President Trump made it clear on Wednesday that while he’s in the White House, U.S. military bases named for Civil War Confederate generals and leaders will stay that way.
In a Twitter post littered with his characteristic capital letters, Trump said he and his administration “will not even consider” renaming 10 major bases:
“It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc.,” the president tweeted.
“These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.”
This comes just two days after the Pentagon said that Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy were “open” to renaming the bases.
“The about-face came amid nationwide protests over police violence and racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd,” the unarmed black man who died late last month while in police custody in Minneapolis, notes The Hill.
An anti-Trump Republican group, the Lincoln Project, labeled Trump “the second Confederate President”:
The Army has been pressured to rename the bases, reports The Hill, by activists “arguing it is not appropriate to honor those who took up arms against the United States and fought to preserve slavery.”
Among those advocates is retired Gen. David Patraeus, who wrote recently in The Atlantic that Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg and the others “committed treason” against the United States and the Army “should not brook any celebration of those who betrayed their country.”
In just the past week, the Navy and the Marine Corps banned public display of the Confederate battle flag.
A spokesman for Admiral Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said the order “is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navy’s core values of honor, courage and commitment,” says Axios.
Several states and cities have also taken steps to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other symbols from public spaces — something else Trump opposes.
In announcing his refusal to rename bases honoring men who fought to preserve slavery, Trump is ignoring an important fact: the military’s makeup is changing.
“Racial and ethnic minorities made up 43% of active-duty forces as of 2017, an increase from 25% in 1990,” reports Bloomberg News, citing data from the Pew Research Center.
The Civil War was by far the costliest in the nation’s history, with more than two million casualties, including hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed or maimed during battle or dying of war-related disease.
