How Not To Argue in Defense of Confederate Monuments by Marjorie Taylor Greene

Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has demonstrated time and time again that she is not the brightest bulb in the room. Her rhetoric is crafted and intended for a relatively narrow group of constituents. You either accept or reject it, but no one should waste their time in careful reflection. This just misses the point.

Earlier this week, Representative Greene introduced legislation on the House floor that would prevent the Department of the Interior from removing any monuments from public lands. The bill comes just days after the melting of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee monument at an undisclosed foundry, which will eventually be turned into a new piece of public art.

You can watch her brief exchange on this issue with a representative from Maine. Greene displays her typical ignorance of basic American history by insinuating that Robert E. Lee was a “Founding Father.”

It goes without saying that this does little to advance the public discussion surrounding Confederate monuments. In fact, her over-the-top rhetoric actually hurts the efforts of those who have staked out various positions in defense of these monuments.

Characterizing the melting down of the Lee monument as the work of “Communist Democrats” or an uncontrolled ‘Woke mob’ ignores the fact that only a small number of monuments have been pulled down by activists. As I have pointed out numerous times, most Confederate monuments have been removed and or relocated legally, following public discussion and votes on the part of city councils.

That’s called democracy in action in my book.

Predictions that the wave of Confederate monument removals in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 would lead directly to the removal and destruction of monuments and statues commemorating George Washington and the rest of the gang never materialized. There is no evidence that such a scenario is likely in the immediate future.

In fact, I think a case can be made that we are now in a space where a more deliberate and honest discussion about these monuments is possible.

I think there is an opportunity to explore the space between maintaining our current Confederate monument landscape as is and consigning all of them to warehouses or simply turning them to dust. For the record, I don’t consider the melting down of the Lee monument to be an example of the latter. It is an example of how one community chose to transform one monument, with its own unique baggage, into something positive. You can disagree with this community’s decision, but it must be considered as one option in this space between two untenable extremes.

People are going to have to use their imaginations to sketch out options in this middle ground. It’s going to take coalitions of people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives on history and memory to come together to work through these tough questions. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.