The white Southerner felt like a stranger in his own country. The US government had been taken over by people who were hostile to his values. His treatment of the African-American population had become a volatile political issue. His religion, rural culture, and martial values were becoming swamped in a land that was increasingly dominated by immigrants, factories, and large northern cities.
Is this the US after 1860, or after 2008? You decide.
One thing is certain: battles that are ostensibly about the past are really about the present.