"Break Their Spirit" with "Maximum Warfare": What Nobody Tells You About Reconstruction in the South After the American Civil War

As the nation reacts to the "disgustingly violent" call by Hakeem Jeffries for "maximum warfare" against members of the GOP (and, more specifically, of Donald Trump's MAGA movement) and for Dems to "break their spirit", I think back to last summer.

One of the things that I did during last year's summer months (during which this blog was, for unexplained reasons, banned for 112 days) was read Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses Simpson Grant. (This proved an unexpected boon, as reading about Grant's travails and hardships proved to be somewhat therapeutic for me; This year, I am reading his Pulitzer Prize-winner, Washington — A Life.) I knew a lot about the Civil War; but what occurred during Reconstruction was eye-opening, to say the least.

The present post will detail the era of Reconstruction. But prior to that, if you will allow me, I will quote the single most significant single passage in the entire book, which deals with the battles of the Civil War. First of all, we have his closest ally during the war comparing his friend's military sense with that of the top general of the Confederacy:

Perhaps the person who best explained Grant's strategic superiority was Sherman, who stated that while Lee attacked the front porch, Grant would attack the kitchen and bedroom.  In his earthy way, Sherman expressed the view that Grant engaged in total warfare that eroded enemy supply lines and infrastructure, while Lee remained highly focused on the battle at hand, without a long-term strategy for the war.

But the single most important quote of the 900-page book concerns 

shattering … the mystique of rebel soldiers.  The South, Grant noted, had demonstrated dash and pluck at the outset of battle, but his own men had exhibited the true staying power.  Reflecting on this after the war, he said, "I used to find that the first day, or the first period of a battle, was most successful to the South, but if we held on to the second or third day, we were sure to beat them, and we always did." 

This is astounding. Truly astounding.  Grant is suggesting, basically, regarding all the Union generals who preceded him — those who have generally been called incompetent — that if they had only persisted instead of panicking and immediately retreating, there is a good chance that they would have ended up winning their battles in the end. Precisely like Grant himself did after initial setbacks, most famously at Shiloh.

• Sherman, as night settled over the field at Shiloh at the end of the first day of fighting: 
"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" 

Grant: "Yes. Lick'em tomorrow, though."

 

• Earlier that day, upon asked by an officer whether the Union Army should make preparations for a retreat from Pittsburgh Landing, Grant replied:  "Retreat? No! I propose to attack at daylight and whip them."

Now back to the second part of Ron Chernow's Grant, and his dealings with the South's Democrats during his presidency. 

Of course I had been aware of the basic tenets of Reconstruction, but I hardly realized to what a devastating as well as an illuminating extent the Democrat Party of yore reflected the Democrat Party of today. (See my post on how I personally take notes when reading a book, which you may possibly find inspiring…) 

As Catherine Salgado writes, regarding How the Civil War Changed but Didn't End,

The Union was finally abolishing slavery once and for all … But the Civil War did not end at Appomattox Court House, nor even at Bennett Place, scene of the last major surrender of the war on April 26. In fact, it arguably never ended. Democrats simply shifted from firing cannons and rifles on a battlefield to weaponizing courts, laws, the press, and riots. 

 

One of the most misleading claims in modern politics is, “This is not the Democrat Party of your grandfathers.” It is — and of your great-great-great-grandfathers.  

 

 … In the 1800s as much as in the 2000s, the Democrat Party utilized politically-fueled domestic terrorism, election fraud, character assassination, extreme rhetoric, race-baiting, and emotionally manipulative propaganda. 

 

 … From the Red Shirts and the KKK to Antifa and the anti-ICE rioters, from John C. Calhoun to Joe Biden, from Jim Crow to sanctuary policies and CRT, there is a continuum of Democrat lies, tyranny, racism, and violence. In the 19th century, Democrats justified the Fort Pillow massacre and the KKK assassination of Rep. James Hinds (R-Ark.), and in the 21st century, they justify a 1,347% increase in assaults against ICE and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 

Catherine Salgado's words were echoed, 70 and 25 years earlier, by the deep thoughts of Harry Jaffa on American history. From Harry Jaffa's book A New Birth of Freedom, we learn that far from defending States' Rights or any kind of rights — as many conservatives (North as well as South) enamored with the rebel spirit seem to think is warranted — such Southern Democrats as John C. Calhoun were rather dabbling in Socialism and Marxism before Marxism had even become a common household word. As I have written, regarding The Greatest Myth in U.S. History, Yes, the Civil War Era Did Feature Champions of States' Rights, But No, They Were Not in the South (Au Contraire: they were in the North). Harry Jaffa:

 … if ever there was a nation annihilated politically on the battlefield that nonetheless imposed the yoke of its thought upon its conquerors, it was the Confederacy 

 … The echo of Calhoun in the [nihilistic] words of [one of the modern era's chief justices] is evidence that the Confederacy is alive and well and that the Union victory at Appomatox [sic] has not been accompanied by any ascendancy of the words of the principles of the Gettysburg Address

 … we will see in Calhoun the generation of the most powerful forces that today dominate the intellectual life, not only of the United States, but also of the Western world generally

 … The idea of progress led Hegel, Marx, and Calhoun radically to depreciate the role of reason in all their predecessors, whether statesmen or philosophers

 …  one might call Calhoun the founding father of "interest group liberalism" in twentieth-century American political science.  Calhoun's theoretical writings are a landmark in the transition from individual rights to group rights as the ground of constitutionalism and the rule of law …  More than anyone else, Rousseau is Calhoun's intellectual progenitor 

Indeed, the Trump administration's fight against pervasive fraud, vote-rigging, gun control, double standards in law courts, and Democratic demonization of its opponents (of whatever race), resembles nothing more than the Democrat Party — although far less violent (so far?) — in the 1870s, 1860s, and 1850s. This has been touched on numerous times on this blog over the past 22 years.

