Gen. John Bell Hood made no bones about the cause he was fighting for during the Civil War.
“Regardless of all other causes of difference, slavery, for which we were not accountable, was the secret motor, the mainspring of the war,” he said years later.
Today, the Confederate general is one of 10 commemorated in the names of military installations, bases now at the center of a power struggle between President Trump and Congress as they wrangle over the $740 million defense authorization bill.
For months, Trump has been threatening to veto the bipartisan bill for its proposal to rename the bases, arguing that such a move would undermine the legacy of troops who served with distinction at those locations. But in recent weeks, he has signaled that he could drop that opposition for a win that carries more than symbolism: repealing a legal shield for social media companies.
This week, he threatened to veto the defense bill unless it included action on companies he accuses of unfairly censoring conservatives. Then, he rounded on Republicans who tried to remind him that the annual National Defense Authorization Act had been passed without partisan wrangling for 59 years.
“Looks like certain Republican Senators are getting cold feet with respect to the termination of Big Tech’s Section 230, a National Security and Election Integrity MUST,” he wrote. “For years, all talk, no action. Termination must be put in Defense Bill!!!”
The struggle comes as Trump ponders how best to make the most of his remaining time in office. And it leaves him with a choice between curtailing the growing power of internet giants or striking a blow against the Left and what he sees as its efforts to rewrite history.
Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act protects tech firms from liability over third-party content on their platforms.
Critics say it is out of date and fails to consider how the likes of Twitter and Facebook act as publishers, promoting some messages, blocking others, rather than as merely neutral pinboards for other people’s content.
The president has made no secret of his fury with internet giants that have frequently labeled his messages about fraud in the 2020 elections as misleading or plain wrong.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said it made no sense when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, could label Israel as a “deadly, cancerous growth” and call for its eradication on Twitter without sanction.
“The president will be unashamed in fighting against that kind of vitriol that we see and very hateful language that Twitter is publishing,” she said.
The language, along with the president’s tweets, and reports of a White House deal offering to drop opposition to renaming if Section 230 is repealed, suggests Trump knows time is running out. If push comes to shove and he has to pick one or the other, the national security implications of reining in social media giants’ power would win out over protecting the names of long-dead generals.
Officials privately say he still feels strongly about renaming bases where generations of American military personnel have trained and served. It is just that election fallout has seen him particularly exercised about Section 230.
It marked a change in focus from the summer, when the White House made clear that the NDAA would be vetoed if it retained the name change. In setting out their reasoning, officials linked the plan with a summer of protests and statue topplings. They said Trump had been evident in his opposition to politically motivated attempts to “rewrite history.”
“Over the years, these locations have taken on significance to the American story, and those who have helped write it that far transcends their namesakes,” they said in a statement of policy. “The Administration respects the legacy of the millions of American servicemen and women who have served with honor at these military bases, and who from these locations have fought and died in two World Wars, Vietnam, the War on Terror, and other conflicts.”
In the meantime, Congress has pressed ahead with the bill, which includes a 3% pay raise and additional benefits for personnel working on the coronavirus pandemic.
Negotiations have reconciled Senate and House versions of the bill. Democrats agreed to adopt the Senate’s three-year timetable for phasing out the Confederate names — slower than their one-year deadline.
Reps. Adam Smith, the House Armed Services Committee’s Democratic chairman, and Mac Thornberry, the panel’s ranking Republican, said the NDAA had passed for 59 straight years because members of Congress and presidents of both parties had set aside policy difference to put the needs of the military first.
“The time has come to do that again,” they said.
