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So let’s learn from this, and not let MAGA off the hook this time. I’m fact, they need to be punished so harshly, that it will be felt for generations. It needs to be a serious warning to future dipshits to not try it again.
Can’t really directly punish people for voting for maga. One can criminally prosecute anyone who broke laws, was corrupt, covered up shit, looked away, etc. and when that net catches people on both sides of the aisle, so be it.
People should only be prosecuted for their CRIMES, not their politics. But if that crime was attached to MAGA, that gets additional penalties, like a Hate Crime.
This is actually true. Very strong theory is that WW2 happened because the allies never occupied Germany after WW1. The population never appreciated that their army actually lost, and therefore the “Jewish & commie backstab” conspiracy was permitted to flourish.
Dear Fred, do you want the list in alphabetical or chronological order? Because, like many horrible things that happened in history, it started with the brits “visiting” other places
yup, same with the nazis, yah you got the big boys but a lot of the high to middling officers got away, now todays we see the issues with leting that happen.
Pardoning the traitors was a huge mistake and we’re still paying for it today.
Funny how this can apply to 2 events. One being more recent.
I just hope we don’t make the same mistake yet again.
Too late
Common misconception: that 19th century Union soldiers wore hot pants and crop tops with pink horsetails stuffed in their bussies and fists held high in solidarity with their black brothers and sisters.
In reality, they were all mostly racist, just the ones in the South moreso. Also, their entire economy was based on slave labor.
Capitalism guarantees hardship in boom and bust cycles. Humans are easily made to believe that the weak, outnumbered, and different are the enemy. That the same people who can’t muster up anything like a respectable rebellion are somehow a threat to the most powerful nation in the world.
The moment Africans were trafficked to the North American continent, they were guaranteed to be the forever enemy.
In reality, they were all mostly racist, just the ones in the South moreso.
Okay? How does that dispute the point?
Also, their entire economy was based on slave labor.
… the South’s, yes.
That the same people who can’t muster up anything like a respectable rebellion are somehow a threat to the most powerful nation in the world.
what.
“America is a political cesspool because the Confederacy wasn’t punished properly.”
This point simply doesn’t make any sense. What is proper punishment? What punishment did the Union fail to enact that would have saved modern America?
Yes, the South’s, who had the greatest incentive to continue slavery. But, the economy was truly transcontinental. One economy. The North benefitted immensely from slavery.
Do you think the North would opt for a punishment that would amount to falling on their own sword? Could such a punishment be politically tenable?
what.
Human beings “other”. It’s key to understanding our species. So long as hardship can befall a people, those people will find a scapegoat. To this day, Blacks are only 14% of the population.
Capitilism + Humans = Political Cesspool
Punishing the Confederacy, even by wiping them off the face of the planet, would not have changed what America was to become, except by delaying global American hegemony.
This comment reads like someone skimmed some tweets about the Civil War and thinks they’re an expert on all of 18-19th century US history
This point simply doesn’t make any sense. What is proper punishment? What punishment did the Union fail to enact that would have saved modern America?
The destruction of the pseudo-aristocracy of the South which perpetuated the plantation system; in slavery before the war, and in sharecropping after the war?
The suppression of Confederates and Lost Cause Mythology, which created an intense countercultural current against the post-war notion of racial reconciliation?
The entire anti-democratic system of the post-Reconstruction South which created deep divides in the proletariat at a time when labor radicalism was gained strength?
Yes, the South’s, who had the greatest incentive to continue slavery. But, the economy was truly transcontinental. One economy. The North benefitted immensely from slavery.
Would you like to remind me which economy struggled during the Civil War, and which economy continued largely as normal?
Do you think the North would opt for a punishment that would amount to falling on they’re own sword? Could such a punishment be politically tenable?
In what way would it be falling on their own sword? The South’s cotton production was already castrated by Sherman’s March and the fact that Britain had invested in growing cotton in Egypt and India in response to the US Civil War.
Human beings “other”. It’s key to understanding our species. So long as hardship can befall a people, those people will find a scapegoat. To this day, Blacks are only 14% of the population.
Capitilism + Humans = Political Cesspool
I’ve got some really bad news for you about non-capitalist systems.
And you believe all of those things were not just possible but could have been sustained? Do you think they could have accomplished all of that without turning the Reconstruction into a generational occupation of the South? And you think it would have been economically viable and that the necessary long-term voter commitment would be there?
And you believe all of those things were not just possible but could have been sustained?
Yes, absolutely.
Do you think they could have accomplished all of that without turning the Reconstruction into a generational occupation of the South?
… what the fuck do you think Reconstruction was?
And you think it would have been economically viable
Yes, absolutely. Sharecropping is not actually great for the economy, and the South would remain economically marginal to the USA for decades afterwards.
and that the necessary long-term voter commitment would be there?
