Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday decried Virginia\u2019s removal of a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the state capital, sending out a historically inaccurate statement not unlike other racially charged messages he has issued.<\/p>\n
\u201cRobert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all,\u201d Trump said in the statement. \u201cPresident Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cHe should be remembered as perhaps the greatest unifying force after the war was over, ardent in his resolve to bring the North and South together through many means of reconciliation and imploring his soldiers to do their duty in becoming good citizens of this Country,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n
Lee was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans as he led the fight to defend the South\u2019s ability to own Black people as property. Lee has been lifted up as a heroic figure in the South, even today, an ideology that historians call the Lost Cause<\/a> \u2014 a campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the Civil War, pushing the idea that the Confederate fight was a heroic one. In The Atlantic, Historian David Blight wrote<\/a> that it provided a \u201cfoundation on which Southerners built the Jim Crow System.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is known to cultivate culture wars and stoke racism, and did just that in the first 2020 presidential debate with Joe Biden.<\/a> He warned that under a Biden presidency, \u201cour suburbs would be gone.\u201d And when given the opportunity to condemn white supremacy, Trump instead told the far-right group the Proud Boys to \u201cstand back and stand by.\u201d<\/p>\n Proud Boys are among those charged<\/a> in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Trump has said<\/a> those at the events of Jan. 6 were loving people who wanted to save the country.<\/p>\n In Wednesday\u2019s statement, Trump said that if Lee were to have commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the country would have seen victory years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat an embarrassment we are suffering because we don\u2019t have the genius of a Robert. E. Lee!\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n