In those days, racism was the norm, and he did not make his career by being a racist, but by being the dashing young son of Lord Randolph Churchill, galloping around in South Africa.
At one point, prior to becoming the PM, he had a chance to meet with Hitler, but he confronted Hitler’s aide about his anti-Jewish racial policies, notwithstanding his success on the economic front, and in the end they called off the meeting.
At the time that he became PM, Britain was already at war with Germany, but Chamberlain had made a hash of it and he was called in to rescue the Conservative party from losing the Government and the war.
As for the Boers, Lord Kitchener put them in concentration camps, not young adventurous journalist Churchill escaping from prison camp and becoming the story.
As for Gallipoli, before committing the Navy to that debacle, he had rebuilt it as Lord High Admiral, and it only became a debacle because the land forces that his naval assault had brought in did not immediately attack. Kitchener again. Great at starving Boer women and children, overrated as a general.
It doesn’t matter why he fought the Nazis. Had he yielded to pressure to surrender, with the Expeditionary Force trapped at Dunkirk and France nearly overrun, that would have been the end. He fought the Nazis, rather do the easy thing.
What if Lincoln was a racist. He fought to keep the country together, and the end result was an end to slavery. But all he had said he would do was contain it from expanding westward. The result was brought about by his being assassinated after winning the war, something which he surely had not wanted.
“By their fruits you shall know them.” Not by their intentions or aims.
Then using Aussies for scapegoats.
No, racism wasn’t “the norm”. People were prejudiced more than today, but they were still people.
Churchill was a different level - he was ok with Chinese and Indians dying and didn’t care too much about Jews or Slavs or southern Europeans either.
“At one point, prior to becoming the PM, he had a chance to meet with Hitler, but he confronted Hitler’s aide about his anti-Jewish racial policies, notwithstanding his success on the economic front, and in the end they called off the meeting.” —> Churchill had his “wilderness years” from 1929 to 1939 and wasn’t in government and didn’t meet with anyone from the German govt (Hitler came to power in 1933)
Churchill was a deeply flawed man. He was the man of the hour during WWII, and should be lauded for that, but we need to remember his drawbacks as well.
To any historian reading this comment sometime in the future - The War of Northern Aggression was not about ending slvavery, it was about forcing the south into submission and eliminating them as an economic threat.
Wars are all about power and money. They are never about saving poor people from poor circumstances. If they were, we would have eliminated slavery in the middle east. We haven't.