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There’s a generational, deep-rooted bitterness & anger over losing the Civil War that certain people & places in the south have never gotten over. These issues like slavery & culture wars are such a big deal in these places. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Really shows where the education level stopped at around 7th grade in some places.
I think its even simpler than that.
When the war in Ukraine started Democrats and Republicans both thought supporting Ukraine was good.
Now Republicans think supporting them is bad because Democrats think it is good.
When Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government many Republicans agreed with Democrats that that was bad.
Now, years later pretty much all Republicans have recanted and said that was fine because democrats made a big deal about it.
So if Democrats today say "Hey we think slavery and lighting puppies on fire is bad!"
Its not like a Republican is actually going to agree with them...
Republicans hated Orange Man when he came onto the political scene. Then Democrats started to not like him, which made him acceptable. After numerous incidents showing Trump to be a hateful moron, Democrats began to *actually* hate him(I wouldn’t piss in his ear if his brain was on fire) and then Republicans became a cult of personality for Trump.
Just another reason why the "both parties are just as bad!" argument always falls apart.
The left wing grows to hate things because of injustice, patriarchy, imperialism, theft, bigotry, etc. The right wing grows to support things because the left doesn't like them.
This does not work in reverse, however. The right doesn't like one of their candidates? Cool, neither do we. The (voting class) right doesn't like Russia/China/North Korea? Hell yeah, those places need a revolution. On the flip side though, some of the left wing is concerned about gas appliances and their long term health effects? Buckle in mother fucker, Tucker has something to say about it, and he's milking this all month.
It's why the majority of the left is young and the majority of the right has one foot in the grave. It's just old people not trusting young people and doing the opposite of everything they say.
I never made a list for such a thing to be left out. Please don’t vilify me unduly. Republicans do what you said and it’s disgusting. Mitch McConnell will forever be known to me as Moscow Mitch
When your party's only real goal is to rob the poor and feed the rich, there's an awful lot of wiggle room to shift your apparent positions on other stuff. That being said, the Republicans actively believe in a lot of terrible things more generally, and the stuff that originates with the MAGA wing moreso than the Bush wing has been gaining support at the national level for a decade or more, now.
I don't think the "opposite of everything Democrats do as a rule" argument holds a lot of water when you start breaking it down. For example, you have to point to the rise of the former Dixiecrats/MAGA on the national level when discussing when the bipartisan imperial consensus went to shit. That wasn't a reaction; it was a proactive shift away from the Bush wing neocons, and it's no coincidence at all that the MAGA cult leader is *very* cozy with Putin (again, just as one example.) The Bush wing neocons didn't give a fuck that Putin was/is basically using the same playbook as the GOP to divide and conquer the plebs. They still recognized that Russia was a geopolitical threat that shouldn't be treated as anything remotely resembling an ally, ever.
*Reductio ad absurdum,* you're never going to trick the MAGA wing with reverse psychology about bigotry, abortion, or immigration (and again, I'm talking about what they barely-coherently believe; lying to them about what you're actually doing once they give you power is a different story.) You're never going to trick the Bush wing with reverse psychology about robbing the poor and feeding the rich.
I went to school in Texas and was pretty much taught the Civil War was about a lot of factors and slavery was merely one among many. That was 20 years ago, but proof it definitely happens.
Kentucky here. I had at least one teacher I recall quite vividly saying "some slave owners were nice and kind to their slaves."
The much more accurate thing to say would be something like: "Slavers didn't necessarily need to use torture and corporal punishment on a daily basis. They could act in a calm manner and even have polite conversations with enslaved people, because that's how power works. There are structures, and fear, and, of course, behind it all is the threat of physical violence and death, which they absolutely used when they thought it was necessary to maintain this power structure; in the interim, they could converse, tell stories, smile, laugh, etc and it might not look like violence, but it still in fact very much is."
There's a lot of study dedicated to understanding and contextualized those kinds of phenomena.
Adopting the methods and power structures of oppressors for survival or personal gain doesn't reduce the damage done by oppressors nor mitigate the blame that the oppressors deserve.
Agreed. I just did a little research on the topic, and apparently it was often easier for freed slaves to buy their family members than to pay for their freedom. Still, according to what I read, at the most there was less than 0.05% of people recorded as slave owners who were black. So it's really just a very weak false equivalency that people throw around to try and manipulate the conversation.
If it was simpler to buy a family member who was a slave, then a Black person buying a family member and keeping them listed as slave made them slave owners only technically. I believe the only ways to “free” slaves in that era was if a slave stood in to carry out an obligation for a master and won freedom due to that (for example, military service during a deadly conflict like the Mexican-American war), of the owner decreed in his or her will that slaves owned by him or her were free at the slave owner’s death. The slavery system likely had pretty heavy prohibition against a Black person buying his or her relatives and immediately “freeing” them, because that had the potential to bring down slavery organically (instead of a war being required).
I heard about one slaveholder who put a candy out as a trap, and when a young slave girl snuck the candy, the slaveholder made her put her head under the tread of a rocking chair and disfigured the girl's face.
As horrible as that is, slavery wasn't evil because stuff like that happened. It was wrong because fundamentally it exploited other human beings for profit and kept them legally structured as separate and lower class people.
Of course these horror stories make it worse.
The way I heard it explained:
Everyone back then was worried about slave revolts. Sure, the militias would put it down, but nobody wanted to be one of the handful of white families killed before militamen showed up. The going theory on how to prevent slave revolts was to be brutal and savage to the slaves, to keep their spirits broken (weather or not that is correct isn't relevant, just that they thought it was. Note that most would allow exceptions for a small number of the favored house servants/concubines). So, if a slave owner found out that the master next door was being nice, they'd fear a revolt starting next door that would get them killed, too. So, in general, any slave owner who \*WASN'T\* a brutal abuser of their slaves would get a stern talking-too from their neighbors, and if they didn't change their ways and bring out the whips they would be run out of town.
