TRUMP’S “LOST CAUSE” AND THE U.S. RIGHT’S NEW NARRATIVE

 

The US right is spinning a narrative of the "Lost Cause" in which evil forces embodied in the Democratic party robbed Trump of his electoral victory in 2020. It’s the same narrative framed by Jim Crow southerners following the ending of the North’s military occupation of the south and the highly contentious presidential election of Rutherford Hayes in 1876. These southern whites claimed that superior numbers alone explained the defeat of the heroic southern army. Slavery, according to this line, had nothing to do with the war since, after all, the slaves supported the southern cause and some even fought alongside the white southern soldiers (thus the recently-fabricated myth of the “Black Confederacy" for which there is no documentation). The deceitful narrative of the “Lost Cause” was enriched by the United Daughters of the Confederacy who publicly mourned the death of their brave husbands and fathers.

It’s uncommon for losing sides to glorify their defeated struggle. But this is exactly what Trump is setting out to do. In fact, his avid defense of Confederate symbols and his claim that the Civil War could have been avoided reinforces the Lost Cause narrative. Indeed, the South in 1860 and the racist right in 2020 have something in common: rightists today, like southerners at the time of the Civil War, perceive that time is on the side of the enemy. Southern whites in 1860 knew that they were becoming no match for the northern industrialists. Similarly, the racist white reactionaries in 2020 realize that it’s only a matter of a decade or so when they will become a minority. It’s for that reason that the “Proud Boys” and the Boogaloo movement resort to violence in order to provoke a civil war. And it’s for that reason that the Republican Party has become increasingly bold in dropping all pretenses of abiding by democratic norms and fair play.

https://www.bestoftheleft.com/_1385_the_lost_cause_of_the_confederacy_and_the_forty_fives