Americans have felt under siege for over 13 years now.
The present era of history, the backlash against President Obama and all Americans who supported him, began within days of his election.
It has only accelerated since.
First, Obama himself was declared illegitimate, other, a foreigner. This lie made it easy to define Obama’s supporters in the same way.
Vladimir Putin used this hatred to make Donald Trump President. There is no longer any serious question. Trump was Putin’s man.
Trump created the conditions for a Second American Civil War. It began his first year in office. It only grew hotter after the murder of George Floyd.
Every American, even the most fervent Trump supporters, learned in 2020 that they were a minority among Americans. This broke their faith in the American Constitution, as the Confederacy broke faith with it in 1861. As was true then, government “of the people, by the people, for the people” was redefined to mean only some people.
Many Republicans still support Russia over Ukraine. Others seek to drop their own past into a memory hole, while retaining the essence of Putinism. They believe only those loyal to their twisted, anti-American ideals has a right to rule. They believe women should be slave to a man’s sperm, that blacks should be slaves to whites, that gays should be slave to straights, and that only history reflecting this may be taught. Anyone sympathizing with Obama’s America deserves to be oppressed, forced to repeat lies and made to shut up, forever.
This is what makes Ukraine the real turning point of history. The war in Ukraine is revealing the Civil War within America. The minority is as armed and angry as the South was in 1860.
It’s happening half a world away, but Ukraine is the Shiloh of this second war. It’s the point where we realize how serious this is, how we have no choice but to fight, even to die, if America is to live.
It’s depressing.
What’s important to realize, however, is that our forefathers faced much worse, fought back, and triumphed. Jim Crow was beaten. Adolph Hitler was beaten. The Depression was beaten. The Confederacy was beaten.
All these forces seem to have combined against 21st century America, against the America of technology, of full democracy, and of equal rights.
But let all doubters beware. Democrats have what it takes to triumph. We only need to organize, to make sure our neighbors are registered, and to vote. We have it a lot easier than our brothers and sisters in eastern Europe.
If Ukraine can win its independence, America can win its Civil War. (The picture at right was taken at the Shiloh battlefield, in Tennessee, in 2019.)
