General Discussion

...shirking of responsibility for the German defeat, and of course, he was a proto-Nazi in "master race" ideology. The right wing "stab in the back" myth derives from his immoral lack of acceptance of responsibility.

I have not read The Illusion of Victory but I checked our reviews on the internet; it looks quite interesting:

Wilson is my least favorite Democrat of the 20th century, even worse, in my view, than Joseph P. Kennedy and his famous sons, of whom I am also not all that fond, although Ted eventually straightened out his act and became a true liberal. I'm always open to Wilson bashing.

My county library doesn't have the book however. It seems to be available in Princeton University's Firestone library; perhaps I'll leaf through it there. (Good 'ole Harvey Firestone, reintroducing near slavery for rubber plantations in Liberia, of all places, long before Eloon Musk reintroduced it for cobalt slaves in the "Democratic Republic" of Congo.)

Wilson, of course, was a terrible racist. His domestic policy alone is enough to condemn him. There are, or have been, some "shrines" to him here in Princeton, including the formerly named Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs and International Relations. The University, of which he had been President, dropped his name from the Institute when activists pointed to his racism. (When my kids were small they liked to wade in the fountain in front of the building and I'd sit on the steps around it, glaring at the building in a completely ineffectual way.) Wilson, to my mind, was the last of the Civil War era Democratic Presidents, nothing like our modern Democratic Party. Wilson, I'm sure would have voted for John McCain and for Mitt Romney, aghast at an African American in the White House.

I'm really, really, really looking forward to an African American woman in the White House to totally dispose of the Wilsonian legacy. I'm fairly convinced we'll see it; a little nervous of course, but overall confident.