Trump has famously smeared U.S. soldiers as “suckers” and “losers” yet he painted actual loser Lee as a big winner.
Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all. President Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war period. He should be remembered as perhaps the greatest unifying force after the war was over, ardent in his resolve to bring the North and South together through many means of reconciliation, and imploring his soldiers to do their duty in becoming good citizens of this Country.
Putting aside the ridiculousness of “except for Gettysburg,” I don’t think it’s any accident that the loser Trump is slobbering over was a treasonous racist. Politico notes:
Lee was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans as he led the fight to defend the South’s ability to own Black people as property. Lee has been lifted up as a heroic figure in the South, even today, an ideology that historians call the Lost Cause — a campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the Civil War, pushing the idea that the Confederate fight was a heroic one. In The Atlantic, Historian David Blight wrote that it provided a “foundation on which Southerners built the Jim Crow System.”
But in Trump’s mind, Lee is just the guy the U.S. needs now:
If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago. What an embarrassment. We are suffering because we don't have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!
Fortunately, Twitter is having a field day. I’ll bet the orange-topped narcissist is keeping close track of the mockery, too. Here is just some of the snark, via HuffPost:
"Except for Gettysburg, [he] would have won the war". Yeah man and except for the 2020 election, you would still be president.
— Matt Bevan (@MatthewBevan) September 8, 2021
That is really awful. It’s beyond the Onion. ….except for Gettysburg? https://t.co/YiHx1DYUtk
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) September 9, 2021
I guess Trump & Robert E. Lee both know how it feels to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of pro-democracy forces in Pennsylvania. https://t.co/wjSIQAdaih
— Conor Lamb (@ConorLambPA) September 8, 2021
The most famous loser in American history celebrating the second-most famous loser in American history. https://t.co/3qnRWtqK3p
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) September 8, 2021
Except for that iceberg, Titanic would have been a great cruise !
— I Want My Country Back ! (@mcford77) September 9, 2021
There’s this, too:
The genius Robert E. Lee very explicitly stated he did not think he should be honored. He would have opposed statutes to him everywhere. https://t.co/YmU0whGTdS
— Kevin Park Stan Account 🥑🇺🇸 🇮🇹🇮🇪 (@APMC1985) September 8, 2021