Related History Posts:
• What Caused Secession and Ergo the Civil War? Was It Slavery and/or States' Rights? Or Wasn't It Rather Something Else — the Election of a Ghastly Republican to the White House?
• During the Winter of 1860-1861, Did the South's Democrats Obtain Their Aim — the Secession of 7 Slave States — Thanks to Elections Filled with Stealth, Lies, Voter Fraud, Intimidation, Violence, and Murder? (Wait 'til You Hear About… Georgia's Dark Secret)
• Abraham Lincoln and the Founding Fathers' Supposed Embrace of Slavery Along with Their Alleged Rejection of Women's Rights 
• Wondering Why Slavery Persisted for Almost 75 Years After the Founding of the USA? According to Lincoln, the Democrat Party's "Principled" Opposition to "Hate Speech"
• The Greatest Myth in U.S. History: Yes, the Civil War Era Did Feature Champions of States' Rights, But No, They Were Not in the South (Au Contraire)
• Harry Jaffa on the Civil War Era: For Democrats of the 21st Century as of the 19th, "the emancipation from morality was/is itself seen as moral progress"
• Why Does Nobody Ever Fret About Scandinavia's — Dreadful — 19th-C Slavery Conditions?
• A Century and Half of Apartheid Policies: From Its 1828 Foundation, the Democrat Party Has Never Shed Its Racist Past
• The Confederate Flag: Another Brick in the Leftwing Activists' (Self-Serving) Demonization of America and Rewriting of History
• How to Prevent America from Becoming a Totalitarian State
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Why They Don't Tell You the Whole Truth: The 1619 Project Summarized in One Single Sentence 

 
And here we get to the meat of this post, the part of Ron Chernow's biography of Grant dealing with the Reconstruction years:

In describing the Klan's tight grip over the region, Grant summoned his most emphatic language, saying its purpose was "by force and terror … to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms [!!] and the right to a free ballot, to suppress schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely akin to that of slavery."

 … In countering the Klan, Grant found himself back in familiar territory, operating as general in chief.  Whenever he returned to war-related issues, Grant showed a sure grasp of both his values and methods.  He knew that the Klan threatened to unravel everything he and Lincoln and Union soldiers had accomplished at great cost in blood and treasure.

 …  [Horace] Greeley was famous for his withering slurs against Democrats, having once said that while not all Democrats were horse thieves, all horse thieves were Democrats. He had denounced them as "traitors, slave-whippers, drunkards and lecherous beasts."

 … "If the Devil himself were at the helm of the ship of state," the abolitionist and woman's rights activist Lydia Maria Child responded, "my conscience would not allow me to aid in removing him to make room for the Democratic party."  She believed that when Liberal Republicans endorsed "state sovereignty," it meant "when the Ku Klux renew their plans to exterminate Republicans, white and black, they shall be dealt with by Southern civil authority — that is, by judges and jurors who are themselves members of the Ku Klux association"

 … No Southern state presented more insurmountable problems to Grant than Louisiana, which had become a hotbed of hatred and corruption.

 … the worst slaughter perpetrated against blacks during Reconstruction.  Staggered by [the 1872] cold-blooded massacre, Grant told the Senate "a butchery of citizens was committed at Colfax, which in bloodthirstiness and barbarity is hardly surpassed by any acts of savage warfare."

The Colfax murderers thus walked off scot-free, sending a powerful message to white supremacists that they could slay blacks without any penalty. …   such unalloyed sadism

 … As Grant attempted to normalize federal relations with former Confederate states, he struggled with a newly emergent white supremacist groups, hydra-headed offshoots of the Klan with names such as the White League, "rifle clubs." Red Shirts, and Knights of the White Camelia.  They tiptoed around prosecution by claiming to be county militia.  Unlike the Klan, which was a secret paramilitary group … Harper's Weekly wasn't far from the mark when it termed the White League "an unmasked Ku Klux"

 … The battle [in New Orleans] had witnessed an extraordinary event:  James Longstreet now fired on men he had commanded during the war, his small army having killed twenty-one White Leaguers

 … To Grant, it looked as if the country might be lurching toward a second Civil War 

 … Many saw the Louisiana violence as the opening shot of a second Civil War and a revitalized Confederacy, albeit clothed in a new form.  Discussing the mood in New Orleans, Sheridan told Orville Babcock, "I have so often heard expressions that the new rebellion was to be fought under the stars & stripes and in the north as well as the South — that the mistake made in 1861 was to have had their own flag."

 … Grant's personal tragedy was simultaneously an American tragedy. Grant predicted to John Roy Lynch that the northern retreat from Reconstruction would lead to Democrats recapturing power in the South as well as "future mischief of a very serious nature … It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large measure lost …"

This wasn't a minor statement:  the victorious Union general of the Civil War was saying that terror tactics perpetrated by southern whites had nullified the outcome of the rebellion.  All those hundreds of thousands dead, the millions maimed and wounded, the mourning of widows and orphans — all that suffering, all that tumult, on some level, had been for naught.  Slavery had been abolished, but it had been replaced by a caste-ridden form of second-class citizenship for southern blacks, and that counted as a national shame.  

The Little-Known Story Of The Colfax Massacre, The Worst Episode Of Racial Violence During Reconstruction, happens to be discussed on the All That's Interesting website:

After the 1872 gubernatorial election in Louisiana, KKK members and former Confederates stormed a courthouse occupied by Black militiamen — and killed as many as 150 of them.

The clash took place in the small town of Colfax, Louisiana. A white mob of Democrats that lost the election tried to seize control of a courthouse defended by Black Republicans. And the election dispute quickly turned into a massacre.

 … What triggered the violent race massacre? And how did the Colfax Massacre help end Reconstruction and tip the balance toward segregation and Jim Crow rule?

 … One Southern paper laid the blame at the feet of the “scalawags and carpetbaggers,” common terms for southern and northern Republicans who supported Reconstruction. 

Here are some extended notes from Ron Chernow's biography of General Grant, which repeats all the main quotes featured above, in addition to a number of other quotes of interest:

 … Before long, Grant's stonehearted faith would be severely tested as the new president [Andrew Johnson] went from being too harsh toward Confederate leaders to being too obliging   

In Part Three,  "A Life of Peace", Grant is elected to the White House

As the charitable victor at Appomattox, Grant stood as the foremost symbol of a merciful attitude towards the defeated states.  At the same time, as the leading Union general, fully committed to the war's agenda of preserving the Union and ending slavery, Grant was no less associated with protecting the four million freed people.  How to reconcile these two often incompatible impulses as they clashed in post-war America would define the rest of Grant's life and would prove, in many ways, as baffling a problem as winning the war

 …In Andrew Johnson, Grant would had to deal with a new president who would swing from excessive hostility toward the South to excessive leniency, alienating at both ends of the spectrum … As Grant put it, "As soon as the slave-holders put their thumb upon him [Johnson] … he became their slave."

