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Democrats Call Trump's Bluff On Military Bases Named For Confederate Officers

President Donald Trump is spoiling for a fight over the Confederacy just weeks after widespread protests kicked off a nationwide conversation on racism and police brutality. Democrats say he’s on the wrong side of history and are welcoming the clash with open arms.

“This is nothing but typical bluster,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday after Trump threatened to veto the annual defense spending bill if it includes a mandate to rename military bases named for Confederate military leaders.

“We will scrub from our military bases the names of men who fought for the Confederacy, who took up arms against our country,” Schumer pledged.

The massive $740 billion defense bill the Senate took up this week includes an amendment sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would require the Pentagon to change the names of the bases as well as other memorials named for Confederate leaders who fought against the Union during the Civil War. The measure was approved by a bipartisan voice vote last month in the Republican-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee.

Ten military bases across the country were named after Confederate generals as part of the “Lost Cause” narrative that became popular in the South in the early 20th century.

“These bases were not named in the years following the Civil War. No. They were named decades and decades later, during the Jim Crow era, to strengthen a movement that tried to glorify the Confederacy and reinforce white supremacy,” Warren said Tuesday in a floor speech.

In my view, I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

In a tweet on Tuesday evening, however, Trump threatened to veto the bill and set up a showdown not only with Democrats, but also with Republican senators who believe it’s time to begin the process of changing the names of the bases.

“In my view, I just don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said...

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