Andrew Yang Gets Obliterated After Invoking Andrew Johnson to Call for National Unity: ‘Did John Wilkes Booth Write This Tweet?’

Kipp JonesApr 11th, 2022, 8:52 pm
 

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang was obliterated on Twitter after he cited the 1864 presidential election in an attempt to spark a conversation about national unity.

In a country divided by race, class, Covid, inflation, war in Europe, and Disney, Yang apparently set out Monday to end the discord.

Yang framed the unique 1864 presidential election — one conducted amid the country’s bloody, four-year Civil War — as a potential roadmap for political harmony.

“Lincoln won the presidency on the brand new Republican ticket in 1860 with 39.8% in a four-way race,” Yang wrote. “He took a Democrat, Andrew Johnson as his running mate in 1864.”

It is true that Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. But Johnson was chosen as Abraham Lincoln’s running mate at the 1864 GOP convention. He also owned slaves and was staunchly against allowing Black Americans to vote — even if he was against secession.

Johnson served a short tenure as vice president before Lincoln was assassinated and he finished out the remainder of the slain president’s term.

The country’s 17th president was impeached, but narrowly avoided a conviction in the Senate in 1868. He is also remembered for his extreme views on race during the early days of Reconstruction. Some blame Johnson for singlehandedly setting up a century of racial segregation.

Johnson famously wrote, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.”

With all this in mind, many who came across Yang’s tweet viewed it as an oversimplification of history. Many of them savaged to former presidential candidate.

Ellie Mystal asked if the tweet was written by John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Lincoln.

Jerry Dunleavy called Yang’s plea for a unified republic “the most succinct case against bipartisanship I’ve yet seen.”

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan asserted Yang’s views on the country’s complex history are rudimentary, at best.

The former New York City mayoral candidate was summarily shredded, so in a way, his tweet did work to unite:

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