Yes. The only fucking reason Reconstruction ended in the first fucking place was a deal between the Democrats and Republicans over a disputed election.
“Hannibal Hamlin is VP when Lincoln is assassinated” is potentially all it would fucking take to extend Reconstruction another 5-10 years, and with greater results in the first 11 years too, for that matter.
First, fuckity fuck fuck fucking fucking fuck cool guys say fuck a lot fucker fuck.
Yes, absolutely.
I guess I’ll just take your word for it. I just don’t see how it would have been possible with almost the complete absence of a strong and expansive federal government combined with a general commitment on both sides to state’s rights, and the overall war-weariness of Northern voters.
… what the fuck do you think Reconstruction was?
A 10-year military enforcement that was flagging out there towards the end. You’d need to 20 - 30+ years minimum and the creation of a permanent federal admin presence to get to a point where the South’s new way of life could normalize. I could talk about this some more but apparently we just say “yes” around here. My fault for not realizing this was a meme community before I posted. For fun, look into what it took to “reconstruct” Germany and Japan post-WW2.
Yes, absolutely. Sharecropping is not actually great for the economy, and the South would remain economically marginal to the USA for decades afterwards.
No generational occupation, no long-lasting reform. As wasn’t discussed, because what good is conversation, the economics, politics, general belief in state’s rights, Northerner’s exhausted of war, the fact that the 15th Amendment was supported mainly as strategy for securing Republican political dominance in the South, that Northerners didn’t generally favor social integration, all meant what would have been nice to have happened just didn’t.
Yes. The only fucking reason Reconstruction ended in the first fucking place was a deal between the Democrats and Republicans over a disputed election.
This is you confusing what ought to be with what could have been. My question was very simple: given the the circumstances, what more could have be done? Certainly something, but enough to make modern American less of a “cesspool”. Hindsight is fucking 20 fucking fucker 20, fucker fucking fuck shit.
I guess I’ll just take your word for it. I just don’t see how it would have been possible with almost the complete absence of a strong and expansive federal government combined with a general commitment on both sides to state’s rights, and the overall war-weariness of Northern voters.
The idea that either side’s partisans had a serious commitment to “state’s rights”, or that Reconstruction triggered ‘war-weariness’ in Northern voters is absurd.
No occupation, no long-lasting reform.
Good thing that Reconstruction literally was an occupation then?
For fun, look into what it took to “reconstruct” Germany and Japan post-WW2.
3 years of serious denazification, 7 of restricted anti-Nazi sentiment, and 13 of anti-Nazi cultural pressure?
This is you confusing what ought to be with what could have been.
“The 1876 election HAD to be disputed!”
Okay, buddy.
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I think the “the U.S. didn’t punish the Confederacy enough” argument misses a structural piece of the puzzle.
Whether Reconstruction was too lenient or too harsh, the deeper issue is that our electoral system (first-past-the-post, single-member districts, winner-take-all) structurally favors ideological cohesion and intensity over breadth and compromise.
In a first-past-the-post system:
You can only pick one option.
Minorities with high motivation outperform majorities with lower cohesion.
Broad coalitions have to cover far more policy ground than intense factions do.
Turnout advantages go to the side that feels existentially threatened.
That creates what I’d call a ratchet toward polarization. The system doesn’t mathematically guarantee extremism, but it systematically biases toward it. The “policy surface area” of the broader coalition becomes a liability, while the more ideologically concentrated side benefits from cohesion and turnout energy.
So when we look at post–Civil War politics, the question might not just be “Was the Confederacy punished enough?” It might be:
Would any punishment regime have prevented future sectional radicalization inside a winner-take-all electoral structure?
If the underlying incentive system rewards intense minority mobilization, then over time you’ll tend to see:
Polarized regional blocks
Identity consolidation
Historical grievance becoming political fuel
That’s not unique to Reconstruction. It’s a recurring dynamic in FPTP systems.
I’m not saying punishment was irrelevant. I’m saying institutional incentives matter more in the long run than the severity of any single political settlement.
If you want to reduce extremist drift, you don’t just change policy outcomes — you change incentive structures (ranked-choice, multi-member districts, proportional systems, etc.). Otherwise the same polarization dynamics reappear under new banners.
Also failing education
The policing and prison system is a major contributing factor in my opinion.
In the US, there are many levels of overlapping decentralized police forces. On the state level you’ve got local city cops, county sheriffs office, state police, highway patrol. Then on the federal level you’ve got FBI, homeland security, ATF, ICE, CBP, DEA, Marshals, and I’ve probably missed some more.
In Australia, we have State police (For example, Western Australian Police (WAPOL) within the state. Whether you’re a cop in a small town of 30 people, or on the murder squad, you’re still WAPOL and fall under a common chain of command. The state police is centralized. That means there’s much less room for baddies to move within the system freely, whereas in the US, a cop that gets fired from one place seemingly moves two towns over and gets another job with another department. While there is a sheriff’s office, they don’t carry guns and dont effect arrests, they manage the courts and do things like serve court documents. If the sheriffs need to, they call WAPOL for armed law enforcement.