 … Most consequential for Grant's historic reputation was the way southerners of the Lost Cause school would begin to idealize Lee

 … Grant came to believe that Lee, far from accepting the war's outcome gracefully, was secretly hostile to it and abetted southern fantasies that their defeated cause would rise anew

Mosby repaid [Grant's] surprising kindness be becoming a steadfast friend and ally of Grant

 … There was so much skulduggery between France and the rebels during the Civil War that Grant classified Napoleon III as "an active part of the rebellion"  

 … a new form of bondage, establishing the foundations of the Jim Crow system that later ruled southern race relations

 … "Liberty has been won," contended Senator Charles Sumner.  "The battle for equality is still pending."  Unless freed blacks received the vote, warned Frederick Douglass, "we should have slavery back again, in spirit if not in form"

 … For all their excessive zeal militant Republicans would produce some of the most powerful legislation in American history to accord equal rights to African Americans

 … [Regarding the] so-called carpetbaggers … In southern mythology, they would be demonized as corrupt parasites, but many were motivated by idealism and paid a steep price for their courage.  Southern whites who supported Reconstruction, called "scalawags," faced similar antipathy

 … The sadism [in New Orleans in 1866] was … wanton [and] a chilling display of racial hatred

This violence seemed a grotesque continuation of the Civil War by other means, and one member of the white rabble went so far as to brag, "We have fought for four years these god-damned Yankees and sons of bitches in the field, and now we will fight them in the city."

 … black and white Republicans were being murdered with abandon in southern states

 … Gruffly dismissed … as mere "rumors of Negro murders," [allegedly] unworthy of serious consideration … [this] would become a standard Democratic defense in future years

Doesn't this sound like how Democrats and the MSM have characterized election fraud in the past few decades?

 … In many parts of Texas, Grant asserted, a Union man wasn't safe outside the umbrella of federal military protection

 … for southern blacks and white Republicans the First Reconstruction Act promised sorely needed protection against the indiscriminate white terror directed at them with alarming frequency

… [Between] the Second Reconstruction Act [and] the Third Reconstruction Act, [Ron Chernow mentions the] Ku Klux Klan, its arcane name derived from the Greek word kuklos, for band or circle 

… Never before in American history had there been such racially integrated governmental meetings, and they pioneered in establishing public schools and contesting discrimination

 … More than 80 percent of black delegates were literate, but the handful of illiterates provided endless fodder for vicious satire in the white press, creating an enduring caricature of Reconstruction as a period of misrule by inept black politicians.

 … Nothing alarmed white southerners more than the specter of blacks casting votes.  The united power of blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags produced a stunning string of Republican election victories in fall 1867 across a region long solidly democratic

 … [The slogan of Grant's 1868 presidential campaign was] "Let us have peace" … Henry Adams wisecracked that "Let Us Have Peace" meant only "Leave Me Alone" 

 … Grant, having never set eyes on the Great Plains, wanted his son Buck to see them  whilst still occupied … "the Buffalo and the Indian, both rapidly disappearing now."

Grant rhapsodied about the beauty of the American West, only regretting the "three epidemics" that had plagued it:  the pistol, the bowie knife, and whiskey

 [There were] troubling sign that Grant, in his new political incarnation, might ignore professional advice and prove unwilling to modify his traditional style to accommodate new political realities

 … Democrats ran what the historian David W. Blight has branded "one of the most explicitly racist presidential campaigns in American history."  Grant railed at the "desperate and unscrupulous" tactics of Democrats, but Republicans didn't shy away from invective either

 … Blacks still couldn't vote in many northern states, whereas they could vote in most formerly Confederate states.

 … The campaign's most chilling feature was the huge wave of murder and arson orchestrated by the Ku Klux Klan against black and white Republicans in the South

 … speculation about [Grant's] strained relations with Sherman … [their] radically different worldviews

[At this point Grant wins the 1868 election on November 3, "by a comfortable but not overwhelming margin", trouncing Horatio Seymour however in an electoral landslide of 214 to 80.] 

 … Sherman … had monitored Grant's rise with decidedly mixed emotions, believing that "if forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would choose the penitentiary, thank you."

 … the Department of the Interior, a notorious mare's nest of corruption.  It is important to note that corruption was rife in many departments before Grant took office … Grant would prove a far more assertive president than his modest inaugural address had suggested

 … "The chief business of the executive had become the distribution of patronage."  Abraham Lincoln had been besieged by office seekers who cluttered the stairs and corridors day and night.  One day a friend asked Lincoln whether he was depressed because the Union army had suffered a military setback.  He smiled wanly and saud, "No, it isn't the army.  It is the post office in Brownsville, Missouri." 

 … Grant knew that, for every friend he won through an appointment, he earned a hundred enemies in rejected suitors 

 … Elated at this appointment, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise said it showed "that President Grant had revoked General Grant's notorious order No. 11." 

 … As James M. McPherson has pointed out, eleven of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution constrained governmental power; starting with the Thirteenth Amendment, six of the next seven enlarged it.  The war also centralized power, welding states closer together and forging a new sense of nationhood.  As Grant told a relative, "Since the late civil war the feeling of nationality had become stronger than it had ever been before"

 … The mounting wealth also meant the dominant Republican Party was torn between its idealistic, abolitionist past and its business-oriented future

 … In the nineteenth century, Congress was infinitely more powerful than in the twentieth and senators ruled as headstrong barons whose power often rivaled that of presidents   

 … Perhaps more than any other president, Grant oversaw the evolution of Washington from a straggling village into a modern city with well-paved sidewalks, sewers, and water and gas mains

 … Grant showed a a surprisingly keen eye for government architecture … dubbed "General Grant" style … "the dingy, shabby carpets and furniture in this new home"

 … Ben Butler mocked Andrew Johnson as the "drunken tailor" and Grant as the "drunken tanner" … But such random accusations were now more conspicuous by their absence and occurred with nowhere near their frequency of wartime drinking charges

 … Fired by a crusading spirit, [Adelbert A.] Ames saw carpetbaggers as apostles of "northern liberty" who had "a hold on the hearts of the colored people that nothing can destroy"

 … "When I took command of this military district," he recalled, "I found that the negroes who had been declared free by the United States were not free, in fact they were living under a code that made them worse than slaves, and I found that it was necessary, as commanding officer, to protect them, and I did"

 … On a personal level, Grant extended an olive branch to Confederate generals.  In May 1869, Robert E. Lee came to the White House to discuss a railroad venture.  As at Appomattox, Grant attempted to smooth over an awkward situation with a little levity and small talk.  "You and I, General," said Grant, "have had more to do with destroying railroads than building them."  Lee would not be drawn into this sort of pleasantry.

