To justify rather than inform

Steven Hayward writes:

...I hear from parents who say they have a child interested in studying history, and can I recommend a college with a good department. After Hillsdale and one or two other places, the answer is: No, there are none. Don’t do it. Academic history is now worse than a waste of time nearly everywhere.

And quotes from "Is History History?" by a University of Wisconsin professor, James H. Sweet:

.... If history is only those stories from the past that confirm current political positions, all manner of political hacks can claim historical expertise...

The present has been creeping up on our discipline for a long time. Doing history with integrity requires us to interpret elements of the past not through the optics of the present but within the worlds of our historical actors. Historical questions often emanate out of present concerns, but the past interrupts, challenges, and contradicts the present in unpredictable ways. History is not a heuristic tool for the articulation of an ideal imagined future. Rather, it is a way to study the messy, uneven process of change over time. When we foreshorten or shape history to justify rather than inform contemporary political positions, we not only undermine the discipline but threaten its very integrity. ....

Steven Hayward, "Is History History?" PowerLine, August 18, 2022,  James H. Sweet, "Is History History?" Perspectives on History, August 17, 2022.