We've been here all along.

 Just finished "American Ulysses," by Ronald C. White. 

If I'd read this 10 years ago, I'm sure I would have had a different impression. I tend to read books about late bloomers, like Truman and Grant, because I think of myself as a late bloomer.

But what was really striking about this read was the part that dealt with Reconstruction.

Guess what, folks. As a country, while we've progressed in many ways, but we're also very much like we have always been. There are eerie echoes of the racism that pervaded the south and the north in the years after the Civil War and what is happening today.

The top layer of out-and-out racist language and--Thank God--most of the extreme violence (though the book doesn't deal with it, the violence still exists, but nowadays come from those authorized to use violence.)

Grant tried hard to bring the south around, but he was not helped by many of those in his own party. It appears that a large number of abolistionists were opposed to slavery, but holding down Native Americans and Black people, not so much. 

This is where you hear the echoes, in the talk about state and local control, in the voter suppression, in the willingness of the whites to throw minorities under the stagecoach and not look back. It was startling to read what people were saying 160 years ago and what they're saying now. Take out the blatant racist language and the message is still the same.

We've been kidding ourselves about the southern states. They have been fighting against true equality for this entire time and as long as they maintain power they'll continue to do so.