Renaming and dog whistles

On June 10, the Army announced that seven Army bases whose names were changed in 2023 because they honored Confederate leaders would revert back to their original names, just hours after President Donald Trump previewed the decision, telling troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that he was changing the names back.

These include the following Army bases:

1. Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia (from Fort Walker)
2. Fort Pickett in Virginia (from Fort Barfoot)
3. Fort Lee in Virginia (from Fort Gregg-Adams)
4. Fort Gordon in Georgia (from Fort Eisenhower)
5. Fort Hood in Texas (from Fort Cavazos)
6. Fort Polk in Louisiana (from Fort Johnson)
7. Fort Rucker in Alabama (from Fort Novosel)

This announcement follows similar reversals for Fort Benning and Fort Bragg.

Fort Bragg, which was changed to Fort Liberty was the first to have its original name restored after the Army found another person with the same last name in February. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then reversed the decision to rename Fort Benning to Fort Moore in March.

In the new re-renamings, the Army again found servicemen (and they are all white men, shocker) with the same name. This gives them the fig leaf that they aren't restoring the names of traitors to these bases.

If you squint hard enough, these seems pretty legitimate. I understand the cache some of these names have among those in the Army. I mean you survive Fort Bragg and endure Fort Benning (that heat and humidity). But the others, well, that fig leaf just blows away with the wind, gone you might say, when you examine the case of Fort A.P. Hill.

Unlike Fort Lee, which is ostensibly now going to be named after  Pvt. Fitz Lee, who received the Medal of Honor during the Spanish-American War, Fort A.P. Hill makes the dog whistle to the racist rump of the lost cause obvious. Get this:

They just really aren't even trying to hide it here.

A.P. Hill was a right bastard even by the standards of the time, and we know what that means.

Non in cautus futuri