By Donald A. Collins | 18 January 2021
Church and State
For many white middleclass moderates like me the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis was a sharp wake up call. I had assumed, as the number of prominent African Americans flourished in our public life, the presence of racial bias was fading away! My bad!
How wrong I could have been was one of the many lessons brought home to me and I hope to many Americans by the Capitol attack on January 6th, a day certain to live in infamy like December 7th when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, except these January 6th attackers were American citizens.
One key aspect of this Trump insurrection was greatly illuminated for me by the historic truths set forth in her January 17th Washington Post article entitled “The Lost Cause” by Professor of history Karen L Cox at UNC whose book “No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight For Social Justice”. I listed the 5 Myths she articulates below, but you can read her facts by going to her full article here.
Karen L. Cox (@SassyProf) explores "Five myths about the Lost Cause" for @washingtonpost.https://t.co/t4YcuZ2J1T
— UNC Press (@uncpressblog) January 14, 2021
Myth No. 1
The Civil War was not fought over slavery.
Myth No. 2
The South lost simply because the North had more resources.
Myth No. 3
Robert E. Lee abhorred slavery.
Myth No. 4
Confederate monuments only recently became controversial.
Myth No. 5
Removing a Confederate monument is erasing history.
These myths, in an almost errie way, seem to tie directly into the kind of mythology perpetrated by our outgoing President in his efforts to overthrow our constitutional democracy. Months of lying after Biden’s victory on November 3rd has turned Trump’s backers into a cult of deniers, unable to free themselves from a religious like belief in his lies.
Trump’s backers are in effect his slaves, willing to believe and behave irrationally.
After all the slavery era in the South provides us with a mirror image of the kind of control Trump was seeking and which his obtaining a second term might have gone a long way toward his getting!
Be sure to ponder the point of my January 9th op ed about how lucky we are to now have the chance to mark Trump’s immensely traitorous perfidy by gaining his conviction in the upcoming Senate trial. You can read that piece again here.
Long time Majority Speaker Mitch McConnell must be keenly aware that his image in history now rests with his vote to impeach Trump.
Not really too hard as McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, in resigning her cabinet post after the Capitol insurrection, has already led the way.
The stench of Trump’s misdeeds is now growing so rapidly that those Republicans in both Senate and House know for certain the huge eviscerating effect Trump’s behavior will have on the GOP’s future. I am not counting on their exercising principled behavior in voting to convict Trump in his Senate trial after their behavior for the past 4 years in letting Trump take them over. Just revenge.
Note Trump’s success in making the GOP the minority party likely unable to win a national election for some time. The Republicans in both House and Senate are angry of course, but the proper vote to convict Trump could be judged by history as one of conscience for all Senators.
Historic days are ahead but the powerful symbolism of the George Floyd murder which finally awakened the recognition in so many white Americans of the deeply continuing pervasive racism—particularly and so ironically in the Party of Lincoln—gives all Americans a great opportunity to enhance our image on the world stage, an image so jeopardized by Trump’s disastrous behavior.
Most commentators expect Trump to continue to wield huge power after he leaves office. I disagree with those observers because as the stench of his personal life, his lies and worse the endangerment of our constitutional government come to be more and more understood and daily reiterated by our media at all levels, he is going to be like a deflating balloon, pursued by his creditors and shunned by most of his November 3, 2020 voters.
Americans—most of us—who are not afflicted with Trump’s egotistical mania and can still be reached with facts are increasingly, as they should be, upset with the implications of what Trump caused. No armed march which was expected on Sunday, January 17th (Ben Franklin’s birthday) happened as this 1/18 Washington Post piece describes but the majority of us are not going to stand for this situation. Read the whole piece here.
With no ‘armed march’ by extremists, D.C. residents navigate a fortress and fear https://t.co/pSRSsEodfx
— Post Local (@postlocal) January 18, 2021
Watch in the days ahead as real patriots take issue with his treason and as Trump’s power balloon keeps deflating! We as a republic are not going back to the racist days of the post Reconstruction era even if some in the GOP would like us to.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
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