Talk of regime change is in the air. The current Trump War in Iran is predicated on the Iranian people rising up and demanding a regime change due to the American and Israeli military action. Regime change to what? At no point have we suggested what the new regime should be. For example, Make Persia Great Again provides an alternative to the oppressive Islam regime. But there is nothing but silence on our side.
Two actions are required for regime change to occur. The first is boots of the ground, specifically military action by the United States. The second is an alternative to the current regime. Normally, that has been America.
Consider the successful regime changes which have occurred – Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. All have involved a sustained American presence providing both stability and an alternative way of life. All the Nazi bombing of England failed to overturn the English regime. It only made Winston Churchill a triumphant figure of defiance. Similarly all the Allied bombing of Nazi Germany did not cause the regime to collapse either. Not until troops from the west and the east converged on Germany did it surrender.
The moment of truth for the Confederates occurred in the 1860 presidential election. Finally there was a presidential candidate who threatened to end the slavery-based life of the Confederacy. That was the final straw, the needle that broke the illusion of the United States as a one-regime country based on the expanded Constitution.
The only regime change that has worked in the Confederacy occurred after America’s second civil war when American forces had occupied the Confederacy. Grant and Sherman wreaked havoc on the Confederacy until it was forced to surrender. For a decade following the war in the Reconstruction until 1876, regime change occurred in the Confederacy. The planter aristocracy no longer ruled the land. People who had been slaves of the Confederates were now able to vote. They voted in local, state, and federal elections. They made their presence visible in the halls of power locally, in the state capitals, and in the nation’s capital. And then in 1876, it suddenly ended. The Confederates were back in charge.
NEVER AGAIN WOULD THEY ALLOW PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN THEIR SLAVES OR WHO WERE THEIR DESCENDANTS TO HAVE POWER OVER THEM THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX.
Lincoln’s election started a pattern. Whenever America threatened the Confederate way of life, the Confederates fought back. After 1876, they created Jim Crow, a new slavery in everything but name. In 1948, they created the Dixiecrats, officially known as the States’ Rights Democratic Party. This time the President who threatened the Confederates was Harry Truman. The next threat was from the Supreme Court in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. That led to the Southern Manifesto aka the Declaration of Constitutional Principles in 1956 in opposition to racial integration of public places. It was signed by 19 Confederate Senators and 82 representatives. In 1964, Republican candidate for President Barry Goldwater won only in the Confederacy. In 1968, independent party candidate George Wallace won five states in the Confederacy. They have always marched to the tune of a different drummer.
NEVER AGAIN WOULD THEY ALLOW PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN THEIR SLAVES OR WHO WERE THEIR DESCENDANTS TO HAVE POWER OVER THEM THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX.
The Confederates have clung to this mantra until this very day. Now the Supreme Court has given them permission to reinstitute the Confederate good ole days. The Confederates have responded with great gusto and enthusiasm. They have acted quickly to redraw the maps so the people who are the descendants of their former slaves will never be in power over them again. The South has risen again. The Confederate regime is alive and well.
The Confederates will never have a change of heart. American forces are not going to occupy the Confederacy. Even American military bases located in the Confederacy often have Confederate names.
There is not going to be another Great Migration which depopulates the Confederacy of the descendants of the former Confederate slaves.
Could there be new populations which change the demographic reality of Confederate states? Yes, that has happened twice in Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy. There have been so many newcomers associated with the federal government in some way that Americans can now defeat the Confederates in federal, state, and local elections. In Virginia, partisan gerrymandering means it is the Confederates who will lose.
Influxes from the north by college students, people seeking 21st-century jobs, and retirees could impact the Confederacy hold in other states. North Carolina is somewhat traveling the same path Virginia did. Confederates no longer have a lock on statewide elections. They are favored in the Senate election this year. Their legislative dominance enables them to curtail the power of the Governor if that person is not a Confederate. But demographically the trends do not favor the Confederates; Rural counties are not the wave of the future; it just takes time.
Georgia is the battleground state today. Confederates have lost statewide elections for the Senate. This year statewide elections for state positions will provide a measure of where things stand. In the meantime, the Confederates are pulling out all the stops to rig the elections. “Election-deniers are being placed in all key election positions. There is no doubt that the military will be deployed. The burning of Atlanta will be reversed.
NEVER AGAIN WOULD THEY ALLOW PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN THEIR SLAVES OR WHO WERE THEIR DESCENDANTS TO HAVE POWER OVER THEM THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX.
For Confederates to loose their dominance in the state due to Atlanta would be especially humiliating.
Finally there is Texas. The issue in that aren’t simply black and white. True there has been an influx of people seeking 21st century jobs as in North Carolina. But the big unknown are the people with no connection to the Civil War. The Hispanic who aren’t “owned” by either party and could cause some surprises in Texas even with the gerrymandering.
So far there is no constructive counter to the moves by the Confederates.
All the Substacks and blogs by Heather Cox Richardson amount to nothing.
All the blogs by Marc Elias amount to nothing.
All the video clips by Rachel Maddow amount to nothing.
Overtime, Confederate power has and may continue to weaken in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and maybe Florida but they will still be around just as there are Republicans in California.
