Story highlights Jill Filipovic: Kelly's remarks about Civil War and compromise were terrifying revisionist history; a window into Trump White House

Filipovic: War was about slavery, about which there's no compromise. Kelly is churning up debate on this ugly fault line in US

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and Nairobi, Kenya, and the author of the book "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Was the American Civil War caused by seditious traitors who decided the hill they would die on was the one defending the racist enslavement of human beings, or was it that a simple inability to compromise led an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state? According to White House chief of staff John Kelly, it's the latter.

Jill Filipovic

What terrifying revisionism -- and what a window into the Trump administration and the conservative ideology undergirding it.

"I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man," Kelly told Laura Ingraham , a conservative radio and television host, on her show last night. "He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it's different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand."

That last bit of his argument is familiar to anyone who has ever been sucked into a debate about, say, how in the heck anyone could have believed an admitted sexual predator with no political experience but a long history of racism and sexism would make a great president, or whether black lives matter enough that police officers should be held accountable for shooting unarmed African-Americans, or whether the government should be able to legally deny women the right to decide what happens in our own uteruses.

JUST WATCHED Chalian: John Kelly sounds 'Trumpian' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Chalian: John Kelly sounds 'Trumpian' 01:07

"Men and women of good faith on both sides" can agree to disagree, the argument often goes; better to understand each other and to compromise than to judge as right or wrong little things like basic human rights.

Read More