Neo-Confederate Ads Should Come As No Surprise
I attended CPAC in Washington D.C. this year and while there, frequented the booth for the Campaign for Liberty. There was some good literature there about imperial overstretch in foreign policy, civil liberties and ending the drug war but the biggest surprise was the selection of books being placed most prominently. Not one, not two but three anti-Lincoln books were prominently placed at the front of the table, overwhelming copies of Ron Paul’s own books such as End the Fed.
There’s obviously a demographic for neo-Confederacy ideology and, whether it’s Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell or the History Channel, anyone who seeks to tap into that demographic will find out if the portion of the population that is outraged by historical revisionism outweighs the portion that buys into it. Hopefully there is enough outrage for extreme revisionism to go back to the fringes where it belongs.
What’s worst about this video is not only the lies about the Civil War that overflow within it or the complete lack of any mention of slavery but the lies about the supposed “lies.” I was never taught that “the Confederacy sought to take over the United States.” Who on earth ever said that?
If there’s any lesson that we can take from the last few years, it’s that few (if any) ideologies ever really die. They’re just repackaged and sold as new.
Find more of Michael Orion Powell’s work at his blog.