With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Trump Will Never Surrender, Just Like Jefferson Davis

WASHINGTON — Autumn sun lights the city after President Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden, except the civil war he started isn't over yet. The part Trump's playing in this tragic drama: the traitor, like despicable Jefferson Davis, who conducted the Civil War over slavery.

Trump's historic refusal to concede is the perfect parallel to the Confederate president, the Mississippi senator and enslaver who tore the country apart. He nearly succeeded but for prairie giant President Abraham Lincoln.

Like Trump, Davis never surrendered his white supremacist lost cause.

After the ravages of the Trump term, the American people must brace for a defiant last stand from the worst loser in the world, for history does rhyme all the time.

Even as the Civil War ended, after Richmond fell, Davis was captured in Georgia while fleeing by Union cavalry soldiers. He was dressed as a woman. By 1865, the Confederate states were weary, shattered by four years of war.

These were Trumpian red states in 2016, except Virginia. So, Davis still had his fingerprints on the American political map. The evil men do lives long after them, said Shakespeare.

Davis was imprisoned after the Civil War, a fate that may await the outgoing president. Too bad they can't be cellmates. They're soul mates.

Read entire article at Creators Syndicate