When you think of documentarians, Ken Burns is probably the first name that comes to mind. Maybe the only name, actually. He’s made quite a number of them and has earned a great deal of both critical and public acclaim for them.
But for some reason, CNN seems to think that just because Burns has made films about stuff like baseball or Prohibition, he’s qualified to deliver competent analysis of modern American politics. Evidently they didn’t learn anything from the time they had him on and he and anchor John Berman drew parallels between Ron DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and the freakin’ Holocaust, because he was back today on “CNN This Morning” with more parallels between Ron DeSantis and Nazi Germany, plus a few other things sprinkled in for good measure:
Filmmaker @KenBurns: "All of these bills that DeSantis and others are doing limit our ability to understand … It feels like a Soviet system or, you know, the way the Nazis would build a Potemkin village. Tucker Carlson is doing the same thing with the footage from 1/6." pic.twitter.com/ntLySi1P7F
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 7, 2023
Transcript:
Ken Burns: “You know, what makes America great is not the suppression of ideas, or the pursuit of every corner of those ideas may lead us, or the facts. It’s, it’s about who we are and how we investigate who we are and celebrate the diversity of who we are. All of these bills that DeSantis and others are doing limit our ability understand who we are and are not inclusive. They’re exclusive. They’re, they’re narrowing the focus of what is and isn’t American history. It’s terrifying. It feels like a Soviet system, or, you know, the way the Nazis would build a Potemkin village. Tucker Carlson’s doing the same thing with the footage from, uh, 1/6. It’s just, uh, a kind of rewriting of history at the most dangerous level. It’s, it’s a huge threat to our republic. I’m doing, Don, a film right now, working on a major series on the history of the American Revolution, and I can tell you that Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, and George Washington, and John Adams, and James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton are rolling over in their graves if they think that this person is carrying the mantle of what it is to be American.”
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What? No, seriously. What??? Keeping stuff like Critical Race Theory and queer theory out of American history curricula is what Nazis and Soviets would do? And what is Tucker Carlson doing with January 6 footage that makes him like a Nazi or Soviet government stooge?
Yes!!!! The Soviets released ALL footage of their gulags! Exactly the same !!!
— Bo Gator (owner) (@bleeker185) March 7, 2023
Stalin is rolling over in his grave at the idea that anything Tucker Carlson is doing with January 6 footage is even remotely on par with the suppression and manipulation of information that the Soviet government engaged in. Stalin is actually rolling over and laughing hysterically.
This is just embarrassing, Burns of all people should know how powerful and misleading editing can be, and to just assume Carlson is in the wrong w/o carefully reviewing things is pathetic. https://t.co/cHgT5nE74D
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) March 7, 2023
This literally makes no damn sense, Ken.
He has become a pompous jerk. Thinks he can speak for founding fathers? Mischaracterizes facts. Okay with selective 1/6 committee videos but not Carlson?
— KC Oracle (@KCOracle) March 7, 2023
https://twitter.com/a_newsman/status/1633116983074988036
How is making more information more available to the public an act of Nazi- or Soviet-like suppression? Take issue with Carlson’s personal spin on the footage, but the footage speaks for itself, and thanks to him, it’s out there for people to see so that they can make up their own minds. Maybe Ken Burns needs to go watch some documentaries before he makes himself look really ignorant and stupid.
I used to enjoy his history documentaries. Now I'm wondering whether he was loose with the facts in those films if he could spout such absolute partisan BS.
— Maverick (@Maverick55509) March 7, 2023
It’s sad to see formerly competent historians get woke. https://t.co/lKgvjSc1aD
— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) March 7, 2023
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