I suppose many people have not seen the movie “Gettysburg.” The history inclined Civil War buffs have likely memorized all the lines. “There is no time for that” is spoken by Robert E. Lee (Martin Sheen) to J.E.B. Stuart (Joseph Fuqua); these two men are celestial heroes to our modern-day descendants of the ‘Lost Cause’. The generals Lee and Stuart not Sheen and Fuqua who portrayed them. Stuart was a superb cavalry commander. He had taken Lee’s orders, which were always open to interpretation, then decided to ride around the Union army. He had done this the previous year in 1862, but this time Lee was left without reconnaissance. Reconnaissance reports were something Stuart excelled at. Late after the second day of the three-day battle Stuart met with Lee. Stuart, a flamboyant prideful cavalier of the Southern aristocracy, reacted to Lee’s reprimand with resentment. He was ready to fight a duel with all who besmirched his high held honor, or he would resign. General Lee responded at least in the movie, “there is no time for that.” He needed the aggrieved Stuart to work with him. After two days and nearly 40,000 casualties with another fifteen thousand to come the next day, the situation required his talents. He said he must accept the criticism and do his job, a job he was especially good at. Lee left Stuart with a warning to never make such a mistake again.
We need to get to Appomattox and not shoot Lincoln this time
J.E.B. Stuart is much like our “Red Hat MAGA Crowd.” The Trump base are people we want to work with yet, they are as aggrieved, prideful, and bigoted as Stuart. A large segment of our population now dwells in a delusional land. They go about their daily lives often skilled and competent in their careers. The world outside the job and family is built on fanciful fluff. It incorporates lunacy, propaganda, and always someone to blame. Why has America traveled this road and how did we get here?
U.S. Grant performed with honor and compassion considering the brutality of the last year of the war. He was prepared to be a great partner in peace and Reconstruction with Lincoln. Booth not willing to see N’s voting killed Lincoln. America was saddled with Andrew Johnson for four years. The virulent racist politician doomed Reconstruction. Johnson wins the race for the most racist president, but it is a win, won narrowly over stiff competition. However, his pivotal role at the crisis moment in America’s racial reckoning, amplify the destructive consequences of his policies. The cultural battle we are in today is one still reeling from the loss America suffered in Reconstruction. When I grew up the catchphrase “The South will rise again” was made as a recurring joke referring to old history or a football rivalry. In truth the South did rise again, and the Lost Cause is no longer lost. The sons and daughters of the confederacy have succeeded in gaining control of our government. The government our nation fought to preserve as indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This year in a poignant national moment a Trump insurrectionist carried the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia into our Capitol. The South has arisen was symbolically made evident. The same flag Lee carried to Antietam and Gettysburg leaving as an aftermath 74,000 casualties. People called themselves patriots while violating the laws and attacking the people protecting Federal property, just as did the secessionists.
Ironically this flag was carried by a man from Delaware. Delaware a Union state does have a prominent slave history. The false narrative of the Lost Cause is an even bigger and a more lasting lie than the Trumpist claims of election manipulation. There were two Southern Migrations one of Black America and one of White America. The Northern cities had stronger economies and the jobs drew displaced Blacks and Whites. The white transplants brought the false narrative. They planted it in the fertile ground of Northern white racism. It has been adopted by immigrants and romanticized in books and movies. The noble Southerner fighting with valor. Faulkner captures Southern society as he saw it. He can reveal much that is true in a secondary character as they are woven around his main narrative. A White Southerner simultaneously holds a pride and a guilt. Pride in Southern resilience in the face of insurmountable odds. At their core an understanding that fellow Black Southerners are fully human, equal in dignity to themselves. A truth kept buried deep as they intentionally deny equality or even simple decency. Faulkner’s White Southerners contain within their own psyche a romantic narrative, a guilt, a hurt pride, a fear which propels a hatred, putting the past behind them while clutching it so tightly they suffocate the future.
There is an overarching resentment in the Lost Cause movement. Lost Causers resent the losing; they feel they are subjects of ridicule. Yet the White Southerner must cheer the loser, explain why the better team lost forty to zero. A narrative must exist to create a powerful myth. Myth need not be true, but it must resonate with the inner image conforming to a comforting self-narrative. The ‘peculiar institution’ is too evil; it is excised from the revisionist narrative. Secession was not to preserve slavery but fought over unfair tariffs. The War of the Rebellion becomes the War of Northern Aggression. Valor of soldiers, the sacrifice of citizens, and an imagined chivalry justify a rebellion to keep others in chains. A violent insurrection because they lost a presidential election, not even questioned. Many of the more objective Southern contemporaries warned of the unequal resources. Once the Union chose to fight to preserve the United States, the confederate odds of success were low. “Spitting in the face of inevitable destruction,” as Faulkner once phrased it. Racism underlies it all; no matter how beautiful Scarlett was or those rose-colored memories of the antebellum South, racism is the constant underpinning of America’s history.
