Washington Post (10/31/17)
According to corporate media, the top general who just complimented the commander of the slavery-defending Confederacy is the greatest hope to rein in President Donald Trump’s extremism.
Since retired Marine Corps four-star Gen. John Kelly was promoted to White House chief of staff in July, pundits have insisted that the former head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command is a positive, moderating influence on the far-right president.
Kelly swiftly dispelled such a notion in an October 30 interview with right-wing Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Kelly spoke highly of Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate army that fought to preserve chattel slavery during the Civil War.
“Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly insisted. “He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days.”
The White House chief of staff went on to rewrite the history of the Civil War, claiming it was caused not by slavery, but rather by “the lack of an ability to compromise.” Kelly added that “men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”
Historians angrily pushed back against Kelly’s historical revisionism. Columbia University professor Stephanie McCurry told the Washington Post (10/31/17) the chief of staff’s statement reflects “the Jim Crow version of the causes of the Civil War,” adding that “it tracks all of the major talking points of this pro-Confederate view of the Civil War.”
Praising the General’s Ascension
CNBC (8/4/17) suggests that military officers should run the US civilian government–as they increasingly do in corporate America.
John Kelly’s comments came as a shock to corporate media. Yet many of these same news outlets have spent the past three months lionizing General Kelly and hoping that he would exercise more control over the president—effectively welcoming a gradual military takeover of the civilian government.
In fact, even in its report on Kelly’s Confederacy statement, the Washington Post (10/31/17) noted that he was “long seen as a force of order and discipline in the White House.”
This impression, crafted by conservative and liberal media outlets alike, began as soon as Kelly was promoted at the end of July.
International news agency Reuters (7/30/17) immediately published a wire story headlined “Republicans Call on New Trump Chief of Staff to Fix White House Chaos.”
The New Yorker (7/31/17) announced, “Anthony Scaramucci’s Ouster May Show That John Kelly Has the Rare Ability to Rein in Trump.” Author Ryan Lizza wrote:
Kelly seemed to be suggesting that he was one of the few people who might be able to tame Trump and get him to back off some of his most cartoonish policy ideas, even the ones that were core campaign promises. Kelly did not seem delusional.
HuffPost (7/31/17) challenged the idea that Kelly could rein in Trump, but not the notion that Kelly was himself a moderating agent: “John Kelly Is Supposed to End White House Chaos — But His Boss Is the Chief Chaos Agent.”
Even more effusively, a CNBC piece (8/4/17) explained “Why John Kelly’s Military Leadership Skills May Play a Critical Role in Trump’s Success.” In a borderline dystopian conflation of corporate and military authority, one article bullet point read, “Major multinational corporations, Wal-Mart as one example, have had CEOs who served in the military and applied military lessons to their company’s business.”
A Bloomberg piece in the Boston Globe (8/6/17) saw Kelly’s management style “echoing the Marines’ credo of ‘God, Country, Corps.'”
A mere week after his promotion, Bloomberg (8/6/17) reported that “Kelly has moved swiftly to bring order to a chaotic and unruly White House.” This article, which was republished by the Boston Globe (8/6/17) with the headline “New Chief of Staff Moves to Rein in White House Chaos — and Trump Tweets,” likewise approvingly noted that Kelly had supported National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, another of the former generals that Trump has surrounded himself with.
By September, CNN (9/20/17) approvingly reported, “Trump Remains Trump but Evidence of Kelly’s Reign Is Emerging.” The story highlight read, “Kelly’s efforts to rein in an unruly West Wing have started to show results, GOP sources say.”
Second Thoughts
In October, however, some media began to have second thoughts. The New York Times (10/25/17) conceded, “Pitched as Calming Force, John Kelly Instead Mirrors Boss’s Priorities.” Reporter Peter Baker wrote:
For all of the talk of Mr. Kelly as a moderating force and the so-called grown-up in the room, it turns out that he harbors strong feelings on patriotism, national security and immigration that mirror the hard-line views of his outspoken boss.
When John Kelly joined Trump in attacking a congresswoman, The Intercept‘s Jon Schwarz (10/21/17) pointed out, “It Didn’t Just Start Now: John Kelly Has Always Been a Hard-Right Bully.”
Even Bill Maher, the bellicose anti-Muslim HBO host whose program acts as a kind of manifesto for milquetoast neoliberalism, lamented that Kelly “was supposed to be the ‘Trumpminder,’ but now he acts like Trump” (Mediaite, 10/20/17).
The signs had been coming for some time. Far-right media kingpin and former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon spoke highly of Kelly (Washington Examiner, 9/10/17). But Bannon, the head of the white supremacist–collaborating “platform for the alt-right” Breitbart, added that the general was unlikely to rein in Trump.
To be clear, some journalists and writers did push back from the beginning. The day Kelly was promoted to chief of staff, the New York Times (7/28/17) published an op-ed warning “The Generals Can’t Save Us From Trump.” John Nichols of The Nation (7/28/17) also stressed that Kelly “is an outspoken and over-the-top Trump loyalist,” referring to him as “Donald Trump’s new enabler in chief.” And the Guardian (8/21/17) ran an opinion piece warning, “Before you start hoping the generals will deliver us from that guy in the White House, be careful what you wish for.”
But these were the exceptions, not the norm. In media, the general consensus was, well, leave it to the generals.
Corporate media have frequently lavished praise on Donald Trump when he is expanding US wars and bombing foreign countries, declaring that his warmongering suddenly makes him “presidential” (FAIR.org, 8/24/17).
Even many prominent figures in the anti-Trump self-declared Democratic “Resistance” have done the same, cheering on the far-right billionaire-in-chief when he is waging war, and praising the senior military officials he has appointed to the helm of the civilian government.
