Trump Administration Trolls Confederate Heritage Community
Neo-Confederates trusted a corrupt Northern businessman to restore their Southern honor. We all got the last laugh.
Yesterday Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Liberty in North Carolina back to Fort Bragg. This comes after a Congressional committee in 2021 recommended that the fort, named after Confederate general Braxton Bragg, be renamed as part of a wider effort to eliminate military honors bestowed on individuals who rebelled against the United States during the Civil War.
Donald Trump campaigned, in part, on a promise to restore the name of Fort Bragg.
Mission accomplished.
The Confederate heritage community placed their faith in the hope that Trump would restore the honor and respect that they believe should be accorded their ancestors.
On hearing the announcement, the Virginia Flaggers celebrated by posting a video of Hegseth signing the memorandum, but as you can see, not everyone is happy.
Others chimed in as well:
It’s not Ft Bragg, as in General Braxton Bragg. He’s playing fast and loose with the truth!
It’s not the same. It was named for a WW2 PFC because he had the same last name as General Bragg.
Instead of renaming it after Confederate general Braxton Bragg it is renamed in honor of private Ronald Bragg, a WWII private. Quite the sleight of hand and an insult to the memories of the Confederate American veterans and all of the ancestors who fought and served in every war this country has ever been involved in.
Others suggested that it is an acceptable compromise given that Congress banned the naming of federal military installations after Confederate leaders.
In contrast, one camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is describing the renaming as a “political bait and switch.”
And.
The fort will be renamed to honor Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.
Regardless of where you stand on all of this, at least the fort will no longer be named in honor of a second rate general, who committed treason and made war on the United States of America.
As for me, I can’t stop laughing. The Confederate heritage community got played. They placed their faith in a corrupt northern businessman—the very thing their antebellum southern ancestors feared.
The memorandum that Hegseth signed failed to mention a single word about the man the fort was first intended to honor.
There are eight other military bases, whose names once honored Confederate leaders, that could be restored in defiance of Congress. That, however, will be more controversial as they are named after U.S. military heroes. Anything is possible, though it will be difficult to find appropriate substitutes for some of these names.
While I don’t want to see the base in Virginia, that once honored Robert E. Lee and now honors Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams changed, I can only imagine how the SCV and others would respond to any Lee other than their holy Confederate chieftan.
For now, it is enough to watch the Confederate heritage community get trolled by the very people it hoped would turn the tide and restore Confederate symbols to their rightful place.
This clearly isn’t going to happen. It is yet another nail in the Lost Cause coffin.
I'm laughing with you, Kevin. Great post!
Snort!