In White reconstruction history free Blacks are feared and portrayed as out of control. When Freedman were left alone, they did well. It was their economic success that often prompted the most violent repression. People have claimed some mythical patriotism to something other than our democratic republic established by the Constitution. The government of the United States has long been an enemy of a group of people. First the civil war, then the reconstruction, then the slow march to civil rights, all made a faction of citizens fight the government. Instead of feeling protected by democracy they felt oppressed and aggrieved. They feel aggrieved today, even when in control of government power. The Lost Cause has become an embedded attitude within persons from Alaska to Florida and Maine to Southern California. It enables a mistrust and an antipathy to our government. The anti-government wave encouraged by Reagan simply moves us closer to oligarchy. Effective government requires us to move closer to democracy.
Racial tensions and conflicts occurred in many places against many peoples not yet considered Real Americans. Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Indigenous Americans have all faced opposition from Trump’s Real Americans. Trumpers identify with the attitudes and easily align with the Lost Cause. A unity of bigotry and fear bring the confederacy to life in many hearts. We hear the old language of secession repeated from GOP members of Congress. We hear the cheering of sedition on our airwaves and streaming devices. The delusion is rampant in today’s America. It parallels the 1850’s and 1860’s. The Confederates believed the North would not fight for Union. If they did, Southern valor would easily win the day. Delusion was required to allow secession fever to race through the country like an epidemic. Delusion is required to power Trumpism. America seems to hold delusion in surplus in every state. Even Hawaii which isn’t a real state because Obama was born there. His vacations there were whined about as if it was a foreign nation.
The attitudes of what we once called the Old South now are carried within the disaffected crowd in every state. Reagan era pundits and right-wing talkers have created a bubble where the aggrieved can live as they carry on their daily lives. Safe in the bubble no one is forced to analyze the complexity of an issue. Climate change, deny it. Institutional racism, it doesn’t exist. Immigrants are the real threat, not corporate tax cheats. Twenty years of corruption and failed policy in Afghanistan, simply Biden’s fault. The insurrectionists of January 6th were mostly normal in their everyday lives. After they went deep down into the rabbit holes of Q they became capable of believing anything. The aggrieved latch on to any narrative that soothes the aggrievement.
I wish I could say we were at Appomattox, but January Sixth was Fort Sumter. Our war is to burst the bubble with truth. Nearly every Republican has chosen to promote and defend the lie. We must demand truth in every interview from every pundit and politician. Investigations of corruption in our contractor war, hearings on the exploitation of energy companies, and objective reviews of the amplification of racial divisions must be pursued aggressively. The organizers of the big lie and the insurrection must be investigated in open nonpartisan hearings. When the bubble of delusion lies in shatters and the wild-eyed conspiracists are only a handful of cranks and eccentrics, then we will have come to Appomattox.
We must engage in total war; our only weapon is truth. The warriors of Trumpism are possessed of an insanity, but some can be cured. We can let them up easy as Lincoln and Grant sought after our victory. Once we have won then we cannot turn our backs. After the Civil War Johnson let white supremacists join into bands of Klansmen. We must make certain at least our leaders live in reality. The climate crisis is an existential threat; we must have real solutions. We need to work as one nation; we require everyone’s skills. We are at war with the bubble of misinformation. Dividing ourselves, pandering to the old divisions of race, there is no time for that.
Lost Cause alive and well in 2021
Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
The Confederate monument thing. This week General Robert E. Lee’s statue will be removed in Richmond Virginia. It is the largest statue of Lee maybe the largest mounted statue in the world. Monument Avenue honored the great sons of Virginia as some would say. Eventually a statue of Arthur Ashe was added to the park as well, but it seemed rather inconsequential not adequate to offset the dripping with Lost Cause nostalgia the military heroes held. The statues belong at our National Military Parks that preserve and honor those who sacrificed there, or in Confederate cemeteries eternally reviewing the troops they led to their own mortality. No one should deny the bravery and sacrifice the Civil War soldiers endured. This is true of both Union and Confederate. It was a rebellion. The Confederates were enemies of the United States. The brutal war was fought to keep people in chains, subject to atrocities with no recourse. There is no timeline where the United States or the world would have been better off with any other outcome than the surrender of all Confederate forces. The Lost Cause elevated Lee, Stuart, Jackson, and Davis by maligning Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Lincoln. They were all flawed men in life; we should put the marble men in museums. We need libraries to learn about and honor the real humans they were.
September 2021
Forgottonia -- Shire Tales 