The War on 'Woke' History (Statues & Heritage)

Trump's sustained campaign to preserve Confederate monuments and attack critical examination of American history. The narrative crystallized at Charlottesville in August 2017, when Trump defended marchers protesting a Robert E. Lee statue removal as 'very fine people.' The battle intensified during the 2020 George Floyd protests when Trump signed an executive order protecting monuments, tweeted 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' (a phrase with racist civil rights-era origins), and used military force to clear Lafayette Square for a photo-op. Trump created the '1776 Commission' to counter the New York Times' 1619 Project, producing a report historians universally condemned as propaganda. The narrative frames any critical examination of American slavery or racism as anti-American 'woke' ideology, positioning defenders of Confederate symbols as patriots.