White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly
Yesterday, James Kelly was featured in an interview with Laura Ingraham. In that interview, he advanced the racist, ignorant, and discredited “Lost Cause” narrative. The Washington Post today cites multiple historians who describe the interview as “strange”, “sad” and “wrong”:
Kelly was asked about the decision of a church in Alexandria to remove plaques honoring George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly said. “He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”
Stephanie McCurry, professor of history at Columbia University, writes (emphasis mine):
“What’s so strange about this statement is how closely it tracks or resembles the view of the Civil War that the South had finally got the nation to embrace by the early 20th century,” she said. “It’s the Jim Crow version of the causes of the Civil War. I mean, it tracks all of the major talking points of this pro-Confederate view of the Civil War.”
David Blight, professor of history at Yale University, writes (emphasis mine):
“This is profound ignorance, that’s what one has to say first, at least of pretty basic things about the American historical narrative,” Blight said. “I mean, it’s one thing to hear it from Trump who, let’s be honest, just really doesn’t know any history and has demonstrated it over and over and over. But Gen. Kelly has a long history in the American military.”
Mr. Blight is quoted, near the end of the piece, as saying something that I find enormously relevant to the ongoing arguments we’ve been caught up in lately (emphasis mine):
“It’s just so absurd,” Blight said. “It’s just so sad. It’s just so disappointing that generations of history have been written to explode all of this and yet millions of people — serious people; experienced, serious people and now people with tremendous power — have grown up believing all this.”
There was, however, a small silver lining.
“This Trump-era ignorance and misuse of history is forcing historians — and I think this is a good thing — to use words like ‘truth’ and ‘right or wrong,’ ” Blight said. “In the academy we get very caught up in relativism and whether we can be objective and so on, and that’s a real argument.”
“But there are some things that are just not true,” he said. “And we’ve got to point that out.”
That bears repeating: But there are some things that are just not true, and we’ve got to point that out.
While we’ve been arguing about the split within the Democratic Party, I need to remind us that there are some things that are just not true. I think we’ve GOT to point that out.
1. Hillary Clinton is NOT corrupt.
2. The “Lost Cause” narrative is NOT irrelevant and is NOT something to be ignored.
3. “Compromise” is not possible when fundamental values clash.
As these historians observe, the Civil War did NOT result from a refusal of the “North” to compromise. The Civil War happened after a long period with multiple failed efforts at compromise (see the piece for details). Robert E. Lee in particular and the Confederacy in general was NOT loyal to America. Mr. Lee did NOT place his loyalty to his state (VA) above the nation — he chose to wage war against his nation. That is the definition of treason.
The South sought independence because of its commitment to slavery. THAT is what the Civil War was about. The South went to war because it was unwilling to concede that the US government had the ultimate authority to outlaw slavery.
One irony of this specific interview happening at this specific time is that Mr. Kelly is betraying the very reason that the Republican Party was created (from the piece): “[He denies] the essential reason for the existence of the original Republican Party, which formed in the 1850s to stop the expansion of slavery and ended up developing a political ideology that threatened the South because they really were going to cordon off slavery.”
The on-going collapse of American democracy is NOT the result of the refusal of the Democrats to “compromise” with the GOP. The Democratic Party has, in fact, attempted one failed compromise after another. The Democratic Party has nothing to gain and everything to lose by attempting to “compromise” with voters who embrace the racist, ignorant, sad, strange, and wrong lies of the GOP.
We MUST NOT ignore the resurgence of the “Lost Cause” narrative. We must not ignore the prophetic voices of our black brothers and sisters who demand that these monuments to oppression be removed. We must not ignore the prophetic voices of millions of American women who are nauseated by the presence of a flagrant sex abuser in the Oval Office.
We must not ignore the ugly reality of the “populist” movements spreading across the world, in both Europe and America. We must not be tempted to pander to the unbridled hate, bigotry, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and nativism of these dangerous mobs.
We MUST offer a different way forward, so that we offer a REAL alternative. I suggest this longer, more difficult path is likely to result in losses in the 2018 and 2020 elections. I suggest that these losses are part of the inevitable suffering that has already been caused by the evils we have already done.
Sometimes I think that all compromise did was delay the inevitable. The Constitution was a bundle of compromises, even on slavery. The Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850 seem cringeworthy, but were we ready for Civil War earlier? I have to say though from my historical background that treason in that context wasn’t as cut and dry then. I could make strong arguments both prosecutorial and defense when it comes to Lee et alia based on the understanding of that time. Assisting the British during 1812-1814 or Mexico during 1846-1848 clearly would have been treason as they were enemies in respective wars. It was not obvious to everyone that disunion constituted treason as evidenced by the simple grammatical construction that the United States “are”. Reasonable people could say that states joined the union so states could withdraw. Also, as a historian I strongly believe such people were wrong and can point to the absence of such procedures in the Constitution which does provide for new admissions and even the splitting of states. Only after (and largely because of) the Civil War did it become more obvious that such actions should be considered treason. Lee did in fact choose state over country, being a rather reluctant secessionist. His talents were recognized by Lincoln who offered him Union command. By the standards of the time he was the quintessential Southern gentleman and yes, an honorable man.
In your argument about state versus country, you come to very different conclusion from both historians cited in the thread-starter (emphasis mine):
Regarding treason, Mr. Blight (above) writes (emphasis mine):
The argument Mr. Kelly offered Monday is the discredited “Lost Cause” narrative. It seems to me that you come perilously close to defending that narrative in your comment. While I understand that you have studied history, I think that Ms. McCurry and Mr. Blight offer the more persuasive argument.
In my view, the key takeaway here is that this interview provides yet more compelling evidence that our executive branch is in the thrall of “strange”, “sad” and “wrong” racist attitudes. We see it in Mr. Kelly. Mr. Sessions has long history of racist pronouncements. It is all over Mr. Trump himself. We see it in the continuing contempt the administration demonstrates towards Frederica Wilson.
We must not shrink from naming this racism for what it is. We must not attempt to “compromise” with these deplorables.
To do so is, as you say above, to only delay the inevitable.
I am only saying that for Lee personally it was a matter of state vs. country, keeping in mind that he felt that his state was also more his country than the larger US was. I have no patience for a Lost Cause narrative, but I also know it’s too easy to fall into the trap, even on seemingly benign things, to read history backwards. There are sometimes assumptions we take so much for granted that we don’t even realize we are making them. I am of course completely in agreement that slavery was THE cause of the Civil War. The instruments of secession make that abundantly clear. I also agree that the course of events ultimately proved that attempts at compromise were doomed to failure and that some principles could not be compromised.
Just as Kelly has given up his country to fight for his ideology, which today is more important than country when one is a Republican. So yeah, I can see how this traitor admires the other,
“The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is the greatest foe, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed.” A. LINCOLN