My whatever great Grandfather, Robert Elza, fought on the Union side in the Civil War. He was captured at the first battle of Bull Run and spent the rest of the war in a Confederate prisoner of war camp in Arkansas. 

He was on the Sultana when it was blown up. (The Sultana was a boat carrying Union prisoners to New Orleans after the war was over. The sinking of the ship is considered the South’s last gasp of the war.) Approximately 360,000 Union soldiers died in that war to protect the Union and to free the slaves.

Nearly 265,000 Confederate soldiers died to protect the states’ right to dissolve the Union and continue slavery.

My father died in World War II. I was 9 months old when he died so I don’t really know him, but by all accounts he was a nice guy who loved my mother and brother and me very much. Approximately 291,000-plus soldiers died in that war to defend the U.S. from aggression and to free the world of the consequences of Nazi anti-Semitic ideology.

Almost four million Germans died for Hitler, the expansion of Germany and the Aryan race.

Wars are fought for many reasons. Southerners went to war as much for the principle of “nobody’s going to tell me what to do” as for the principle of states’ rights. Americans in WWII fought from a deep sense of duty, a sense that we could be next if Germany wasn’t stopped now.

The reasons individuals fight are complex and varied. Yet in each war there was a moment when each person decided that this is something he is willing to kill another human being for and to die for himself. In today’s world, that pronoun is gender neutral.

I am absolutely astounded at the number of people who are willing to kill another person and to die for Donald J. Trump. A CNN poll estimates that 75% of Republicans believe the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election and Biden somehow stole it from him. 

One-third of that 75% has expressed a willingness to kill their neighbors, American soldiers, other religious groups and to die themselves in order to return Trump to power. That’s around 27% of Republicans who are willing to go to war on the principle that American elections are corrupt and purity must be restored.

Do you know there are people in the United States who believe that Donald Trump is the Chosen One? That’s chosen with a capital C. Chosen by God to restore white, male, Christian rule to the country. 

He’s here in response to prophecy, but my King James version of the Bible gives only two prophecies: the coming of Jesus and the false prophet of the Book of Daniel at the End of Days. Nonetheless, there are people who believe that Trump has been chosen by God to cleanse the country of evil doers. That’s in addition to those QAnon nuts that believe the Democrats are blood drinking, baby killers.

The next civil war is supposed to occur after the ninja audits in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, pick a state. Or when Trump loses in 2024. People are talking about this seriously, soberly, like this could probably happen.

I don’t know if the Trumpers will attack state governments or the national capitol again. I don’t know if civil war will break out. I don’t know if I could actually bring myself to kill another person but I do know what I am willing to die for.

We have fought this war before. The South’s refusal to accept Lincoln’s election led to the Civil War; Hitler’s Big Lie led to WWII. I know where I stand. I stand with the Union. I stand with the United States.

I don’t want to stand at all. Shouldn’t somebody be doing something so we can all sit the next war out?

 

Dr. Jane Elza, Ph.D., retired, is a resident of Valdosta.