- cross-posted to:
- shermanposting@piefed.social
- cross-posted to:
- shermanposting@piefed.social
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Explanation: During the US Civil War, the (eventually) anti-slavery North fought in order to keep the blatantly pro-slavery secessionist South in the US Union. In 1864, an election year, US President Abraham Lincoln chose a Southerner (in fact, the only Southern Senator to stay with the Union after their state attempted secession), Andrew Johnson, as his Vice President as a means of creating a wartime ‘unity ticket’, as Lincoln was uncertain of his own popularity at the time, and feared that the anti-war wing of US politics might eke out a win (Lincoln would win by a comfortable margin, in no small part due to the strongly pro-Union military vote, rendering his VP choice unnecessary).
Andrew Johnson and Lincoln shared very little other than a shared belief in the Union and a vague sense of populism. But the Vice President is a very do-nothing job in US politics. Outside of some very fringe scenarios, it’s a PR position.
… unfortunately, since Lincoln was assassinated, one such very fringe scenario came to pass, and Andrew Johnson became president in Lincoln’s stead. Johnson did not believe in secession, but he sure as shit believed in White Supremacy, and promptly reversed all the relevant orders given by Lincoln which had begun to unravel the whole sickened state of Southern society.
While the Radical-dominated US Congress of the time managed to fight him on many issues, the separation of powers meant that some pooches couldn’t be unscrewed - like Andrew Johnson’s unconditional mass pardons for Confederates.
We’ve been dealing with entrenched radical white supremacy ever since, especially in the South. By many views, it remains one of the most enduring and impactful issues of American politics to this day.
Lincoln wouldn’t have been perfect. But he would have done much more damage to the notion of white supremacy than Andrew fucking Johnson’s tireless defense of racism did.
Sounds like a bit like post-apartheid South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where white farmers were invited to talk about all the horrific things they had done, in exchange for a pardon with no repercussions.
In theory, “healing” the country by exposing the crimes and extending the olive branch of forgiveness, but in reality…
Not even that much - white plantation owners actively denied their atrocities and widely attempted to cover them up, with no pressure from the government to so much as admit their horrors.
Hell, imagine if they had just given the lands of all the old slave plantations to the freed slaves as restitution.
40 Acres and a Mule
Man, imagine if they were all turned into worker’s co-ops…
!shermanposting@lemmy.world is leaking again.
It isn’t quite as simple as that. Take Germany, as an example. After WW2 there was the whole denazification process. Just about everyone knows about the Nuremberg trials, but the concept continued further into the era of the divided Germany. The Soviets in east Germany were much harsher in their densification process. One would think the result would be less problems with Nazism or fascist ideology in the former East. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, Nazism and other fascist ideologies are much more alive and well in the former East than in the former West.
(Not trying to defend Johnson, by the way, just trying to show that harsh punishments don’t always get the results one would expect)
The situation with nazis in Germany wasn’t that simple all over, as I recall on both sides of the iron curtain a lot of nazis still worked for government, sometimes very high up.
This is absolutely true. For example: in the East people with ambitions would get Party recommendations from high-profile members to ‘prove’ they were never Nazis. This obviously has problems and it wasn’t hard to game the system unless one was famously a Nazi.
There are some notes which must be made here.
While punishment doesn’t inherently create better outcomes, the point of such punishments is generally to defang the elite of their former power.
As Germany post-WW1 was left in charge of its own punishment, effectively, the elite ensured that the punishment was distributed in such a way as to minimize its influence on their power. Not a great choice, obviously.
As for East Germany, the notion that the Sovs were ‘harder’ on German society in the east does not really stand up to scrutiny. In West Germany, the notion of national guilt was pushed hard, which eventually resulted in the student movements in the 1960s decisively rejecting Nazism. In East Germany, overwhelmingly the idea that was pushed was that the German proletariat had been kept repressed by the Nazis, rather than active and enthusiastic participants in their crimes. There’s a whole host of additional reasons, mind, why the far-right sees more success in the former GDR.
Also, if you’re going to try and have rule of law, treason has to be dealt with harshly imo. You can’t be soft on the elites who inevitably attempt to claim the powers and/or privileges of kings.
I think you’re expecting too much of his dog.
“Wow. 2+ million just got maimed & massacred over 4 years, but we finally dismantled the army of the south and unseated their treasonous leaders. What’s next?”
“Well technically we freed the slaves so I think that about covers it. Just make them say sorry and we can just move on… Fine, we’ll let them elect the exact same traitors too. Everyone happy?”
“In fact, even making them say sorry is too unfair. After all, did they REALLY do anything wrong?” - Andrew Johnson
Was never clear on why traitors weren’t hanged like they should’ve been back in those days…
An outsiders perspective: this is a 150+ year issue that should’ve been dead and buried since regardless of its outcome, but has been dug up constantly to divide the people, as it makes a good campaign issue. Left alone, I bet you the civil war result would’ve been a minor thing after a generation. There’s countries in europe that have lost huge territories after ww1 and they don’t hold nearly as much spite as americans that are still infighting over a 150+ year old war
An outsiders perspective: this is a 150+ year issue that should’ve been dead and buried since regardless of its outcome, but has been dug up constantly to divide the people, as it makes a good campaign issue. Left alone, I bet you the civil war result would’ve been a minor thing after a generation.
Bruh, the ‘reconciliationist’ position dominated from roughly 1880-1960. You wanna guess what section of US society suffered the most under the ‘dead and buried’ position of the US Civil War?
There’s countries in Europe that didn’t exist 150 years ago.
High road remember? 🤣
On the other hand, had he done so, none of us likely would be alive today
Phoenixz, I already said I support hanging more Confederates, you don’t have to sell it to me.
America actually looks like that and it’s disgusting
America actually looks like that and it’s disgusting
uh
