The protests that have exploded nationwide in response to George Floyd’s killing and the systemic racial injustice it has exposed have put the U.S.’s racist history back in the spotlight—particularly the country’s continued embrace of the Confederacy. In addition to Confederate statues coming down amid the protests, the unrest has even inspired the U.S. military to rethink their ties to the Confederacy, with both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps announcing bans on the Confederate flag. The U.S. Army, too, was showing signs of progress, with a willingness to rethink its practice of having bases named after Confederate leaders. Military officials floated the possibility Monday that they could finally rename the U.S.’s 10 Confederate-named Army bases—but then President Donald Trump found out about the plan.
Trump vehemently defended the practice of naming military bases after Confederate generals on Twitter Wednesday, claiming that changing the names to instead honor military heroes who did not fight to uphold slavery would dishonor America’s “heritage.” “These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,” Trump tweeted. “Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect the Military!” (Trump’s claim that the Confederate names somehow represent America’s history of “winning,” of course, ignores the fact that the Confederate leaders being honored ultimately lost the Civil War.)
The president’s tweet came after Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that they would be open to holding a “bipartisan discussion” on the military base names, walking back a longstanding defense of the Confederate names that the Army had doubled down on as recently as February. “We have no plans to rename any street or installation, including those named for Confederate generals,” an Army spokesperson told Task & Purpose in February, after the Marine Corps banned Confederate paraphernalia from Corps installations. “It is important to note that the naming of installations and streets was done in a spirit of reconciliation, not to demonstrate support for any particular cause or ideology.” Ultimately, renaming the military bases is an issue left up to the Army and not the president, with the New York Times noting that the decision rests with the assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, a position currently held by retired Army officer Casey Wardynski. But when they signaled their openness to revisiting the naming practice, Army officials told CNN that they would have to consult with “the White House, Congress, and state and local governments”—meaning Trump’s opinion could hold sway over the decision, even if he doesn’t legally have control over it.
Trump’s support for using military bases to honor the Confederacy doesn’t exactly come as a shock. In addition to his well-documented history of racism and refusal to address the racial injustice at the heart of the current protests, the president previously said in 2017 that the removal of Confederate statues—then in response to the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally—was “sad” and “so foolish.” “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” Trump tweeted at the time. But while Trump’s continued defense of the Confederacy may help appease his base in the lead-up to the November election, his racist embrace of the Southern military figures is becoming increasingly out of step with the American public. In the wake of the nationwide unrest that has forced a reckoning with America’s systemic racism, recent polling has revealed that more and more Americans are supporting racial justice and acknowledging the realities of structural racism. A study by Civiqs found that a majority of Americans now support Black Lives Matter for the first time, and a recent Monmouth University poll reported 76% of Americans now consider racial and ethnic discrimination to be a major problem, a 26-point increase from 2015. “In every survey, you see intensity, determination and unity among African-Americans that the time for statements is done and the time for meaningful, measurable action is now,” Republican pollster and messaging consultant Frank Luntz told the Times. “The turning point is among white respondents, who not only acknowledge that injustice has happened, but now also agree that action, not words, are necessary.”