What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Josquius]

I had to double check what thread I was in. Reads like crappy facebook spam.

[alfred russel]

I don't like most alt-history, but would be interested in reading an alt-history account of Trump putting a reanimated Robert E. Lee in charge of Afghanistan in 2017.

[The Minsky Moment]

Effective use of cavalry was a key missing ingredient in Afghanistan.  Jeb Stuart and his Cavalier horseman would have put those rascally Talibans to the rout.

[alfred russel]

Effective use of cavalry was a key missing ingredient in Afghanistan.  Jeb Stuart and his Cavalier horseman would have put those rascally Talibans to the rout.

I'm worried that when Lee launches his campaign into enemy territory in Pakistan to provoke the decisive battle that Stuart will lead a series of daring raids to get his name in the papers and leave Lee unsupported.

[The Minsky Moment]

Laura Ingraham on Lee: "He also played an indispensable role in post-war Reconstruction that was just instrumental in reuniting the country"



Lee supported the Johnson plan, and made negative statements about Reconstruction, describing it as a process by which "the South is to be placed under the dominion of the negroes."

People like Ingraham make statements like this and then pretend to be surprised to be charged with racism.

[Tonitrus]

Effective use of cavalry was a key missing ingredient in Afghanistan.  Jeb Stuart and his Cavalier horseman would have put those rascally Talibans to the rout.

I'm worried that when Lee launches his campaign into enemy territory in Pakistan to provoke the decisive battle that Stuart will lead a series of daring raids to get his name in the papers and leave Lee unsupported.

Don't worry, Jackson will hold Peshawar like a stone wall.

[Tonitrus]

Laura Ingraham on Lee: "He also played an indispensable role in post-war Reconstruction that was just instrumental in reuniting the country"



Lee supported the Johnson plan, and made negative statements about Reconstruction, describing it as a process by which "the South is to be placed under the dominion of the negroes."

People like Ingraham make statements like this and then pretend to be surprised to be charged with racism.

To give Ingraham a shred of benefit of the doubt (yeah, I know)...there are those who would relate that Reconstruction idea with the idea that when Lee surrendered, he wasn't very politically active after the war, and didn't support continued resistance.

Most of those types are also probably completely ignorant of your latter point.

[garbon]

To give Ingraham a shred of benefit of the doubt (yeah, I know)

[Tonitrus]

To give Ingraham a shred of benefit of the doubt (yeah, I know)

I didn't qualify it enough? 

[Valmy]

Laura Ingraham on Lee: "He also played an indispensable role in post-war Reconstruction that was just instrumental in reuniting the country"

I mean he died just a few years after the war. And it was decades before anybody knew he signed the loyalty pledge. At the time most of the resistors too Reconstruction thought he was on their side. Hell I see anti-Reconstruction quotes of his used by Neo-Confederates today.

"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand." Lee to the Governor of Texas 1870

Yeah dude was a huge help to reconstruction and re-uniting the country.

[Caliga]

I mean, Lee was a traitor, so of course Trump and his basket of deplorables love him.

[The Brain]

Davis, all Confederate governors, and all Confederate generals should have been hanged for rebellion. Even a thousand mile journey begins with a single step. If you never take that step though...

[Barrister]

The Confederates, Lee included, certainly could have refused to surrender and fight a guerilla war (and some urged him to do just that).   Instead though Lee did surrender, and encouraged other confederates to surrender.  That certainly spared further bloodshed both to southerners and to union troops.

As I understand it Lee did not support succession himself.  It was only after Virginia voted to secede that he resigned his union commission and picked up arms.  He certainly did own slaves, although his personal support for the institution is uncertain and more ambiguous than other confederate leaders.

Trump's veneration of the man is of course complete nonsense.  How Lee is such a hero, when he called John McCain a "loser" shows what a hypocrite Trump is.  But I don't think it's fair to just say "eh, he was a rebel and a traitor, he should have been hanged".

What happens to the statue is of course up to the people of Richmond.  Personally though I'm more in support of relocating / put into historical context when it comes to these historic but now controversial statues.

[Caliga]

No, he shouldn't have been hanged, I agree.  Making martyrs out of Lee, Davis, etc. would have been a terrible decision.

[The Minsky Moment]

I find it interesting that Fox News personalities are praising Lee's views on Reconstruction, when in reality Lee expressed concerns over the fact that black voting power might overcome white conservative votes, and when in the present day, Fox News personalities and much of the GOP are expressing concern that black voting power might be overcoming white conservative votes.