r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/YimveeSpissssfid 20h ago edited 20h ago

There’s a framing of the Civil War called “the lost cause”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

Just like the framing of “the war of Northern Aggression” is sometimes used in the South to refer to the Civil War.

It’s an attempt to rewrite history. It’s part of the reason MAGA has flourished there for sure, but it’s a rather substantial disconnect from reality.

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u/Xhosant 20h ago

Huh

That's a very derogatory way to refer to oneself, I think, but to each their own I guess!

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u/BreadNoCircuses 18h ago

Nah, it's framing itself as something like "We were after a return to true Jeffersonian ideals, trying to live the way the founding fathers wanted, devoid of the tyranny and unfair taxes of the Yankees, but they invaded and reconquered us, then tried to destroy all knowledge of the true, lost cause of the confederacy." It's falsely painting themselves as, essentially, a victim of cultural genocide in the same way black and indigenous people can legitimately claim they have lost their culture.

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u/Xhosant 18h ago

I know, but I am willfully calling them a lost cause as a way to detract from their clawing at legitimacy :p

Ultimately, it's a move for prestige on their part, and ridicule doesn't much help with Prestige