 56 signers were themselves among the wealthiest, most successful people on earth at the time. The founders were primarily inspired by John Locke who believed that human knowledge comes from experience, and that INDIVIDUALS have natural rights, and governments exist to protect life, liberty, and

PROPERTY.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels is remembered for his mantra that repeating a lie frequently enough will convince people.  “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

He believed that the masses easily “fall victim to a big lie”, while Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that people prefer a “big lie” over a small one because of their “primitive simplicity.” Again, this is a perfect example of mind control of a one party, totalitarian dictatorship.

Four years ago, 2 months before the midterms Joe Biden gave what for me was a fiercely partisan, demagogic, and deeply divisive speech in front of Independence Hall bathed in red with US Marines standing guard. It was one of the most twisted, evil examples of “the big lie” political manipulation thrust upon American citizens. He painted half of the country as the enemy, which has been a common theme among the Neo Marxists. It was during Biden’s administration planned to establish a so-called “Disinformation Governance Board.” The purpose of this

“ministry of truth” was to monitor and suppress the speech of

Americans. It was to be part of the Department of Homeland Security. The Neo-Marxists are intent on blowing up the Bill of Rights.

Today most American historians have a leftist predisposition. Most respect the discipline, yet they are unable to fairly judge someone like Ronald Reagan for example. They grudgingly give credit for his accomplishments.

My two favorite historians are David McCullaugh and Victor Davis Hanson.

David McCullough understood history as the decisive guide to the human experience. He wrote that it teaches us who we are, grounds our civic responsibilities, and acts as a fundamental navigational instrument through perilous times. I’ve enjoyed all his many varied studies and was fortunate to attend two of his lectures.

His most notable quotes on why history is essential include:

“I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it’s about who we are and how we came to be the way we are.”

“To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn’t just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it’s an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.”

Victor Davis Hanson is a prominent military historian and classicist. Hanson believes that human nature rarely changes. He constantly reminds us that freedom is never free. I count his as today’s preeminent defender of the study of history often comparing our classical past to the present.

History has shown that a government’s redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector’s creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the deadliest enemy.

It’s observations like this that marks Hanson as the most important observer of the current American condition. I’ll leave you today with his most perfect summation of my warning of historical revisionism.

Ignorance and arrogance are a lethal combination. Nowhere do we see that more clearly among writers and performers who pontificate as historians when they know nothing about history.

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Jimmy Banakis is a life-long restaurateur.  He was an honorary batboy for the White Sox in 1964. He attended Oak Park River Forest High School, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Chicago-Kent Law School.  He claims the kitchen is the room he’s most comfortable in anywhere in the world. He published an extremely limited-edition family cookbook. He’s a father and grandfather, and lives in Downers Grove Il.