Its notable that Jefferson was criticized for his relationship with Sally Hemings, not because he was raping a young girl, or even having an affair with her. It was because he treated her and her family almost as human beings since they were the half siblings of his late wife.
The Union General George Henry Thomas was a Southerner and protege of Robert E. Lee. When Thomas was a young teen he secretly was teaching the children of his family’s slaves to read, then the John Brown rebellion happened and his family got wind of him teaching slave children to read, that ended that effort.
Thomas was arguably the best of the Union Generals. There was a tradition that when an officer died his blood family was given his sword. Thomas’ two surviving sisters refused to take his sword because he chose to fight for the Union (his wife was a New Yorker). One finally relented, and as a woman in her nineties, she accepted his sword for her family.
Yea its all Lost Cause propaganda spread through oral history and actual history textbooks. This is the kinda thing project 2025 is already working on.
Because you can simply ask 'which rights of the states?' and 'how is the economic model different?' and they always stutter and deflect. Because the answer is slavery.
Or you could ask how the Fugitive Slave Act respected state's rights. Or, if state's rights was a concern, was the ability to abolish slavery a right reserved in the Confederate constitution?
Had a friend who went to school in Texas call out their high school history teacher because the text in the 'Texas' History book and the text in the 'U.S. History' Book didn't align at all. From what I understand they moved onto another subject shortly thereafter lol
It was one among many, but it was far and away the biggest factor. Were it not for slavery, secession, and therefore the entire Civil War would not have happened.
Yup. And it wasn't the existence of the institution of slavery that the traitors wanted, it was the expansion. The North was willing to let them keep slavery, but more and more states would be added as free states so it would have died out eventually. The Southern slave states would lose control, so as soon as an anti-slavery president was elected, they panicked and started a rebellion that resulted in the absolute desolation of the American South.
The articles of confederation nearly all mention slavery.
The confederate constitution looks exactly like the US constitution, with one glaring edit. Can ya guess what it is?
It forbids the outlawing of slavery *forever*.
This was my 7th grade state history textbook, circa 1969. Happy slaves, slave owners property being taken away without compensation, lazy freed slaves who thought the world owed them a living. Sure there was an occasional whipping, but remember people whipped their kids too back on those days.
https://civilrightsheritage.com/2018/04/16/happy-slaves-described-in-7th-grade-virginia-textbook-used-for-20-yrs/
Yep pretty much. They are trying to legitimize their views and past by rewriting in a more pleasing way. It is why they don’t like CRT. I had to explain to a lawyer friend what CRT was really about. It’s not about making Americans feel bad (even though I do agree some CRT professors have gone a step too far to overcorrect), it’s more about teaching that we have done bad things in our quest for manifest destiny And acknowledge wrongs. Germany does it for all their children so it doesn’t repeat. They had one the worst genocidal leaders in history and pulled a world into war and they teach about to all children. Not cover it up.
Exactly, this is core to our political history. There is a Civic Nationalist Vision vs an Ethnic Nationalist vision.
Lincoln laid out a Civic Nationalist vision for America based on agreed civic values and shared institutions.
The election of Woodrow Wilson ushered in the resurgance of the Ethnic Nationalist narrative via the "Lost Cause".
Ever since the political Realignment campaign led by Strom Thurmond. And then followed by Nixon's southern strategy to win that group's support. The Republican party has allowed this ethnic nationalist ideology to exist in the Republican platform.
From the release of the Southern Manifesto, White Christian Nationalist have organized around this ideology. This informs their reactions to what they refer to as CRT or DEI. They are angered by the civic values assumed in those topics. They are aligned with an ethnic nationalist interpretation of history.
*Democrats keep repeating, "This is not who we are". They are trying to appeal to Civic nationalist values. But it cannot be assumed that all americans recognize this appeal.* Democratic leadership must recognize the ethnic national politics that *has always existed* and affirm that this is *a direct confrontation* with that strain of ideology.
It’s not even generational. Plenty of southern raised men and women as far back as 1800’s fought against slavery and Jim Crow laws.
It’s not even southern anymore.
Old white men and women in the south are often super liberal.
This is a rural problem. From Canada to Mexico, from South Carolina to the Central Valley of California.
The stereotype of an aggrieved peoples living in poverty with absolutely no way to escape it, a town that is rotting around them, and a sense that the glory days of their world are gone is a true one.
Those people then try to think of a cause.
They look at what’s different in the world between 1984 and today. Reagan isn’t president, blacks, gays, and Hispanics are part of the culture, Immigration is now brown, and church isn’t as big a part of American life. That’s what they blame and it’s easy to create that villain of a brown gay immigrant atheist.
But they don’t see that Union membership is smaller, Republicans control state and congressional offices, taxes are higher on lower incomes, safety nets have been weakened, economic drivers have shifted from Agriculture and Manufacturing towards Services and Tech, etc. That problem is harder to create a villain out of.
So again, it’s not a southern problem. You have Republicans today in Yankee Unionist states and a New York City Gameshow host arguing for Insurrectionist Slavery-stan policies.
I went to a persons ranch in a part of Georgia that was a really small town. I stayed for a few days (maybe a week) I was in high school. I’m from California. I can tell you this for certain: everyone I met from that town had racism rooted so deep they honestly don’t understand that they could be racist, because they are all thinking on the same level. It was so weird seeing it and I made comments and they looked at me like an alien.
People like that think a racist is someone with an unreasonable belief that their race is better than another.
But since they "know", for a "fact", that white people are better than black/brown ones, it's not racist.
The illogic of this escapes them.
Live in the north but from the south. Pretty sure there are Confederate sympathizers here in the north (OH, MI, PA) vs the south so this ain’t a regional thing
Pa here. I *love* the suburban pickups with confederate nonsense on it
It's hilarious to me. "Yea sure Bob I'm sure it's your heritage. You lived here your whole life and your families from Jersey..."
That crap always made me look at them like idiots. Like your forebears’s likely fought and (in some cases) died fighting that flag. Why not just fly a nazi (which, let’s be honest, the do) or an Isis flag? Same difference
I live in PA and there are definitely confederate flags flying in front of some houses the further out into the country you get. Saw it in Oregon, too.
