George Washington’s Murder Confession: The 18th-Century Lie We’re Still Living (YouTube Video Transcript)

(00:00:00) Your YouTube transcript will appear here (00:00:00) Hey folks, let's have a little bit of (00:00:02) story time, huh? Let's talk about George (00:00:04) Washington on this day in 1754. It's (00:00:07) been a while since we've talked about (00:00:08) George. Uh in this day in 1754, he was a (00:00:12) 22year-old ambitious young s pretending (00:00:15) to be a soldier playing war and he (00:00:18) stepped onto the world stage by (00:00:20) essentially falling flat on his face. (00:00:22) And then he proved a master and this is (00:00:24) why this day matters, why we're why (00:00:26) we're going to go ahead and engage with (00:00:28) this kind of foolishness on a day like (00:00:29) today. He proved a master at (00:00:31) manufacturing reality to cover it up. (00:00:34) And there started the real throughine in (00:00:36) American history of white people falling (00:00:39) upwards by winning the battle over (00:00:40) telling the story that will cover up (00:00:42) your colossal failures. So this is about (00:00:46) the (00:00:47) Jumonville, ground zero for (00:00:48) understanding how American mythmaking (00:00:50) works. And it's an early and even (00:00:54) chilling example of a playbook we see (00:00:56) deployed constantly today. Destabilize (00:00:58) the truth. Control the narrative. (00:01:00) Legitimize your grab for power. Provide (00:01:03) the framework for your grasp for more (00:01:08) illegitimate (00:01:09) authority. See, Washington wasn't just (00:01:12) clueless out there. He was a product of (00:01:14) a system. He came out of an America (00:01:17) built on human oppression where power (00:01:19) meant white men gave orders and black (00:01:20) people obeyed or else. And he carried (00:01:23) that worldview, that brutal arrogance, (00:01:26) that brutal two-dimensional arrogance (00:01:28) into the Ohio Valley, assuming he could (00:01:31) command his indigenous allies like (00:01:34) property. He couldn't. Those warriors (00:01:37) were sovereign actors. They had minds of (00:01:39) their own. They had goals of their own. (00:01:40) They had priorities of their own. And (00:01:42) when the s demo, a French officer (00:01:45) technically on a diplomatic mission, was (00:01:48) killed by them, it wasn't Washington's (00:01:50) plan. It was Washington's absolute (00:01:53) complete failure. And it was a failure (00:01:56) though built from a worldview that he (00:01:58) couldn't comprehend. He couldn't even (00:02:00) tolerate. A power structure different (00:02:02) from that which made him a legend in his (00:02:04) own mind. The king of all the ground he (00:02:06) stepped on. And it likely cemented this (00:02:09) lifelong view he had of indigenous (00:02:11) people as an evil other that had to be (00:02:13) eliminated if it could not be (00:02:16) controlled. So the immediate result was (00:02:19) the fiasco at Fort Necessity. It turns (00:02:21) out that the French commander at Fort (00:02:22) Fortain was Yumville's brother. Oops. (00:02:25) And unlike Washington, he knew how to be (00:02:28) an actual military officer. He knew how (00:02:29) to handle troops. And Fort Necessity, (00:02:32) which was less a fort and more of a (00:02:33) desperate kind of mudpit. Cue the (00:02:36) humiliating surrender. Where Washington (00:02:39) signed a surrender document in French he (00:02:41) couldn't read that admitted to the (00:02:43) assassination of Jimmobile. He confessed (00:02:46) in writing to murder, a career ending (00:02:50) nation shaming (00:02:52) admission. Except of course it wasn't. (00:02:54) Have you heard of (00:02:56) it? Not for the power father of our (00:02:59) country. But Washington there showed (00:03:02) that he was truly the father of this (00:03:04) country because he showed his real (00:03:06) talent making it up to cover it up and (00:03:10) then turn it into a form of power (00:03:12) consolidation. He raced back to (00:03:14) Williamsburg and with an audacity that (00:03:16) we might call breathtaking spun the (00:03:18) disaster into a tale of heroic struggle. (00:03:21) And so the lie got its boots on before (00:03:24) the truth even knew there was a race. It (00:03:26) worked. It worked. The mythmaking (00:03:28) machine complete with a compliant press (00:03:31) which this kind of thing requires so (00:03:33) central to American identity had one of (00:03:35) its earliest most cynical triumphs. So (00:03:38) for Washington it wasn't humiliation it (00:03:41) became origin story for (00:03:44) necessity. So the truth didn't just get (00:03:47) buried it was suppressed to build a (00:03:49) heroic foundation for a man and (00:03:51) ultimately a nation that needed its (00:03:54) heroes pristine its power (00:03:57) unquestioned. No flaws (00:03:59) there. But you can't bury everything (00:04:02) there. There were other people present. (00:04:04) There's another version of the story. So (00:04:07) 14 years later, Voltater, who had a nose (00:04:10) for like a blood hound, he (00:04:12) asked Horus Walpole in England, what's (00:04:15) the real story here? Voltater was going (00:04:17) to write a story based upon it, but he (00:04:18) wanted to know how much of it was based (00:04:20) on (00:04:21) fact. Did a British officer, which is (00:04:24) what he thought Washington was at the (00:04:26) time, did a British officer actually (00:04:28) commit assassination? Did he actually (00:04:30) admit to it? Was he actually responsible (00:04:32) for it? Walpole's reaction tells us a (00:04:35) lot. He was already at that time 1768 a (00:04:38) drift in what felt like an age of (00:04:41) impostors right James