by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I may have to pour myself some more rye to write this one. Think of this as a very long subtweet of MAGA “thought leader” Jesse Kelly. Oh boy. This is going to be tough not write and grow more and more angry as I do it.
But, here’s the tweete, as the kids say.
The entirety of Civil War history taught in America is, “North good. South bad. Lee was Hitler II. Lincoln was the second-coming of Christ.”
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) July 10, 2021
99.99% of this population has no idea Saint Abe wanted black people deported to Liberia. https://t.co/99mO9n3KpX
I have to take a deep breath on this one. First off, it’s interesting that people like Mr. Kelly seem to vacillate between claiming Trump can’t possibly be racist because Lincoln was a Republican and saying shit like the above. Which is it, Mr. Kelly? Do you claim Lincoln or do you not?
“Saint Abe” is a personal hero of mine and I have read a lot about him. Now, I write this post knowing damn well that Mr. Kelly, however cogent he may be, operates exclusively on a bad faith basis. Everything he says — or tweets — is horse shit and he knows it, but the allure of the MAGA (or New Right) grift is way too powerful.
Anyway, the attack on Lincoln on the part of Mr. Kelly is part of an over all attack on the modern world. Apparently, the New Right feels they can score the most points by eliminating Lincoln as someone to admire and to give a reach around to good old boys who believe in the Lost Cause and think flying the Confederate Battle Flag is “heritage not hate.”
This comes from an overarching need to control what any historical discussion is about. Every moment we’re fighting over stupid shit like Lincoln’s public, off handed mulling of sending freed slaves to Libera is a moment we’re not talking about the how conservatives supported slavery.
Also, the teaching of history that I got was a lot more complex than, apparently, what Mr. Kelly got. History is complicated and messy and if you want to “keep things simple” then, well, I don’t know what to do with you. I wasn’t taught that Lee was “Hitler II.” I was taught that he loved Virginia so much that he was willing to fight for the Confederates. It goes without saying, of course, that he saw slavery, “the peculiar institution,” as central to the civil war.
I guess what Mr. Kelly is TRYING to do, is, first, dismiss the entire civil war as anything one can bring into a debate. That way, he doesn’t have to use his obviously limited knowledge of that extremely complex macro historical event. It’s his way of waving his hand and saying yadda, yadda, yadda, Lincoln was a racist, fuck you, lib.
Also, I think he’s pandering to his audience. I suspect his sweet spot is a very conservative engineer type who has a very simplistic political world view and doesn’t talk to liberals very often. As such, they listen to Mr. Kelly for validation. By conflating and simplifying the Civil War, Mr. Kelly is able to negate it as an issue and make his audience feel smug that THEY know something about “Saint Abe” that the majority of dumb liberals don’t know.
It’s amusing to me that something as basic as “slavery bad, Lincoln good” is seen as problematic for people such as Mr. Kelly. It’s kind of dark, but luz.
Writing these posts is so cathartic.
