Open Thread Thursday: Does the Civil War Era Loom Too Large in Our National Discourse?

The Civil War era looms large in our national discourse, often times to the point that is unhelpful. If the war and Reconstruction had taken a different turn, the argument goes, we wouldn’t have many of the problems we face today. The problem is that tracing the cause of our current societal ills to the Civil War era ignores everything that happened since. It collapses the present into a distant past.

I couldn’t help but think about this as I read a synopsis of a new study that attempts to argue that Americans living in former Confederate states are more likely to support violent protest against the government.