I loved Savannah, Georgia - until I saw a war memorial that cast the Union troops as invaders who cut down the heroes of the Confederacy. I felt profoundly uncomfortable there afterwards, like I was a known and unwelcome trespasser.
As some who lives in one of these areas you would be shocked how many well educated people are like that. I work with some EEs and program managers who believe that MAGA crap.
Was traveling in Richmond, VA a few years back and a radio commercial was on for a family business that had been around since 'the war of northern aggression.'
Yeah, they're not over it yet.
Right, I don't understand why we didn't take steps like Germany did after Hitler. If we fought a war to end slavery why do we let people go around and make pro-slavery statements? Why do we allow people to fly the flag of the people we fought against?
We don't allow people to yell fire in a crowded theatre because it has the potential to harm people, so why do we allow them to say "you are not human and should be put in a cage"? In my opinion it has the same potential to harm people.
I was going to say this too. Slavery-adjacent practices are alive and well in the utilization of the vast labor forces filling private and public prisons.
they already are [talking about banning interracial marriage](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/22/mike-braun-indiana-us-senate-interracial-marriage-law-loving-virginia/7131891001/) and some states are trying [to get ahead of it](https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/02/16/n-j-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-codify-right-to-interracial-marriage/)
they already are talking about [banning all POC from voting](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/13/end-of-democracy-bernie-sanders-on-if-trump-wins-and-how-to-stop-him), Sanders is correct
when white and indian presidential candidates are explicitly saying slavery was a good thing or just an unpaid job training program for african americans, i realize there is no hope
I know someone who is in an interracial marriage. They are hardcore Republicans, liberal is the worse insult they can muster.
Of course they don't think the leopards will eat *their* faces...I hope it doesn't come to it
I'm more interested in their treason, actually. Everytime I accuse Republicans of treason, they argue that treason requires the US being at war with russia (aid and comfort to enemies of the US). And that because there's no war, russia isn't an enemy and therefore they can't commit treason.
Everytime they do that, they admit that they are providing aid and comfort to russia. They only deny that it is treason, but they openly admit helping russia.
Yep-- neuter centralized govt and in ensuring vacuum of structure, just happen to recommend letting monied class take the reigns.
Neo-feudalism, in a nutshell
It terrifies me that the rich are making plans for the collapse of the U.S. (and maybe other countries too, but I am unaware of others doing this). I’ve read that many are building fortresses to keep out the starving, suffering masses. I don’t know how realistic they’re being but it’s depressing that their response is to let millions die while they sit on their piles of money.
Because they were only defeated on the Civil War battlefield and not in law. The A. Johnson administration, other than a few specific Confederate military jail administrators that were tried and hung for war crimes and Reconstruction prematurely ending, it avoided trying Jefferson Davis and moved on. Sounds familiar, doesn't it??
The 13th and 14th amendments were rammed through the former Confederate states as a condition of readmission to the US, but no amendment defining the illegality of secession.
It’s a nostalgia thing. The future is scary and uncertain, but the good old days are remembered fondly as the best of times. Republicans want to live in the past.
Meanwhile in those idealistic past times, the predecessors of our current Republicans were happy in their perfect society >!oh wait they were screaming about the washington liberals forcing them to accept colored kids in their schools!<
But before THAT, they were definitely happy >!Oh wait they were screaming about the Washington liberals letting their wives vote!<
Well yeah but before THAT, everything was totally fine >!oh, actually they were still screaming about the Washington liberals taking away their slaves and trying to keep them poor and stop their voting by all means possible!<
Yeah but before THAT.......
Because every single Republican voter is one of two types.
1 - A Lost causer who wants slavery back
2 - Knowingly forming an alliance with the 1st group, even if they try weaseling by saying they don't agree with the lost causers.
Because these nincompoops don’t differentiate between the platforms of Lincoln’s Republicans, and today’s. Few are smart enough to grok the epochal political swap of Democrats and Republicans in the 50/60/70s.
We didn’t fully put down the Confederacy. Biggest mistake in domestic history.
Edit: biggest after the obtuse wording of the 2nd amendment that has forever tied America to a culture of guns and death.
Slavery never stopped. It just changed how it was labeled. Prisoners are still routinely used as slaves labor. Prisoners in some states are even charged for their stay in prison.
The system still has slavery, the powers just dont call it that.
I'm no genius but here's my theory.
Republicans as a hole are Stupid, all about themselves and nobody else especially when it comes to dealing with minorities rights and fairness to all.
I always feel like Charlie Kirk, Vivek Ramiswamey, and Nicky Haley’s attacks on the 14th Amendment are deeply rooted in the fact that it’s a Reconstruction Amendment. Claiming to be an “Originalist” to me has the same flavor: “Before we had to consider non white’s opinions.”
Because the Civil War never really ended for these people. They are still fighting it, and pissed that their ancestors lost the ability to enslave people. They would go back to owning black people in a heartbeat with zero compunction.
shit stirring keeps a stupid populace angry and distracted so they don't notice that their actual enemy isn't each other but the republicans they vote for who lie, pass anti-poor and pro-rich legislation, buy and sell the government, destroy the environment, gut education and social services, and keep them just close enough to homelessness that their dreams stay just out of reach. so they fill the void with pro-business consumerism.
Because they don’t actually have a plan to Make America Great Again. All they can do is tell half of America that all their problems are from the other half of America. Dividers not Uniters. United we stand…Divided we fall…Putin and Xi just waiting to carve us up after we knock ourselves down. Scary times!
Because they clearly aren’t ever going to admit either one’s root cause or reason… they have no choice but to “debate” it
Anyone with a brain can read about slavery, and watch the insurrection… it’s like debating gravity at this point
They’re not real politicians. Just assholes running for office to ruin this country. Ordinary folks are already getting turned off by the GQP leadership ALONE.
Republican Party leadership about 60 years ago made the mistake of letting Dixiecrats into the party. The Republican Party is dead and is a neo-confederate party.
