Racist Donald Trump Loves Him Some Confederate Generals

[Celerity]

Add this to the list of reasons why Trump needs to be jettisoned onto the slag heap of history

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/racist-donald-trump-loves-him-some



by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC -- Donald Trump is apparently planning to deliver a speech about race relations, to be authored by well-known racist goblin, Stephen Miller. Since we first heard about the possibility of this speech, we’ve been speculating about what exactly he’ll say. Will he pretend to give a rip about racism, while outlining police reforms, or will he continue to pursue his worst instincts the way he does on Twitter practically around the clock? Perhaps the following tweet thread he posted on Wednesday will give us a clue. In the aftermath of the latest murder of an African American man who was crushed to death by a Minneapolis cop, one of the ideas that’s been floated is to rename some of the U.S. military bases that are named for Confederate generals. Donald Trump thinks that’s a terrible idea. And of course he does. Trump wrote:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

He. Knows. Nothing.

To be absolutely clear about all this: “Hood,” “Bragg” and “Benning” were all Confederate generals. So were (Fort) Gordon, (Fort) Pickett, (Fort) A.P. Hill and so on -- each with forts named after them today. Right now. The Confederate army, as most people learn in grade school, was composed of traitors who seceded from the United States, took up arms against the federal government and President Lincoln, and, as a consequence, precipitated a bloodbath -- the greatest number of casualties in our history -- more than all American wars combined. And they did so to defend the right of the states to allow slavery. Had these generals been successful, it’s quite possible the institution of enslaving humans as the cornerstone of the southern economy may have continued perhaps into the 20th Century.

These are the men Trump is defending. Now. In these times.

To be more specific, Trump said the Confederate generals are part of our “history of winning.” He added “victory,” even though it means the same thing as “winning.” Nevertheless, Trump could be getting this from the same nest of brain worms that told him about the many airports of 1812, because the Confederacy lost the Civil War. First, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant, then, elsewhere, Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to William Tecumseh Sherman. They lost, and the southern states were reincorporated into the Union thereafter. Sure, they won some battles during the war -- important ones -- but they lost the war. Our “history of winning/victory” has to do with, in part, the Union army and its commanders. Duh.

Trump also said the Confederate generals are part of our history of “Freedom.” Do we even need to highlight how counterfactual that is? Whose freedom? Certainly not the freedom of the captive African Americans held in the Old South. I mean, sure, the Confederacy was seeking freedom (whites only), but they were literally seeking freedom from the United States, not to mention a president who Trump and the Republican Party routinely cite as being one of them. In other words, Trump is celebrating men who hated the United States and its Republican president so much that they withdrew from the nation and launched a war against it. When Trump talks about Lincoln or when he visits the Lincoln Memorial, he’s pretending to pay tribute to a president who was the last casualty of the war that was waged by the men Trump’s defending. And do I even need to point out the absurdity of the last part of Trump’s tweet -- the part about not tampering with the United States? Secession being perhaps the ultimate tampering, given how the nation literally lost 11 states.

snip

[raging moderate]

1. Joe should hold a Juneteenth rally to counter Trump's Tulsa stunt.

I hope Joe Biden is planning to do something to join in the celebration of Juneteenth, the day when the Black people in Texas were finally told that they were free and had the Emancipation Proclamation read to them officially. (I hope I have that right. I am hazy on details.) Anyway, I hear that Trump is going to choose that very day for a crypto-KKK rally in Tulsa, with dog whistles for his white supremacist followers. It seems to me that the rest of us need to drown out their manufactured self-pity with a celebration of real freedom from real oppression

[Celerity]

2. pure dog whistle, Tulsa alone is bad enough, but then to hold in on Juneteenth

June 19, 1865

Major General Gordon Granger assumed his position as the appointed military governor of Texas after landing in Galveston the day prior. Five General Orders were announced and published two days later in the Galveston Daily News. For the 250,000 slaves in Texas, it was General Order No. 3 that held the greatest and most important news:

The people are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

[yellowcanine]

3. Dog whistle, hell, it's a klaxon.

[Celerity]

10. yes!!!!!!!!

[raging moderate]

8. Thank you.

I had seen this before, but it was many years ago. I am struck by the very modest gains the Black people were allowed to make on this occasion, and the grace with which they accepted these gains and made the most of them.

[sop]

4. Trump is an illiterate, he never read a history book, he knows nothing about the Civil War.

Someone could punk him and say General Jack D. Ripper and General Pong Krell were gallant confederate officers, whose names were being removed from U.S. military bases, and the imbecile would countermand the "order," then tweet something stupid about Antifa and radical leftwing Democrats.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Oh, his speech will be a real wang dang doodle. Count on it.

Neither Cheeto Benito nor racist speechwriter Stephen Miller do subtlety.

[Baclava]

6. Just wait till he renames them, Fort Donald J Trump, Fort Ivanka, Fort Barron...

[Vogon_Glory]

7. Did Trump even have ANY Confederate ancestors?

A reluctance to change the name is understandable (Even if I don’t agree with it) if one has Confederate ancestors (at least ones in the Confederate Army or Navy), but I don’t think Donnie has ANY such relatives in his family tree.

In fact, I wonder if almost all of Donnie’s forebears only came after Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers had smashed the Confederacy.

Convenient, that.

[raging moderate]

9. It's just real feller feelin'.

A conspiracy of egos. They can see it in each other's eyes.