Nazi selfies and the new Civil War tourism

Some days ago, the court jester of the Mecklenburg County GOP, Deplorable Pride's Brian Talbert, revealed the reason that should resolve all doubts about removing Civil War monuments among Republicans. He posted:

Here's another: in separate statements, the families of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson have called for removal. Lee himself opposed them.

All point out that the salient feature of how the statues have outlasted their purpose is this: they attract Nazis.

They are right: the statues are nothing but props for the hatemongers. As I pointed out yesterday, the White People's Caucus that laid siege to Charlottesville never said a word- for all their jabber and spew about heritage- about the changing of the name of Lee Park to Emancipation Park:

The Nazis and the Klan didn’t say a word about that this past weekend, that renaming that is surely as big a slap in the face to the myth of the lost cause as anything. 

But a change of name isn’t twenty feet tall. The Nazis and the hatemongers came to Charlottesville because they wanted a stage and a prop- a big one.  

 General Lee’s statue- already approved for removal, served the purpose. And in a university town where the university was founded by the author of the Declaration of Independence- well, who could say no to symbology piled upon symbology?

Each of the First Families of the Confederacy makes the same point: the bigger the city, the more having these monuments in public spaces makes the tourism ad from hell for you.

It says something when the descendants of the heroes of one's cause- talk about blood and soil!- tell the Klanazis to take a hike in their Trump golf outfits and paramilitary play-soldier kit.

The newly-fired hotdog stand waiter; the WSU College Republicans chief; the Vanguard America fashionazis, and all their stay-at-home, social media justice warrior: y'all might do well to listen.