I've changed my mind about confederate monuments and the GOP

[struggle4progress]

I used to think the GOP supported the confederate monuments merely as a dog-whistle to white supremacists

I do still believe they're whistling to the supremacists

But today I'm convinced that the current crop of GOP loonies really admires the people who tried to destroy this country 150 years ago and is now also using the confederate monuments as a dog-whistle to America's enemies

[The Magistrate]

1. I Would Agree In Part, Sir

A good portion of the Republican party today does in fact admire the secessionists.

They buy into myths of the Lost Cause, which hold the secession was in opposition to tyrannical government, and carried out by men of devout Christian faith and great moral rectitude.

Without openly acknowledging it, they see themselves doing what they imagine the secessionists were doing --- upholding the native white protestant stock against the influx of foreigners and decadence, upholding the country yeoman against the urban squalor of mechanics and factory hands, and the urban luxuriance of wealth and over-refined culture.

Part of this foreign invasion they militate against is the 'native foreigner', the freed blacks, the latinos whose land was taken from Mexico, both of whom must be kept down and separate if the native white protestant stock is to be preserved, and maintained in its natural dominance.

Much of this is exactly what the secessionists told themselves they were doing, though they were at least clear-eyed about their convictions of the inferiority of all who were not native white protestants like themselves.

The key belief is that the secession was not treason to the United States, but a return to the revolutionary spirit which had thrown off the English Crown. That the secessionists were restoring the American Revolution, purifying it from taints which had grown up over time to obscure its true aims and meaning --- a nation of yeoman and country squires, where the owners of land were all that had a voice in government, because only they were fit to have a voice in government.

[Jamastiene]

3. I know I am sick of hearing the ones where I live talk about the

mean "damnYankees," and they say it as one word like that and spell it that way too, who came and started burning poor, innocent farmers' farms down. That is how they explain the Civil War here in central southern NC. They refuse to see it any other way too.

They are trying to rewrite history. They need to open their eyes and be forced to accept their loss and move on. We are supposed to be one country now, but it doesn't feel like it.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Strategic War Is A Thing

The union did burn farms.
But, the blame lies on rich slaveholders.
THEY started the war! Winning the war required(?) strategic actions, like doing economic damage. Those small farmers were the collateral damage that never would have occurred had those traitors not started a war.
Too easy to blame the "damn Yankees" than to grasp that the culprits are the slimballs upon which one bases their "heritage".

[Jamastiene]

2. Aren't dog whistles more covert in nature?

Meant to fly under the radar? They aren't dog whistling any more. They are openly stating it. It's treasonous.