Why Does America Worship Awful White Men?

Next up: Tom Hanks as a Confederate “hero” in News of the World.

Tom Hanks in News of the World (Photo: Universal Pictures) and Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (Photo: Liberty Films)

America needs its heroes, and Americans often look for and find them in all the wrong places. Andrew Jackson, Jesse James, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, John Wayne, and Robert E. Lee — the Confederate general who led the Southern troops fighting against the Union during the Civil War —…