We were all taught in school that the election of Abraham Lincoln ignited the Civil War in 1860, that it ended in 1865, at Appomattox, and that it ended with a Union victory.
It didn’t.
The war ended in 1877. That’s when the Union agreed to end its occupation of the South after the 1876 election was stolen. This began the reign of Jim Crow, which kept the South in bondage to its racism for 80 years. Jim Crow ended only after air conditioning made the South attractive to northern businesses, and Civil Rights made it a legitimate place to do business.
We’re now almost 16 years removed from the election of Barack Obama, which set off our second Civil War. Obama’s election set off the American Right just as Lincoln did the American South. The Right has become increasingly radicalized, with Trump as the catalyst.
Republicans are now prepared to destroy democracy in America. In the coming Reich it won’t just be Dixie being driven down.
The Precedent
I first wrote about this coming election in 2017.
This is American history. Opponents murdered and their killers pardoned. Voters stricken from the rolls and election workers intimidated. You say it can’t happen here? It already has.
A big part of what happened next was the South’s control of history, which continued into the 21st century. U.S. Grant won the war and supervised the occupation. Yet for over a century he was regularly ranked among the worst of U.S. Presidents. demonized by history. Statues to the Lost Cause went up as far north as North Dakota. Nevada, which entered the Union in 1864, calls its sports team the “Runnin Rebels.” White race riots destroyed black business centers for 20 years, from Atlanta to Tulsa. Just inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner was a scandal. Efforts to outlaw lynching failed as late as the 1930s.
This is the shame of my white race, a race with no genetic meaning, with a 500 year record of oppression against those who look different.
The question is whether the rest of the country will follow the South on the road to perdition.
They’ll Do It Again
The key to 2024 is the rejection of rightful results. All loyal Republicans are now election deniers. They deny the fact of Trump’s loss in 2020. They deny he can lose legitimately in 2024.
This is where the Hayes-Tilden precedent becomes crucial. Elected Tilden electors made a deal. In exchange for the withdrawal of troops, the electors became “unfaithful,” handing their votes to the party that had lost their states.
Republicans who control state election offices, governorships, legislatures, and courts now want to run this same play again, backed by friends on the U.S. Supreme Court. They control the vote count, and plan to halt it with Trump ahead. These states have already made it easy for their activists to strike people from the rolls. Georgia has limited the number of voting places in Democratic areas and prohibited even the distribution of water to those waiting in line. They plan to appoint electors based on false counts, and have their scheme approved by the Supreme Court.
Trump is making little effort to win this election on the merits. He is stealing the GOP’s assets, handing them to his lawyers, leaving down ticket candidates on their own. He’s making deals with a few oligarchs and leaving the details to Leonard Leo and his “Project 2025.”
America’s Past As Your Future
If you want to know what that means for you, look at Texas. Project 2025 runs Texas. Women are slaves to men’s sperm. Houston’s school district was overthrown, its workers fired, and taxpayer money is being funneled to segregationist madrasas. Immigrants are the new slave class. If you dissent, they will kill you and pardon your murderer.
That’s what the GOP has in store for you. I don’t care how disappointed you are in Joe Biden and the Democrats. If you love your country, now is the time to get in the game and fight for it.
If Republicans win the 1876 game, you won’t have a country anymore. They won’t allow it.
The America you love will be scrapped and sold for parts. You’re just one of the pieces.
