Former President Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy. Whether it’s a speech or a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump is known to say things that put him in the crosshairs of many other Americans.
Recently, at a campaign stop in Iowa, Donald Trump said that the American Civil War could have been “negotiated.” Civil rights groups and historians immediately criticized the former president for his comment.
Three years after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Trump described the Civil War as “fascinating” and “horrible.” “So many mistakes were made,” Trump said. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died.” “Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was,” he added.
Trump’s remarks come on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Also, a few weeks ago, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley didn’t mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a town hall. Trump criticized Haley’s remarks at another rally in Iowa, saying, “I’d say slavery is sort of the obvious answer.”
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However, Trump’s statement that the war could have been negotiated sparked immediate backlash. The executive director of the Mississippi NAACP, Charles V. Taylor Jr., told USA TODAY that “there is no negotiation with slavery.”
“Civil rights, human rights should never be negotiable,” Taylor Jr. said. “When Trump says things that are racially charged, and he says things that are polarizing when he says things that are obviously offensive… what he says is just so egregious, but he is absolutely talking to a specific group of people and alienating another.”
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Furthermore, the president of People For the American Way, Svante Myrick, told USA TODAY that Trump’s comment was a “glaring ignorance of American history.” “By the time the Civil War broke out, there had been literally hundreds of years of negotiations around how, when, and where to end slavery, and the southern states that seceded are what triggered the Civil War,” Myrick said. “And it seems like President Trump was implying that some sort of failure of diplomacy on behalf of Abraham Lincoln is what caused the Civil War.”
According to Myrick, Trump’s comments would be more appreciated by Confederate sympathizers and white supremacists. He added that Trump could be promoting divisions across America. Also, La Tosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, agreed with Myrick. She said that Trump’s comments tried to downplay the severity of the enslavement of Black people in America.
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“We know the history of the South. We know that part of the elements of the South was centered around the institution of slavery and in maintaining that people of color would be in a permanent social status,” said Brown, accusing Trump of speaking “to those that still feel like their only advantage is white supremacy.”
“He’s getting more desperate and because he’s more desperate, I think he’s getting more bold,” said Brown. “He uses lies, he uses fear. He uses this insane concept of white superiority. He uses all of those things as a toolkit in his arsenal.”
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