John Kelly’s remarks complimenting Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — a military leader who spilled blood in an attempt to save slavery — serve as a stark reminder that stacking the government with hard-line military officials is not a solution to Trump’s right-wing extremism. It is, in fact, a key part of the problem.
So, if John Kelly thinks states rights trump federal rights, does that mean that he will support the secession of California from the Union? (Wishful thinking, on my part.) Or maybe he would insist on a California Compromise, southern slave, northern free. (It’s really hard not to respond tongue-in-cheek to such yahoos as John Kelly.)
Hail to the chief enabler
(And Lee spilled the blood of those he enslaved, as well)
Sorry to bring up boring stuff like history, but the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery — it was fought over the right of states to secede. President Lincoln said “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Lincoln allowed northern states adjoining the confederacy to keep their slaves.
You are strictly correct; both sides sought to minimise the importance of slavery with respect to the US Civil War, but it was definitely the elephant in the room that practically everybody sought to ignore.
The leaders of the South of course argued that their cause related to the more principled issue of state rights because it was clear that this was far more palatable than slavery; likewise, Lincoln was willing to fudge on slavery and only made it a core element when he effectively had little choice but to do so.
It essentially all comes down to what were the rights the Southern States wished to exercise that the North ultimately refused to countenance and the answer to that is quite clear.
Sorry, Frederick, you’re as wrong as Alex Cox. “Both sides” did not try to minimize slavery at the time — only the North did for political reasons. The Southern secessionists screamed it from the mountain tops. Just go back and read the actual resolutions of secession passed by the southern state legislators, it’s all out front. The Georgia one is particularly fire-breathing, but slavery is at the center of them all.
It’s only during and after Reconstruction that the war became primarily about “states rights” and “failure to compromise,” because the south wanted to make their Lost Cause part of a narrative of national unity, not a narrative of treason and interrupted White Supremacy. It became a necessary propaganda tool as the South reasserted its political power within the country.
Of course, it is always worth asking “states rights to do what?” and “compromise over what?” but we should be clear what the actual evidence from 1860 and 1861 shows — secession was about slavery and the South said it loud and clear.
Yep, both Cox and Frederick are dead wrong. Yes, read the declarations of secession written by the five original states that formed the confederacy. Also read the Cornerstone Speech. The purpose of secession was to preserve slavery in those states where it existed.The planter class, through the declarations of secession, accused the federal government, for example, of not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act because a number of northern states exercised their states’s rights NOT to enforce that act. In other words, they were pro a strong federal government if it protected the basis of their wealth, the appropriation of immense wealth generated by a slave class. We can afford to be dogmatic on this point; there is no other interpretation. Just read the original words or the secessionists.
Also let me add that what happened in Tennessee early in 1861 is a beautiful example of how the minority ruling class ramrodded secession through the state legislature. In February of 1861, the question was raised if Tennessee should join the secessionists (the declarations of secession were published on Feb 4, 1861, if I remember correctly). A referendum was voted on by the white male voting population of Tennessee NOT to even hold a conference to discuss this issue–in other words no secession. But Tennessee did secede from the Union after Fort Sumter was fired on in April 1861. What happened in between February and April? Well, the governor of Tennessee at the time was a prominent slave owner. He ramrodded secession through the state legislature without first taking it to the population for a vote. And he began secret negotiations with the confederacy was department with regards to how many Tennessee “volunteers” he could supply. When secession did go up for a popular vote it was already a done deal. Confederate troops were already being transported through the state and voter intimidation was in effect.
Then of course there was the slaughter of the German settlers in the Texas Hill Country who did not support slavery. They did not want to be conscripted into the confederate army and so decided to pull up stakes and head for Mexico. They were pursued by the confederate army and killed. That’s a good example of domestic terrorism.
But I know one thing. For that part of the population that has been breast fed on states’s right as the case of the war, well, nothing will convince them otherwise. They are the true Lost Cause.
If I am “dead wrong”, please tell me whether Lincoln permitted the Union states adjoining the Confederacy to retain their slaves during the Civil War, or not. The writer confuses the motivation of the secessionist states (to preserve the vile institution of slavery) with the reason for the civil war — to prevent/permit the break up of the United States.
Also, don’t forget tat early on, the slave owners in the South wre getting nervous, because poor white and black peopple were joining forces… and so slave owners did a divide and conquor with raising poor whites to overseerers, so that black people were on the bottom again. And as to Robert E. Lee, i guess it would be like if New York suceeded and people had to decide whether to stay in New York or go fight in, somalia, libya, iraq, Syria yemen or whereever, so I understand why lee took his own state vs the union.
And sadly too, some Union guy whose last name started with an M but who wanted to revenge his son’s army death, MR. ” M” started planting dead bodies all the way up to the front door of the house on the land( which belonged to Lee’s Wife and not Lee) Mr. “M’ started making a graveyard of the place by just grabbing the land and making it a death garden/ Later on in years a relative was given some money for the land theft—-but by then there were too many dead Americans and the heir left it as it was and today Arlington is the result.
always hilarious when the corporate/state media apparatus, the dumb ass gatekeepers tell you whose a good moderate, whose a good visionary from John McCain, to George HW Bush, John Kelly, or the Paul Ryans of the world when all of them are just vile regressive right-wing nuts. Hey wasn’t too long I remember Glen Beck was a CNN host and Michael Savage MSNBC before it became MSDNC thought he was the right replacement after firing Phil Donahue and Jee Cohen for being truthtellers. Again corporate/state media the more you watch the less you know same with the papers.