 … Many of the generals who had defeated the Confederacy were now assigned to pacify Native Americans and often betrayed a punitive, bloody attitude, exemplified by Phil Sheridan's infamous remark "The only good Indians I know are dead."

 … Many in Congress had few qualms about pursuing a policy of outright genocide, which one Nevada congressman calling for "extinction.  And I say that with a full sense of the meaning conveyed by that word."

 … This hopeful, idealistic path, paved with good intentions, had been touted by well-meaning presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln

 … Annexing Santo Domingo could also break British domination of the Caribbean, which forced American vessels "to pass through foreign waters."  

"the crime of Ku Kluxism"

 … [Grant] committed fatal errors by pursuing this momentous policy in a closed-door, top-down style that made sense in wartime, but not in politics.  He didn't prepare the American electorate or mobilize public opinion or rally voters to his side.

 … For many southern whites, however, the idea that their erstwhile slaves could now hold office and even gain the upper hand  in their political lives was intolerable.  It reinforced their growing conviction that secession had been, as The Nation phrased it, "not wicked, but holy and glorious."

 … This fateful moment presented Grant with a domestic challenge as daunting as that faced by any American president, or it inspired hope among blacks and smoldering resentment among many whites.

Black gains can be overstated and certainly were by an alarmed white community:  fewer than 20 percent of state political offices in the South were held by blacks at the hight of Reconstruction. Still, those represented spectacular gains for people so recently held in bondage

 … With a violent backlash well under way, the party of Lincoln began to pay a price for being the vocal paladin of African Americans.  

 … Under Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, slaveholding states had been entitled to count three of every five slaves as part of their electorate in computing their share of congressional delegates,  Now former slaves would serve as full citizens, swelling the electoral tally for southern states.  This was fine as long as freed people exercised their full voting rights,  Instead, over time, the white South would receive extra delegates in Congress and electoral votes in presidential races while stifling black voting power,  "It was unjust to the North," Grant subsequently lamented,  "In giving the South negro suffrage, we have given the old slave-holders forty votes in the electoral college.  They keep those votes, but disenfranchise the negroes.  That is one of the gravest mistakes in the policy of reconstruction."

 … The new Justice Department would forge its identity in the battle to slay the Ku Klux Klan and such offshoots as the Knights of the White Camelia.  Having disbanded Confederate armies, the North had not stopped the emergence of quasi-military organizations throughout the South.  In describing the Klan's tight grip over the region, Grant summoned his most emphatic language, saying its purpose was "by force and terror … to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms [!!!] and the right to a free ballot, to suppress schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely akin to that of slavery."

[In the postbellum era, the last word of the KKK often seemed to be dropped, by friend and foe alike, with the organization referred to as "the Ku Klux association," "the Ku Klux businesss," "KuKluxery," "Ku-Klux-Klanism," "traitorism," and "Banditti"]

 … In pursuing the Klan, he showed to advantage his persistence, simplicity, and innate stubbornness.  Through the Justice Department, the federal government would emerge as the undisputed champion of civil liberties in the southern states, carving out a new role

"It seems like we are drifting … back under the leadership of the slave holders," a black Republican moaned.  The southern states had now been readmitted to the Union with full congressional representation, but far from adumbrating a new era of harmony, it signaled the start of a deepening era of polarization.

 … These were ground-breaking decisions that for the first time enabled the federal government instead of state and local governments to punish "private criminal acts"

… these domestic terrorists 

… The man who implemented this bold agenda was [Amos] Akerman, who thought Reconstruction best served the long-term interests of the enlightened South, properly understood.  To those who protested its severity, he responded that nothing was "more idle than to attempt to conciliate by kindness that portion of the Southern people who are still malcontent.  They take all kindness on the part of the government as evidence of timidity."  For Akerman, the Klan's actions "amount to war, and cannot be effectively crushed on any theory."

 … In countering the Klan, Grant found himself back in familiar territory, operating as general in chief.  Whenever he returned to war-related issues, Grant showed a sure grasp of both his values and methods.  He knew that the Klan threatened to unravel everything he and Lincoln and Union soldiers had accomplished at great cost in blood and treasure.

 … By 1872, under Grant's leadership, the Ku Klux Klan had been smashed in the South. (Its later twentieth-century incarnation had no connection to the earlier group other than a common style and ideology.)

 … [Frederick] Douglass marveled at his equal treatment, commenting that "while all the fools are not dead yet, the American people are rapidly outgrowing their slavery-engendered prejudices, and will one day wonder how they could have so long lived under its degrading spell."  Douglass's assignment was yet another example of Grant's appointing African Americans in far greater numbers than any previous president.

 … In a momentous shift, Grant made common cause with party bosses, who increasingly formed the backbone of his support on Capitol Hill

 … Benjamin Moran, secretary of the American legation in London, was stunned by the decline of American support even among Britons who had fervently embraced the Union cause:  "They look upon this [Alabama] claim for consequential damages as dishonest and as confirming the popular English opinion … that we are a tricky people."

 … he learned to to manipulate the levers at his disposal to get things accomplished on Capitol Hill.  After personal betrayals suffered over the Santo Domingo treaty, he decided to reward loyalty above ideology and came to view reformers as two-faced troublemakers while party bosses, however corrupt, at least stuck to their word

 … Grant has suffered from a double standard in the eyes of historians.  When Lincoln employed patronage for political ends, which he did extensively, they have praised him as a master politician; when Grant catered to the same spoilsmen, they have denigrated him as a corrupt opportunist.

 … Part of Grant's need to placate party bosses was that he presided over government in the heyday of senatorial power.  Senators were still elected by state legislatures and business interests

 … [The White House] scandals [were] christened "Grantism" [and the president was] dubbed "Kaiser Grant" … "The people are tired of a man who has not an idea above a horse or a cigar"

 … Greeley was famous for his withering slurs against Democrats, having once said that while not all Democrats were horse thieves, all horse thieves were Democrats. He had denounced them as "traitors, slave-whippers, drunkards and lecherous beasts."

 … the true aim of the new fusion ticket was the "overthrow of Negro supremacy—the anti-Reconstruction agenda, however thinly masked by reform rhetoric
 … "If the Devil himself were at the helm of the ship of state," the abolitionist and woman's rights activist Lydia Maria Child responded, "my conscience would not allow me to aid in removing him to make room for the Democratic party."  She believed that when Liberal Republicans endorsed "state sovereignty," it meant "when the Ku Klux renew their plans to exterminate Republicans, white and black, they shall be dealt with by Southern civil authority — that is, by judges and jurors who are themselves members of the Ku Klux association"

 … "If as a class we are slighted by the Republican party," [Frederick Douglass] noted, "we are as a class murdered by the Democratic party."  He swore he would rather blow his brains out than destroy the Republican Party.

