Trump, Race and the Revisionist History of the Lost Cause Myth

[calamity]

Here's a pretty good article on race relations in the US and our slide back towards believing a number of debunked myths. I call it the dumbing down of America.

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause' - CNN.com

Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it.

People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery...


The Lost Cause myth took hold even though Americans could easily consult the public record. The declarations of secession made by Southern states on the eve of the war cited slavery as the cause. And Stephens, the Confederate vice president, said in a speech in South Carolina in 1861 that the Confederacy was not founded on the "false idea" that all men are created equal.

 

[MaggieD]

Here's a pretty good article on race relations in the US and our slide back towards believing a number of debunked myths. I call it the dumbing down of America.

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause' - CNN.com

How did Trump make history disappear? What debunked myths are you talking about.

 

[calamity]

How did Trump make history disappear? What debunked myths are you talking about.

:roll:

I never said Trump is making history disappear. But, if you read this from the op:

"Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it.

People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery..."

And think about this:

Those who deny that racism and xenophobia were central to Trump's victory are engaging in another Lost Cause cover-up, they say.

"Anybody who says that the recent election is not, at least in part, a racial event is functioning as an apologist, whether they know it or not, for white prejudice," says, Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.

There are abundant examples of Trump's explicit racist statements. He didn't campaign in dog whistles; he used a bullhorn.

You just might figure it out.

 

[TheGoverness]

Here's a pretty good article on race relations in the US and our slide back towards believing a number of debunked myths. I call it the dumbing down of America.

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause' - CNN.com

What a dumb article. Racism, sexism, and bigotry DID have little to do with Trump winning.

The reason Trump won is because unlike Hillary Clinton, he had real momentum behind his presidential campaign: opposition to the political estabishment. Added to the fact that Hillary Clinton herself was an uninspiring candidate, which is why the turnout for her was lower than Obama's.

Also, the constant pulling of the race/woman card (like this article is doing) was also a big factor in Hillary's loss.

 

[calamity]

What a dumb article. Racism, sexism, and bigotry DID have little to do with Trump winning.

The reason Trump won is because unlike Hillary Clinton, he had real momentum behind his presidential campaign: opposition to the political estabishment. Added to the fact that Hillary Clinton herself was an uninspiring candidate, which is why the turnout for her was lower than Obama's.

Also, the constant pulling of the race/woman card (like this article is doing) was also a big factor in Hillary's loss.

False.

"Race was the deepest and defining issue of this campaign. It was the coded message in Trump's slogan 'Make America Great Again' and embodied in his stigmatizing of Hispanics as rapists and Muslims as likely terrorists, his dog whistles to white supremacists, his mainstreaming of blatantly racist language previously confined to the margins of American society."
Many of those who ignore the role of race in Trump's victory, Ellis says, are following the example of Lost Cause propagandists who said the war was a clash over the Constitution...

 

[Fruityfact]

Here's a pretty good article on race relations in the US and our slide back towards believing a number of debunked myths. I call it the dumbing down of America.

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause' - CNN.com

I can see it being a 50/50
Part racial.
Part the lazy uneducated whites who don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job or an education, and instead vote for one(which ain't coming)

 

[calamity]

I can see it being a 50/50
Part racial.
Part the lazy uneducated whites who don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job or an education, and instead vote for one(which ain't coming)

I guess what resonates with me is seeing exactly what this article talks about happening here in this forum: the "It wasn't about race" bullcrap being pushed by the usual suspects. Most noticeable is the rallying cries against threads like these which point it out. They seem to think we are all too stupid to remember what we just saw happen.

...what if others continue to say racism "was the deepest and defining issue" of Trump's campaign? Will they be accused of their own mythmaking? Will they be dismissed as politically naïve, even rude?

Will facing what Trump's victory says about America be too monstrous to bear?

If that happens, Trump's road to the White House won't just be a story about an astounding presidential victory.

It could become another Lost Cause.

Probably. We all know how people saying the Civil War was about Slavery are attacked, relentlessly, by many of the same people.

 

[calamity]

Another myth making the rounds is that whites cannot be racist because they elected Obama. Well, whites did not elect Obama. In fact, if whites had their way, we would have had a McCain and a Romney as president.

He said whites didn't put Obama in the White House. Obama grabbed only 43% of the white vote in 2008 and 39% in 2012.

"The majority of whites did not elect Obama, and that's the wolf at the door," Belcher told Vox. "The vast majority of whites did not support President Obama and President Obama won back-to-back majorities, and that caused the realization of their power waning. Mitt Romney ran up a higher score among white voters than Ronald Reagan when Reagan had a landslide in 1984."

So, there is another myth about racism not playing a part in who gets elected being completely debunked. It also explains why the GOP pushed through all those voter suppression efforts.

 

[Absentglare]

What a dumb article. Racism, sexism, and bigotry DID have little to do with Trump winning.

The reason Trump won is because unlike Hillary Clinton, he had real momentum behind his presidential campaign: opposition to the political estabishment. Added to the fact that Hillary Clinton herself was an uninspiring candidate, which is why the turnout for her was lower than Obama's.

Also, the constant pulling of the race/woman card (like this article is doing) was also a big factor in Hillary's loss.

Your entire premise is that people voted for Trump because of Hillary. This premise requires that we absolve Trump voters of responsibility for voting for Trump, which is absurd. They take implicit responsibility for what he's said and done, ignorance is not a defense.

 

[calamity]

Your entire premise is that people voted for Trump because of Hillary. This premise requires that we absolve Trump voters of responsibility for voting for Trump, which is absurd. They take implicit responsibility for what he's said and done, ignorance is not a defense.

She has completely bought into the myth that this election was not about racism, sexism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice. And, that is a shame.

Given her response, I now wonder if she even knows for sure, with absolute certainty, that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Seriously. Given the educational system today, it's quite likely she was taught the revisionist history version of that event and believes the CW was more a battle over state's rights, economics and Constitutional powers than chattel slavery.

 

[Absentglare]

She has completely bought into the myth that this election was not about racism, sexism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice. And, that is a shame.

Given her response, I now wonder if she even knows for sure, with absolute certainty, that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Seriously. Given the educational system today, it's quite likely she was taught the revisionist history version of that event and believes the CW was more a battle over state's rights, economics and Constitutional powers than chattel slavery.

Well, she points out that Trump supporters have energy, but neglects to acknowledge that some non-zero portion of that energy was rooted in bigotry, xenophobia, and racism.

 

[calamity]

Well, she points out that Trump supporters have energy, but neglects to acknowledge that some non-zero portion of that energy was rooted in bigotry, xenophobia, and racism.

The article she called "dumb" points out that this is indeed the plan, to push the myth that racism, sexism, xenophobia and religious bigotry played little or no part in the election. As the article points out, this is the same strategy which was employed after the Civil War to obfuscate the fact that the war was about slavery.

The article also shows how well these myths sell, primarily because people want to believe them. Few people want to accept 600,000 people died because half the country wanted to cast blacks down as non-humans; just like they do not want to believe today that our president was elected because a significant portion of our country is racist scum.

 

[HenryChinaski]

I can see it being a 50/50
Part racial.
Part the lazy uneducated whites who don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job or an education, and instead vote for one(which ain't coming)

Crochety trailer park people that saw "Trump on that TV show" voted for him solely because he's a source of entertainment by saying "outrageous stuff that pisses of liberals" These people care one iota if he ruins the economy or nukes Canada. As long as he's pissing off those "know-it-all Berkeley tree huggers" they're happy as clams.