Thoroughly modern Milley

While statues to Columbus and the Founding Fathers deserve to stand, the vast majority of Americans of good will realize the time is long overdue to consign monuments to heroes of the Confederacy, the secessionists who went to war to preserve slavery, to the ash-heap of history. That consensus, thankfully, is shared in the Pentagon’s highest level.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said that he fully supports reviewing names of the 10 military bases honoring Confederate officers. Milley, speaking plain historical fact, called the Civil War “an act of treason at the time against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution — and those officers turned their backs on their oath.”

Alas, post-Reconstruction, as the winners moved on, the losers nursed grievances and restored memories of the Confederacy at every opportunity. Thus, the Confederate flag was added to Southern states’ banners as a rebuke to civil rights during the 20th century. Simultaneously, the price of political support for needed military bases in the South was putting a Confederate general’s name on them.

Enough with that nonsense. Rename the bases and otherwise put Confederate symbolism out to pasture on government property throughout the South.

Just about the only person who bucks this sound idea, one small act to help heal old racial wounds, is one Donald Trump. He threatens to veto a defense funding bill over a righteous renaming he considers a disgrace.

Let Trump die on that hill.