Thing about Abe Lincoln being a conciliator to the bitter end includes putting No-Friends Andrew Johnson on his 1864 presidential ticket
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Replying to @arthur_affect
(A man who, along with having no friends, was an alcoholic and borderline illiterate - his wife Eliza helped him write his letters)
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Abe wanted desperately to prove Southerners could be our friends so this was the one Southern politician he could find who wasn't a traitor
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Johnson's presidency started with him coming to see Lincoln on his deathbed and Mary Todd screaming "GET HIM OUT OF HERE"
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Johnson's mixture of disliking black people but also disliking rich Southerners kind of left him a useless husk during Reconstruction
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Replying to @arthur_affect
He and, more broadly speaking, his "type" have been pretty thoroughly erased
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Like, the South erased the idea that there were white people in the South who hated the South's hierarchy and pushed back against it
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Erasing the divide between the Southern aristocrat and the good ol' boy and that the aristocrat kicked the good ol' boy around a lot
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Which is why even though the black/white binary is essential to the hierarchy of the Old South it's important to remember it was a hierarchy
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A steep pyramid, extending down to house slave vs field slave at the bottom, and up to "normal" planters vs. First Families at the top
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Replying to @arthur_affect
In 1984 Winston Smith says "If there is hope it lies with the proles". Hope that the bottom 99% can agree to punch up instead of down
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Replying to @arthur_affect
But, y'know, gravity. Punches generally flow downhill
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End of conversation
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