We’ve only just passed the halfway mark in 2020. Here’s a few highlights of the year thus far:
- An accelerating COVID-19 pandemic coupled with idiots who won’t take basic precautions to help slow it down.
- An economy on the brink of disaster coupled with an overvalued stock market artificially supported by Congressional and Federal Reserve actions which will eventually make the economic issues much worse.
- An overdue national recognition of institutional police discrimination and violence coupled with racial unrest on a scale not seen since the 1960s.
- Upcoming elections in the midst of the pandemic coupled with politicians who aren’t interested in efforts to let people safely exercise their right to vote.
- Numerous intelligence reports of Russian bounties on the lives of American soldiers coupled with an Administration that is uninterested in pursuing those reports.
Of course, there were no shortage of pre-2020 national issues (a deteriorating infrastructure, a healthcare system in political flux, etc.) and global issues (world hunger, climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, North Korea, etc.). No one may be paying attention to these issues, but they didn’t go away… and they’re likely exacerbated by the pandemic.
Oh, and by the way… we just started the 2020 hurricane season. The NOAA is predicting that 3-6 major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher) will hit the United States by the end of November.
Dandy.
What we need is a leader who can prioritize the myriad issues facing our country, set solid plans in motion to address them, and convince us that we can get through this together as a nation.
Yeah. We don’t have that.
In an Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore, our President turned a traditionally patriotic and unifying moment into a partisan rally at the taxpayers’ expense. Rather than focus on any number of issues contributing to our nation’s current quagmire, Trump announced that he will put the full weight of his Administration behind a militaristic defense of … monuments.
Trump declared that a “left-wing cultural revolution” was designed to “wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.” Wow. Apparently, the greatest danger facing our nation today involves statues. Who knew? But fear not. Trump intends to protect said statues through the aggressive use of law enforcement.
Damn, dude. Read the room.
Of course, Trump’s attention to the matter has zero correlation to his actual interest in the preservation of our nation’s history. It’s laughable to imagine Trump actually reading a history book. His tactic is simply a lame attempt at misdirection. Since he has neither the desire nor the ability to solve any issue that actually matters, he manufactured a problem that he can address with an iron fist. As an added bonus, the issue is a dog whistle to the racial bigots within his base of support.
Never ones to understand nuance, Trump and his supporters have missed important aspects of the movement to re-examine some of our nation’s history and how we choose to honor it.
While Americans have numerous reasons for national pride, our historical record is not without serious blemishes – including our history of slavery. Our country’s founders certainly had their flaws and, indeed, some of them were slave owners. However, that fact alone does not necessarily disqualify them from being honored with memorials. The accompanying historical record should always capture both the good and the bad, but a person’s overall positive contributions to the American story must be considered when we choose who we honor. Few would argue that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson – both one-time slave owners – are not deserving of their places on the National Mall.
To be sure, there have been isolated incidents where national monuments, constructed to honor true national heroes, have been vandalized. While some of these acts of vandalism have been conducted under the guise of the current racial protests, that is no excuse. The perpetrators are criminals and should be treated as such by the proper authorities. Such action does not require the attention of the President of the United States.
However, there is an entirely separate and overdue discussion to be had with respect to various honors bestowed on leaders of the Confederacy. While I still contend that we should currently be laser-focused on issues related to our survival, if we must discuss Civil War monuments now, let’s get it right.
Allow me to first state that I spent most of my childhood in Georgia, Virginia, and Texas and most of my adult life in Texas. If someone wants to talk about indoctrination, I’d like to refer them to my seventh grade history teacher who drew a straight and glorious line between the defenders of the Alamo and Confederate rebels. In short, I am well aware of the passionate Southern pride often associated with the Confederacy and that disagreements aren’t welcome. So be it.
While recognizing that the history of the Civil War is complex, these facts are simple:
- The Confederate states seceded from the United States, disavowing allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
- The Confederate flag was an explicit replacement of the American flag.
- The Confederacy’s prime motivation was to protect the institution of slavery and the economic system that slavery allowed.
- The Confederacy went to war against the United States.
- The Confederate Army killed approximately 400,000 soldiers fighting under the American flag.
- The Confederacy lost.
The unvarnished truth from this moment in American history should certainly be preserved as part of our national story. While the Confederacy does not need to be demonized, it also does not deserve to be canonized. The Confederate flag flew over an army, led by Confederate generals, that fought against the United States of America. There is no sane reason for the country that defeated them to honor them.
It is very important to note that the vast majority of Confederate monuments were built in the South during the eras of Jim Crow laws and the Civil Rights movement. They were not merely honoring leaders of an insurrection. These were state-sponsored middle-fingers to the African-American community that were quite literally cast in stone. They were intentionally designed to serve as constant reminders that the war may have been lost but that white supremacy remained.
The parallel fact that we have U.S. military bases named after Confederate generals is even more egregious.
Most U.S. military installations are named after military heroes and the name selection has often been granted as a local choice. As such, there are currently ten U.S. Army bases named after Confederate Generals who fought against the United States Army.
The largest military base in the world, Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, is named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Bragg won the Battle of Chickamaug, a significant Confederate victory that resulted in the deaths of about 1700 American soldiers. Ft. Hood in Texas, a premier Army training facility, is named after Confederate General John Bell Hood. Hood’s failed aggressiveness against Union forces actually got him demoted. And, of course, there’s Ft. Lee in Virginia – an Army support command named after the Commander of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee.
While the Pentagon and Congress have agreed to consider renaming these bases, our President has threatened to veto a bipartisan $740 billion defense bill to preserve the Confederate names.
We’re better than this.
As we contemplate a precarious second half of 2020, we need to learn from the mistakes of both our distant and recent past. We do not need to honor these mistakes; we need to correct them. And we’ll have an opportunity to do so on November 3.
