By Zack Linly
It is going to be a long four years if we put back in office the orange menace who is bound and determined to make America as dumb as possible again.
Seriously, if you thought presidential long-shot Nikki Haley made the worst possible statement regarding the Civil War when she talked about it without mentioning slavery and then acted all gobsmacked when it was pointed out to her that she should have, wait until you listen to Donald Trump not only talk about the war without a mention of the slave trade but imply that he could have avoided the war altogether through his yuge negotiation skills.
“I love studying the—if you take a look, I mean, the wars, I don’t know what it is,” Trump said of the war during a campaign speech in Newton, Iowa, Saturday. “The Civil War was so fascinating, so horrible, so horrible but so fascinating. It was, I don’t know, it was just different. I just find it, I’m so attracted to seeing it.”
“So many mistakes were made,” he continued. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died. Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”
As CNN noted: “In fact, there were a series of efforts before the Civil War began to cut a deal to save the Union. But the future of slavery in the South could not be settled through compromise and the nation went to war with itself.”
Seriously, how exactly does Trump, who claims he loves “studying” the Civil War think it even started?
In Trump’s Book of Ahistorical History, one can only assume Lincoln met up at a coffee shop with Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and this was the exchange:
Davis: “Slaves?”
Lincoln: “No slaves.”
Davis: “War then?”
Lincoln: “Bet!”
Republicans in the 21st century can’t even agree that the Confederacy—the part of America that effectively committed treason because its economy was dependent on keeping Black people in inter-generational bondage and making them do all white people’s work for them—should still be celebrated and commemorated through flags and monuments. But, sure, if Trump were our 16th president instead of Lincoln, he would have talked us out of a four-year-long violent war, and he would have done so in a way that put an end to anti-Black oppression.
Here’s Trump on day one of negotiations:
“You know…OK, guys, here it is…five slaves. You get five slaves and that’s it. Maybe 10. I can get you 10 but then you’ve got to cut it off because the Blacks…who love me…you know the Blacks love me..the slave cookouts…you should taste the potato salad…my God. But I love the Blacks…who could have ever said they were lazy. Oh yeah…that was me. But I never said it. Fake noose…news, I mean. The Blacks…they love me. So, 25 slaves. That’s it, like I said…you get 38 slaves and you’re done. I’ve done it all with my 53 slaves. I built walls. I employed so many Blacks. They never had jobs before. They…I don’t even think they could eat their potato salad. So, 72 slaves, and you can make your plantation great again. But then you stop…stop at 84 slaves.”
Anyway, the fine folks on X also had a field day (no pun intended) with this one.
This would all be hilarious if Trump hadn’t essentially been the one who spearheaded the white nationalist campaign to keep Black history whitewashed. This is the man who came up with the slavery-justifying 1776 Commission, a white and tearsy response to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning historical framework, The 1619 Project. Trump is also the one who launched the anti-Black, propaganda-reliant war against critical race theory.
At the end of the day, if Republicans/conservatives can’t be honest about what the Civil War was, why it happened and what American atrocities were committed to cause it, they should just stay away from the subject.
Just keep the Civil War out of your Confederacy-loving mouths.
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