Day 211: Trump: U.S. Will Be “Ripped Apart” By Removing Statues of Men Who Wanted to Rip U.S. Apart
Donald Trump has slightly pivoted off the blame both sides equally rhetoric he has largely employed since white nationalist protesters killed one and injured dozens more in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend.
The group claims they were protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Yet, with many protesters carrying Nazi paraphernalia, including swastika-laden flags, and chanting things like, “Jews will not replace us,” it’s obvious that the protest was more a show of force than it was about keeping a statue in place.
Trump is now standing by the message of respecting the past and remembering history as reasons to keep these statues.
Trump is worried about the “culture” of the country being “ripped apart” by the removal of statues of confederate figures. Those men literally tried to rip the U.S. apart and split it into two over the issue of slavery, an institution that is denounced by virtually everyone in the country today. To imply that those men stand for the culture of this country is absurd.
Trump next argues that the statues should remain so that “we can learn from” history. Except, that’s why we have books and museums and teachers and historians. Germany doesn’t have statues of Hitler. Spain doesn’t have statues of Franco.
The statues in America were erected in prominent locations in cities across the South largely in the wake of Jim Crow laws and, later, the Civil Rights movement. They had a clear message: African-Americans would always be subjugated and would never be seen as equals.
Trump conflates men who fought for the establishment of the nation, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who were far from perfect, with men who tried to tear it apart. This is not only a false equivalence on a particularly gross level, but Trump parroting some of white supremacists’ favorite arguments.
Finally, Trump says we’ll miss the irreplaceable “beauty” in our communities if the statues are removed. Imagine being black and walking by statues of men who literally were willing to secede from their country and fight and die to keep your ancestors in chains. Do you see the beauty there? The statues could easily be replaced by more appropriate ones throughout history, such as tributes to emancipated slaves or leaders who fought for equality. If Trump is worried about statues connoting beauty, that’s an easy fix.
This isn’t complicated. There was a war. The South lost. The statues on battlefields and places where historical context is necessary should stay. The ones that stand in the center of town, overlooking a 7–Eleven or middle school, should be moved to locations like museums where they can be understood from the right perspective.
A group of people that tried to split off from the United States so that they could keep using slave labor should not be celebrated.
211 days in, 1251 to go
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