The interesting thing for me about the past are how present the human frailties are, which inform both the past and the present.

Woodrow Wilson was naive. You're telling me there's no naive politicians any more?

Charles Dickens personifies "do as I say, not as I do" and we're not allowed to remark on Victorian hypocrisy as it informs contemporary mores?

Who made you the history police? You want to tell people not to pull down statues? Or, only the ones we could judge by civil war era morals?

Sure. If it's an essay do what your teachers ask. Out here in the unreal world, we draw comparisons all the time.

(I am the proust reader and the dreyfus affair reader who posted a Trump reference above)

The echoes are there. Reason vs. loyalty to a known falsehood.

Without reference to the present, the past is useless.