 … Despite his unflagging advocacy for black rights, Grant never forgot the spirit of Appomattox and his desire for harmony between North and South

He continued his relationship with the onetime Confederate partisan John Singleton Mosby, the "Gray Ghost" who had mercilessly harassed his troops in northern Virginia … the two became fast friends during Grant's second term when Mosby turned into a frequent dinner guest at the White House.

… [In 1872] blacks voted Republican in the fairest election in southern states until 1968
 … President-elect Grant rose above the scandal, which predated his administration. But the involvement and the fact that the scandal unfolded on his watch have unfairly linked Grant's name in the history books with a scandal in which he lacked any association

 … He sounded charitable toward Native Americans, advocating "education and civilization" in place of war:  "Wars of extermination … are demoralizing and wicked.  Our superiority of strength, and advances of civilization, should make us lenient towards the Indian."

    35 A Butchery of Citizens 

 … No Southern state presented more insurmountable problems to Grant than Louisiana, which had become a hotbed of hatred and corruption.

 … the worst slaughter perpetrated against blacks during Reconstruction.  Staggered by this cold-blooded massacre, Grant told the Senate "a butchery of citizens was committed at Colfax, which in bloodthirstiness and barbarity is hardly surpassed by any acts of savage warfare."

The Colfax murderers thus walked off scot-free, sending a powerful message to white supremacists that they could slay blacks without any penalty. …   such unalloyed sadism

 … As Grant attempted to normalize federal relations with former Confederate states, he struggled with a newly emergent white supremacist groups, hydra-headed offshoots of the Klan with names such as the White League, "rifle clubs." Red Shirts, and Knights of the White Camelia.  They tiptoed around prosecution by claiming to be county militia.  Unlike the Klan, which was a secret paramilitary group 

 … The battle [in New Orleans] had witnessed an extraordinary event:  James Longstreet now fired on men he had commanded during the war, his small army having killed twenty-one White Leaguers

 … To Grant, it looked as if the country might be lurching toward a second Civil War

    Chapter 36  The Bravest Battle

 … Far from being transitory, the crisis was deep and intractable amd persisted for more than five brutal years.  It would be termed "the Great Depression" until eclipsed by the 1930s downturn

 … He also wanted to revive American shipbuilding, which had been badly damaged during the war.  

Grant expanded this vision by again endorsing a canal to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans and he had surveys conducted to locate the most feasible site.  Quite visionary about the pathway, Grant maintained that "it would add largely to the wealth of the Pacific coast, and, perhaps, change the whole current of the trade of the world."

 … the baffling subject of race relations … White Democrats had demonstrated that without protection of federal troops, they could resurrect the prewar power structure

 … One of Grant's saving graces was his ability to listen
 … Grant had refused to mince words about Democratic injustices in Louisiana
That Julia Grant, erstwhile southern belle, felt so outraged by Democratic misbehavior in Louisiana says something about the militant mood in the Grant household

The president was running out of room to maneuver as the country backed away from further federal interference in the South.  The outcry over Louisiana began to ring down the final curtain on Reconstruction.  Southern whites increasingly substituted the word "Redemption" — a restoration of white rule — for the hated term "Reconstruction"

 … Many saw the Louisiana violence as the opening shot of a second Civil War and a revitalized Confederacy, albeit clothed in a new form.  Discussing the mood in New Orleans, Sheridan told Orville Babcock, "I have so often heard expressions that the new rebellion was to be fought under the stars & stripes and in the north as well as the South — that the mistake made in 1861 was to have had their own flag."

 …One of the last hurrahs of Reconstruction was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, enacted by lame-duck Republicans. It outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations, schools, transportation, and juries.  The law had many flaws in its enforcement provisions, but was revolutionary in its principles of equal treatment for all        

MMMMMMM Here is one more piece of evidence that the true civil rights movement was not in the 1960s, as the left-leaning rewriters of history would have you believe, but a hundred years earlier.

 … Democratic governors never bothered to enforce it

    Chapter 37  Let No Guilty Man Escape

 … Governor Adelbert Ames of Mississippi … His darkly prophetic letter previewed the nearly century-long Jim Crow system that would cast blacks back into a state of involuntary servitude to southern whites

 … Ames saw the election as a referendum on race, pure and simple,  "In one phrase — hostility to the negro as a citizen.  The South cares for no other question.  Everything gives way to it.  They support or oppose men, advocate or denounce policies, flatter or murder, yet no such action will help them as far as possible to recover their old power over the negro."  He scoffed at Grant's hollow promise to send troops as "a sham and the election a fraud."  The election had mocked the U.S. Constitution and guaranteed a prolonged night of terror for freed people.  When a Senate committee investigated the elections, it decided it had been won "by the Democrats by a preconceived plan of riots and assassinations," in the words of Senator George Boutwell.

 … Grant's personal tragedy was simultaneously an American tragedy. Grant predicted to John Roy Lynch that the northern retreat from Reconstruction would lead to Democrats recapturing power in the South as well as "future mischief of a very serious nature … It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large measure lost … "

This wasn't a minor statement:  the victorious Union general of the Civil War was saying that terror tactics perpetrated by southern whites had nullified the outcome of the rebellion.  All those hundreds of thousands dead, the millions maimed and wounded, the mourning of widows and orphans — all that suffering, all that tumult, on some level, had been for naught.  Slavery had been abolished, but it had been replaced by a caste-ridden form of second-class citizenship for southern blacks, and that counted as a national shame.  

        Chapter 39  Redeemers 

 … "I met Mosby on my way to the President's", Hamilton Fish wrote, "and he told me that the language of the Democrats now was more desperate and more threatening and violent [during the election of 1876] than that of the Southern men on the Election of Lincoln in 1860"

 … With memories of the Civil War still fresh, another bloody clash was far from unthinkable

 … [Rutherford B] Hayes would bring an end to Reconstruction.  It was a pyrrhic victory for the Republicans, who sacrificed their ideals in exchange for perpetuating their rule 

 … Reconstruction was now officially dead and the Democratic Party in charge across the South. "Half of what Grant gained at Appomattox," said Wendell Phillips, "Hayes surrendered for us on the 5th of March" [1877].  Yet many Northerners cheered the change. 

 … Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant's presidency.  It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia.  The Klan's ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history 

 … Could even Abraham Lincoln have appeased the White South while simultaneously protecting its black population?  It seems unlikely.  Grant saw a double standard at work: the country tolerated terror by whites, but not by blacks. 

 … Once Reconstruction collapsed, it left southern blacks for eighty years at the mercy             of Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, poll taxes, literacy tests,  and other tactics             designed to segregate them from whites and deny them the vote.  Black sharecroppers         would be degraded to the level of debt-ridden serfs, bound to their former slave owners

 … Grant deserves an honored place in American history, second only to Lincoln, for what he did for the freed slaves.  He got the big issues right during the presidency, even as he bungled many of the small ones

 … In the words of Frederick Douglass, 
"That sturdy old Roman, Benjamin Butler, made the negro a contraband,  
Abraham Lincoln made him a freeman, and                          
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant made him a citizen." 

A 1930s MSM Myth About Clark Gable; + Mysteries You Never Asked Questions About Dept.: The History of the Undershirt

According to legend, when Clark Gable removed his shirt in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (the film that would relaunch the star's career and the first to win all five main Academy Awards at the Oscar ceremony), revealing no undershirt but a bare chest, it led to a precipitous fall in sales for the undershirt industry. Except for one thing: according to Cliff Aliperti, it seems to be another drama queen myth:

 … the legend has never been verified … The disappearance of the undershirt is never reported in the business columns, just on the entertainment pages. 

Now, here is one mystery you probably never asked a single question about: To the question of a reader who did do so, wondering "why the ribbed undershirt has become the ubiquitous garment of the moment" and asking Why Are So Many Men Wearing Tank Tops?, Vanessa Friedman proceeds to provide an answer in the New York Times regarding the garment's birth: 

a brief history of the undershirt is in order.

The “marcel undershirt,” as it was originally known, was born in the 1860s when French dockworkers decided to cut the sleeves off their sweaters for relief from the heat. Les Établissements Marcel, a knitwear company, took note and began selling ready-made versions of the style.

Those styles made their way into the American wardrobe in World War I, when U.S. troops in Europe encountered the tank top and realized its potential as a garment to wear under their wool uniforms, and it was officially adopted by the Navy. By World War II, it was a ubiquitous part of military garb.

While the Army was embracing the tank top, so too was the athletic world. Indeed, the “tank” part of tank top is a reference to early-20th-century swimming pools, which were called swimming tanks, and the tank top made its debut as part of the swimming costume of female athletes from Australia, Britain and Sweden in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

From there, the shirt made its way into the mainstream, imbued with associations of physicality, strength and a certain gritty reality. By the time Marlon Brando and James Dean were plastered all over the silver screen smoldering rebelliously in their white tanks, it had reached iconic status — and its cartoonish masculinity was ripe for subversion and appropriation. (That aspect of the tank top never went away. See Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” Hugh Jackman in “Wolverine” and Angelina Jolie in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.”) 

But not Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night.”

"Free Palestine" Is the Modern Era's "Heil Hitler"; It Means Nothing Less than the Eradication of the Jews

The massive anti-immigration demonstration in London was the subject of a BFMTV report on Saturday (video at hyperlink), full of race-baiting leftists and one or two guests on the right.

When Arié Alimi made the tired old comparison of the London demonstration, Tommy Robinson, and Nigel Farage's party to the Third Reich, Philippe Karsenty shot back (6:36-9:03, 13:05, 14:21), pointing out that if there were any Nazis in London that day, they were in the counter-demonstration. 

When the neutral (sic) TV host reacted in shock, protesting that acting to "Free Palestine" should not be considered radical, the spokesman for Le Comité Trump France shot back that they are not pro-Palestinian but pro-Jihadist, as evidenced by declarations and signs with the words "F•ck the Jews," "Nuke the Jews," and "We are going to rape your wives." He added that the slogan

"Free Palestine" is the modern era's "Heil Hitler." It means nothing less than the eradication of the Jews.

 
"Israel must give up Palestine, 
Palestine will be free! The Jews 
they're are going to get beheaded 
one by one, you dirty Jews!"

TV & Radio Debates in France: If China Felt Secure About an Attack on Taiwan, It Would Invade the Island While Trump Is Busy with the Iran War

"In America, the economy is doing well, it's the rest of the world that is suffering — especially China." Among the guests on BFMTV's Marschall Truchot (video at the link) on Thursday discussing Donald Trump's visit to Beijing and the war in the Middle East was Philippe Karsenty (1:03:51-1:14:34). 

While the other guests praised China, equating the dragon and Uncle Sam as the new equals, the spokesman for le Comité Trump France went on to say that 

If Xi really wanted to launch an attack on Taiwan, now would be the time to do it — while the US are, according to some, fully mobilized on Iran, this would be the moment to attack.

But Beijing is not doing that. As usual, as soon as Karsenty starts making sense, he is interrupted in a manner that the others are not…

A few days later, Karsenty was on Sud Radio to answer the question, Can Trump Really Win the War in Iran?

Donald Trump peut-il vraiment gagner la guerre en Iran ?

Sud Radio

May 15, 2026 Le Grand Matin Sud Radio

Avec Philippe Karsenty (porte-parole du Comité Trump France) et Louis Nadau (journaliste politique à Marianne)

| Marschall Truchot

Édition spéciale du 14 mai 2026

Revoir en intégralité l'émission "Marschall Truchot" du 14 mai 2026 présentée par Alain Marschall et Olivier Truchot sur BFMTV.

1h34min|2026|Diffusée le 14 mai 2026 à 17h00 sur BFM TV

Marschall Truchot, c'est le grand rendez-vous de la fin de journée sur BFM TV, diffusé du lundi au jeudi de 17h à 19h. Portée par le duo emblématique Alain Marshall et Olivier Truchot, l'émission propose deux heures de décryptage, d'échanges et d'analyses autour des grands faits politiques, économiques et sociétaux qui façonnent l'actualité. Un rendez-vous essentiel pour comprendre et anticiper les débats qui font bouger la société.

Don't Fall for the Left's Fake News on Leo XIV: The Pope Turns Out to Be Surprisingly Conservative

Apparently, it turns out that — thanks, as usual, to "the left’s psyops" — the current pope has gotten a bad rap from conservatives. Over at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt demonstrates this with a plethora of evidence showing that, contrary to Fake News, Leo XIV has been quite conservative. 

Keep in mind the man took the name Leo, our last strongly anti-communist pope before John Paul II and also that he has said this: “Communism has penetrated even Christian circles disguised as solidarity. It is our pastoral duty to expose it.” – Pope Leo XIV.

