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Nothing to Bragg About [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-16
The day after Christmas, he had a 19-year-old named Asa Lewis executed for desertion because the soldier slipped off to visit his widowed mother. When a fellow General pleaded a case for mercy, his answer was, “I’ll shoot every one of them if I have to,” the young man was then summarily shot. The General finished his military career as a consultant to the President of the Confederacy, essentially an advisor to the chief traitor of the country. One of his own soldiers marked the owner of 105 enslaved blacks for assassination during the civil war. He is being defended—ironically—by at least two current candidates for President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln, often called a symbol of the GOP, was once called a “despotic ruler” by this disgraced General. That GOP hero is General Braxton Bragg.
On June 1, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, was renamed Fort Liberty, and former Vice President Mike Pence and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida railed against the change. DeSantis pandered to the crowd at the state’s GOP convention in Greensboro, NC saying, “I also look forward to, as president, restoring the name [Braxton Bragg] of Fort Bragg to our great military base in Fayetteville.” Not to be out-goobered, Pence followed DeSantis the next day, saying, “End the political correctness in the hallways of the Pentagon, and North Carolina will once again be home to Fort Bragg.” These are examples of why white American conservatism needed to appropriate the word “woke.” The fact that DeSantis and Pence think it advantageous to restore the honor of a racist and traitor to the country to the pinnacle of respectability is an indictment of the GOP.
Interchanging words like woke and political correctness is brainwashing. Fort Bragg is a part of the same racial pathology behind Confederate statues and the need to resurrect their tyrannical memories meant to symbolize fear, not reverence.
As the father to three black sons and the grandfather to 12 black grandchildren, how do I explain the legacy of Braxton Bragg or Ft. Bragg with any legitimacy? Do the parents who have a lineage of slavery that dates back to the Carolina(s) or Tennessee tell their black or white children to stand and salute the memory of the man who perpetuated the holding of people as property? The Republican party has so lost its way that nothing seems beyond the grasp of self-flagellation.
The Republican party is embroiled in a controversy over a loyalty pledge to support their nominee even if they are a convicted felon. The absurdity of voting for Donald Trump, who, if convicted of a federal crime, may not be able to vote for himself, is absurd. At least for DeSantis and Pence, if supporting a historical traitor is okay, why not one currently? It is time to stop differentiating MAGA Republicans from the rank and file. Seventy-six percent of the party supports Donald Trump without embarrassment.
Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz answered a question about the possible impeachment of Joe Biden, “I don’t think Senate Democrats, if you had video of Joe Biden murdering children, dressed as the devil under a full moon while singing Pat Benatar, they still wouldn’t vote to convict,” said Cruz. Of course, that is ridiculous, Ted; that would be like saying if Donald Trump described how he grabbed a woman’s genitals, attempted to extort a foreign leader, sexually assaulted a woman in a dressing room, mishandled a deadly virus killing hundreds of thousands and threatened to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue; Oh wait!
Vote Against Guns
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