Republicans vow to return racist names to military bases

The U.S. Army officially renamed a Louisiana base on Tuesday, a move to honor a Black World War I hero rather than a Confederate traitor against the U.S. The former Fort Polk is now Fort Johnson, just as, 10 days earlier, Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty. Republicans are not taking these changes well.

On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged that, if elected president, he would rename Fort Liberty, restoring Braxton Bragg’s name to honor. “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 at the North Carolina GOP Convention. The next day, Mike Pence sounded the same notes at the same event, saying, “We will end the political correctness in the hallways of the Pentagon, and North Carolina will once again be home to Fort Bragg.”

There’s no word yet on whether Fort Polk was “iconic” enough to deserve this level of outrage, but presumably, that will come when DeSantis, Pence, and other Republicans campaign in Louisiana.