The single most important issue facing this country today is the existence of Confederate statues and memorials. Their immediate destruction and removal is requested because, once this happens, peace and harmony will fall upon America.

Obviously, no.

Not every battle needs a mantra, but this one being taken up by anti-racist activists does at least need some clarity.

Tossing a rope around a memorialized Confederate general and then yanking until he falls is all you need to do in 2017 to piss off people who love heritage but have little understanding of history. Despite electoral victories (that Fake News media refuse to acknowledge!), these Americans have decided to toss their energy about 150 years that way.

President Trump summed it up best. He tweeted: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. … Also, the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be completely replaced!”

Vice President Mike Pence, former governor of Indiana, went even further than the man to whom he sold his soul.

“Rather than tearing down monuments that have graced our cities all across this country for years, we ought to be building more monuments,” Pence said on “Fox & Friends.” “We ought to be celebrating the men and women who have helped our nation move toward a more perfect union and tell the whole story of America.”

There’s a lot to prod at in there (“beauty,” “graced our cities,” “more monuments,” etc.), but the main point is that Trump, Pence and their supporters see history coming down with every Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson statue that meets its death. (For someone who learned only in February that Frederick Douglas is no longer alive, Trump was awfully eager to take the mantle on preserving Civil War-era history.)

But of course, this isn’t about history. It’s not about destroying America’s past, and it’s certainly not about erasing the stains of blood and tears that have permeated the African American population for some 16 generations.

The goal is not to change or erase history; the goal is to bring history to the foreground. Let it stand there naked so that excuses for reverence of the Confederacy can no longer be cloaked in such slapdash jargon as “heritage” and “states’ rights.”

Should a young African American boy in Austin, Texas have to walk under the shadow of a statue commemorating Confederate postmaster general John H. Reagan as he makes his way to Robert E. Lee Elementary School? When he gets to class, should he then have to read white America’s favorite MLK quotes, too?

The simple reality is that there is a distinction to be made between erasing history and unseating the characters that were erected, mostly during Jim Crow segregation and the Civil Rights era, in an attempt to intimidate those in this country who dared to be optimistic about their future as Americans.

When those opposed to racism start raiding museums to wipe clean their collections of artifacts, and when they start campaigning for school board positions on the promise of eradicating the Civil War from textbooks, it can accurately be called an attempt to wipe away history. But until then, they should keep on removing our beautiful statues and monuments; take them out of our cities, towns and parks.