Just as Americans are preparing to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, CNN is busy trying to convince viewers that the Declaration of Independence should make them feel ashamed instead of proud.
During a recent segment, CNN’s Victor Blackwell focused less on the founding principles of liberty and more on what he described as a “slur” buried in the document that sparked America’s revolution.
Blackwell zeroed in on one line from the Declaration’s list of grievances against King George III, where Thomas Jefferson condemned the monarch for stirring up Native American tribes to attack settlers during the Revolutionary War.
The phrase described these groups as “merciless Indian Savages,” a statement Blackwell now claims stains the entire founding document.
Admitting he had only recently discovered that section, the CNN anchor expressed concern that Americans are not as familiar with it as they should be.
He lectured viewers on the need to “acknowledge” what he called America’s legacy of racism against Native Americans.
It was the sort of sermon that fits perfectly with CNN’s preferred narrative that nothing in American history can ever be viewed without focusing on alleged moral failings.
Joining the discussion was activist and writer Rebecca Nagle, who echoed the idea that the Declaration of Independence cannot be celebrated without accounting for what she described as the founders’ “deep hatred for indigenous people.”
Nagle argued that many Native Americans find it hard to embrace the coming anniversary because of the country’s early history.
According to Nagle, America’s current political divisions and cultural confusion all stem from a national ignorance of the country’s beginnings.
“We’re living through a political moment where a lot of people are asking questions like, how could this be happening in the United States? What happened to our democracy? How did we get here?” she said.
“And what I would say to that is, that I think right now in our country, we are struggling with how America got to where we are, because actually we don’t know how it started.”
WATCH:
Of course, what Nagle conveniently ignores is the historical context of that language.
The phrase in question referred to the British strategy of inciting violence from Native American tribes against the colonists.
At the time, many Native tribes were aligned with the British crown and carried out attacks on frontier settlements, often targeting women and children.
To the colonists, these atrocities were not hypothetical, they were lived experiences of brutal frontier warfare.
Jefferson’s wording was not some casual insult tossed into the Declaration but a reflection of the dangers ordinary Americans faced during the Revolution.
But that historical reality does not fit neatly with CNN’s attempt to rewrite the founding narrative into a story of shame and guilt.
The network’s eagerness to portray the United States as morally tainted has become almost ritualistic.
No national holiday or patriotic milestone seems safe from their efforts to smear it.
The broader intent of the CNN segment seemed evident.
Instead of celebrating a document that laid the foundation for individual liberty and self-government, the host and his guest chose to highlight a single passage and twist it into a statement of national disgrace.
This is textbook media revisionism, aimed at convincing Americans they have more to apologize for than to celebrate.
It is also no coincidence that CNN is highlighting this narrative as the 250th anniversary approaches.
Anti-American sentiment has become a cottage industry for networks desperate for ratings and desperate to appeal to the activist crowd.
Rather than uniting Americans around shared history, outlets like CNN prefer to drive wedges by branding the founders as villains.
What makes the timing particularly revealing is that this comes at a moment when patriotic sentiment is already under siege in schools and pop culture.
The left’s long-running campaign to distort the founding story has convinced many young people that freedom itself was born from oppression.
CNN’s segment fit neatly into that agenda by portraying the Declaration of Independence not as a beacon of liberty but as a document “soiled” by racism.
Americans watching this sort of revisionism might wonder what else will eventually be declared racist.
If historical language that reflected the brutal realities of the frontier can be reinterpreted as hate speech, then no founding document or national symbol is safe.
What the left refuses to acknowledge is that the ideals expressed in 1776, imperfect as the men behind them may have been, changed the course of human history.
The founders risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for those ideals.
Hundreds of years later, the self-appointed moral judges at CNN are attempting to tear that legacy down for the sake of clicks and virtue signaling.
It is not about historical accuracy but about dismantling the sense of pride and unity that comes from celebrating America’s creation.
So as the nation prepares to mark 250 years of independence, CNN is doing what it does best: finding fault, stoking grievance, and preaching guilt.
But millions of Americans still cherish what the founders built and refuse to let network pundits define their patriotism.
The Declaration of Independence remains what it always was, a revolutionary statement of freedom, despite the media’s desperate attempt to drag it through the mud.