McFersonson's fake (00:04:45) aim this pseudo historical medieval (00:04:49) Scott right Thomas Chatterton's pseudo (00:04:52) medieval fiction and wall himself was (00:04:55) trying to dig into right then he was (00:04:57) writing his first book to try to maybe (00:05:00) rehabilitate Richard III's reputation (00:05:03) asking how much of Shakespeare's rich (00:05:06) thei was history and how much was just (00:05:09) an invention twisting the past to (00:05:12) achieve other ends. Could an Englishman, (00:05:15) much less an English king, have been (00:05:18) that evil? I mean, murdering his own (00:05:20) nephews, nah, not (00:05:23) possible. And he saw people left and (00:05:26) right, swallowing, comforting, (00:05:28) entertaining (00:05:30) lies. He wrote, "We are too easy of (00:05:33) faith." he wrote practically spitting (00:05:35) nails which is the reason we're such (00:05:37) dupes. He saw a world losing its script (00:05:39) where a country is undone before people (00:05:42) distinguish between affected and real (00:05:45) virtue. And he recognized the terrifying (00:05:47) political implications. A public that (00:05:50) can't distinguish truth from its lies, (00:05:52) history from fiction is a public that's (00:05:54) primed from manipulation. (00:05:57) So Wville was wrestling with what he (00:05:59) called the mysterious and fugitive (00:06:01) nature of truth in an age that felt (00:06:04) increasingly post-truth even then in (00:06:07) 1768. So when he received Voltater's (00:06:10) letter and it sent him digging at the (00:06:12) same time he was publishing his book on (00:06:14) Richard the Third, this historic doubts (00:06:15) in Richard thei, then he finds the truth (00:06:18) out about Washington. Washington (00:06:20) admitted to assassinating him. So even (00:06:23) if he hadn't done it himself, he was (00:06:25) responsible for it. And imagine that (00:06:28) moment for (00:06:29) Walpole, the celebrated hero Washington, (00:06:32) the man whose myth was already taking (00:06:34) root even in London, had signed his name (00:06:37) to the darkest version of the story. And (00:06:40) it blew Pole away. For him, it wasn't (00:06:44) just another historical puzzle. It was a (00:06:46) real gut punch. and it confirmed his (00:06:49) deepest fears in this epistemological (00:06:52) mess. If this truth could be so (00:06:55) effectively buried under a mountain of (00:06:57) spin, what hope was there for any (00:06:59) historical truth? Maybe Richard III was (00:07:02) a monster. Maybe he did do it. It was (00:07:05) certainly a possibility. You can't write (00:07:08) it off now. And maybe all history is (00:07:12) just stories we tell ourselves. the (00:07:14) story, the powerful payto (00:07:17) print. This is an epistemological (00:07:20) crisis, which is not just some dry (00:07:21) academic term, right? But it's this raw, (00:07:23) disorienting feeling that the ground (00:07:25) beneath your feet isn't solid. (00:07:27) Washington's confession was fied under (00:07:30) his own relentless self-promotion. And (00:07:32) that's not just a (00:07:34) footnote. For minds like Wobbles, it was (00:07:37) this terrifying glimpse into the void, (00:07:39) right? A sign that we create our own (00:07:40) histories often out of a convenient (00:07:43) lies. and then live inside of them and (00:07:45) then use them. We deploy them. It's a (00:07:47) game that started long before us and one (00:07:49) we're still playing today. And (00:07:52) understanding that, understanding how (00:07:53) myth gets made is the only honest (00:07:56) history there (00:07:57) is. So when Walpole learned that (00:08:00) Washington admitted it and it didn't (00:08:03) matter, it sank him a bit. And that's (00:08:06) not just about historical accuracy. It (00:08:08) was about the fragility of reality (00:08:10) itself. It was evidence that power could (00:08:13) literally rewrite events, could make a (00:08:15) confession disappear, could build its (00:08:18) legitimacy on a foundation of expertly (00:08:20) crafted lies. January 6th, no longer an (00:08:25) insurrection. It was a glimpse into a (00:08:27) world where truth becomes mysterious and (00:08:29) fugitive, not by accident, but by (00:08:32) design. A tool to destabilize opponents (00:08:35) so that you can consolidate control. (00:08:38) And so it's not just an 18th century (00:08:40) philosopher's headache. It was the (00:08:42) recognition of that playbook. When you (00:08:45) shatter people's ability to agree on (00:08:47) basic facts, when you relentlessly (00:08:48) attack verifiable reality, you create (00:08:51) chaos. And for some people, that's a (00:08:54) bonus. Because in that chaos, those (00:08:57) hungry for power can rewrite history, (00:08:59) justify their actions, and make their (00:09:01) grabs seem not just legitimate, but (00:09:04) necessary, even for (00:09:06) ordained. Walpole saw the foundation (00:09:09) shaking. And we're living in the (00:09:12) building as it sways, pummeled by (00:09:14) disinformation, by campaigns designed (00:09:16) with the same goal in mind. (00:09:19) So, the fight over honest history, the (00:09:21) battle against the myths and lies that (00:09:23) prop up illegitimate power, that fight (00:09:25) isn't in the archives. It's happening (00:09:27) right now on our screens, in our (00:09:29) streets, in our comment sections. And (00:09:31) understanding how Washington buried his (00:09:33) assassination confession, isn't just an (00:09:35) intellectual exercise. It's a lesson in (00:09:37) how power works and why fighting for (00:09:39) truth, however fugitive, is the absolute (00:09:42) best kind of resistance that we can all (00:09:44) do, where you are right now.