Something that resonates

Sometimes you come across something that resonates.  I was looking through the newspaper and one Conservative characterized the election. He said “…we are fighting to preserve our legacy”. It caused me to remember a question posed about Confederate soldiers fighting in the Civil War.  They were generally poor and lacked the stakes in the war of the southern aristocracy that had mansions, land and slaves. The war was really about the increasing political marginalization of the southern aristocracy in the nation. The Confederate soldiers would never have the grandiose southern life style or slaves. When pointed out to them, their response was in essence they were fighting to preserve their legacy of such things.

The recent election from the Conservative side was preserving their legacy. Arguably from their point of view, the American “magnitudinem”, was the 1950s. At that time they were emerging in a new economic middle class, there was accepted acknowledgement of white supremacy and social segregation from believed lesser peoples. They fantasize today about that society. They believe their success was guaranteed and capitalism was its cornucopia. No matter what face Conservatives of the baby boomer generation and older put on it, this is the legacy they wish to preserve. Younger Republicans are merely captured by greed in the economic system.

This election will not be the death nail in the coffin of their legacy aspirations. However, some time in this century it will be as in the famous words of the title of Margaret Mitchell's book, “Gone with the Wind”.