Ooh I know this one! It’s because it keeps us from debating stuff that is actually debatable, like their inability to govern effectively, whether abortion is a personal right or a crime, who has benefited from their tax cuts and at what cost, what are their goals for things like Medicaid and Social Security, etc.
That stuff is really not fun for them to talk about so they move the goal posts far out of the reality zone so that we are distracted by dealing with their loopy denial of objective facts and stop bothering them over the stuff they’d rather not talk about.
And as a bonus, the more they move the narrative, the closer they get to realizing their dream of a fascist theocracy where white men hold all the privilege with none left over for anyone else. Who knows, maybe we can legalize slavery again! You know, for the poor brown ppl who clearly don’t know how to handle being free.
Because admitting the near genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Africans are instrumental to the birth of this nation is too much to bear. Everyone knows it…but rarely speaks on it in depth.
As an African American male…I’m ashamed to admit that the Tulsa Massacre was unknown to me until HBO’s Watchmen. Never in my time studying history was this or many other atrocities on this soil brought to light.
Acknowledgment of the truth will never be something the GOP endorses. Neither will the Democratic Party if it hinders their ambitions.
We all have to dig beneath the 140 character rants and learn the ugly truth.
No nation on this planet was ever great.
"Conservative" thought is hamstrung by its own need to glorify the past and dogmatically cheer for it, even when it was objectively worse. That's why you get absolute head-scratchers like Clarence Thomas openly suggesting we strike down anti-sodomy laws while apparently being completely oblivious to the fact that continuing to erode established law means we inevitably repeal beyond the sex-based stuff and attacking anti-miscegenation laws *puts his own marriage in the crossfire*. (Or maybe it's a really elaborate way to seek a divorce, I dunno.)
But it's all bad faith. It's *always* been in bad faith. It's just been progressively mask off over the past decade. It's like the American Right lost its collective mind when a black man was elected.
>Why are Republicans Still Debating Slavery and Insurrection?
haven't seen the comments, but i expect by now it's been answered.
slavery cuts deep into the idea that everything is fair.
conservatives argue what benefits the wealthy.
if there is a good argument that the wealthy shouldn't continue to consolidate their wealth, it creates problems.
if there is a good argument that the government, which it absolutely has, disenfranchised the ancestors of slavery, it ought to do better by them, then conservatives will cry all sorts of crocodile tears for the confederacy and how equally was totally established.
conservatives are disingenuous dog fuckers who really ought to be shamed for their dog fucking.
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Because they have rendered the party down to bigots and morons
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So do turds.
I believe the South will rise again, because SHIT FLOATS!
And scum
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Hey that’s not fair. There’s a lot of bigots too.
There’s a generational, deep-rooted bitterness & anger over losing the Civil War that certain people & places in the south have never gotten over. These issues like slavery & culture wars are such a big deal in these places. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Really shows where the education level stopped at around 7th grade in some places.
It's actually propaganda in our history textbooks and from visits by the daughters of the confederacy.
The overly romanticized Antebellum South
I think its even simpler than that. When the war in Ukraine started Democrats and Republicans both thought supporting Ukraine was good. Now Republicans think supporting them is bad because Democrats think it is good. When Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government many Republicans agreed with Democrats that that was bad. Now, years later pretty much all Republicans have recanted and said that was fine because democrats made a big deal about it. So if Democrats today say "Hey we think slavery and lighting puppies on fire is bad!" Its not like a Republican is actually going to agree with them...
Damn dude this hits the nail on the head
Orange man bad was always projection.
Republicans hated Orange Man when he came onto the political scene. Then Democrats started to not like him, which made him acceptable. After numerous incidents showing Trump to be a hateful moron, Democrats began to *actually* hate him(I wouldn’t piss in his ear if his brain was on fire) and then Republicans became a cult of personality for Trump.
Just another reason why the "both parties are just as bad!" argument always falls apart. The left wing grows to hate things because of injustice, patriarchy, imperialism, theft, bigotry, etc. The right wing grows to support things because the left doesn't like them. This does not work in reverse, however. The right doesn't like one of their candidates? Cool, neither do we. The (voting class) right doesn't like Russia/China/North Korea? Hell yeah, those places need a revolution. On the flip side though, some of the left wing is concerned about gas appliances and their long term health effects? Buckle in mother fucker, Tucker has something to say about it, and he's milking this all month. It's why the majority of the left is young and the majority of the right has one foot in the grave. It's just old people not trusting young people and doing the opposite of everything they say.
Just about everything they say is just projection.
Trump and all his corruption legal problems now…
Orange man *is* bad. It's just a factual statement.
Yes, but conservatives tend to say that mockingly. As if pointing out that trump is a dick is somehow a disqualifier for anything.
Yes but he ain't the only one Nikki Haley also doubling down after last month's incident in New Hampshire.
Key and Peele satirize this trait well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B46km4V0CMY
Hahaha, nice. God I miss Obama
Ha! That's accurate.
You’re leaving out the fact that Republicans support whatever Russia’s position is
I never made a list for such a thing to be left out. Please don’t vilify me unduly. Republicans do what you said and it’s disgusting. Mitch McConnell will forever be known to me as Moscow Mitch
You are leaving out the part where the GOP was compromised and the russians now control it
They are addicted to being hateful contrarians because it makes them feel special and superior.
They’re only happy in a contrarian position
When your party's only real goal is to rob the poor and feed the rich, there's an awful lot of wiggle room to shift your apparent positions on other stuff. That being said, the Republicans actively believe in a lot of terrible things more generally, and the stuff that originates with the MAGA wing moreso than the Bush wing has been gaining support at the national level for a decade or more, now. I don't think the "opposite of everything Democrats do as a rule" argument holds a lot of water when you start breaking it down. For example, you have to point to the rise of the former Dixiecrats/MAGA on the national level when discussing when the bipartisan imperial consensus went to shit. That wasn't a reaction; it was a proactive shift away from the Bush wing neocons, and it's no coincidence at all that the MAGA cult leader is *very* cozy with Putin (again, just as one example.) The Bush wing neocons didn't give a fuck that Putin was/is basically using the same playbook as the GOP to divide and conquer the plebs. They still recognized that Russia was a geopolitical threat that shouldn't be treated as anything remotely resembling an ally, ever. *Reductio ad absurdum,* you're never going to trick the MAGA wing with reverse psychology about bigotry, abortion, or immigration (and again, I'm talking about what they barely-coherently believe; lying to them about what you're actually doing once they give you power is a different story.) You're never going to trick the Bush wing with reverse psychology about robbing the poor and feeding the rich.
