For Trump hath murdered conversation. That’s the problem. You can’t discuss monuments anymore. If you talk about the fact that the monument question is enormously complex, you run the risk of being associated with the Trumpenproletariat. You’ve seen the footage of crowds tearing down the statues of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini. Like these, many Confederate monuments were put up in Jim Crow times with an admonitory intent. But what about the danger of white washing history? And who was worse Lee or Sherman, considering Sherman's views towards Native Americans? Remember Santayana’s all too often quoted, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And what about monuments which exist on public lands that occupy more than l00,000 acres ("What is the Antiquities Act and Why Does President Trump Want to Change It" NYT, 4/26/17) Trump was against all of those. What if there were a monument to Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, Washington or Jefferson (the four examples Trump cited) on those lands? Would Trump order them to be taken down?
Stalin monument in Prague, destroyed in l962 (photo: HZ)
{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy’s blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture}