Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is infamous for making and sharing false statements and conspiracy theories. Democratic Representative Chellie Pingree gave her a lesson in American history.
Historical times
During a discussion in the House over an amendment that would forbid the use of certain funds to remove national monuments, Marjorie Taylor Greene took the floor. She argued in favor of the amendment.
Greene’s comments
“This is the Democrat’s and the Biden administration’s effort to erase our history, just as they have done to the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Greene said. “This is an outrage.”
More context
Greene was referring to the removal of a statue of infamous Confederate general Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville, Virginia. In late October, the statue was melted.
The history of the statue
The debate over whether to remove this statue of Lee was the spark for protests in 2016 and a white nationalist riot in 2017. During the riot, a far-right man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one.
In limbo
The statue was finally removed in 2021 after many lawsuits. It was taken to a secret location pending further lawsuits over its ultimate fate.
Melt-down
Finally, in late September 2023, the plan to melt the statue down could go ahead. The project called Swords into Plowshares plans to transform the statue into a piece of public art.
Justice or destruction?
The battles over Charlottesville’s Lee statue are an example of a wider debate around the future of monuments for controversial figures in American history. Conservatives view removals of such monuments as attempts to erase American history.
Statues are not history
However, the broad consensus among professional historians is that monuments do not teach history so much as glorify specific people, events, and ideals. History is remembered and taught in institutions, such as museums, galleries, and schools — which conservatives frequently attempt to defund and control.
The historian’s view
“History will still be taught” without statues of Confederates, explained Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed. “We will know who Robert E. Lee was.… There are far more dangerous threats to history. Defunding the humanities, cutting history classes and departments. Those are the real threats to history.”
Outrage?
Gordon-Reed also countered the common conservative argument that removing statues is offensive to the legacies of those represented. “There are other places for [remembering these legacies] — on battlefields and cemeteries,” she explained. “The Confederates lost the war, the rebellion. The victors, the thousands of soldiers — black and white — in the armed forces of the United States, died to protect this country. I think it dishonors them to celebrate the men who killed them and tried to kill off the American nation.”
Watching the statue melt
The location of the foundry that melted the statue of Lee was kept secret to protect the workers from retaliatory attacks by the far-right. However, some individuals were able to watch the process.
Personal
Lisa Draine, interim project director for Swords into Plowshares, told the Guardian that she felt a surge of emotion while watching the statue of Lee melt. “I thought of everything that had happened in the last six and a half years,” she said. “My family was traumatized when my younger daughter was badly injured in the terrorist car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens that day. Our lives would never be the same. The fight to remove Confederate statues from our parks became personal.”
Opposition
While railing against the removal of statues, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pointed to a dramatic poster of the statue melting. The poster read, “History has stopped.”
Dubious
“Just to clear up a couple of things,” Rep. Pingree said after Greene was done. “My colleague mentioned the Founding Fathers. Robert E. Lee was not actually one of the founding Fathers; he was a general of the Confederacy.”
Totally wrong
Pingree further explained that Lee’s statue “wasn’t a national monument when [it] was removed.” It would, therefore, not have been protected by the amendment Greene was defending.
Hypocrisy
“I just have to say,” Pingree continued, “I find it rich that the party that has supported book banning in our libraries, rewriting curriculum, not talking about our history over and over again is the very one that is saying that we have to keep painful monuments in places where they do damage, where they interfere with people’s ability to enjoy the particular area that they’re in.”
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