What is “compromise”?
April Ryan asked Sarah Sanders about the Civil War and “compromise” and slavery again yesterday, and it went as well as you’d expect.
Ryan initially asked what the White House thinks is the definition of compromise as it relates to slavery and the Civil War.
“Look, I’m not going to get in and relitigate the Civil War. Like I told you yesterday, I think I’ve addressed the concerns that a lot of people had and the questions that you had and I’m not going to relitigate history here.”
What are the chances that Sanders knows anything about it? Or knows anything about it other than the most reactionary Southern myths?
Ryan pressed again: “But my question was still lingering when you left, so I’m going to ask the question again,” she said. Sanders cut her off, telling her to not ask it in a way that “you’re apparently accusing me of being.”
Ryan asked, flat out, whether the President and administration believes slavery is wrong. Sanders rolled her eyes.
“And before you answer,” Ryan said. “Mary Frances Berry, historian, said in 1860 there was a compromise. The compromise was to have southern states keep slavery, but the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter that caused the Civil War and because of the Civil War, what happened, the North won—.”
Sanders cut her off.
“I think it’s disgusting and absurd to suggest that anyone inside of this building would support slavery,” she said, moving on to another reporter.
That’s how it’s done: a show of righteous indignation to disguise the fact that you have no idea how to argue the substance, then move on to something else.
Let’s face it, anyone who willingly works with the current administration has dubious morals. Taking a leaf from the Toddler’s playbook – if you can’t answer a question, claim that the questioner has made an appalling accusation. Typical narcissistic behaviour. Of course, they are so obtuse that they don’t realise that the accusation they choose is always an admission of guilt.
“Honey, did you get bread and milk on the way home?”
“Why are you always accusing me of being forgetful? That is so unfair!”
There’s also something very uncomfortable in watching a white woman tone police a black woman in the way Sanders did. April Ryan is a terrific journalist and there’s nothing especially aggressive about the way she asks her question that wouldn’t be entirely unremarkable from a white journalist. I thought nothing could be worse than the butt-clenchingly awful Sean Spicer but Sanders proves me more wrong every day.
Ryan’s ‘compromise’ seems more like capitulation to the Confederate slave-owning oligarchy.
Aside from everything else, all the more important points, I don’t see how the thing about “slavery wouldn’t be a problem if we compromised” works as a simple matter of logic.
It’s like being a little bit pregnant.
Humans are either free agents with rights or they’re chattel. If you allow people to be slightly owned (timeshares perhaps? rentals??) they can’t be free. A middle ground is impossible when the two states are mutually exclusive.
So all the crap about “compromise,” besides being unethical, immoral garbage also sounds beyond stupid.
It’s quite simple. You want to compromise on slavery? Great, you can be the slaves.