WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump today may have revealed a bit of his thought process when it comes to a controversial subject that has been roiling and fraying nerves throughout the country.
“I like generals who were traitors and lost,” Trump said when he was asked by a reporter why he kept defending monuments and statues to Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, “and what can I say? The Confederacy had the bigliest and bestest of those.”
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Controversy over municipalities removing statues and monuments for generals and other leaders of the Confederacy boiled over and erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia when a young Neo-Nazi plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a 32 year old woman, Heather Heyer, in the process. Trump initially made a vague condemnation of violence on “many sides,” which caused such an enormous backlash he made a second, scripted statement condemning white nationalism a day later. However, on Wednesday, Trump seemed to wipe that second statement out when he got into a contentious exchange with reporters at a press conference, doubling-down on his earlier rhetoric that seemed to cast blame on the people protesting white supremacists in Charlottesville.
“Robert E. Lee was a great man,” Trump said, “a great American who was great at killing other Americans so that people in his state could kill black people if they didn’t go along with the idea of being inhuman garbage that can be bought and sold like cattle. If that’s not perfectly American, I don’t know what is!”
This morning, Trump tweeted about the removal of Confederate statues, saying that “beauty” was being taken from the places where they once stood. Trump conflated, as he had in the press conference, George Washington and Lee.
Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
Mr. Trump told reporters that he’s concerned about Confederate monuments being taken down because “history shouldn’t be erased.” He also told the press he had no idea what museums or history books are. He explained that as a Republican, he and his base avoid institutions and buildings where any kind of learning can happen.
“Sure, it might seem like these statues, which were largely erected during the Jim Crow period as a means to threaten and intimidate black people into not seeking civil rights,” Trump said, “but that’s just, like, an added benefit, I guess. The real reason we need these statues is to remind us of the past, so we can learn from it.”
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“It’s like when you go to Germany and you see statues of Hitler, Goebbels, and Mengele, ” Trump explained, “and you see swastikas flying from every poll. They totally get it — it’s heritage, not hate. Sure, it’s a heritage OF hate, but you, know, stuff and things and such.”
When asked, Trump said he didn’t think it was odd for the sitting commander in chief to praise and defend men like Lee and Jackson who led armies against the United States.
“My base gets it,” Trump said, “they get that the war of aggression may have ended slavery, but that the war wasn’t fought over slavery. It was just, like, taxes, and states’ rights. Namely the right of states to own black people and tax white people when they bought and sold them.”
As Trump was speaking, a great, distant rumbling could be heard from Oak Ridge, Illinois. Deep within the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, a groaning, rumbling sound could be heard, all the way in Washington, D.C. Witnesses would later say it sounded like something more than six feet long rolling over and over and over again in an enclosed space.
Donald Trump was the least popularly elected president of all time.
