Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[benji]

Notably, the bolded text in Nepethe’s post is—without exaggeration—the argument that modern era Lost Cause-ers and Confederate apologists use to describe the conditions prior to the Civil War. Basically they use this argument to undercut the Union’s role in ending slavery, and whitewash southern accountability (i.e. “everyone knew slavery was a dying institution anyway, it was never about that” )

Not just modern era, that was an argument from the Confederate veterans and first generation of Southern historians. Nepenthe joins the latter group in a lot of their opinions about how race works, namely that whites and Blacks simply cannot exist in the same society and culture.

The slavery dying part is accurate but it overlooks how wedded the South was to not changing anything. They definitely would have banned AI so as to not take any jobs away from slaves.

The real problem for the South, and the entire reason the Civil War happens when it does, is because they were becoming a permanent minority. Lincoln winning without winning any slave state or the border states made that starkly clear. Her analysis of "material conditions" and systemic forces seems to completely overlook that and how it changed everything that an anti-slavery third party could win both the Presidency and Congress. Like I said above she's working backwards from her conclusion that Lincoln winning didn't matter because she needs elections to never matter.