I love that Trump believes that removing the statues is "ripping apart" our history and culture.

[Bleacher Creature]

When he's referring to statues of people who were literally fighting a war to rip the country in half.

This is what you get when you elect someone too dumb to understand how irony works.

[MineralMan]

1. And statues of people fighting to preserve a false right to own other people.

Trump never seems to get it. I think he's incapable of getting it.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Trump's history and culture clearly includes treason and racism

[JaneQPublic]

3. If #45 is such a big student of history...

...then why didn't he know Frederick Douglass has been dead for more than a century?

“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
--SCROTUS

[shenmue]

4. Der

Der, der, der.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Let's just tell him we're not actually "removing" them...

let's tell Trump that we're taking them down temporarily to gold plate them.

Then we'll "lose" them.

[Moostache]

6. Seriously, someone needs to ask him to define "our culture"...

The United States of America does not have a monolithic culture that is all encompassing.

We have a Constitution and the associated amendments that guarantee our rights, but one man's "hero" from the Civil War is another man's "traitor". The issue is NOT removing statues as if ALL statues and ALL historical figures are on an equal plane...

Confederate monuments no more belong in the public square than specific religious displays do. This is all part of the same issue really, the people who want Confederate statues are the same ones that want Christian symbols everywhere but cannot seem to understand the difference between "freedom" and State-sponsored or sanctioning.

[leftstreet]

7. When he says 'our' I think he means him and his supporters

I've heard him do this a lot. He'll use 'our' 'us' and 'they' 'them' to distinguish himself and his supporters from the media, Democrats, liberals, etc

[Caliman73]

8. Trump doesn't really "believe" much of anything. He says what he hears...

He says what the supporters who butter him up, want him to say. He certainly is a racist and a eugenicist, but his only core belief is that he is great and deserves nothing but praise.

If any ever presses him on WHY he is saying those things, he would not be able to answer with anything coherent. This is why he always tries to filibuster. If any journalist was persistent and continued to challenge him, he would get up and walk out of the interview because he won't be pinned down on something that he does not understand.

We have really let this whole delusion about the Civil War go on too long. When history books talk about the "terrible cost" and about slavery, they gloss over the fact that 11 States took up arms against the US. That they were traitors who felt so strongly that they should be allowed to continue to own human beings as livestock, that they fought against the United States killing 360,000 Americans.

Many Americans also have no idea that the statues they are defending were not commissioned to depict the history of the Civil War, but to send a message to people advocating for civil rights, that the mentality of White Superiority and the use of force was something that was still present and active in the institutions of power where those statues were erected.

[Bleacher Creature]

9. Agree. Here's a good piece on Trump's worldview (or lack thereof).

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15621140/interpret-trump

He doesn't have the intellect or patience to have a core belief. It is all about winning to him; binary choices between his people and everyone else.

The people who support him are white nationalist, racists, and anti-Semites. He neither knows nor cares what they believe in, other than their support for him.

[Blue Owl]

10. The fabric of racism needs to be torn

And ripped to shreds...

[Bleacher Creature]

11. And statues of its proponents melted down.

And used to build schools in predominantly AA communities.