The Resurgence of Confederate Ideology in American Politics

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump announced plans to restore Confederate names to nine military bases that had been renamed through a bipartisan process to honor American heroes instead of Confederate leaders. This June 10 declaration overrides the careful work of Congress and a nonpartisan naming commission, raising questions about why military installations were named after individuals who committed treason against the United States in the first place.

These Confederate commemorations originated from a calculated propaganda campaign launched by former Confederates after their Civil War defeat. Unable to win on the battlefield, they pivoted to winning what they viewed as a “war of ideas” to preserve white supremacy—the core Confederate cause—by reshaping American memory.

This campaign operated on multiple fronts. Former Confederates established social clubs, rewrote school curricula, and produced propaganda through film and literature. According to the recent fourth edition of the “Whose Heritage?” report, they erected over 2,000 memorials nationwide to cement their revisionist history.

Their goal was to replace the historical understanding of the Civil War as a struggle between slavery and freedom with “Lost Cause” mythology—a fabricated narrative that downplayed slavery’s central role in the conflict. By the end of World War I, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), a leading pro-Confederacy organization, had amassed over 100,000 members and significant cultural influence.

This revisionist movement continued evolving in modern times. In 1994, exactly a century after the UDC’s founding, white nationalist Michael Hill established the neo-Confederate League of the South (LOS), advocating for white supremacy, Christian theocracy, and Southern secession. In 1996, the group launched a successful campaign against South Carolina Republican Governor David Beasley over his support for removing the Confederate battle flag from the state Capitol.

Public sentiment began shifting dramatically in 2015 following the racially motivated murder of nine Black worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina church. In response, then-Governor Nikki Haley signed legislation removing the Confederate flag from Capitol grounds. This marked the beginning of a significant decline in Confederate symbols, with 15 memorials removed in 2015, followed by 17 in 2016, 64 in 2017, and 169 in 2020.

By 2021, UDC membership had dwindled to fewer than 18,000. In 2023, the U.S. military officially removed Confederate leaders’ names from nine bases. Civil War reenactments, which often perpetuate Lost Cause myths, have also declined substantially over recent decades.

Neo-Confederate organizations have experienced a similar downturn. The LOS now maintains only two operational chapters and failed to organize its annual meeting in 2024. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 14 neo-Confederate groups in 2022, but only four remained by 2024.

Despite this organizational decline, Lost Cause ideology has found new life in government circles. The mythology appears central to Trump’s political movement, which often romanticizes antebellum racial and gender hierarchies while valorizing Confederate symbols and leaders. Trump has repeatedly characterized efforts to remove Confederate memorials as attempts by “angry mobs” to “wipe out our history.” At his October 27, 2024, Madison Square Garden rally, the Confederate anthem “Dixie” played—a symbol-laden choice at an event criticized for racist rhetoric.

This ideological revival extends beyond federal politics. In July 2023, Florida’s State Board of Education, appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis, introduced a new history curriculum that reflects Lost Cause perspectives, including requirements that teachers tell students that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”—echoing the racist myth that enslaved people benefited from slavery.

At the Defense Department, Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to change Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg in February, though legislation prevented him from directly reinstating the Confederate name. Instead, he renamed the base after WWII veteran Roland Bragg. Senator Jack Reed criticized the move, saying Hegseth had “insulted the Gold Star families who proudly supported Fort Liberty’s name” while “dishonoring himself by associating Private Bragg’s good name with a Confederate traitor.”

Despite these concerning trends, community resistance to Lost Cause narratives continues. In Augusta, Georgia, students recently erected a plaque commemorating the city’s Black history. Savannah residents are working to memorialize their city’s history of slavery, while artists in Murray, Kentucky, plan a mural honoring the Underground Railroad.

Perhaps most poignantly, in 2023, advocates in Colfax, Louisiana, replaced an offensive Lost Cause marker commemorating a massacre where a white mob murdered 150 Black citizens. The original 1951 marker had characterized the violence as a “riot” and condemned “carpetbag misrule.” The new memorial provides a historically accurate account of the event, contextualizing it within Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Remarkably, descendants of both victims and perpetrators collaborated to fund the new plaque.

As Lost Cause ideology finds new purchase in government, Americans committed to democracy and racial justice continue working to counter this “war of ideas” by restoring and celebrating accurate historical memory in their communities—drawing inspiration from past struggles for freedom and equality.