How to Decide Which Statues to Pull Down

As statues come down everywhere and right-leaning pundits waggle their fingers and say they told us so, it’s important to try to draw distinctions. After all, when you topple George Washington from his pedestal (which many argued would never happen), you’re making a bold claim about who deserves to be dishonored.

I warned five years ago that we’re rushing down this road with only the haziest notion of where we’ll wind up. Now that we have a better idea (Cervantes? Who hates Cervantes?), it’s less clear than ever that the road is worth taking. But if this is to be our journey, we would do better to travel it democratically. Decisions about which historical figures to (literally) deplatform should be taken within, not outside of, the ordinary processes of political debate.