Republicans Can't Love Lincoln and the Confederate Flag

It was a close one, the Confederate flag was almost banned from being used on federal grounds, but the GOP couldn’t muster the strength to pass the amendment. Their pride for racism and eagerness to honor slave-owners was enough to derail an Interior appropriations bill.

While it’s a bittersweet pleasure to see Republicans floundering in their decorous positions, I couldn’t help but ponder about the Republicans and the Confederate flag. Mostly because it contradicts the history some conservatives try to espouse in their denial of their party affiliates racist past.

If you have frequented any social media platform that is populated by Republican voters, you have most likely come across a revisionist that go out of their way to proclaim that Democrats are the racist party and Republicans are the real saviors of black Americans. Then they will give you a history lesson on Lincoln being a Republican and the amount of Republicans that voted for the Civil Rights act, and believe that’s enough to set the record straight.

Now a person with current knowledge of politics will smile to themselves for being graced with enough critical analysis skills to realize that this person is crazy. No one in their right mind could honestly say that the current gravely conservative Republican party are the same party under President Lincoln. He was a liberal in his time, as there tended to be in less polarization in the past, including during the passage of the Civil Rights Act. It was after that divisive vote that former Democrats (Dixiecrats) like Strom Thurmond ran for the Republican side, followed by Nixon utilizing the Southern Strategy to play off the racist their fears to win the presidency.

None of this matters to the revisionist, as history or facts isn’t necessarily their forte, and they are mightily adamant about those racist Democrats (although I’m sure some do still exist today but that is beside the point). They are the Grand Ol’ Party of Diversity, and we’re just bunch of blind sheep chilling with the KKK. Woe is us.

But hold on a minute…if Republicans aren’t really the racists everyone rightfully claims them to be, then why are they contentiously fighting for the Confederate flag? You can’t be down with Abraham Lincoln and the flag associated with his arch nemesis! That’s like wearing a Batman t-shirt and rooting for Joker to win. And you definitely cannot be the true representative for black Americans if you deny their pain and emotion when they see that flag flown in their time of mourning.

Therefore if ignorant conservative revisionists want to alter the history books, they have to pick which lie they want to spread. Nonracist party that freed the slaves and provided civil rights? Or Sons and Daughters of Southern Confederates, raising their Confederate flag high for their racist heritage? I’m sure it’ll be a tough decision for y’all. Better make it quick or else you’ll get lost in the past.