by Paul J. Croce
Paul J. Croce is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Stetson University, author of Young William James Thinking
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), and recent past president of the William James Society. He writes for the Public Classroom and his recent essays have appeared in Civil American, History News Network, the Huffington Post, Origins, Public Seminar, and the Washington Post. The Lost Cause, Henry Mosler, 1868. Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina (Public Domain)
President Donald Trump has answered speculation about what he would do after his electoral defeat. His actions were his words of provocation. As pragmatist philosophers have pointed out, including William James, choices of words are important actions. Trump’s script is akin to the story of the southern Lost Cause after the Civil War, when the defeated Confederacy turned military loss into cultural victory, as historian Karen Cox has observed.