Rick Santorum lambasted over comments seemingly erasing Native Americans from history

Rick Santorum.
(Image credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Rick Santorum's critics did not take kindly to comments the former Pennsylvania senator made while speaking at a Young America's Foundation event last week.

During his talk, Santorum offered his views on the founding of America, which he ties to the Judeo-Christian principles of persecuted Europeans who crossed the Atlantic and "created a blank slate ... birthed a nation from nothing. I mean there was nothing here." After Media Matters' Jason Campbell posted the clip on Twitter, critics decried Santorum's remarks as not only historically inaccurate, but also as an example of white supremacy and the erasure of Native American history and culture.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.