Trump Found Another Way To Turn Americans Against Each Other— Will He Ever Reap The Whirlwind?

Yesterday, Joe Gould, Connor O’Brien and Paul McLeary reported that Members of Congress from both parties are vowing to fight back if Señor T wins and tries to make good on his pledge to put the name of failed Confederate general Braxton Bragg back on North Carolina’s Fort Liberty, “undoing the work of a bipartisan congressional renaming commission.”

“I think I just learned the secret to winning absolutely and by massive margins. I’m going to promise to you … that we’re going to change the name back to Fort Bragg,” Trump said on Friday during a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Lawmakers in 2021 approved a process to remove the names of Confederate leaders from nine bases over Trump’s objections in the final days of his presidency. If Trump tries to reverse it, lawmakers could use legislation to attempt to stop him.

“The law was you had to get rid of the Confederate names, and the commission was to determine what those names should be,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who led legislation to create the renaming panel, said in a brief interview. “The law was passed, it’s not going to go backward.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who spearheaded the legislation in the Senate, also argued the renaming is a done deal.

“The last time Donald Trump tried to block the base renaming, Congress overrode him with strong bipartisan support,” Warren said in a statement. “This latest rant is a desperate political stunt meant to distract and divide us. Trump should listen to military leaders who have honored generations of loyal servicemembers by supporting the renaming of these bases.”

…“This was a deal made with the Jim Crow South, between 1910 and 1930 roughly, and I’m not a Jim Crow South guy,” Bacon said.

In 2020, Congress moved to create a commission to rename the posts and identify other military property that honors the Confederacy, such as a pair of Navy ships, buildings and memorials. This decision followed widespread social justice protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

The bipartisan commission was included in annual defense policy legislation in 2020 and was one of the main reasons Trump vetoed the bill. The former president said at the time that he would “not even consider” the move— even though then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy were open to it. Congress overrode Trump’s veto of the defense bill, setting the yearslong renaming process in motion.

…Trump could make good on his pledge to return to Fort Liberty’s old name because the executive branch, through the Defense Department and individual military services, controls the naming of military installations, according to Paul Arcangeli, the former Democratic staff director to the House Armed Services Committee.

While the legislation that created the renaming commission directed the defense secretary to implement the panel’s recommendations, it did not change the branch responsible for base naming decisions. President Joe Biden could have changed the names of the bases without the commission if he had wanted, and so could Trump if reelected.

…Trump isn’t alone among Republicans on the issue. Despite bipartisan support for scrubbing Confederate leaders’ names from bases, some [GOP racists] still fought the commission’s work. Last year, the House rejected a proposal to defund the naming commission, though most Army installations had already been renamed by then. Lawmakers authorized a $2 million budget for the commission when it was created.

An initial report by the panel in mid-2022 that recommended new names estimated the total cost of renaming all nine bases and other assets on those installations, such as buildings and street signs, at $21 million.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, both promised that if elected president, they would change Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg while campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination.

Kori Schake, a member of the base renaming commission, said that Gold Star families chose the name Fort Liberty to honor the sacrifices of fallen service members. She argued that making a reversion would be inappropriate and disrespectful.

Trump saying he wants to bring back the Fort Bragg name is simply to stir up a culture-war debate, appealing to fellow racists, even though racists are all voting for him anyway. It’s more about energizing that base. It doesn’t bother him that reverting to Fort Bragg would symbolize a regression in addressing the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and white supremacy in American history. It would be a divisive, backward, polarizing move, a Trump specialty. It would undo bipartisan efforts to reconcile with the darker parts of American history, stirring up bad feelings over how to address the legacy of the Confederacy and systemic racism in the U.S.

He’s not going to gain any voters in North Carolina and Georgia over this. But he could lose voters. Many moderates, suburban voters, independents who aren't deeply entrenched in the culture wars will see this as an unnecessary provocation and a distraction from real issues. It could alienate voters who don’t feel strongly about the Confederate name issue but want leaders focused on economic concerns, healthcare, or national security. Voters already weary of divisive cultural battles may well be turned off by Trump’s constant return to these polarizing issues. Most voters prefer candidates who focus on unity and pragmatic solutions rather than reigniting old culture wars.