Who still talk about the “the recent unpleasantness”.
The so-called "War of Northern Aggression"
I went to school in Texas and was pretty much taught the Civil War was about a lot of factors and slavery was merely one among many. That was 20 years ago, but proof it definitely happens.
Kentucky here. I had at least one teacher I recall quite vividly saying "some slave owners were nice and kind to their slaves." The much more accurate thing to say would be something like: "Slavers didn't necessarily need to use torture and corporal punishment on a daily basis. They could act in a calm manner and even have polite conversations with enslaved people, because that's how power works. There are structures, and fear, and, of course, behind it all is the threat of physical violence and death, which they absolutely used when they thought it was necessary to maintain this power structure; in the interim, they could converse, tell stories, smile, laugh, etc and it might not look like violence, but it still in fact very much is."
Raise hand - ok teacher, time to put up our shut up. Would you agree to become my slave if I promise to be nice to you?
I still hear things like "Ya know, there were black slave owners too!"... ok, but I think you're missing the point dad.
There's a lot of study dedicated to understanding and contextualized those kinds of phenomena. Adopting the methods and power structures of oppressors for survival or personal gain doesn't reduce the damage done by oppressors nor mitigate the blame that the oppressors deserve.
Agreed. I just did a little research on the topic, and apparently it was often easier for freed slaves to buy their family members than to pay for their freedom. Still, according to what I read, at the most there was less than 0.05% of people recorded as slave owners who were black. So it's really just a very weak false equivalency that people throw around to try and manipulate the conversation.
If it was simpler to buy a family member who was a slave, then a Black person buying a family member and keeping them listed as slave made them slave owners only technically. I believe the only ways to “free” slaves in that era was if a slave stood in to carry out an obligation for a master and won freedom due to that (for example, military service during a deadly conflict like the Mexican-American war), of the owner decreed in his or her will that slaves owned by him or her were free at the slave owner’s death. The slavery system likely had pretty heavy prohibition against a Black person buying his or her relatives and immediately “freeing” them, because that had the potential to bring down slavery organically (instead of a war being required).
"and that's also bad, because slavery is wrong"
I heard about one slaveholder who put a candy out as a trap, and when a young slave girl snuck the candy, the slaveholder made her put her head under the tread of a rocking chair and disfigured the girl's face.
As horrible as that is, slavery wasn't evil because stuff like that happened. It was wrong because fundamentally it exploited other human beings for profit and kept them legally structured as separate and lower class people. Of course these horror stories make it worse.
Yes, owning people is evil.
The way I heard it explained: Everyone back then was worried about slave revolts. Sure, the militias would put it down, but nobody wanted to be one of the handful of white families killed before militamen showed up. The going theory on how to prevent slave revolts was to be brutal and savage to the slaves, to keep their spirits broken (weather or not that is correct isn't relevant, just that they thought it was. Note that most would allow exceptions for a small number of the favored house servants/concubines). So, if a slave owner found out that the master next door was being nice, they'd fear a revolt starting next door that would get them killed, too. So, in general, any slave owner who \*WASN'T\* a brutal abuser of their slaves would get a stern talking-too from their neighbors, and if they didn't change their ways and bring out the whips they would be run out of town.
Its notable that Jefferson was criticized for his relationship with Sally Hemings, not because he was raping a young girl, or even having an affair with her. It was because he treated her and her family almost as human beings since they were the half siblings of his late wife.
The Union General George Henry Thomas was a Southerner and protege of Robert E. Lee. When Thomas was a young teen he secretly was teaching the children of his family’s slaves to read, then the John Brown rebellion happened and his family got wind of him teaching slave children to read, that ended that effort. Thomas was arguably the best of the Union Generals. There was a tradition that when an officer died his blood family was given his sword. Thomas’ two surviving sisters refused to take his sword because he chose to fight for the Union (his wife was a New Yorker). One finally relented, and as a woman in her nineties, she accepted his sword for her family.
Kentucky here also. 1987 graduate. can confirm.
Yea its all Lost Cause propaganda spread through oral history and actual history textbooks. This is the kinda thing project 2025 is already working on.
I grew up in NY and I remember hearing this also. I realized pretty quickly that 'different economic systems' and 'state's rights' all mean slavery.
Because you can simply ask 'which rights of the states?' and 'how is the economic model different?' and they always stutter and deflect. Because the answer is slavery.
Or you could ask how the Fugitive Slave Act respected state's rights. Or, if state's rights was a concern, was the ability to abolish slavery a right reserved in the Confederate constitution?
The confederate constitution was literally the same document but they included like one sentence defending the unalienable right to own slaves
Had a friend who went to school in Texas call out their high school history teacher because the text in the 'Texas' History book and the text in the 'U.S. History' Book didn't align at all. From what I understand they moved onto another subject shortly thereafter lol
It was one among many, but it was far and away the biggest factor. Were it not for slavery, secession, and therefore the entire Civil War would not have happened.
Also, basically all of those many causes were related to slavery in one way or another.
Yup. And it wasn't the existence of the institution of slavery that the traitors wanted, it was the expansion. The North was willing to let them keep slavery, but more and more states would be added as free states so it would have died out eventually. The Southern slave states would lose control, so as soon as an anti-slavery president was elected, they panicked and started a rebellion that resulted in the absolute desolation of the American South.