At the federal level, there’s the Federal police, that’s it. Within states, the federal police manage interstate and international points of entry like airports, seaports, and other interstate nodes. The border force sometimes have guns, and they do have armed patrol ships, but mostly they work with state or federal police to interdict individuals at airports and such, or with the defence department to interdict boats at sea.
In the US, the prison system is all over the place, with private prisons, county jails, state prisons, federal prisons, etc.
In Australia, the prisons are all run by a seperate department, Department of justice (called corrective services in some states). This isn’t law enforcement. It’s all state-based, there are no federal prisons. If the AFP needs to house a prisoner, they send him to a state prison and the fed pays the bill.
This includes remand centers for pretrial detention, which are like county jails, but they are still run by the state.
In the US, quality of incarceration varies wildly from one prison to the next, and theres a financial incentive to keep people incarcerated.
In Australia, people conviced of serious crimes cannot vote in elections while they are in prison, but when released, their right to vote returns automatically, immediately.
In the US, the disenfranchisement of incarcerated people varies wildly, with many felons being unable to vote after release until after a certain period has elapsed (seperate from parole), OR on explicit petition of the governer, OR in some cases, they can never vote again. So therefore, punishment effectively continues even after a sentence has been completed.
The US justice system is a wild, convoluted, decentralized mess, everyone has guns, and there is no incentive to reform prisoners but a political incentive to disenfranchise as many as possible.
There are… a lot of fucking factors in this country.
I need a vice of some sort. I’m getting real tired of facing this shit sober.
Not enforcing separation of church and state. Evangelical churches are government subsidized radicalization centers.
I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the Confederacy was left to its own devices. Thry had a clear vision, but it was intensely nearsighted.
Free chattel labour was appealing for a farming economy in 1860, but it’s less of a selling point elsewhere. You’re right on the cusp of major industrial and trchnological advancement, while clutching to a labour pool that you don’t want learning to read and probably wouldn’t trust with machinery. You’re not moving up the value chain that way.
So you’ve got a cash-crop dependent, export centric economy, who is about to be caught with its pants down when other countries start to fire up steam and petrol-powered agricultural equipment. You’re also pointing a target on your back as consumers are becoming more sophisticated and concepts like boycotts and sanctions are developing.
Give it 50 years, and they’d halve their per-capita GDP and either be a weird novelty for slavery tourism, or the “secret sauce” behind sketchy impossibly-cheap clothing and foodstuffs where the vendor doesn’t want to proudly boast “made in CSA” on the label.
The confederacy, left to their own devices, would have started the war at some point or another, because that’s what they did. They fired the first shots trying to force the North to accept slavery, wanting to expand slavery into the territories to make new slave states.
There are still countries that practice slavery, including the United States.
Don’t forget unethical medical research
The indubitable Spike Lee has imagined what would happen for you, and it’s free on the you-thing:| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exnwTWfFRM8
Absolutely. After WWII Germany had a period of de-nazification; the US did the opposite, essentially- half a generation later we were raising monuments to the Confederate leaders.
The sad thing is, de-nazification was half-assed… and it was still enough to instill a deep and enduring sense of shame in Germany for the Nazi regime.
By normalizing the condemnation instead of glorification of the previous regime, the next generation saw it with clearer eyes, and asked the questions their parents did not - why did you go along with these atrocities?
And that was enough. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I very much would’ve preferred more Nazis hanged. But the backlash against Nazism was deep once the next generation came of age, simply because their culture did not normalize apologia for its horrors.
We didn’t even half-ass it. Half-half-assed. Quarter-assed. Decimal-assed.
And yet the USA did even less than that somehow
Like I said. Quarter-assed. Decimal-assed.
The smallest iota of an ass.
And that was enough.
It wasn’t, they remained in control of much money and power, and now they are back with substantial political acceptance.
Citizens United was a fairly important accelerant. But yes, the foundation is absolutely rotten.
Punish, and rebuild, for past slaves and the South in general. Coming in full force to liberate and then just leaving things to simmer never works… it seems to be what we do though.
There was a pretty robust plan. Unfortunately, Andrew Johnson sabotaged it, and then the 1876 Presidential election dismantled the 8 years of hard work President Grant put in and handed the South back over to white supremacists.
Its all we do. We haven’t won a war since WWII. At the end of it we would have left things as they were and came home except for Stalin.
Black Reconstruction in America by W E.B. Du Bois, I highly recommended it, and I feel like it fits this meme.
I’d say it started when they let the slavers deeply ingrain a culture of human exploitation and failed to ever eradicate it, allowing it to adapt and continue to exist well beyond post-abolition and heavily influence today’s American business and social culture.
