Donald Trump has deranged rally meltdown about Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant
Donald Trump needs his Republican Party to retain control of the House and Senate next month in order to prevent his numerous criminal scandals from quickly being exposed by congressional committee investigations. Accordingly, Trump is spending significant time on the campaign trail right now. The trouble: as his addled brain continues to unravel under the pressure, he doesn’t have the slightest connection to reality – or the slightest clue what he’s even saying.
On Friday night, Donald Trump held a rally in Ohio, which was ostensibly aimed at helping Republican candidate for Governor Mike DeWine, who is struggling against rising Democratic candidate Richard Cordray. But for some reason, Trump seemed to think that the best way to connect with Ohio voters was to go on a semi-coherent rant about Ulysses Grant, who grew up in the state, and his Civil War rival, Robert E. Lee. It was even worse than one might have expected.
“Robert E. Lee was a great General, and Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia, couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee,” Donald Trump began his bizarre rant. Somewhere in there, Trump said this about Ulysses Grant: “He had a serious problem. A serious drinking problem. But man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general.” To be clear, there has been no recent discernible change in Grant’s reputation.
Here’s what is clear: Robert E. Lee committed treason against the United States by leading a violent revolt against the United States military, and the goal of this treason was to keep slavery intact. No amount of Civil War revisionism can change these facts. General Lee was a traitor, and he fought on behalf of white supremacy. Trump’s every utterance is steeped in racism, so it’s not surprising that he used the fact that Grant was born in Ohio to heap praise on Lee. Not that any of this helps the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio, but really, Trump is past the point of being coherent about any of this.