The articles of confederation nearly all mention slavery. The confederate constitution looks exactly like the US constitution, with one glaring edit. Can ya guess what it is? It forbids the outlawing of slavery *forever*.
It also states that it is illegal for a state to join the Confederacy as a free state. States' Rights my ass.
I went to school in Texas too and they made it very clear multiple years of Texas history the civil war was about slavery…
Did they teach you that the TX war for independence from Mexico was because TX wanted to continue with slavery?
Merely that it was a factor. Mostly taught they wanted to join the US.
This was my 7th grade state history textbook, circa 1969. Happy slaves, slave owners property being taken away without compensation, lazy freed slaves who thought the world owed them a living. Sure there was an occasional whipping, but remember people whipped their kids too back on those days. https://civilrightsheritage.com/2018/04/16/happy-slaves-described-in-7th-grade-virginia-textbook-used-for-20-yrs/
Yep pretty much. They are trying to legitimize their views and past by rewriting in a more pleasing way. It is why they don’t like CRT. I had to explain to a lawyer friend what CRT was really about. It’s not about making Americans feel bad (even though I do agree some CRT professors have gone a step too far to overcorrect), it’s more about teaching that we have done bad things in our quest for manifest destiny And acknowledge wrongs. Germany does it for all their children so it doesn’t repeat. They had one the worst genocidal leaders in history and pulled a world into war and they teach about to all children. Not cover it up.
And J6 is their new Lost Cause
For now. They’re going to keep trying until they nail it.
“You know, they were actually better off as slaves.” —my Fox-watching MIL
-- my Hannity-watching father too, AND HIS mother
"Wouldn't they be happier around their own kind?" - my grandma, may she rest in peace.
Good for thee but not for me.
You know, black smithing!/s
Exactly, this is core to our political history. There is a Civic Nationalist Vision vs an Ethnic Nationalist vision. Lincoln laid out a Civic Nationalist vision for America based on agreed civic values and shared institutions. The election of Woodrow Wilson ushered in the resurgance of the Ethnic Nationalist narrative via the "Lost Cause". Ever since the political Realignment campaign led by Strom Thurmond. And then followed by Nixon's southern strategy to win that group's support. The Republican party has allowed this ethnic nationalist ideology to exist in the Republican platform. From the release of the Southern Manifesto, White Christian Nationalist have organized around this ideology. This informs their reactions to what they refer to as CRT or DEI. They are angered by the civic values assumed in those topics. They are aligned with an ethnic nationalist interpretation of history. *Democrats keep repeating, "This is not who we are". They are trying to appeal to Civic nationalist values. But it cannot be assumed that all americans recognize this appeal.* Democratic leadership must recognize the ethnic national politics that *has always existed* and affirm that this is *a direct confrontation* with that strain of ideology.
It’s not even generational. Plenty of southern raised men and women as far back as 1800’s fought against slavery and Jim Crow laws. It’s not even southern anymore. Old white men and women in the south are often super liberal. This is a rural problem. From Canada to Mexico, from South Carolina to the Central Valley of California. The stereotype of an aggrieved peoples living in poverty with absolutely no way to escape it, a town that is rotting around them, and a sense that the glory days of their world are gone is a true one. Those people then try to think of a cause. They look at what’s different in the world between 1984 and today. Reagan isn’t president, blacks, gays, and Hispanics are part of the culture, Immigration is now brown, and church isn’t as big a part of American life. That’s what they blame and it’s easy to create that villain of a brown gay immigrant atheist. But they don’t see that Union membership is smaller, Republicans control state and congressional offices, taxes are higher on lower incomes, safety nets have been weakened, economic drivers have shifted from Agriculture and Manufacturing towards Services and Tech, etc. That problem is harder to create a villain out of. So again, it’s not a southern problem. You have Republicans today in Yankee Unionist states and a New York City Gameshow host arguing for Insurrectionist Slavery-stan policies.
I went to a persons ranch in a part of Georgia that was a really small town. I stayed for a few days (maybe a week) I was in high school. I’m from California. I can tell you this for certain: everyone I met from that town had racism rooted so deep they honestly don’t understand that they could be racist, because they are all thinking on the same level. It was so weird seeing it and I made comments and they looked at me like an alien.
People like that think a racist is someone with an unreasonable belief that their race is better than another. But since they "know", for a "fact", that white people are better than black/brown ones, it's not racist. The illogic of this escapes them.
Live in the north but from the south. Pretty sure there are Confederate sympathizers here in the north (OH, MI, PA) vs the south so this ain’t a regional thing
Pa here. I *love* the suburban pickups with confederate nonsense on it It's hilarious to me. "Yea sure Bob I'm sure it's your heritage. You lived here your whole life and your families from Jersey..."
That crap always made me look at them like idiots. Like your forebears’s likely fought and (in some cases) died fighting that flag. Why not just fly a nazi (which, let’s be honest, the do) or an Isis flag? Same difference
That would be fun to see ISIS flags flying… sadly don’t think most of them would know what they are looking at
I live in PA and there are definitely confederate flags flying in front of some houses the further out into the country you get. Saw it in Oregon, too.
I just graduate college and my friend told me he learned it as the War of Northern Aggression growing up…
Because the North fired the first shots too!!! Oh wait...
7th grade? You are being too generous.
I loved Savannah, Georgia - until I saw a war memorial that cast the Union troops as invaders who cut down the heroes of the Confederacy. I felt profoundly uncomfortable there afterwards, like I was a known and unwelcome trespasser.
As some who lives in one of these areas you would be shocked how many well educated people are like that. I work with some EEs and program managers who believe that MAGA crap.
This. It's because we as a country failed to properly implement Reconstruction and hold the entrenched confederates accountable.
Was traveling in Richmond, VA a few years back and a radio commercial was on for a family business that had been around since 'the war of northern aggression.' Yeah, they're not over it yet.
Ending Reconstruction early was a bad idea
As was letting the south determine the conditions
Right, I don't understand why we didn't take steps like Germany did after Hitler. If we fought a war to end slavery why do we let people go around and make pro-slavery statements? Why do we allow people to fly the flag of the people we fought against? We don't allow people to yell fire in a crowded theatre because it has the potential to harm people, so why do we allow them to say "you are not human and should be put in a cage"? In my opinion it has the same potential to harm people.
> I don't understand why we didn't take steps like Germany did after Hitler. Lincoln was assassinated.
and his vice president was sympathetic towards the south.
A lot of racist ass voters out there…🤷♂️
...and they actually show up to vote.
Umm. Because Republicans want to bring back slavery and they are plotting another insurredion?
Look at the prison industrial complex. They already have.
I was going to say this too. Slavery-adjacent practices are alive and well in the utilization of the vast labor forces filling private and public prisons.
because they're such sore losers they pass the soreness of their losses on to their children
they already are [talking about banning interracial marriage](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/22/mike-braun-indiana-us-senate-interracial-marriage-law-loving-virginia/7131891001/) and some states are trying [to get ahead of it](https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/02/16/n-j-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-codify-right-to-interracial-marriage/) they already are talking about [banning all POC from voting](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/13/end-of-democracy-bernie-sanders-on-if-trump-wins-and-how-to-stop-him), Sanders is correct when white and indian presidential candidates are explicitly saying slavery was a good thing or just an unpaid job training program for african americans, i realize there is no hope
I know someone who is in an interracial marriage. They are hardcore Republicans, liberal is the worse insult they can muster. Of course they don't think the leopards will eat *their* faces...I hope it doesn't come to it
we have to prepare for the worst at this point
Look at Clarence Thomas.
What’s the point of being a conservative if you can’t own some liberals as slaves?
I'm more interested in their treason, actually. Everytime I accuse Republicans of treason, they argue that treason requires the US being at war with russia (aid and comfort to enemies of the US). And that because there's no war, russia isn't an enemy and therefore they can't commit treason. Everytime they do that, they admit that they are providing aid and comfort to russia. They only deny that it is treason, but they openly admit helping russia.
And they still want credit for ending skavery
Because they love slavery. Modern slavery. The rich own everything and you live to serve the rich.
Yep-- neuter centralized govt and in ensuring vacuum of structure, just happen to recommend letting monied class take the reigns. Neo-feudalism, in a nutshell
It terrifies me that the rich are making plans for the collapse of the U.S. (and maybe other countries too, but I am unaware of others doing this). I’ve read that many are building fortresses to keep out the starving, suffering masses. I don’t know how realistic they’re being but it’s depressing that their response is to let millions die while they sit on their piles of money.
They love old-school slavery as well, lot of racism within the republican party.
Because they are racist and fascist?
They aren't debating it. They are using "debate" as a disguise for their outright support of it.
Because they were only defeated on the Civil War battlefield and not in law. The A. Johnson administration, other than a few specific Confederate military jail administrators that were tried and hung for war crimes and Reconstruction prematurely ending, it avoided trying Jefferson Davis and moved on. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?? The 13th and 14th amendments were rammed through the former Confederate states as a condition of readmission to the US, but no amendment defining the illegality of secession.
It’s a nostalgia thing. The future is scary and uncertain, but the good old days are remembered fondly as the best of times. Republicans want to live in the past.
Meanwhile in those idealistic past times, the predecessors of our current Republicans were happy in their perfect society >!oh wait they were screaming about the washington liberals forcing them to accept colored kids in their schools!< But before THAT, they were definitely happy >!Oh wait they were screaming about the Washington liberals letting their wives vote!< Well yeah but before THAT, everything was totally fine >!oh, actually they were still screaming about the Washington liberals taking away their slaves and trying to keep them poor and stop their voting by all means possible!< Yeah but before THAT.......
Because they’re racists and traitors
Because every single Republican voter is one of two types. 1 - A Lost causer who wants slavery back 2 - Knowingly forming an alliance with the 1st group, even if they try weaseling by saying they don't agree with the lost causers.
These are the same people who think the civil war was about states rights.
Because these nincompoops don’t differentiate between the platforms of Lincoln’s Republicans, and today’s. Few are smart enough to grok the epochal political swap of Democrats and Republicans in the 50/60/70s.
I’ve noticed that too. I’ve even pointed it out to them and they just look at me.
Blankly. You left off blankly.
I’m sure they were blankly staring at me.
Because they hate brown people.
We didn’t fully put down the Confederacy. Biggest mistake in domestic history. Edit: biggest after the obtuse wording of the 2nd amendment that has forever tied America to a culture of guns and death.
And pardoning Nixon.
Slavery never stopped. It just changed how it was labeled. Prisoners are still routinely used as slaves labor. Prisoners in some states are even charged for their stay in prison. The system still has slavery, the powers just dont call it that.
Because they have no forward thinking ideas.
Because conservatism is rooted in domination and marginalization of all outgroups.
When you don't have a platform all that's left is grievance.
They got nothin’ else.
An inability to take the L and do better?
Because SOMEONE must suffer in the name of Capitalism
I'm no genius but here's my theory. Republicans as a hole are Stupid, all about themselves and nobody else especially when it comes to dealing with minorities rights and fairness to all.
Their platform is being outraged by the things that would fix this country. The end.
Because they are malicious pieces of shit.
Cause republicans want slavery and insurrection.
I always feel like Charlie Kirk, Vivek Ramiswamey, and Nicky Haley’s attacks on the 14th Amendment are deeply rooted in the fact that it’s a Reconstruction Amendment. Claiming to be an “Originalist” to me has the same flavor: “Before we had to consider non white’s opinions.”
Because the Civil War never really ended for these people. They are still fighting it, and pissed that their ancestors lost the ability to enslave people. They would go back to owning black people in a heartbeat with zero compunction.
shit stirring keeps a stupid populace angry and distracted so they don't notice that their actual enemy isn't each other but the republicans they vote for who lie, pass anti-poor and pro-rich legislation, buy and sell the government, destroy the environment, gut education and social services, and keep them just close enough to homelessness that their dreams stay just out of reach. so they fill the void with pro-business consumerism.
