It’s hard to imagine in 2023 that any American would view slavery as anything but unmitigated evil. It’s a testament to the nation’s dangerous decline in civic literacy when a presidential candidate, the governor of the third-most-populous state, publicly appeals for votes by claiming that slavery had residual benefits for the enslaved.

Asked about Florida curriculum standards by which middle schoolers will be taught that enslaved people acquired skills that they later converted into profitable careers, DeSantis defended the notion while noting that he wasn’t responsible for it.

Teaching kids that slavery was not dehumanizing, brutal, cruel forced labor, but a form of unpaid internship, is utterly irresponsible.

DeSantis should reverse the decision. But this is the same DeSantis who recently vowed to change back the name of Fort Liberty, in North Carolina, to Fort Bragg.

Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Army’s elite Special Forces, was named for a North Carolina enslaver of hundreds of people. He graduated from West Point but committed treason and led Confederate forces in combat against the Union. Although military historians generally regard Bragg as incompetent, he undoubtedly was responsible for killing U.S. soldiers. (The fort properly could have been named for Bragg’s cousin, Union Gen. Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin, who ably commanded U.S. troops in many of the war’s major battles.)

DeSantis should stop pandering for votes to the historically ignorant or resentful.

— Tribune News Service