I was born during the Reagan era, so a bit too young to know much about it from the time, so it never ceases to amaze me how much he helped facilitate the backwards slide of our society. I think his administration was so effective as it was the combined efforts made by conservatives from what they learned by what happened with Nixon. The conservative “think tanks,” the creation of purposefully biased media platforms, the Powell Memorandum, courting the evangelicals, etc. were all effective both then and to this day. There is a ton we can all still learn about from this era.
My thoughts are just that surely much of this could have been prevented if we had taken better action when we had half of American aristocracy backed into a corner, and instead of doing anything about it, we just collectively said, “well, it looks like you guys learned your lesson, so here’s all your stuff back, just don’t call them slaves anymore and try to be discrete with your racism for a few decades.” Our ancestors defended this country, won, but then allowed 90% of the causes of the war to persist. To think they wouldn’t try to claw back the rest of what they had was naive and the “peace” gained by pardoning these people responsible has led to over a century of misery, especially to the people that had suffered most prior to the war, was not worth the cost of us not harshly correcting our national politics when we had the chance.
Seeing Lee and others argue for peace and moving on is no surprise. He was the perpetrator, and the loser of the fight. Why wouldn’t he want the world to forget about that? Who would expect the losing enemy general to call for harsh punishment for their actions? It’s the same reason why these Nixon, Reagan, and Bush officials are willing to publicly bash Trump when he’s not looking like a sure winner. It takes the attention off of what they got away with, and if they keep us mad at Trump, that less time to focus on their actions.
This is why while all this news ticks me off and makes me unhappy, I still try to keep learning about it and at least staying aware of who is saying what. Just because they people are “agreeing” with us now doesn’t mean they really support what they are saying, and it doesn’t make up for the actions they took against the American people.