'While a more traditional president may have used an event at a national landmark to bring the country together, Trump once again looked to divide the nation in an attempt to fire up his most loyal supporters.' (photo: CNN)
Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Speech to Deliver Divisive Culture War Message
04 July 20
n a very different Fourth of July holiday, when many Americans are wrestling with the racist misdeeds of the country's heroes and confronting an unrelenting pandemic with surging cases,
their commander-in-chief is attempting to drag America backward --
stirring fear of cultural change while flouting the most basic
scientific evidence about disease transmission.
In a jaw-dropping speech that amounted to a culture war bonfire, President Donald Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore Friday night
to frame protesters as a nefarious left-wing mob that intends to "end
America." Those opponents, he argued, are engaged in a "merciless
campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values,
and indoctrinate our children."
On Saturday in the nation's capital, the Trump administration has planned July 4 celebrations that ignore Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser's concerns
about public health guidelines, although at least there'll be some of
the social distancing measures at the White House that were ignored in
South Dakota, where the President largely acted as if the coronavirus
didn't exist.
Instead, when Trump spoke on Friday night of a
"growing danger," he was talking about an entirely different threat than
rising coronavirus cases. He referred to a threat to America's
"heritage" -- rhetoric intended to rev up his base at a time when many
Americans are attempting to relearn the nation's history with greater
attention to the wrongs inflicted on Black and Native American people.
Repeatedly using vague pronouns like "they" and
"them," Trump sought to play on the fears of a minority -- that appears
to be shrinking, according to polls -- who view the rise of Black Lives
Matter as a threat to the historical dominance of White people. He
described the goals of protesters who are attempting to right the wrongs
of history as "alien to our culture, and to our values."
One of "their political weapons," he said, is "cancel
culture," which would drive people from their jobs, shame dissenters and
"demand total submission" from anyone who disagrees.
"We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our
nation's children, end this radical assault and preserve our beloved
American way of life," Trump said. He mysteriously described those who
would tear down statues of racist leaders from the past as "a new far
left fascism that demands absolute allegiance."
"If you do not speak its language, perform its
rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will
be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished," Trump
said. "It's not gonna happen to us," he said to cheers, as he revived
his familiar "us versus them" language. "Make no mistake. This left-wing
cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution."
"To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol and memory of our national heritage," he said.
A pandemic all but forgotten
It was spectacle that unfolded before thousands of
people, most without masks, who were seated close together in bleacher
seats and on black folding chairs that were zip-tied together because of
a local fire code, making physical distancing impossible.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem,
a Republican and close Trump ally, set the tone earlier this week
during an appearance on Fox News where she said there would be no social
distancing as spectators gathered to celebrate freedom.
Like Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last month -- where at least eight Trump campaign staffers
came down with the coronavirus and dozens of Secret Service agents were
forced to quarantine -- the South Dakota event ignored many of the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for large
gatherings.
The lack of any visible effort to keep people safe was
effectively an act of sabotage against Trump's own public health
officials, who fear that crowds gathering this holiday weekend could
lead to frightening surges in cases and an increase in America's death
toll from the pandemic.
For days now, numerous experts, including the nation's
top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and White House
coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, have warned that
Americans should not attend crowded gatherings as cases surge in 36
states, with alarming positivity rates in parts of Florida, Texas and
Arizona.
Trump, however, has continued gas-lighting Americans
about the rising number of cases, insisting they are due to increased
testing. In a late Thursday night tweet
before playing golf on Friday, Trump inaccurately said that the rise in
coronavirus cases is "because our testing is so massive and so good,
far bigger and better than any other country."
"This is great news, but even better news is that
death, and the death rate, is DOWN," Trump tweeted. "Also, younger
people, who get better much easier and faster!"
The President's appearance at the non-socially
distanced event in South Dakota came at a time when the virus creeps
ever closer to him. Before she was set to attend the South Dakota event,
Kimberly Guilfoyle -- the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. and a top
fundraiser for the Trump campaign -- tested positive for coronavirus, according to a top official for the committee she leads.
And while some of his closest allies are urging Trump
to take a greater leadership role on masks, and even Trump himself told
Fox News Business this week that he has nothing against masks, the
President has refused to wear one publicly in front of the press.
Protecting statues
Just like he does on his Twitter feed, which is
dominated by dismay over the toppling of statues of racist figures from
America's past, Trump minimized the dangers of the pandemic Friday night
in South Dakota, expressing more concern for the safety of statues than
of the American people.
"Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our
founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent
crime in our cities," Trump said. "Many of these people have no idea
why they're doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing. They
think the American people are weak and soft and submissive. But, no, the
American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our
country, and all of its values, history and culture to be taken from
them."
He also waded into the controversy over the legacies
of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two presidents etched into
Mount Rushmore. He delivered his own history lesson of sorts on each of
the White men chiseled into the South Dakota mountain. Earlier this
week, Trump threatened protesters accused of throwing red paint on a
Manhattan statue of Washington -- who owned more than 300 enslaved people until he freed them in his will at the time of death -- with 10 years in prison.
The President suggested that the monument towering
above him, which includes the faces of Washington, Jefferson and former
Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, was also at risk as
America reconsiders its past. "I am here as your president to proclaim
before the country and before the world, this monument will never be
desecrated," Trump said.
The Black Hills, where the monument stands, are a
sacred place to Native Americans who live in the area. Sioux tribes
roamed the area for thousands of years, but tribal ownership of the
Black Hills was officially guaranteed by the 1868 Treaty of Fort
Laramie. The Sioux were soon forced off the land after the discovery of
gold in the area. Native American activists have called for the lands to
be returned. In 1980, the Supreme Court upheld that the seizure of the
Black Hills was illegal under the Fifth Amendment. The legal battle continues to this day.
In this moment of racial reckoning, the racist past of Gutzon Borglum,
the sculptor who created Rushmore and was also a member of the Ku Klux
Klan, has also drawn national attention. Borglum was also appointed to
carve the giant relief of three of the most prominent Confederate
figures, Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson on Georgia's Stone Mountain.
In recent days, the President has suggested that a
2015 Obama housing program, which was intended to rectify decades of
discriminatory practices, has been "devastating" to the suburbs. On
Wednesday, he called the words Black Lives Matter a "symbol of hate." He has also threatened to veto a must-pass defense policy bill because it includes an amendment that calls for the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from all military assets within three years.
Trump has doubled down on those race-baiting tactics
even as he has fallen far behind his opponent, former Vice President Joe
Biden, in the polls and a majority of Americans
across racial and ethnic groups are expressing support for the Black
Lives Matter movement, according to recent polling by the Pew Research
Center.
Guess who is pulling down the biggest statue of all?
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