Yet we judge Hitler and the Nazis, in spite of the fact that what they did was 80 years ago.
People (nitwits) proudly parade around in Che Guevara t-shrits, and he was a murderous, quite racist, asshole dictatorial toolbag only 50 years ago.
We judge Hitler and Nazis because they literally committed one of the most obvious crimes against humanity that people refuse to forget about (with good reason) but other shitbags (and some even MORE murderous) are routinely excused. (For example, how does a portrait of Mao end up on the white house Christmas Tree as it did one year, and an Obama admin official cite a man who made Hitler look like a rank amateur when it came to murdering innocents as her 'favorite philosopher'? I mean, in light of who Mao actually was, those are shamefully astonishing facts, swept under the rug or not.)
So people just pick and choose who they want to hold to some kind of 'standard' based on what's acceptable. (And mass-murder on a grand scale never has been, so it makes the excuse of ever uttering support for someone like Mao even more holy WTF.)
I think there's a distinction between someone like Washington or Jefferson on the one hand, and someone like Lee or Jefferson Davis on the other. Washington fought to have a nation independent of Britain. He didn't fight for the right to enslave people.
But the sad thing is, you're absolutely wrong about the last part. He DID fight for a nation which held the practice of enslaving people. He was a southerner and slave holder himself, and understood full well that was a part of the nation's independence- there was going to be slavery, and men like Washington himself fully gained from it. (Wealthy southern plantation owners.)
The thing is- I and you and most people can see thats that's not ALL Washington was- even though I consider it silly to deny that HE WAS those things, and yes he in a very real way fought for a slave-owning region and nation.
Most are willing to overlook these things as people being products of the times and circumstances they lived in. There's no need to scrub the founders off Mt. Rushmore or our currency because they're viewed as larger than the ugly truths of all they actually were thats's no longer acceptable by society.
A lot of people just see that there's no real reason to be any more harsher against Lee. He fought for a regime that had slavery, yes true. But as I pointed out- it's FACT- the very second before the southern slave states seceded from the union, they were slave states belonging to the United States. The United States was a SLAVE HOLDING COUNTRY, same as the Confederacy sought to become. Many of its founders came from slave holding states and had a personal hand in it.
But let's say you're correct to a point. Maybe Lee wasn't so terribly bad when compared to someone like Jefferson. The fact remains, however, that for black people the confederacy and everything connected to it symbolize oppression, just like for Jews, the Nazi regime and everything and everyone connected to it symbolize oppression. It's insensitive to glorify that regime - and to do it with tax payer funded monuments on public property no less - even IF all the people involved weren't the worst people in the world.
The thing I think you and a lot of people are missing, holding up Lee (for one) as a historic figure ONLY RECENTLY has become some automatically tie with racism, white supremacy etc.
That's my point that he was actually a benign enough figure that "all those libs" in Hollywood saw not a thing wrong with his as the name of the main character's car. Nothing about it had a thing to do with worshiping the confederacy and slavery etc- it's just that people ALL PEOPLE like their regional history and will continue to even if you don't.
It's not just the south- I remember certain neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey where certain mob figures were (probably still are) revered and held up on a pedestal. Not because people were afraid of them- because for whatever warped reason, those are their local heroes. People responsible for shakedowns, rackets, mass murder, etc.
You'll find drug kingpins worshiped in various hoods and places where they've done little more than addict, prostitute and kill the local populace.
People just like other powerful people from the same place they are, and are willing to see nothing but the good side of them.
My point is merely, it's a bit silly to pick and choose. I think Mao is worse than Hitler. NEITHER should be acceptable to ever utter a word of support for by a public figure.
Likewise, I think Washington/Jefferson and Lee (for example) are IN REALITY equally bad in terms of slavery and being powerful figures and active participants in slave owning regimes.
Jefferson WAS a rapist of his slaves- FACT. That alone is a truly reprehensible thing. I don't know if Washington and Lee were equally as bad...
But...
I see all of them as figures that we (for better or worse) overlook their worst traits in favor of their larger status as historic figures. Hollywood naming a car after Lee, or someone not wanting a statue of any of them removed, is NOT just a celebration of their worst traits. Admiring Jefferson doesn't make you a slave-rapist, nor does not wanting to burn everything related to Lee make anyone a white-supremacist supporter.
People can pick and choose which they see as "Oh shucks, so he raped some slaves.." and "OMG he was in the confederacy all they want..." but I just find it stupid and silly to pretend one is infinitely worse and unforgivable than the other.
Oh, and none of it has a thing really to do with Trump for fuck's sake. Trump's an ass, but American History was and will remain whatever it is before him, and long after.