This week, New Orleans removed the first of four memorials around the city that are dedicated to the Confederacy and the antebellum South, with the mayor calling them a “blatant affront to the values that make America and New Orleans strong today.”
The first statue removed, as ordered by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, was the “Liberty Place” memorial, which honored white supremacists who killed Metropolitan police officers during a siege of the city to protest Reconstruction.
The move was approved by the city council and upheld by the courts, but despite that, workers removed the statue yesterday under the cover of darkness, wearing masks, as they were on the receiving end of death threats.
One person who publicly decried the actions of New Orleans and its mayor is Virginia Republican candidate for governor Corey Stewart.
Here was his nuanced take.
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856699414907367424
That’s interesting on two levels. First off, even accounting for hyperbolic internet speak, there are lots of things worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don’t matter.
But even better, Stewart himself is originally from Minnesota, whereas Landrieu comes from a long-established Louisiana lineage.
Though many, many, many, many, many people replied to that tweet (5,900 to be precise) to inform Stewart he might be wrong, Stewart took again to Twitter to defend his rationale.
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856833628516622337
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856835801002520580
One of the other monuments New Orleans plans to remove honors Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which Stewart is adamantly against. The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, is also planning to remove or relocate a statue of Lee.
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856851372922343428
He’s now taken to calling the actions “#HistoricalVandalism.”
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856870285945057281
https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856872376490971146
Stewart currently serves as chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, and in response to his stance and the news that he attended a Confederate-themed ball this month, four members of the board have announced their intent to support his rival in the Republican primary. He also lost the support of Prince William County Sheriff Glendell Hill.
Stewart, who is polling well behind rival Ed Gillespie, has made freedom of speech—and the symbols of the Confederacy—a tenet of his campaign.
“The Confederate flag is not the issue,” Stewart said in a statement. “The radical left’s obsession with tearing down historical monuments is about silencing all dissent.”
H/T Mediaite