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@PollyCHaag @tribelaw I have been re-reading U.S. Grant's two volume 'Personal Memoirs' (an heirloom in our family). I have been struck by many similarities between the machinations of Southerners prior to actual Secession, and also by some of Grant's comments +
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw about a deep rooted tradition in the ruling classes of the South that rule properly rested w/ an elite that oppressed not only slaves but "poor white trash" and that, in preserving that rule, the ends always justified the means. +
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw We should remember our history, and 'know ourselves' (as Americans). 'Sectional' traditions and beliefs that prefigured the Civil War are still alive. McConnell and his ilk are, in my view, fighting the latest version of the 'Lost Cause' (GOP's terminal decline). +
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw Southern elites were, prior to and after the Civil War, anti-democratic. They couldn't make oppression work any other way. As Grant says, during the Civil War the "entire South was a military camp" with press censorship and other authoritarian measures, +
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw while "at the North" things were entirely different (even to the extent of one part of the free press constantly attacking Lincoln). +
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw The legacy of slavery lives on in many ways, including that at least part of the Southern political class of our day remains imbued with an 'ends justify means' mentality and a level of comfort with anti-democratic systems & measures that is fundamentally anti-Constitutional.
@PollyCHaag @tribelaw @threadreaderapp unroll
