As the United States confronts persisting racism once again, the US army appeared “open” to rechristening bases named after generals of the Confederate Army that had fought the Lincoln-led Union to save slavery and continue white supremacy. President Donald Trump ruled it on Wednesday.
Calling these bases “Monumental and really Powerful” Trump wrote in some tweets, these “Bases are increasingly becoming element of an awesome American Heritage, and a medical history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.” These posts were distributed in the form of statement from your President from the daily White House news briefing, replete with grammatically misplaced capitalisation.
Trump, who may be anything but a history buff, added: “Our history as the Greatest Nation across the world will not be tampered with. Respect our Military! ”
But it’s his military and officials appointed by him – Defence Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the chiefs of staff Mark Milley – who had been reported to be “open” to having a bipartisan discussion about renaming theses bases, as recommended by the civilian official heading the army, according to multiple US media reports.
Now they can’t, de-activate by Trump.
Names of those army bases, statutes of confederate generals besides other reminders of America’s repugnant past whenwomen and men, and kids could possibly be owned, bought and sold, were among top demands on the National Association with the Progress of Colored People (NAACP), the highest organisation representing African Americans.
Trump’s spirited defence within the base names came ironically for a day when NASCAR, a car racing company whose races can be extremely popular with Trump’s political base, outlawed the display of your confederate flag at its events.
NASCAR announced the ban just before the start of a race in Virginia in which the competition’s sole black driver Bubba Wallace was participating. He had pushed the franchise past days to disavow its endorsement of this confederate flag, and raced in a vehicle with “Black Lives Matter” slogan in it.
“NASCAR gets it. Trump doesn’t,” tweeted Stuart Stevens, a veteran Republican strategist and leading person in the inner-party revolt against Trump, arguing the fact that the president “will shed more white voters with his Confederate defense than gain. Majority completely would like to move past Civil War & hatred, not relive it”.
At about the same time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, ordered the removal of statutes of confederate figures from during the Capitol.
Trump named many of the bases he would like to retain their names based on confederate generals – “Fort Bragg in N . C ., Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia”.
There can be 10 army bases named after confederate generals, each of them in southern states of America that had revolted shortly after Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was elected president in 1860, running on a party plank of abolition of slavery. South Carolina seceded shortly after and was joined by five other southern states who declared themselves the Confederate States of American even before Lincoln was inaugurated.
Southern forces fired first, in April, starting the Civil War in 1861. However lost the war.
Virginia, the confederate state with Richmond as the capital of CSA, has three of the 10 bases, according to a Congressional Research Service report. Georgia and Louisiana followed with two each and ave two each; and h. North Carolina, Alabama, Texas and Georgia, with one each.