At According to Hoyt, Sarah has an even longer must-read article, We Need to Talk.

Imagine you’re a leftist in America, and you’ve miscalculated. Part of letting in Latins by the bucket full is that you knew — KNEW — all of them would vote for the left forever, and the more left the better. They also thought they had control of the Papacy by installing an old Argentinian leftist as Pope. Because the left absolutely believes Catholics will blindly do what the Pope tells them. (Frankly they also think Baptists and even Mormons — MORMONS! — will do so.)

Anyway, imagine their shock when Catholic immigrants (who by and large are actually against illegal immigration) were horrified by the left’s lurch into all gay, trans and sex sex sex all the time, not to mention insane feminist girl bossing, and … well, became more Catholic.

 … Was Axelrod’s visit to the Vatican part of the psyops? I can’t think of any other reason for that gutter-crawler to visit the Vatican. Did he actually have an audience with the Pope? I don’t know. The reporting on it was of that kind where it might be that. Or he might have seen the Pope’s third undersecretary. I don’t know. Either of them is possible. 

 … They’ve tried to scare Jews and Catholics. We were the low hanging fruit. I don’t know how they’re going after the other groups in the right, but I can promise you they are. There will be more of this.

To Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, conservative, and leftist readers alike, here is a suggestion: Read the whole thing. (Gratias ago diario interretiali Instapundit.)

Again, the message is: Don't let leftists, Catholics or others, try to give you lessons about religion (whether it's claiming that Jesus was/is a socialist or saying “If you are against the Pope you can’t be Catholic”) when it all turns out to belong to the Left's usual double standard department, as PJ Media's Chris Queen put it last weekend.

The left loves to trot out the term “Christian nationalism” every time a conservative talks about his or her Christian faith. Yet progressive churches and black congregations in particular have long made a habit of platforming Democrats during Sunday services — including politicians like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who aren’t [even] Christians. 

(There was another recent [PJ Media?] article on AOC's visit to Martin Luther King's church that made the same points — demonizing religion when it concerns subjects like abortion, praising it when it supports, or seems to support, the Democrats' talking points — but I have spent an hour looking for it, and I just can't find it…)

STOOO-pid: The Ds' VA redistricting gamble is the botch of botches, upturning the Ds' gloating and making them highly visible national losers

As Dan Crenshaw explains to the likes of Rahm Emmanuel and Bill Maher (who claim, respectively, that the nationwide gerrymandering mess "all started in Texas" and that "Republicans are winning the gerrymander war"), "Democrats have been winning this battle for a looong time."

On the contrary — to repeat a post written two days ago by Damian Bennett — the Lone Star State's gerrymandering has been in response to massive gerrymandering in Democratic states, notably Illinois, New York, and California, not to mention multiple states in New England, which turns out to be a political monoculture. "Republican voters make up 40% of New England. Democrats control the district lines."  (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah.)

In addition, as one recent meme puts it, "The Democrats welcomed 20 million illegals into America in order to change the census for voting"… And it's the Republicans who are accused of gerrymandering?!?! 

Isn't that evidence, MSM — whose members are always repeating Democrats' denials of election fraud being anything serious enough to warrant investigation — of some form of cheating in American elections?! 

The gerrymandering debate always skips one inconvenient fact: Democrats dominated the redistricting game for decades and created wildly disproportionate representation in plenty of states.

California sends only a handful of Republicans to Congress. Illinois has a massive… pic.twitter.com/Zweyiu1Cvt

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 12, 2026

Our old buddy Damian Bennett, who lives in Virginia himself, has much more to add today, the most serious of which (2nd sentence below) I haven't seen elsewhere, that "before Rs start farting in public, please note SCOVA nullified the April 21 Referendum by [only] a 4-3 ruling. That's how close the Ds came":

My previous [contribution] laid out the timeline of the Ds' pre-gloat, vote gloat, full gloat, then -- gloat to SCOVA goat. However, before Rs start farting in public, please note SCOVA nullified the April 21 Referendum by a 4-3 ruling. That's how close the Ds came.

In all of this I have not read ANYONE address the Ds' bizarre theory for VA redistricting. Please read again the Referendum ballot Q:

 

Q: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily [!?] adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness [!?] in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes [!?] for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?

Please note that this is NOT the actual amendment language, it is a purported distillation of a legislative referral.* As a matter of law, Qs are not enshrined into Constitutional law followed by a Yes. The amendment language itself never appeared on the ballot. Does the ballot Q accurately represent the actual amendment language, which can be found here? No.

* Virginia uses the "legislative referral" method of amending its Constitution. An amendment is introduced as a legislative resolution, [the exact same resolution in its original form] must be approved by legislators during two separate sessions, and then approved by a majority of Virginia voters at the next general election.

Let's break down the actual ballot Q:

1. A Constitution is bedrock law, the fundamental law of a polity. It evokes permanency. It is above the sand-shifting of legislating policy or the gamesmanship of politics. The idea of a Constitutional amendment solely for the purposes of an incidental political win is antithetical to the very idea of a Constitution based on principles, tradition and precedent, uncolored by partisanship.
2. A 'temporary' amendment to permanent law is contradictory, incompatible with and deleterious to stable governance.
3. The purposive language 'restore fairness' of the Referendum Q NEVER appears in the actual amendment, which reads: 
   
