Richmond, Virginia, oh what will the neoliberals favorite mayor do?

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney originally came out with a plan for contextualization. But that was several weeks ago. That was before Charlottesville. Confederate monuments are coming down all over the place.

So now he sees both sides of the debate.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-richmond-confederate-monuments-08182017-story.html

Well that was two days ago in the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

"As memorials toppled across the country, the African American mayor of the former capital of the Confederacy defended his city’s own. 

Removal doesn't do “anything for telling the actual truth,” Levar Stoney said.
That was Monday. 

Two days later, the Richmond mayor said Confederate monuments had become a “rallying point for division and intolerance” and should be removed.

This is a Richmond Times-Dispatch article on Mayor Stoney, August 14, 2017 about his being committed to Confederate monument contextualization.

http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/mayor-stoney-richmond-s-confederate-monuments-should-stay-with-context/article_b8cbb743-410f-520f-9197-2a58450d128a.html

So in the end the monuments will go, but Mayor Stoney will not get credit for any vision or being like Mitch Landrieu.

Instead he will be remembered as a mayor who didn't think that the winds can shift and the weather van can suddenly turn around. That is a mayor who didn't have any convictions and guessed wrong on where this issue is headed. The wages of a centrist Democrat who triangulated wrongly.

Perhaps Mayor Stoney can be known as the great waffler.

Some more articles about Richmond and the struggle there.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/richmond-mayor-confederate-monument-debate-trump-doesnt-live/story?id=49313827

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/richmond-could-be-next-confederate-monument-battleground-n793741

At this point even the ACLU is calling for the monuments removal. Wonders never cease.
http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/aclu-calls-for-removal-of-confederate-memorials-in-virginia/article_0f80a646-52d3-5e64-aba2-5d077b3d92d5.html