The Apocalyptic Visions of MAGA and the Southern Confederacy

Apr 26, 2023

When I started writing my book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War Era and Beyond back in 2014, it was an introduction to my Gettysburg Staff Ride manuscript. One of these days, I will finish that draft trilogy but not today.

When I began it, I was attempting to use the example of how religion helped bring out the worst and best in people in what we commonly call the American Civil War to understand how our opponents used religious ideology to motivate people to fight against us. Since we were engaged in Afghanistan and a battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, I thought that showing how religious beliefs influenced our history. How it influenced American views on race, our westward expansion, known as Manifest Destiny, the Mexican American and Spanish-American Wars, and the War of the Slaveholder’s Rebellion would be helpful.

As I said, it began as an introductory chapter and became a book as I continued reading, researching, and writing. I also began to see current events here in light of our history. The rise of a militant type of Christian nationalism merging with White nationalist movements completely devoted to Donald Trump, an openly racist and violent presidential candidate with no evidence of any of the Christian graces, shocked me initially.

Trump was yet to appear, and never in my wildest imagination did I expect that wildly aggrieved White Americans, following the lead of Donald Trump would have denied the results of a completely legitimate election, and assaulted Congress when it was in session to formally certify the results of the Electoral College. Nor did I then imagine that a former President and his followers would continue to deny election results long after he was out of office and the results were certified. Nor could I imagine at any former President would abscond with highly classified documents, not comply with subpoenas to return them and that the Justice Department and have to get a warrant to search his residence and retrieve them. Nor did I expect members of a political party supposedly committed to the “Rule of Law” to target FBI agents, other Federal Law Enforcement agencies and Judges for death because of a legal search.

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Though the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, the 14th overturned the “Dred Scott” decision to give Blacks citizenship, and the 15th granted Black men suffrage, the ghosts of racism and twin myths of the Noble South and Lost Cause still haunt our Nation and contribute to our current divide. Sadly, the curse of White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism, prominent in causing the Civil War, defeating Reconstruction, and restoring White rule, remains a clear and present danger today.

Unlike 1860, ours is not a sectional divide, but a nationwide racial, religious and political chasm. The changing racial and religious demographics of the country, the passage of laws that gave Blacks, other minorities, Women, and LGBTQ+ people civil and voting rights echoing Abraham Lincoln’s understanding of ever-increasing liberty found in the Declaration, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” provide grist for grievance.

The growing tensions exploded after Barack Obama shattered the Color barrier of the presidency, provoking massive growth in violent, militarized White Supremacist and anti-Semitic groups, and the dramatic reemergence of the “Great Replacement“ conspiracy theory. Conservative Christians found more grievance when LGBTQ+ citizens gained equal rights including marriage. In Donald Trump, these aggravated groups found a man who catered to their grievances and perceived victimhood. Trump’s ideas redound today in the pronouncements of many Republican elected officials who subordinate themselves to Trump, including all of the 2016 presidential candidates, who he mocked, insulted, and belittled at every turn. To hear Ted Cruz plotting to overturn the 2020 election for a man who he called out numerous times unfit for the office and who had slandered his father and family this week was as fascinating as watching a slow-motion train wreck.

Though out of office, Trump is again seeking the Presidency, and he and his propagandists play upon the same fears of “White Replacement” evoked by Southern leaders and Secession Commissioners in the lead up to the Civil War. Historian Charles Dew portrayed Georgia Supreme Court Justice and Secession Commissioner Henry Benning’s apocalyptic vision of the outcome of a Northern invasion of the South; he told his audience, “We will be overpowered and our men compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and for our women, the horrors of their state cannot contemplate in imagination.” This then, was “the fate that Abolition will bring upon the white race. . . . We will be exterminated”.

To this day Trump still encourages violence. The politicians, pundits, and preachers who serve as propagandists whip his followers into a frenzy of hatred reminiscent of the worst moments in our history. This is evidenced by mass murders at Black churches, supermarkets, Jewish synagogues and community centers, and the amount of lynchings of Black men by Whites.

On June 1st 2020, Trump used a violent attack by Secret Service, Park Police, Washington Metropolitan Police, and Bureau of Prisons officers against peaceful citizens in Lafayette Park gathered to protest the murder of George Floyd, as cover for a photo-op with a Bible outside St. John’s Church. The next day he tweeted with pride about the “Overwhelming Force and Domination” used by the police. The violence echoed police attacks on Civil Rights marchers in the 1960s.

Trump’s “Big Lie” of the “stolen” election and the assault on the Capitol echoed the violence of the Confederate response to Lincoln’s election. In 1861 Southern Slave States seceded from the Union, seized Federal facilities, mints, armories, and military bases, and opened fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the bloodiest war in American history.

Some of Trump’s followers called for violence and civil war following the FBI’s legal search of Trump’s Mar a Lago home. Instead of trying to calm them, Trump and acolytes like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Republican officeholders or candidates continue to incite violence against law enforcement.

Abraham Lincoln mistakenly believed that Southerners would come to their senses and that calls for secession and civil war would lessen after the 1860 election. Only fools would believe that Trump and his followers will back down now, in light of the January 6th insurrection and the mounting number of criminal and civil investigations against Trump. Like Southerners of 1860, they feel cornered and are lashing out against their best interests.

Religious intolerance fuels race hatred. Authoritarian leaders like Trump fuse religious and the politics of race in a ruthless drive for political power. History, including ours shows that the result of such fusion results in war, and crimes against humanity. The damage to the victims, perpetrators, and society is felt for generations.

Like the antebellum period, faith has emerged as a political weapon. “But,” wrote British historian and military theorist B. H. Liddell- Hart, “one should still be able to appreciate the point of view of those who fear the consequences. Faith matters so much in times of crisis. One must have gone deep into history before reaching the conviction that truth matters more.”

The Confederacy’s ghosts still haunt us through White Supremacy, Christian Nationalism, and Donald Trump, and they are not confined to the South. I do not expect a reprise of what occurred between 1860-1865, but I expect that we will see a low level insurgency develop in the near future, especially if Trump is indicted in Georgia or in the Mar El Largo documents case. It is important to learn the lessons, or see our democracy torn asunder from within, with blood flowing in our streets.

Dedicated to the Proposition that All Men are Created Equal

The Apocalyptic Visions of MAGA and the Southern Confederacy

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