Understanding is not endorsing: the Darryl Cooper history debate
September 29, 2026 · 18 min read
Darryl Cooper argues historians must empathize with people they condemn, while Vejas Liulevicius rebuts his account of World War II, and Dave Smith and Michael Malice weigh in on how history gets told. The debate shows the line between explaining atrocity and excusing it.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- Explaining takes circumstances and ideology seriously; excusing uses context to make ideology or intent disappear.
- Darryl Cooper: he does not record until he can stand in the shoes of the people he covers.
- Cooper: wrong lessons have consequences; he says the reading of Jonestown shaped the approach at Waco.
- Cooper: people join cults because their virtues get hijacked.
- Cooper says he is a storyteller, not a historian, reads only English, and admits he could have been clearer.
- Vejas Liulevicius: analyzing Hitler without Nazi ideology is doomed.
- Liulevicius: mass killing began with the invasion of Poland, before June 1941.
- Liulevicius: Nazi plans for the East show the killing was intended, not a byproduct of war.
- Liulevicius also studies formative experience; he and Cooper agree World War I shaped Hitler.
- Dave Smith: listen to Cooper's work on Jewish suffering before judging his motives; that does not settle his accuracy.
- Michael Malice: the Holocaust is singular; loose comparisons cheapen it.
- Joe Rogan: overusing labels like antisemitic diminishes what the words mean.
- Smith and Rogan: suppressing debate makes people more suspicious.
- Someone can be neither an antisemite nor right about the history.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.