"Bands of criminals" pulled down a statue of a Confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina on Monday, and they should not be celebrated, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham said Tuesday.
"When you see bands of criminals, which is what they were yesterday, ripping down public property and being celebrated in the American media for doing so, we have a real problem on our hands," Ingraham told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "This is not about racial healing or racial unity when you see property being destroyed. That's not what it's about."
Such actions, she continued, are about refusing to acknowledge that we had "really difficult, horrible moments in our country's history that we were able to overcome."
At the same time, it's important to give respect to "all of our war dead," even if Americans don't respect everything they stood for.
"Respect the fact that when the time came, they stood up and fought for their views in this country," Ingraham said.
Meanwhile, Ingraham said she does not know what the thinking was in the circles surrounding President Donald Trump on Saturday, when he offered a statement about the violent riots in Charlottesville without specifically calling out white supremacists.
On Monday, however, Trump added to his comments, calling out the groups he did not mention by name on Saturday, and Ingraham said she thought that was a "good reset."
"He needed to say what he said yesterday, and I think the conversation now should really be focused on how we're going to treat history in the United States," said Ingraham.
The talk show host said she also is concerned that people who have no knowledge about the history of the United States are "just roundly denouncing anyone who had any connection to the South," and that means the country is in "very precarious times."
"How long before we see the workers party, the communist party of the United States?" she said. "There in Durham, they had the big banners on the streets. How long before they show up at Monticello, where I spent three years for law school? How long before they show up at Mount Vernon? What else would be subjected to their eradication and enunciation?"
The protests, she said, are not about racial healing, but instead are "about the control of the narrative, and a destruction of historical recognition ... what about books? Are they going to start burning books, too?"
There are different ways to recognize history, said Ingraham, but people who want to bring down monuments are trying to control the historical narrative.
"We see it with the Taliban pulling down Christian historical sites," she said. "We've seen this in the old Soviet Union. We've seen this with Stalinists, but in America, we have ways of discussing issues and bringing back more viewpoints that really does lead to greater understanding and recognition. But you didn't see that in Durham last night. You saw criminality."
Local politicians should determine the fate of such statutes, but they also risk erasing their towns' history.
"If that is what we're going to be as a country, we have a lot of statues to tear down," she said. "We have a lot of monuments to raise, and I guess the communist party of the United States will be happy."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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