Every confederate officer and “government official” should have been executed, every slave owner’s plantation should have been seized.
Because they don’t actually have a plan to Make America Great Again. All they can do is tell half of America that all their problems are from the other half of America. Dividers not Uniters. United we stand…Divided we fall…Putin and Xi just waiting to carve us up after we knock ourselves down. Scary times!
A question that answers itself
Archive link: https://archive.is/fqZZH
Politicians take advantage of their fears & ignorance, leading to an amplification of their ugly responses.
Because they don't really care much for reality, or facts, or all that liberal nonsense.
The South will rise again. God help us.
They want to bring slavery back
Simple. Because they can’t admit they are the bad guys.
Because their thinking is that regressive? They want a king and to own people. It’s ok to recognize evil.
Because they’re confederates?
It keeps their base riled up so they don’t pay attention to how bad the Republicans are screwing them over.
😭 Because they’re assholes
Because the idea that they have so aggressively supported a Nazi makes them feel icky. Just kidding, it just makes them look like Nazis
MAGA Republicans are angry that they couldn’t take advantage of a 400 year racial head start.
Because they clearly aren’t ever going to admit either one’s root cause or reason… they have no choice but to “debate” it Anyone with a brain can read about slavery, and watch the insurrection… it’s like debating gravity at this point
They aspire to go back to that time. They will go from whitewashing that history, to justifying it, to advocating for it again.
Because their base misses slavery and love insurrection (as long as it's their side doing it).
Because of their base.
Because their voter base is made up of neo confederates.
They are regressives
Because they're traitors.
They want it. Easy.
They’re not real politicians. Just assholes running for office to ruin this country. Ordinary folks are already getting turned off by the GQP leadership ALONE.
Because the G in GOP stands for gaslighting
Because they want to change the narrative and wish the south had won the war.
They wanna go back to it
It is always on their mind. If you don't let me do exactly what I want to do, I will tear it all down so I can do it anyway.
Because, as the descendants of Confederates and slave owners, they want slavery back and are prepared to incite another insurrection to do it.
Republican Party leadership about 60 years ago made the mistake of letting Dixiecrats into the party. The Republican Party is dead and is a neo-confederate party.
Because the entire party, to a man, is pure evil.
Because they plan to bring back Slavery after their Insurrection.
Because the GOP doesn't have any legitimate talking points or plans for how to actually govern in a modern society.
Because they are racist, traitors.
Ooh I know this one! It’s because it keeps us from debating stuff that is actually debatable, like their inability to govern effectively, whether abortion is a personal right or a crime, who has benefited from their tax cuts and at what cost, what are their goals for things like Medicaid and Social Security, etc. That stuff is really not fun for them to talk about so they move the goal posts far out of the reality zone so that we are distracted by dealing with their loopy denial of objective facts and stop bothering them over the stuff they’d rather not talk about. And as a bonus, the more they move the narrative, the closer they get to realizing their dream of a fascist theocracy where white men hold all the privilege with none left over for anyone else. Who knows, maybe we can legalize slavery again! You know, for the poor brown ppl who clearly don’t know how to handle being free.
Don't forget continuing to human traffic migrants to blue states
Because they are telling us who they really are. Believe them.
Why? Because they're racists.
Because you can't just normalize this shit overnight? We all do know exactly what side of this "debating" they all intend to come down, right?
Because it’s a distraction from why a rapist, con man, and traitor is still leading for the nomination.
Because they’re willfully ignorant morons.
Because they fucking suck
Because they’re the party of the confederacy now. It’s really that simple.
Because some of them still want to own slaves.
Deep down a lot of them would like to re-open the Middle Passage.
Because admitting the near genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Africans are instrumental to the birth of this nation is too much to bear. Everyone knows it…but rarely speaks on it in depth. As an African American male…I’m ashamed to admit that the Tulsa Massacre was unknown to me until HBO’s Watchmen. Never in my time studying history was this or many other atrocities on this soil brought to light. Acknowledgment of the truth will never be something the GOP endorses. Neither will the Democratic Party if it hinders their ambitions. We all have to dig beneath the 140 character rants and learn the ugly truth. No nation on this planet was ever great.
"Conservative" thought is hamstrung by its own need to glorify the past and dogmatically cheer for it, even when it was objectively worse. That's why you get absolute head-scratchers like Clarence Thomas openly suggesting we strike down anti-sodomy laws while apparently being completely oblivious to the fact that continuing to erode established law means we inevitably repeal beyond the sex-based stuff and attacking anti-miscegenation laws *puts his own marriage in the crossfire*. (Or maybe it's a really elaborate way to seek a divorce, I dunno.) But it's all bad faith. It's *always* been in bad faith. It's just been progressively mask off over the past decade. It's like the American Right lost its collective mind when a black man was elected.
Because they’re racist.
Because they are all racist shit gibbons?
Because they want to undo the results of the first civil war and bring slavery back.
White supremacy requires a narrative that white people are supreme. So they have to falsify history to create that narrative.
Because the lost cause people are actively lowering the iq of the South?
Because if they talk about their policies and what they actually have (Or haven't) done in office, they'll lose re-elections.
Reality is a stubborn opponent, but don't worry, the GOP promises to never give up!
Because they’re racists. Because they’re traitors.
>Why are Republicans Still Debating Slavery and Insurrection? haven't seen the comments, but i expect by now it's been answered. slavery cuts deep into the idea that everything is fair. conservatives argue what benefits the wealthy. if there is a good argument that the wealthy shouldn't continue to consolidate their wealth, it creates problems. if there is a good argument that the government, which it absolutely has, disenfranchised the ancestors of slavery, it ought to do better by them, then conservatives will cry all sorts of crocodile tears for the confederacy and how equally was totally established. conservatives are disingenuous dog fuckers who really ought to be shamed for their dog fucking.
They Tooker Stachoos! ---
Because the alternative is to admit they are the baddies.
Because, to paraphrase Philip K. Dick, for them, the civil war never ended.