I think entrenchment is a description of both sides, has neither I really willing to budge. I think the critical I think the critical criteria is how much you have to deal with it at all. Is it an interesting conversation that you can have once in awhile, or something that gets inserted into every conversation.

I think the civil war is interesting and nuanced topic to interrogate once in awhile, and can usually find some points of agreement with most people.

The legal, moral, and philosophical questions around it are fascinating. For example, how do you reconcile people's right to self-determination with a desire to carry out abhorrent actions. Historically speaking, the civil war and failures of reconstruction are probably the single most defining aspect of modern American political life.

> learned there are still plenty of people that were unhappy the south lost the civil war and want to remedy that

Did you peel that back to the next layer? Did they want to reintroduce slavery? Or did they want independence from a distant government?

I knew folks in the South who thought some of the craziest racist things and probably would've been OK with slavery (I did hear them promote segregation).

At the same time, the vast majority folks I knew who defended the Civil War or wanted secession didn't want slavery or segregation, but local (and often less) government. Did they misunderstand the role of slavery in the Southern secession? Usually. Does that change their _current intent_? No.

The latter group (which was much larger) should be engaged with on the issue of local government and secession, especially in the context of folks in Blue States who've been rattling about secession under Trump.