In North Carolina on Wednesday, the commander in chief had the crowd roaring its support.

Paying a visit to Fort Bragg in the run-up to the Army birthday he shares, President Donald Trump slammed his predecessor’s decision to rename the historic installation — and touted his own move to restore the original name (though with a different namesake).

And the reaction of his audience said it all.

Check it out here:

.@POTUS: “It’s a beautiful sight to be with you in a place called FORT BRAGG! Can you believe they changed that name in the last administration?… God Bless the U.S. Army and God Bless the USA.” pic.twitter.com/IH9eJbQuUM

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 10, 2025

“It’s a beautiful sight to be with you in a place called … Fort Bragg,” Trump said, as a crowd of maroon-beret-wearing paratroopers erupted in the stands behind him.

“Could you believe they changed that name in the last administration for a little bit?” he asked as the soldiers booed.

“We’ll forget all about that, won’t we?” Trump said. “We’re gonna forget all about it. I want to just say, ‘God bless the U.S. Army, and God bless the U.S.A.”

Renaming Army forts became a cause célèbre under former President Joe Biden, as the madness of the George Floyd riots continued to reverberate in the social and political worlds.

In a spasm of historical purging, Democrats decided that Army forts that bore the names of Confederate generals in the 21st century somehow constituted condoning the cause of the Confederacy more than 150 years after the Civil War.

It meant nothing that the names had long since moved beyond the men whose names they bore — and had become part of the rich tradition of the U.S. military.

Names like Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, and Fort Hood might have had their start with leaders of an armed rebellion against the country and its Constitution, but they’ve served for generations as touchstones of the largest branch of the military that exists to protect both.

In an institution that reveres tradition, Biden’s blatant appeasement of the political left might have bordered on sacrilege, but Trump’s reasoning was closer to the ground.

“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change,” he said, according to CBS News. “And I’m superstitious, you know?”

Trump hasn’t gone all the way back in reversing Biden’s order; he hasn’t given the forts their original names. Again, more than 150 years after Appomatox, tagging Army forts with the names of Southern generals could arguably be seen as an endorsement of the doomed cause they fought for.

Instead, the administration is honoring American heroes who happen to share the previous names of the forts. And it’s a reversal of Biden’s order in everything that matters.

Fort Bragg, for instance, is no longer named for Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. Instead, it pays tribute to Pfc. Roland Bragg, who was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for his service in World War II’s Battle of the Bulge.

Georgia’s Fort Benning, originally named for Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning, now honors Army Cpl. Fred G. Benning, who received a Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism during World War I, according to the Associated Press.

Fort Hood in Texas, originally named for Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood, is now named for Army Col. Robert B. Hood, an artillery officer who earned a Distinguished Service Cross for bravery under fire in World War I, according to KXXV in Waco.

As CBS reported, a total of nine Army bases are going through the renaming process, with all losing their original, Confederate namesakes in favor of more acceptable alternatives.

The move might come across as too clever by half — especially the mental gymnastics that CBS reported going into the renaming of Fort A.P. Hill (now honoring Civil War Medal of Honor recipients Pvt. Bruce Anderson, 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn and Lt. Col. Edward Hill).

But what it boils down to is honoring tradition, while accepting the fact that there are good-faith, intellectually honest arguments that the name of American military installations should not bear the names of men who literally betrayed their country.

(Leftists and Democrats don’t make good-faith, intellectually honest arguments, but those arguments are out there.)

According to a January 2023 news release from the Defense Department trumpeting the Biden name changes, the forts were given the Confederate names when they were established in the World War I era, in an effort to curry favor with Southerners by the undeniably racist administration of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. (The news release doesn’t say the “racist” part about Wilson.)

But even that was more than a century ago, and the Confederacy is long dead. And the spirit of white supremacy that drove it is effectively dead as a political force in the United States, no matter how hard leftists try to convince Americans otherwise.

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy — a Democratic Party project from its treasonous beginnings to its ignominious end — has nothing to do with the names of Army forts that have been the source of so much strength for the United States and the cause of freedom throughout the world.

Trump’s renaming decisions reflect that, as well as his respect for the traditions of the military he leads as commander in chief. And the roar of those paratroopers on Wednesday showed how much they appreciated it.

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