Uncivil War

We know when it began–When Scarlett said “Wahr, wahr wahr, oh fiddledeedee”—but when did the Civil War end?

1865?

Wrong. It never ended. When Robert E. Lee said his head was “bloodied but unbowed,” he wasn’t just whistling Dixie. He expressed not an iota of regret for having committed treason against the USA. The rebellion he led took the lives of three quarters of a million of his own countrymen. For what great cause? As Ron DeSantis recently enlightened us, to protect the slaves’ rights—-to on-the-job training.

They let the guy walk out of Appomattox Court House free and clear. (Confederate President Jefferson Davis was released from jail after spending two years there. The government, for some reason, couldn’t get their act together to try him on treason either.)

Abe “Nice Guys Finish Last” Lincoln pardoned Lee. The reward for his benevolence? He was assassinated a few days later.

Lee took a cushy job as president of Washington University and, after many a monument to him had been erected, his citizenship was reinstated posthumously by Gerald Ford. Ford, most famous for choking on a taco from which he failed to remove the wrapper, will be also remembered for letting two enemies of America off the hook.

More recent events testify to the fact that “the war of Northern aggression,” never ended. On January 6, 2021, after a 156 year long truce, we all witnessed the resumption of the hostilities. A very uncivil crowd, 95% of them White, at the behest of a very uncivil president, raised the Stars and Bars. The South rose again. Armed and enraged, they mounted a charge that would have warmed the heart of Gen. George Pickett.

They erected a gallows reserved for the Vice President, maimed and killed the guards they overran and would gladly have murdered any number of Congresspeople had they had the chance. After summoning them to DC and riling them up to a frenzy, Trump did nothing to stop them. If he had not been prevented from doing so by his own staff, he would have joined them. He didn’t interfere while they sacked and looted, never called in the cavalry. He blew them kisses as the melee belatedly was winding down.

Soon after, many Republican lawmakers who had just been held hostage by the mob gave them and the author of the Big Lie credibility by voting against confirming the election results. In the days following the uprising they commenced with a shameless re-write of history, portraying rampaging rebels as mere tourists and doing their best to first obstruct a thorough investigation and later to discredit it.

And what of the traitors? Most of those apprehended walked out of the court houses with sentences that would be laughable had their crimes been at all funny. One wonders how the law would have treated a group composed mostly of people of color had they done something similar.

As it was from the beginning, the never ending Civil War is still largely about racism. It’s widely acknowledged that one of the main driving forces behind Trump’s overwhelmingly White base is their fear that, finally, non-Whites are on the cusp of receiving the justice the Northern “victory” never produced.

Betrayed by both sides, the children of slaves continued for well nigh on to a century to shuffle their feet and say “yes sir” to scum who treated them like animals. Over the past sixty years or so, they have marched, mostly peacefully, through a desert of hatred toward the promised land.

At last, changes in public awareness and sentiment have brought them to the banks of the river. On the other side, Whites, terrified of losing the unfair advantages they have maintained for themselves since before the founding of our republic, are girding themselves for the final battle. Their Republican allies, meanwhile, are softening up enemy positions with the heavy artillery of minority voter suppression, legislating against so called “CRT” and “Woke,” and banning books that would teach children the unpleasant truth about racism. All the while they continue to rile up Johnny Reb with phony culture war issues to get his vote.

The Jan 6 insurrection gives proof that our Civil War really never ended. Like Lee before him, the Traitor-in-Chief with his Big Lie and his portrayal of racists and neo-nazis as “good people,” assembled his army. He told them to march down to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” He chortled with glee when they did. He deserves the punishment of a traitor. Instead, despite his too long delayed indictment, there’s more than a small possibility he will face no significant consequences. He may even regain the presidency.

Trump deserves justice that he may or may not receive for many crimes, but the most heinous is the treason of January 2021. If Trump, like Lee, goes unpunished, a war that has lasted over a century and a half may yet end with the the South victorious.