GOP contenders play the “Name Game”

Commentary

DeSantis and Pence show their true colors by playing the game’s first round with the name “Bragg.”

In appearances this past Friday at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention, former Vice-President Mike Pence and current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (pronounced duh-Sanits or dee-Santis depending on the audience and the day of the week), both declared candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination (or in DeSantis’ case, dee-clared), played the “Name Game.”

The name they played was “Bragg.”

Let’s begin with contestant #1, DeSantis.

As reported by the Miami Herald:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at the NCGOP convention Friday night, said if he’s elected president he would reverse the recent decision to change the name of Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty. The promise by DeSantis to restore the name of the major military installation just north of Fayetteville, which earned loud cheers and applause from a ballroom full of Republican delegates at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, came just as President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden left newly named Fort Liberty after meeting with members of the armed forces. The presidential candidate was touting Republican successes in last year’s midterm elections in Florida, and in North Carolina, amid disappointing results in the rest of the country, when he brought up the recently renamed installation. “I also look forward to, as president, restoring the name of Fort Bragg,” DeSantis said to raucous cheers from the crowd.

He added that he would “thank the people that have served there, and they’re proud of their service there.” “It’s an iconic name and an iconic base, and we’re not going to let political correctness run amok in North Carolina,” DeSantis said as the crowd continued to cheer.

Fort Liberty, named more than a century earlier in honor of Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, was renamed as part of a Department of Defense effort to adopt new names for military installations that were named for Confederate soldiers.

So, who was this Confederate General Braxton Bragg that DeSantis so desperately wants to honor?

While I’ll leave it to you to delve chapter and verse into Bragg’s overall generalship, suffice it to say that he is considered by historians to be one of the worst generals in the Confederate army. Two examples of his ineptness:

• He fought the Union Army to a draw in the Battle of Perryville (October 1862) but was bitterly censured by his commanders because he was unwilling to fight to a decision. Despite this he was kept as the head of the Army of Tennessee, by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a personal friend.

• Despite crushing the Union Army at the Battle of Chickamauga, Bragg did not choose to follow it up, and two months later his success was undone at the Battle of Chattanooga when his army was routed by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Union Army. Bragg was relieved of his command subsequent to his defeat at Chattanooga.

Despite being relieved of his command and that he was derided by both superiors and subordinates, Bragg was appointed as the military advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. (I don’t know about you but I do see a tiny bit of Donald Trump in old Jeff Davis – but I digress.)

Why, based on his record, would DeSantis go to the mat for Bragg? He was a bad general. He was a slaveholder. (Yes, I know you “what about it-ists,” they all did it – Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and others were slave holders as well). But more importantly, he was an insurrectionist who, as Dr. William Sturkey, a historian and assistant professor teaching the history of race in the American South at UNC-Chapel Hill* said, “It’s pretty rare for the country to have a major military installation named for somebody who fought against that country. It was the Confederacy against the United States of America. He was killing American troops. He didn’t fight under the banner of the United States of America and therefore, he was the enemy.”

*(A subject that I fear might not be taught at Ron DeSantis’ University of Florida system.)

Why then, Ron?

One word. No, I take that back. Two words:

“woke” and “pander.”

As Myron B. Pitts, an op-ed columnist for The Fayetteville Observer, Fort Liberty’s hometown newspaper wrote, “…let’s talk about how dumb their idea really is.”

Pitts, a Fayetteville native goes on:

“…DeSantis knows the U.S. president cannot wave a wand and change Fort Liberty back to Bragg. Bragg’s name change was not done in isolation. It is one of nine Army installations that shed their Confederate names as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, aka the defense bill. It is the law, passed by a bipartisan vote of Congress and signed by [none other than] Donald Trump.”

Pitts argues that the U.S. Congress would have to vote to change these names back — and that is not happening.

“Why? Because there is no real constituency in Washington to offer visible support to Confederates and the racism associated with them, most especially the immoral institution of chattel slavery.”

So once again, Ron, why?

It’s the base! (No, not the Army base, friends – the Republican base) 

Pitts: “More troubling is the hearty ovation DeSantis received for his dumb idea from delegates at the convention. Why were people in the year 2023 cheering rolling the post name back to a regime that fought against our country and on behalf of slavery? That convention moment may not have been intentionally racist on all hands, but it wasn’t the stuff of (Martin Luther) King’s dream, I will tell you that.”

On to contestant #2, Pence. 

How did a spineless, sycophantic, thoughtless man like Pence come up with this? Did “mother” make him do it? Or was he just confused? Since taking on his former boss did Pence think resurrecting the fort’s former name would be a major slap in Trump’s face. Did he think that there could no greater honor bestowed on one of the top names on Trump’s enemies list (after, of course, the “thuggish,” “deranged” special counsel, Jack Smith) than naming a U.S. military installation after this enemy?

Just think. Fort Bragg!

FORT ALVIN BRAGG!