There are so many that I am overwhelmed trying to keep up.
One important trend has emerged. It used to be just prominent statues in major city centers that were the focus of efforts for removal. Now it more minor Confederate statues, statues in less prominent locations.
Most importantly it is statues in smaller cities and towns, the effort isn't confined to major metropolitan centers. Also, as major cities get rid of their Confederate monuments entirely it is becoming a mark of being provincial or a small town with a small view when you have a Confederate monument.
Suddenly you are seeing the next tier of smaller cities start looking at getting rid of their Confederate monuments and even smaller municipalities. This is going to put a lot of pressure on smaller towns to get rid of their Confederate monuments.
As more and more Confederate monuments are removed, the ones that remain will seem more and more anomalous. As larger towns get rid of their monuments, small towns which retain monuments will mark themselves as backward. People won't want to move to such a place. A factory will find it an impediment to hiring skilled professionals and technical help. Other towns competing for a factory or other commerical establishment will mention that their rival has a Confederate monument.
When there are three or four or five possible locations to choose from it will be easy to discard a place that still retains a Confederate monument.
As these forces drive small towns to get rid of Confederate monuments those towns which still then retain Confederate monuments will look especially backward and menancing. And it doesn't seem at the present much pressure will be needed to get smaller towns to get rid of Confederate monuments. They seem to be coming down in small towns fairly frequeently.
In the future perhaps even horror fiction will adopt the idea of a small town out of the way having a Confederate monument as a sign of evil lurking there.
If you have a tomato festival or hay festival or antique festival a Confederate monument will be discouraging.
Also, the neo-Confederate groups themselves will appear to be more and more fringe. A couple decades ago they were people who sort of pushed a romance of reunion type of interpretation of the Civil War. Those type of people are no longer in control. Now the type of people who are running the show are like the Chief and Deputy Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Heritage Committee. They are the authors of several really fringe neo-Confederate works and this is there website. http://www.kennedytwins.com/
They are also an aging group of people whose membership's average age is increasing.
Also, defenders of the Confederacy have become very partisan and aligned themselves with one political party over the other. Also, the Democrats have decided that being anti-Confederate is a politically winning position to take. Donald Trump has emerged as the great champion of the Confederacy.
It used to be the centrist Democrats were scared of being seen as critical of the Confederacy and it was Jimmy Carter who got Jefferson Davis his citizenship back. Those days are gone. The Democrats are finding Confederate things that even I didn't know existed to be removed.
With Donald Trump's disastrous management it looks like the Republicans are headed towards an electoral disaster.
I think the Confederate monuments at the national parks will be the focus after the election.
The Confederacy is imploding at a rate that just astounds me. It is an implosion which is self-reinforcing for the reasons just given. By Nov. 2020 having a Confederate monument still will mean either there is a court case and the city is prevented from immediately acting, or it means that your town is really creepy.
UPDATE:
The story is about a giant corporation doesn't want to locate major facility in town with Confederate monument. You can be assured that every chamber of commerce at some point will be thinking about this or cases like this. Every board member of some government economic panel for development will be hinking about this.
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