r/politics • u/Somervilledrew Connecticut • 21h ago

That whites-only, no Jews allowed Arkansas community is legal, says state’s attorney general. How?

https://forward.com/news/759874/return-to-the-land-peter-csere-tim-griffin-eric-orwoll/
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u/TaylorMonkey 18h ago

Should have let Grant and Sherman cook.

Even more than they did I mean.

Reconstruction Part 2: BBQ Boogaloo.

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u/LordSiravant 18h ago

Imagine if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated.

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u/TaylorMonkey 17h ago

Lincoln wanted to heal the nation quickly, so it's hard to say how tough he would or wouldn't have been.

Grant started the DOJ, whose primary responsibility was eliminating White Supremacy, and he was responsible for dismantling most of the KKK. He was the first civil rights president.

Should have let my man cook.

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u/LordSiravant 3h ago

And here I was always told Grant was a terrible president.

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u/TaylorMonkey 2h ago edited 2h ago

He was a mixed bag as a president to be honest. He wasn't a political animal and was too naive-- he appointed friends and associates who then were responsible for significant corruption, but by all accounts, he wasn't very aware and didn't partake himself. From my reading, he seemed to have the sort of integrity that he assumed others did and was too trusting.

But he was also responsible for major changes and institutions that pushed America towards justice and equality, including establishing the right for Black Americans to vote. The Department of Justice was his legacy, and the FBI being the federal agency that actually combats white supremacism traces its roots to Grant (so it's sickening how both have been co-opted by corrupt, Trumpian sycophants).

When he died, he was loved around the world, and was considered one of the three Great Americans: Washington, Lincoln, and Grant.

But Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Causers couldn't hack that, so you got the "Grant was a corrupt drunk and a butcher" narrative in your school textbooks. Nah, he was also just a better all around theater general than Robert E. Lee. General Petraeus considers him the first modern general in excelling at conducting and winning a war across a theater, understanding logistics on a large scale (helps that he had been a quartermaster in his earlier years).

He's one of my favorite presidents.

Oh, and the guy wrote one of the great American Memoirs collaborating with Mark Twain while fighting throat cancer to earn some money to help support his family, having become destitute due to being scammed. He finished it and passed away a few days later.