When voting in the primaries, remember Georgia’s state officials who stood up for democracy in 2020 

“In many ways, the North won the Civil War militarily and then lost the peace. A group of writers, included many Confederate generals, began a school of thought called the Lost Cause in which they began to romanticize the Confederacy.”- Ron Chernow, Pulitzer winning historian

We live in a very odd time with lots of false news, especially on social media. But partisans on both sides tend to believe whatever they read. It reminds me of the revisionist Lost Cause Confederate Generals who glorified an immoral, bloody secessionist war. They asked Southerners to ignore history and just believe them…and for a century were successful. Trump is like them, rewriting history with some success, at least in the base. 

For example, the Trump administration is asking us to just accept that there is no discrimination in our society. Everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed… even if the facts prove the contrary. The Trump administration’s anti-DEI moves are a return to the bad old days of the 1950s, before 1960s civil rights laws prohibited racist discrimination in voting, housing, immigration, education and employment. I was in a rural, segregated Georgia high school and I remember those days very well.

In this way, Trump is consistent with his first term. Years ago, I wrote a column for the NC Fayetteville Observer regarding Fort Bragg, the largest military installation in America. I advocated for a name change, contrary to the position of then President Trump. 

Trump tweeted he would never change the name. Summoning the demons of racism and white resentment (and the Lost Cause), he stated that the Fort Bragg name is a part of a-“Great AmericanHeritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.”  Biden changed the unpatriotic Confederate names of these military bases. But when he began his second term, Trump just changed them all back, including those here in Georgia.

But it is not just Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and rewriting of confederate history that is worrisome. We now see innocent, peaceful men and women… such as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, and Renee Nicole Good, a peaceful mother of three who had just dropped off her 6-year-old at school… being shot down in cold blood by ICE agents. Yet, we are then told to ignore what we observe to be facts and instead believe what this administration wants us to believe- that these people were somehow  “domestic terrorists” (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/experts-question-noem-calling-good-a-domestic-terrorist-heres-what-the-term-means ).

Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, articulated the authoritarian view in a Jake Tapper CNN interview- “we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”. 

There will always be authoritarian figures like Miller and Trump who will want to write history in a way that supports their corrosive views. As a society, we must oppose these people, regardless of which political party is in power. We must support our democratic values, right versus wrong, historical accuracy versus self-serving partisan political views. However, that will only happen if each of us has the courage to take a stand. The alternative is to let the dictators win. 

We have upcoming races for Governor, starting with primaries. Some of the candidates have endangered their own careers to stand up for democracy and the rule of law. Most notably, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (running in the GOP primary) and then Lt. Governor Geoffrey Duncan (running in the Democratic primary after switching parties). Remember that when you step into the voting booth.