My dearest Sarah, wars are never civil and hardly a laughing matter, but that has not stopped many on Twitter from role-playing a Second Civil War fantasy, 155 years to the day since the Battle of Gettysburg. Pray for us.
A century and a half after more than 600,000 perished in a war between the Union and the Confederacy, Americans are once again talking civil war - on Twitter, that is. Using the hashtag #SecondCivilWarLetters, liberals and conservatives are living out their fantasies of triumphing over their political adversaries.
It all began Monday evening, when #Resistance activist Amanda Blount tweeted the following:
The post started an avalanche of “letters,” some trying to emulate the style of the famous “dear Sarah” letter by Sullivan Ballou, made famous by Ken Burns’ 1990 documentary series 'The Civil War,' and read to the tune of Ashokan Farewell.
By Tuesday afternoon there were almost 90,000 tweets with the hashtag, and many more without.The self-proclaimed Resistance to President Donald Trump’s Republican administration led the charge.
Some even name-dropped Resistance celebrities, such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, and CNN fixture Michael Avenatti, lawyer for adult actress Stormy Daniels:
Others, like the sworn anti-Trump Republican consultant Rick Wilson, chose to fantasize about a repeat of last August’s tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
It didn’t take long for Trump supporters to fire back, however.
Eventually, even Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) got into the spirit of things:
The twitter "war" was still going on, as of Tuesday afternoon.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!