The book of essays I'm currently reading has one on The Confederacy, and in particular how after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson moved quickly to reverse all of the gains won in the Civil War. Blacks were disenfranchised, elected Black leaders were refused to be seated, and race based violence escalated. Ever since, The South has engaged in denialism -- that they lost the war, that Blacks were given equal rights, that the war was over venal issues. This "Lost Cause" campaign led to monuments to Confederate war heroes being placed all over Southern states, and to this day the true causes of the war, and the victory of higher moral principles, are under dispute.
Reading this essay, I realized the same mechanism, the same denialism leading to a new alternate reality, and in many cases the same people are leading the Republican Party. They cannot admit they were defeated in 2020 and 2022. They cannot admit their ideals are out of step with the majority of Americans. They cannot admit their Lost Cause is history now, that what they are still fighting for is deeply unpopular.
They may soon erect statues to Ashli Babbitt, Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green around the Southern States.
Because that's what propagandistic education reaps.
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