Regardless of what side you’re on, you want to understand why all of this is happening? Well, here’s why.

The United States stood at a crossroads. We had a choice.

We could treat the Confederacy for what it was—a violent, anti-democratic insurrection—or we could pretend it was just a “heated disagreement between brothers” and, after the Civil War, go get a beer.

We chose the beer.

There were no mass trials.

No hangings.

No real cleaning of house.

The generals went home.

The politicians went back to Congress.

The ideology didn’t die; it just took a sabbatical.

Reconstruction was brief, half-hearted, and violently sabotaged. We did it for about fifteen minutes before getting bored and handing the keys back to the guys in the white hoods. The message was clear:

You can wage war against the United States—and eventually, we’ll name a high school after you.

That precedent matters.

When you don’t punish a rebellion, you don’t end it.

You franchise it.

You teach the losers that force works.

That intimidation works.

That democracy is optional if you’re loud enough, violent enough, or just willing to wait out the news cycle.

So the Confederacy didn’t disappear.

It mutated.

It became Jim Crow.

Then “States’ Rights.”

Then the “Silent Majority.”

Then the Culture War.

The branding changes, but the product is the same: hierarchy must be preserved, and the federal government is illegitimate unless it’s hurting the right people.

Fast-forward to now.

We have a movement that treats cruelty like a virtue and empathy like a character flaw. A party that views loyalty tests as standard operating procedure. Government agencies weaponized without subtlety. ICE raids staged for prime time.

To the guys currently cheering this on: you probably think you’re the protagonist in this movie. You think you’re 1776.

Check your costume.

You’re wearing 1861 gray.

You are aligning yourselves with the losers of history’s most obvious moral tests. You are marching in lockstep with the very people your grandfathers crossed an ocean to shoot at.

The offramp is right here, and it’s simple.

You don’t need to make a public apology.

You don’t need to hug a hippie.

You just need to look at the guys standing next to you—the ones itching for a civil war, the ones measuring drapes for the camps—and ask yourself if that’s really the team photo you want to be in.

Walk away now, and you can claim you were just confused.

Stay much longer, and you’re just an accomplice.

Germany didn’t ban the Nazi party because they were being vindictive. They did it because they learned a lesson we refused to:

Democracy cannot survive nostalgia for the people who tried to slit its throat.

We keep acting surprised that authoritarian instincts keep resurfacing in America. But we never dug up the roots.

We just built monuments on top of them and acted surprised when nothing healthy grew.