JUNETEENTH, DEMOCRATS, AND THE FINE ART OF HISTORICAL AMNESIA

TWO WRONGS NEVER MAKE A RIGHT

As told by Yours Truly, a Ghost with a Pen and a Grudge

Now that Juneteenth’s been promoted from a regional barbecue into a federal holiday with all the pomp and circumstance of a government-mandated guilt trip, it seems a fine time to take a stroll down Memory Lane. Only this particular lane, mind you, winds through some swampland the modern Democratic Party would rather pave over, plant with rose bushes, and label “Progress.” But I say let’s leave the thorns visible.

Even Jesus, in the Bible, called out people such as these, all dressed up on the outside but full of death on the inside. “Whitewashed tombs,” he called them. Nothing has really changed 2,000 years later.

Robert Byrd, KKK grandmaster and Democrat Senator

You see, while today’s Democratic grandees are busy handing out moral instruction manuals and reparations pamphlets like candy at a Baptist picnic, it bears remembering who ran the plantation in the first place.

Democrats and Slavery: The Original Franchise Model

In the 1800s, if you were white, rich, and determined to own another human being, chances were good your party affiliation rhymed with “hypocrisy” and started with a capital D. The Democratic Party, particularly the Southern variety, wasn’t just complicit in slavery—it was the architect, the contractor, and the realtor all rolled into one.

When the War Between the States broke out, it wasn’t because someone misplaced a cotton gin. It was because the Democrats of Dixie, high on sassafras and secession, thought the Constitution was a buffet: take what you like, ignore the rest, and never tip the Union. After they lost the war (and their free labor), they didn’t hang up their boots and repent; they dusted off their Bibles, rewrote a few verses, and invented a brand new theology: Jim Crow.

The Jim Crow Choir: Singing Segregation in Four-Part Disharmony

The war may’ve ended, but the South’s Democrats didn’t. They simply changed the uniform, traded gray coats for white hoods, and kept marching. Black folks were now “free,” but only in the same way a bird is “free” when you clip its wings and throw it in a cage marked “colored only.”

Their method was elegant in its cruelty: pass laws, burn schools, rig elections, and when all else failed, form a lynch mob. And these were the moderates. The Democratic Party’s Southern delegation made the KKK look like the local Rotary Club, except the Klansmen wore fewer suits.

It’s worth noting that for nearly a century after Appomattox, the South remained a one-party system, and that party was as blue as the bruises on a voter trying to get to a polling booth.

Senator Byrd and the Klan: A Career in Contradiction

Fast forward a hundred years. Meet Robert Byrd, West Virginia’s finest contradiction. Started off organizing Klan rallies and ended up organizing Senate budgets. A long and fruitful career, with just one minor blemish: leading a terrorist group that wore bedsheets and burned crosses.

But forgiveness, like hypocrisy, is bipartisan. Byrd repented, they say, which is Washington-speak for "he lived long enough to outgrow his scandal." Hillary Clinton, whose moral compass can find true north only when polling data agrees, called him her “mentor.” And that, dear reader, tells you all you need to know about modern Democratic memory: it’s selective, sentimental, and shorter than a goldfish on morphine.

Reparations: The Check Is in the Mail, 160 Years Late

Today, the same party that spent a century keeping Black Americans down is now promising to lift them up, just as soon as Congress can figure out how to print a few trillion more dollars without tanking the economy or admitting fault.

Yes, reparations are the new moral crusade. Trillions in taxpayer funds, redistributed to atone for slavery, segregation, and “systemic oppression.” And who’s leading the charge? Why, the Democratic Party, the very institution that created most of that oppression in the first place.

That’s like the arsonist applying for a job at the fire department, promising to “do better,” and demanding a pension for the trouble.

Juneteenth and the Politics of Division: Smoke, Mirrors, and Guilt Trips

Juneteenth was once a day of quiet reflection, honoring the moment the word of freedom finally reached Galveston, Texas. But nowadays, it’s being rebranded faster than a box of Lucky Charms after a food allergy scandal.

Instead of unity, we get guilt. Instead of shared progress, we get public penance. And instead of Dr. King’s dream of character over color, we get policy proposals that boil human dignity down to dollar signs.

King preached reconciliation. Juneteenth, in its current political usage, is starting to resemble a velvet-gloved cudgel—used not to inspire, but to accuse. It’s less “Let freedom ring” and more “Who’s ready to Venmo for grandma’s bondage?”

Memory or Movement: What Are We Building, Really?

Now, don’t mistake me. A nation that forgets its past is bound to repeat it, but one that obsesses over it, rewrites it, and weaponizes it is bound to tear itself apart before breakfast.

The Democratic Party likes to pretend it woke up sometime in the 1960s, suddenly saintly, and absolved of all sins prior to that. But history don’t work like that. You can’t whitewash a past that’s already red with blood and gray with sorrow.

So the question stands: is Juneteenth a memorial or a movement? Is it about honoring sacrifice or settling scores?

Because if it’s the former, I’ll tip my hat and join the parade. But if it’s the latter, if it’s a tool to pit neighbor against neighbor and drag ghosts into the voting booth, then I’ll tiptoe quietly past, lest the skeletons start campaigning.

Final Thought: A Day Worth Keeping, a Lesson Worth Learning

Let Juneteenth stand not as a symbol of division but as a reminder that freedom is never free, and history is a merciless teacher. And let’s remember which party tore the fabric of this nation to preserve slavery, and which one stitched it back together, at great cost, with blood, not slogans.

If we’re going to hand out reparations, let’s start with the truth. And maybe just, maybe we’ll repair something worth keeping.