Deadly compromise

One of the most disturbing truths about U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is its ability to defend the indefensible, to blur the lines between right and wrong, or to pretend there is no line.

Just weeks after Trump claimed that there were good, decent people among white supremacists in Virginia, his chief of staff doubled-down on that sentiment during an interview on the Fox News Channel.

John Kelly said: “The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

Good people did fight for both the Union and Confederacy, but there were not two equal sides of the Civil War. One side, the South, fought for its “right” to forever keep black people in chains and to treat them like pets, mules or sex slaves and to beat or maim them to keep them in line while declaring that white people were superior and always needed to be recognized as such.

For the other side, the North, the war eventually became a fight to end slavery, but only after attempts to compromise — which would have meant preserving slavery in much of the U.S. and possibly expanding it — failed.

The Founding Fathers compromised during the founding of the country — which meant accepting slavery.

Slavery in the U.S. was all about compromise — a compromise of the country’s stated ideals and principles, a compromise that meant black people suffered for decades while so-called moderates tried to find the right mix of slavery and non-slavery that could keep enough white Americans satisfied.

Kelly, the four-star Marine general, surely knows American military history well enough to understand that sometimes compromise is deadly, not desirable. Obviously, he has compromised his good name too much.

Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer