“You finally read a book and it’s bullshit.” So said Tony Soprano to his son AJ when he dared to question the reputation of Christopher Columbus over his cornflakes. Faced with woke before woke, Tony ended the conversation robustly: “In this house Columbus is a hero. End of story.” A quarter of a century later, President Trump repeated the mob boss’s line, but one question remained unanswered. Who is Columbus a hero for?
Like the “brave Italian explorer”, my first morning in America fell on October 12 — Columbus Day. Apart from the fact it was a federal holiday and Google Maps told me McDonald’s might have different opening hours, I struggled to notice anything special happening. Arriving in Washington, DC, I walked around the monuments to the greatest political experiment known to man until I stumbled on a few plastic chairs outside Union Station.