Hinge Points Episode 3: Reconstructing Reconstruction

This is extremely lazy on my part, But do you think Chris could put all the hinge points into a collection, like he's done with hell presidents and some other series?

Kyle Petty

Honestly I think he probably doesn't talk about it because it's not in his area of expertise - it might be valuable for him to host an expert on the NA experience to put it into context but when you're doing a series about the flow of power in history, you will just end up only talking about the powerfu parties.

Robert Connor

Because despite the fact that you might take it for granted as a fact, this country has never officially recognized the genocide of the native people. Matt says a lot of things over and over and over again (Yeoman), he could spare a thought for the continent of people this country systematically exterminated.

BL

Genocide is bad? Why would you say something so controversial and yet so brave? What would be the point of them taking time out to say how bad it was every time they mention it?

Ligma

The Indian extermination campaigns started in California following the Gold Rush. In which failed miners formed private military companies to attack, murder, and steal from the local natives, many of whom were employed by ranchos. So the miner death squads specifically attacked and massacred Indian villages after pay day. Captured Indians were sold into slavery, which was totally legalized in labor-hungry CA for Indian slaves. As this continued native slaves taken were primarily women and girls sold into sexual slavery and brothels. The death squads were officialized, reimbursed, and funded by the state, and this evolved into the federal governments treatment of Indians. In the 1860’s gangs of confederates and union partisan took to gang warfare and banditry out in the “western frontier” and in California (which was essentially a semi-autonomous country). During this time, both the state and federal governments refused to allow any food going into the tiny reservation death camps they established causing mass starvation. The US federal was a eager pioneer in the industrialization of genocide. Actively Inoculating “tamed” reservation tribes with small pox and malaria. They pioneered eugenics by forcibly sterilizing and castrating Indian men and women. Syphilis, and all manner of venereal disease skyrocketed while birth rates plummeted to “extinction levels” As a result of the normalized mass rape of Indian women and girls. The scope and brutality of Indian massacres skyrocketed during and after the Years of the Civil War as the industrialized federal army turned its attention to the “Indian Wars” [which were not actually“wars”, but genocidal massacre campaigns by white settlers against American Indians]. They pursued a policy of total extermination. They Federal government acted both bystanders to and participants in genocide. Many American Indian tribes, especially in the southeast, were radicalized by the increasing brutality of the federal government in its Indian affairs, and actually allied with the confederacy to fight back. (Not that the CSA particularly cared about th Indians either though) And as a result of this, the federal government sought to “punish the Indians for their seditious nature” Tribes who’d never even heard of the Confederacy were targeted for punishment and extermination. When Talking about the racial reaction to the Civil War, PLEASE do not forget or overlook the role of the Frontier and the genocide against American Indians!

Mchiggin

Whenever you mention “free land” and and the diffusion of social tension through westward expansion and “land acquisition”, please STOP overlooking and glossing over the intensifying Native American genocide and enslavement in order to “free” that land. The state of California during this time, along with the other Western States were waging genocidal campaigns of total extermination, targeting Indian men, women, children, and infants in so-called “wars of extinction”. Funding private death squads. The amount of intensifying destruction and brutality our people were facing WAS NOT AN IRRELEVANT FOOTNOTE!

Mchiggin

Almost everything i can attest to being historically accurate, which made the narrative given a compelling one. Theres a few things i need to look into myself but from what i've read around the civil war this appeared very historically accurate. Its around the 40 minute mark I have to argue against the ending conclusion that under a different VP america would've taken a less racist trajectory. The animosity towards black people, even from the north, was due to the body count of the civil war. You see this in the rhetoric of future progressives like Oliver Wendel Holmes who was a key player in the Progressive Eugenics movement. They hated the cost of the civil war, how often it was the best men who died in conflicts and how little there was to show for it afterwards, given the industrial revolution (which you stated was european dominated but by the end of the civil war (around 1863) america had surpassed great britain's economy, and even before that america was flooding europe with produce from factory farms and killing the independent farming economy that Marx felt enabled his academic lifestyle) America became flooded with European immigrants fleeing the failing preindustrial economies of Europe for factory work. So Americans coming out of the civil war, having lost more people per capita than WWI and WWII combined, and now fighting for work with the largest flood of immigration in US history, and due to America being heavily reason based (no longer believing in the supernatural) started to look for Darwinistic rhetoric to put everyone who didnt suffer through the civil war as second class citizens. There's a much greater argument to be made about whether the civil war was even worth it than if it could've been salvaged at the end. Im also surprised you didnt mention the Confederates were the first to implement war-time socialism. They had to produce gunpowder (Augusta Powderworks). Or that Lincoln nationalized the railroads and telegraph lines to build more miles of both per capita than any other country in the world, which had a massive effect on the economic growth for years after and why standard oil became so huge. Once the war was over and lincoln reprivatized the railways, Standard Oil captured 98% of oil in the US by making backroom deals with railroad companies to only carry their oil. To the question you asked about "did the south have a chance od winning?" the answer is "no fucking way" Because the north had ALL the factories and the confederacy was staunchly against building factories, trying to maintain their agrarian quality of life without the degradation and misery that was associated with factories during that period. Remember that the factories started with hamilton and george washington who felt like they would lose another encounter with the british due to their lack of supplies if they didnt have factories. Americans finally got to use all their manufacturing might, just on american citizens. By the end of the civil war the north was fighting with repeating rifles and way more trains to mobilize troops, while the south still largely had front loading rifles. It wasnt even close. Books to read would be "Land of promise" by Michael Lind, "Imbeciles" by Adam Cohen, and a few around the civil war on audible but i dont recall the titles.

Ok content, great song tho

fuzz

I don't think that's true in any meaningful way.

greg n simmons

Love this new spin off. But "In any meaningful way" is way overused.

Causman

I want that theme on a 24-hour youtube loop because I like self-harm

JD

I think the answer to that is it's already well covered by the overly optimistic mainstream narrative of history.

etienne

Agreed, the theme is annoying af

it's okay, not every theme has to be good. Content is still exactly what i've come to appreciate from the Mad Prophet Matt Christmas

Ryan Lazarus

Ryan, u cry 1st

Chris

Wrong x2

Chris

Yeah, agreed that this one ranks pretty low in the chapo expanded universe's lexicon of themes.

waaaahhh

Ryan Lazarus

I'm curious if this series will discuss hinge points where the resulting trajectory could have been much much worse. Like what hinge points in history can we reflect on kind of "lucking out with"? I'm sure these counterfactuals are kind of harder to imagine that potential good timeliness. Otherwise I'm just imagining a much better "America" all day and getting all pissed lol

Jay

Wrong

Chris

I like the show but I also gotta say that I skip the theme every time :(

Ryan Lazarus

Great episode. I never knew Butler was nearly made Lincoln’s VP. A truly fascinating what if (he definitely would have been viewed with suspicion by the Republicans and what better way to allay suspicion then to lean into persecuting the secessionists everyone in the North despises.) Definitely would’ve brought a bloodier, more navy handed reconstruction but one which had a better chance of breaking the back of the “Redeemer” movement.

Isaac Suárez

pizza fails to become a commonplace fast food item in the US because it's smeared as a communistic affectation during McCarthyism

etienne

First off I wanna say, what a fantastic show this is shaping up to be. Hinge point recommendation: GLADIO fails to rig the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats and an independent communist republic is established in (northern) Italy.

James