• The Commonwealth shall be reapportioned into electoral districts in accordance with this section and Section 6-A in the year 2021 and every ten years thereafter, except that the General Assembly shall be authorized to modify one or more congressional districts at any point following the adoption of a decennial reapportionment law, but prior to the next decennial census, in the event that any State of the United States of America conducts a redistricting of such state's congressional districts at any point following that state's adoption of a decennial reapportionment law for any purpose other than (i) the completion of the state's decennial redistricting in response to a federal census and reapportionment mandated by the Constitution of the United States and established in federal law or (ii) as ordered by any state or federal court to remedy an unlawful or unconstitutional district map.
  [This is conditional language. It does not explain, much less give, the purpose or intended effect of the amendment. Based on the amendment language, the Virginia General Assembly could "modify one or more congressional districts" following the recent CA gerrymander, which clearly contravenes the unspecified 'fairness' the Referndum Q refers to and the amendment is meant to achieve.]
  Any such decennial reapportionment law, or reapportionment law modifying one or more congressional districts, shall take effect immediately and not be subject to the limitations contained in Article IV, Section 13, of this Constitution.
4. The Referendum Q does not posit that VA elections are unfair. The 'fairness' the Referendum seeks to restore lies elsewhere, beyond the jurisdiction of the state and the interests of Virginians. How has it been construed that Virginians should forfeit their own fair Constitution-compliant electoral districts  so as to right 'unfair' redistricting in some other state? What other perceived wrongs elsewhere will Virginians next be called on to redress at the expense of peaceably abiding under established Commonwealth law? 
5. There is no guarantee that redistricting VA will produce the 'fairness' the Referendum Q posits to restore in 'the upcoming elections'. The point of this exercise is a specific result, scil. 'restore fairness' at the national level. The language of the Referendum suggests the amendment remedy (10D/1R) could remain in force until it achieves its purpose. 'Upcoming elections' means 2026 and 2028 or might also mean any future election cycle where the desired 'fairness' is seen in need of restoration (see next).
6. The Referendum Q provides no mechanism for "ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes". The purpose and actionable language of the Referendum Q is to 'restore fairness'. The wording of the Referendum Q certainly suggests that the ensured resumption of "Virginia's standard redistricting process" is contingent on the stated goal (scil. 'restore fairness') being met. However, the amendment language does provide a very specific operational window:
• The authorization in Article II, Section 6 authorizing the General Assembly to modify one or more congressional districts at any point following adoption of a decennial reapportionment law in the event that any State of the United States of America conducts a redistricting of such state's congressional districts at any point following that state's adoption of a decennial reapportionment law shall be limited to making such modifications between January 1, 2025, and October 31, 2030, in response to actions taken by another state between January 1, 2025, and October 31, 2030.
7. The Referendum's redistricting (10D/1R) WILL stay in place till at least 2030 and possibly beyond (viz. #4 supra) regardless of any developments on the national 'fairness' front (even were all red state redistrictings thrown out by their various courts). Given the purposive political theory of the ballot Q, there's no reason to believe the amendment window would not itself be revisited and subject to extension by amendment. 

The actual amendment is conditional and procedural with no stated purpose. This is important, because the ballot Q asks voters to vote on a specific purpose (i.e., 'restore fairness') something absent from the amendment. The April 21 vote was thrown out on procedural flaws. The 'purpose' has not yet been tested in court, but it is hard to imagine any state court ruling in favor of intramural redistricting over the sovereign representation of its own citizenry. [Pause.] Then again, 'money, guns, and lawyers' is the new DNC order of settlement.

Keep in mind that Virginia Ds had access to the 'best' legal minds and scholars, think tanks and consultants, internal polling, lots of loot, and the DNC Brainiacs when drafting their rape of the Commonwealth Constitution and framing the rape in the language of the ballot Q. And still they made a complete flustercuck of it. This speaks to competence in law and the obligations of law.

• Eric Daugherty On X May 8, 2026: Dems are now asking the VA Supreme Court to defer their mandate, pending SCOTUS ruling — which is very unlikely... Democrats are so panicked they didn't even spell "VIRGINIA" ["Virgnia"; also "Sentator"] correctly as they move to appeal to the literal US Supreme Court
• Virginia Democrat Plan Would Fire Entire Supreme Court Over Gerrymander Ruling May 11, 2026
  [HAHAHA! Shoot first, think later.]
• Virginia Dems Reject Insane Idea To Nuke State Supreme Court To Push Gerrymandered Map May 12, 2026
• Virginia Democrats Seek Supreme Court’s Intervention Over VA Supreme Court Gerrymander Ruling May 11, 2026
  [Wait. Oh NOOoooes!]
• Virginia Dem [Attorney General] Jay Jones Appeals To Wrong Court In Another Proofreading Debacle May 12, 2026
  After the Virginia Supreme Court rightly ruled that Democrats unconstitutionally pushed through one of the most egregiously gerrymandered congressional maps in U.S. history...Democrats promptly appealed [with] the very first page of their motion to delay misspelled “Virgnia” and “Sentator.” Virginia Attorney General Jay “Kill the Kids” Jones did manage to correct those misspellings in his latest appeal,* but he forgot to change his template to reflect his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, not the Supreme Court of Virginia.
      * Not so fast, see second bullet below.
• Eric Daugherty On X May 12, 2026: Virginia Democrats and AG Jay Jones appealed *TO THE WRONG COURT* while trying to get the Supreme Court to help reinstate their 10D-1R gerrymandered map... Filing with SCOTUS, Jay Jones wrote to "Supreme Court of Virginia"
• Matthew Clark Esq On X May 11, 2026: True to form, "Virgnia" and "Sentator" appear in all their glory on page 53a of @AGJayJones filing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Ds are twisting and writhing like a cut snake, biting everyone and anything in reach. SPOILER: Cut snakes eventually die.

• Hakeem Jeffries Declares War On Every Judiciary In The Country May 12, 2026
  Hakeem Jeffries: "We are going to have to explore massive judicial reform. State-by-state and at the federal level and everything should be on the table as far as I'm concerned."
  [Oh NOOoooes!]
• Congresswoman [Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA)] In Trouble For Agreeing Jeffries ‘Should Get Cotton-picking Hands Off Of Virginia’ May 12, 2026
• Democrat 'Superlawyer' Calls For Abolition Of Virginia Government May 13, 2026
  Elias, as with all the national Democrats, is absolutely gobsmacked that the scheme to subvert the Virginia Constitution in order to help the Democrats Gerrymander the state failed. Elias believes he is the cleverest man in the room, as apparently Hakeem Jeffries believed he was, and it never occurred to this snake of a man that the law would apply to Democrats.
• Dems Are Looking to Redistrict Delaware May 13, 2026
  [Delaware has ONE at-large CD seat. It is controlled by the Ds. Please, by all means pour some $MMMM of that sweet Soros cash into a kabuki redistricting. No, really, please do. Easy win. Make some headlines. Next, redistrict Connecticut. Go on. Do it.]

The Ds' VA redistricting gamble is the botch of botches. It is a disaster, not merely because it failed, but because it upturned the Ds' gloating and made them highly visible national losers. In March the smart money was predicting Hakeem Jeffries would be the next House speaker. Ds were +6 on the generic ballot (down from +18 earlier), only needing to win the House by a generalized 3 pts. 

After the VA fail and all the heated rhetoric, now the Ds are +3 (within MOE, toss-up territory) on the generic ballot. Had Hakeem not bragged on swinging his big dick and kept it in his pants big bat, well, with gas at $4.50/G, he could have coasted into November. But Hakeem is big king STOOO-pid in the kingdom of stooooo-PIDs.