Well, you say, war is hell—don’t go looking for saints on the battlefield. The salient question isn’t who were the good guys, but which side would you join in the fight. Sadly, though, a large Democrat-Republican gap is found here as well. Sixty-one percent of Democrats would fight for the North, compared to 43 percent of Republicans. Fifty percent of Trump voters would fight for the North, which is a bit better, but that means half wouldn’t.
There were some good guys, actually—genuine heroes—in the Civil War. One of them was Lincoln, who died for the Union. I’m pleased to report that Lincoln still commands high favorables in the GOP (87 percent) and among Trump voters (86 percent). That’s higher even than Lincoln’s favorables among Democrats (82 percent) and about the same as Lincoln’s favorables among Biden voters (86 percent). I still contend, however, that once Lincoln’s 2024 Republican primary rivals reminded voters of the second inaugural, he wouldn’t last much longer than Mike Pence.
Haley was previously known for her courageous stand as South Carolina governor when she removed the Confederate flag from in front of the state house—albeit a courage acquired only after a white supremacist perpetrated a horrific mass shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston. She is courageous no more. Haley said Wednesday that the Civil War was about “capitalism” and “economic freedom” and “freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.” That made her sound like she was talking about the freedom of Southern enslavers. After all, the enslaved didn’t have any capital or economic freedom to defend, and their oppressor wasn’t the federal government but private plantation owners.