Kevin Kruse

‍Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University in the United States, uses his academic training to write lengthy Twitter threads on topics such as slavery, the drivers of the Civil War, and lynching, correcting popular misrepresentations of American history that are often used to justify hateful attitudes. 

For several years, Kruse has had an ongoing exchange with conservative political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who frequently pushes far-right conspiracy theories and uses historical references to promote the Republican Party. For example, D’Souza has argued that the current Democratic Party is racist because Democrats supported slavery in the 1860s – ignoring the party realignment that happened during the civil rights movement. Kruse, in response, writes extensive Twitter threads, fact-checking D’Souza (and many others), citing historical evidence and providing links to sources. 

Kruse has in the past explained that he doesn’t respond to D’Souza with the hope of changing his mind, but rather he “does it for the people who encounter these counternarratives and think that they’re wrong, but don’t know enough to back it up; people who need a counterpoint to their uncle at Thanksgiving, or to their co-worker in the breakroom,” (Pettit, 2018).