The GOP's Confederate Madness
by Matthew Yglesias
The Daily Beast
Virginia Gov. McDonnell’s embrace of Confederate History Month is more than just a bizarre retreat from his party’s civil-rights roots. Matthew Yglesias on why it’s the path to political suicide.
The observation that today’s Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln is a cliché in progressive circles. But I’d always sort of assumed that actual Republicans didn’t see it that way, and still saw themselves as in some sense the heirs of the original mid-19th century GOP. Until Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declared Confederate History Month, that is.
Doubts first began to surface in my mind back in early March, when Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) not only suggested that Ronald Reagan should be on our money (standard issue wing-nuttery) but specifically said he should replace Ulysses S. Grant on the $50.
Grant, the second Republican president, was for a long time poorly rated under the influence of white supremacist historiography, but is by any reasonable measure one of the finest presidents of American history. The Grant administration suppressed the Ku Klux Klan, passed visionary civil rights legislation—and, tempered by the president’s wartime experience, sought to mitigate the viciousness of frontier relations with Native Americans. As Frederick Douglass wrote: “to Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indians a humane policy.” He was also the key military architect of Union victory in the Civil War. Not a bad record, and not achievements you’d think modern day conservatives would be eager to overlook or disparage.
How is it possible that it takes political pressure to get McDonnell to acknowledge that slavery was both bad and an important factor in sparking the Civil War?
McDonnell’s odd executive decision this week proved me wrong.
During the 2009 gubernatorial campaign, McDonnell’s opponent Creigh Deeds tried to paint him as an extremist culture-warrior out of step with modern-day Virginia. McDonnell painted an image of himself as a pragmatist who’d focus on the economy and running the government. McDonnell won the argument and the election.
(Continued here.)
The Daily Beast
Virginia Gov. McDonnell’s embrace of Confederate History Month is more than just a bizarre retreat from his party’s civil-rights roots. Matthew Yglesias on why it’s the path to political suicide.
The observation that today’s Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln is a cliché in progressive circles. But I’d always sort of assumed that actual Republicans didn’t see it that way, and still saw themselves as in some sense the heirs of the original mid-19th century GOP. Until Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declared Confederate History Month, that is.
Doubts first began to surface in my mind back in early March, when Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) not only suggested that Ronald Reagan should be on our money (standard issue wing-nuttery) but specifically said he should replace Ulysses S. Grant on the $50.
Grant, the second Republican president, was for a long time poorly rated under the influence of white supremacist historiography, but is by any reasonable measure one of the finest presidents of American history. The Grant administration suppressed the Ku Klux Klan, passed visionary civil rights legislation—and, tempered by the president’s wartime experience, sought to mitigate the viciousness of frontier relations with Native Americans. As Frederick Douglass wrote: “to Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indians a humane policy.” He was also the key military architect of Union victory in the Civil War. Not a bad record, and not achievements you’d think modern day conservatives would be eager to overlook or disparage.
How is it possible that it takes political pressure to get McDonnell to acknowledge that slavery was both bad and an important factor in sparking the Civil War?
McDonnell’s odd executive decision this week proved me wrong.
During the 2009 gubernatorial campaign, McDonnell’s opponent Creigh Deeds tried to paint him as an extremist culture-warrior out of step with modern-day Virginia. McDonnell painted an image of himself as a pragmatist who’d focus on the economy and running the government. McDonnell won the argument and the election.
(Continued here.)
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