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President Donald Trump prevents US military from dropping racially charged confederate names
Trump’s spirited defence of the base names came ironically on a day when NASCAR, an auto racing company whose races are extremely popular with Trump’s political base, outlawed the display of the confederate flag at its events.
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 out on Wednesday.
Calling these bases “Monumental and very Powerful” Trump wrote in a series of tweets, these “Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.” These posts were distributed as a statement from the President at the daily White House news briefing, replete with grammatically misplaced capitalisation.
Trump, who is anything but a history buff, added: “Our history as the Greatest Nation in 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, shut down by Trump.
Names of these army bases, statutes of confederate generals and other reminders of America’s repugnant past when women, men, and children could be bought, sold and owned, have been among top demands of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the top organisation representing African Americans.
Trump’s spirited defence of the base names came ironically on a day when NASCAR, an auto racing company whose races are extremely popular with Trump’s political base, outlawed the display of the 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 the confederate flag, and raced in a car with “Black Lives Matter” slogan on it.
“NASCAR gets it. Trump doesn’t,” tweeted Stuart Stevens, a veteran Republican strategist and leading member of the inner-party revolt against Trump, arguing that the president “will lose more white voters with his Confederate defense than gain. Majority very much want to move past Civil War & hatred, not relive it”.
At around the same time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, ordered the removal of statutes of confederate figures from in the Capitol.
Trump named some of the bases he wants to retain their names derived from confederate generals - “Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia”.
There are 10 army bases named after confederate generals, all 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. But they 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. Louisiana and Georgia followed with two each and ave two each; and h. North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Alabama, with one each.
