When I was working for Roger Ailes, he'd tell us stories about what it was like to be working with Nixon. One story he told was the advice he gave to Nixon when the Watergate story broke, which was (remember, it was his story and I'm telling it second-hand) "Tell the truth, you had nothing to do with this, it was overzealous campaign members going overboard. The American people have a great capacity for forgiveness."
That story was one I heard about 23 years ago, and I can't confirm it ever happened, but based on the (limited) interactions I had with Ailes it was probably fairly accurate. I was raised to believe most people have a great capacity for forgiveness if you're sincere, if you're honest, and you're willing to make amends.
I no longer think that's as true as it once was, and it certainly is not true with Progressives (unless, of course, you are a Progressive and they need to protect you). This is why Confederate statues are coming down, history is being rewritten to suit their feelings, people are castigated for views they had, behaviors they employed, and words they used which no longer are 'acceptable' in this overly PC environment today. This is why social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter are employing questionable means and methods to block speech.
Recently, my favorite hockey team, the Philadelphia Flyers, removed Kate Smith's statue because it suddenly came to light that she sang a few song with racist lyrics in them. Kate's dead, and can't defend herself, let alone apologize. So what option do we have to deal with this? Expunge history. Make her disappear. She is a horrible person who is irredeemably terrible and nobody should know about her.
Kate played a large, if indirect, role in the Flyers' winning the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975. But today she's persona non grata for doing things which, in her time, were deemed perfectly acceptable. From my perspective, it's a learning moment. Keep her history alive, and do teaching sessions around who she was, what she did, and why she's still an important part of the team's history regardless of whether we find a few of her song off-putting.
Today's America is about forgetting our past - pushing it aside, and not allowing for any forgiveness whatsoever. That is, in what is Progressive America. You know, the urban elitists and academics who have a good portion of the political upper class in their sway. Naturally, if THEY do something wrong, they'll find a way to apologize, expunge or set aside the misbehavior - maybe even vote one of their own into power, despite having done something 'wrong'.
Generally speaking, however, the goal is to completely eliminate and never forgive.
