A Phrase for Spewing American Lies
Lost Cause • (lôst-kôz)
Definition: An ethos of American ethnocide committed to perpetuating ethnocidal white supremacist narratives
Origin: The American South
Normally for The Word we focus on new words to enlighten your perspective and the intent of these words is to help us see and understand our own society better. The hope is that through these new words we will be able to also recognize problematic regressive language within our society, and the Lost Cause is one of many examples of this type of language in America.
Following the end of the Civil War, the Confederate sympathizers of the American South began working to both physically win back the South from Union control and change the narrative of the South. Former Confederates created racist militias, including the Ku Klux Klan, not to implement terror purely for the sake of terror, but to regain their political control. Voter intimidation and coup d’etats at the state level were key parts of the KKK’s agenda. This campaign was called “Redemption” because white Southerners aspired to “redeem” the South by returning it to a pre-Civil War Antebellum status quo and bring an end to the Reconstruction era. In modern parlance, they wanted to “Make the South Great Again.”
In addition to waging terror across the region, these Southerners engaged in a narrative war to repaint the South as a bastion of morality that nobly succumbed to defeat during the Civil War. Confederate losers such as General Robert E. Lee suddenly became brilliant military strategists who were deserving of monuments across the South. On the flip side, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was portrayed as an alcoholic, a subpar general, and a corrupt president. The South also convinced itself that the war was not about slavery, but state’s rights. This narrative agenda has continued from the 1860s to the present and is known as the Lost Cause, or the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
It is imperative that we understand the relevance of the Lost Cause because Donald Trump continues to manifest and proclaim its ideals, which ultimately spreads harmful ethnocidal culture.
The Lost Cause, Ethnocide, and Bad Faith
Bad Faith, or mauvaise foi, is foundational to ethnocide, and as Americans, we must be abundantly aware of this fact. Ethnocide and bad faith are interwoven because no one would willingly be in an ethnocidal situation if they knew that their culture was going to be destroyed and/or profited from. Ethnocide is rampant in this country, particularly towards people of color, and ethnocide most often starts with a bad faith relationship and a lie. The perpetrator of ethnocide either lies to whoever they’re interacting with, or lies to themself in order to make their actions seem justified and less harmful. When you lie to yourself enough times, you begin to believe in that new narrative, and slowly start to think that the lie you’re telling is actually the truth.
The Lost Cause is equivalent to a systemic bad faith that perpetuates ethnocide. The narrative is a lie and Americans are encouraged to believe these lies to be the truth so that we perpetually disseminate falsehoods in a vicious cycle. The longevity of the lie also distances us further and further from the truth. If since the 1870s the South has articulated that their motivations for launching the Civil War were due to “state’s rights” rather than slavery, then more Americans will be inclined to believe these lies because we are so far removed from the truth and have been repeatedly telling this narrative. When ethnocide is deeply embedded in our culture, we are all encouraged to develop a bad faith relationship with our own history.
The era of Redemption birthed the KKK, and the Lost Cause created clubs and organizations to support their agenda through propaganda. The Daughters of the Confederacy is an example as they have influenced history textbooks across America and their money has helped fund monuments to celebrate Confederates. Not only are we taught propaganda in schools, but we are inundated with it as we move throughout our society. For those who defend the Confederacy and perpetuate the narrative of the Lost Cause, they struggle to comprehend an existence where they are not disseminating or believing lies about the morality of the immoral South.
The Lost Cause & Donald Trump
Over the last week or so, I have been thinking about Donald Trump and the Lost Cause. Trump’s attempt to present himself as the true winner who was defeated by an illegitimate force, instead of someone who lost the election fair and square, is almost right out of the playbook of the Lost Cause.
For several years, I have written about how Trump’s campaign has been a modern-day manifestation of the Redeemers movement, with the slogan changed from “Make the South Great Again” to “Make America Great Again.” Trump’s rampant dissemination of lies shows that the Lost Cause is also essential to his agenda.
However, I do not believe that Trump and his supporters are students of history and are knowingly implementing Redeemer and Lost Cause ideals. Some certainly may be, but the bad faith narrative of the Lost Cause has long been socially accepted in American society. Trump merely needs to express the cultural lies that he has always believed to be true and it is definitely clear that he does not need to be a student of history to do that.
The most alarming aspect of the Lost Cause might actually be the name itself. “Lost Cause” implies the inevitability of defeat, but the Lost Cause exists solely to win regardless of whether they win or lose. Trump’s absurd legal challenges and blatantly illegal attempts to “win” an election he has already lost seem like lost causes. The lunacy of Trump’s statements is not any more absurd than arguing that the Civil War was about state’s rights and that Robert E. Lee was a noble general.
The language of the Lost Cause obfuscates its intent. Its name can make you believe that it is an agenda that cannot win or may have already lost. It is easy to hear the name and believe that the Lost Cause ended when the Confederacy lost the war. The Lost Cause, in fact, exists to ensure that the South never loses, and it is anything but a lost cause for those who spew its propaganda. For them it is their way of life, so we should all be concerned as Trump spreads Lost Cause falsehoods after losing the election.
An ethnocidal society exists to conceal its true intent, and those who embrace ethnocide live to obfuscate their intentions propagate falsehoods. In a society governed by ethnocide, Lost Cause was never intended to be a lost cause.
