Spotted Friday, July 5, on Manchester Street: a pickup truck with two flags flapping behind. One a white-on-blue Trump/Make America Great Again, the other a Confederate battle flag.
About 2 million American patriots put on the blue uniform between 1861 and 1865. Hundreds of thousands were killed or wounded. And why did they do it? They fought to Make America Whole Again. Since then, the Republican Party has proudly, if not always accurately, proclaimed itself “the party of Lincoln.”
In a note of tragic irony, the most recognizable insignia of Southern perfidy has become a prominent feature of that party’s presidential re-election campaign. A Confederate flag-draped pickup truck, the very symbol of KKK night-riders, betrays the principles for which those bygone heroes in Union blue fought and bled.
The president has refused to renounce all who would reset the nation’s moral clock to 1861 Charleston, S.C. Doing so, he tears down the last vestiges of “the party of (Abraham) Lincoln” and reassembles the rubble in the image of another Lincoln, George Lincoln Rockwell. Those who display the rebel flag and grunt “Build the wall!” “Lock her up!” or “You will not replace us!” fixate on some twisted notion of American greatness. Their path surely leads to an America no more great, and doubtless to an America far less good. No thanks!
WILLIAM POLITT
Weare