At every opportunity possible, I like to draw comparisons between so-called modern-day America and our not-too-distant past, to jar people from the belief that atrocities committed back then can’t be repeated today.
As I tend to say, half-jokingly: The only thing differentiating today from the Civil War era is color photography. President Joe Biden’s speech Wednesday about the rise of right-wing, political violence helped paint that picture.
Biden was in his Ulysses S. Grant bag, and comparisons between the two presidents were stark.
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Grant was driven to denounce the post-Civil War terrorism in the South, led by violent ethno-nationalist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Biden’s speech on Wednesday warned of an increasingly violent conservative movement, as well, embodied by right-wing lawmakers and ethno-nationalist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
In fact, if you look at remarks from the two presidents side-by-side, it’s clear they’re essentially talking about the same danger.
Here’s Biden warning about election deniers and violent intimidators:
[N]ow extreme MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections, but elections being held now and into the future. The extreme MAGA element of the Republican Party, which is a minority of that party, as I said earlier, but it’s its driving force. It’s trying to succeed where they failed in 2020, to suppress the right of voters and subvert the electoral system itself. That means denying your right to vote and deciding whether your vote even counts. Instead of waiting until an election is over, they’re starting well before it. They’re starting now. They’ve emboldened violence and intimidation of voters and election officials. It’s estimated that there are more than 300 election deniers on the ballot all across America this year. We can’t ignore the impact this is having on our country. It’s damaging, it’s corrosive and it’s destructive.
To me, Biden’s longing for peace mixed with his warning of chaos mirrored Grant’s 1871 proclamation about rising violence carried out by the KKK and other fascist forces in the South after the Civil War.
Here, for example, Grant basically puts people on notice about violent intimidation. And he tells the people responsible to stop:








