Posted on April 24, 2023

America Does Celebrate ‘Losers’

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, April 24, 2023

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It’s the fashion to call Confederates “losers.” There was a time when the “Lost Cause” was seen as noble precisely because it was lost and the South was the underdog. The Confederate battle flag — never the symbol of the government — still stands for resistance to power and elite opinion. Nonetheless, at a time when orthodoxy is a requirement for staying online, it’s more fashionable to laugh at the Confederacy’s defeat.

There’s also a political rationale. White advocates might note that this is about celebrating the death of white people. Celebrating the slaughter of Southerners suggests a readiness to celebrate the slaughter of today’s opponents.

We often hear that Confederates were armed opponents of the United States. Why should a country build monuments to its enemies? A “Naming Commission” for West Point and the Naval Academy explains: “Commemorating the Confederacy alongside those graduates honors men who fought against the United States of America, and whose cause sought to destroy the nation as we know it.”

Of course, the whole point of Abraham Lincoln’s war was that Southerners were not foreigners, but Americans. Reunion was the point of the conflict, and that meant admitting there were heroes on both sides. Reunification after the Civil War was a tremendous achievement that allowed America to become a superpower. It’s being undermined today.

Moreover, Europeans, unlike many other peoples, celebrate the valor of a defeated foe. Such grace isn’t given to whites. There are cemeteries for German soldiers from The Great War in Belgium and France. The largest is at Vermandovillers, where more than 22,632 men, most of whom died in the Battle of the Somme, are buried.

Six beautiful cemeteries are in Normandy for Germans who fell in the Second World War fighting against the allies. More than 21,000 men rest in the largest of the six at La Cambe.

German military cemetery in La Cambe, Normandy.

Americans do the same. There are place names and monuments to American Indians all around the United States. Even when racial consciousness was taken for granted, deadly enemies of the United States such as Osceola of the Seminoles were idols for white Americans. “Let the white race perish!” declared Tecumseh. “Burn their dwellings, destroy their stock, slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish.” William Tecumseh Sherman was still named in honor of him.

There is a Tecumseh monument in Tennessee, towns in the United States are named after him, and the United States military named ships after him. None of the ships remains in service; otherwise we could have a useful parallel to military installations named after Confederate leaders.

However, the Navy, until recently, had many ships named after tribes who fought against the United States in the Powhatan class, including the Apache and the Sioux. A new Navajo class is under construction to replace them, thanks partially to the hard work of the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ). In 2000, McCain apologized for insufficient haste in demanding the Confederate battle flag be removed from the South Carolina capital, admitting that he was afraid that if he did, he would lose the South Carolina primary. He lost anyway.

If there’s a double standard about honoring “losers,” what can we say about a country that removes monuments to its own army and to its own expansion?

In 2021, the San Jose city government decided to remove a monument to Thomas Fallon, who helped capture California during the Mexican American war. The mayor said Fallon “symbolized the white conquest of Mexican and indigenous communities,” evidently a legacy the city fathers regret or want to reverse. That may happen. The United States is allowing a foreign population to undo the verdict of the battlefield.

The Fallon statue was removed earlier this week.

With this in mind, let’s hear no more complaints about the honoring Southern “enemies” of the United States government. This is a new and spiteful fashion.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest honor the Congress can award. In 1956, it was awarded collectively to all surviving veterans of the Civil War, north and south. The obverse says “Honor to Great Soldiers and to Great Americans,” and depicts both Grant and Lee. And note Confederate insignia on the reverse.

Let’s also ignore complaints about honoring “losers.” This country removes statues to its own soldiers and its own conquests. It grovels before “losers” like American Indians tribes and Mexicans. Conservatives trying to find a civic nationalist justification to what’s happening will remain hapless and confused.

Demographics mean more than lines on a map. Power comes from identity. Racial consciousness is the most powerful form of identity politics. Non-whites understand this. Whites don’t – yet.

About Gregory Hood

View all posts by Gregory Hood
Mr. Hood is a staff writer for American Renaissance. He has been active in conservative groups in the US. You can follow him on Gab.