Mischaracterization of Trump speech is no anomaly

I missed President Donald Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech Friday night, so when I read the press coverage over the weekend I braced for the worst. The New York Times

reported that Trump had delivered an “ominous depiction of the recent protests over racial justice” and “exploit[ed] race and cultural flash points to stoke fear among his base of white supporters.” The Associated Press declared that he had “accus[ed] protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a ‘merciless campaign to wipe out our history.’”

Then I watched the full address. None of it was true. “We embrace tolerance, not prejudice,” Trump said. “Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God.” He praised great black Americans including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Muhammad Ali.

Standing beneath the image of Abraham Lincoln, Trump declared, “Lincoln won the Civil War; he issued the Emancipation Proclamation; he led the passage of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery for all time.” Trump explained that “by tearing down Washington and Jefferson, these radicals … would tear down the principles that propelled the abolition of slavery in America and, ultimately, around the world, ending an evil institution that had plagued humanity for thousands and thousands of years.”

He declared, “Our opponents would tear apart the very documents that Martin Luther King used to express his dream, and the ideas that were the foundation of the righteous movement for civil rights.” To the Times, this is “stoking racial fears to pit a white voting base against nationwide calls for social justice.”

The mischaracterization of the speech is not an anomaly. Trump’s critics in the media have fallen into an insidious habit of taking his quotes criticizing the hordes who burn buildings and tear down statues, and reporting them as criticism of “racial justice protesters.” This is dishonest. Trump has said more than once that he is an ally of peaceful protesters. He’s not the one blurring the lines between violent mobs and peaceful protesters; his media critics are. They know most

Americans oppose the mob but support racial justice, so they twist Trump’s words to make it seem as if he opposes both. Trump says and tweets plenty of outrageous things, but that doesn’t give reporters license to make them up.

Trump believes that if you give an inch to the “cancel culture,” it’s a slippery slope. Nearly three years ago, he warned that if we take down statues of Robert E. Lee, soon they’ll come after George Washington. Well, he was prescient. I think we should have a national conversation about Confederate monuments, and that Trump would be in a stronger position to defend the American founding if he led one. But you can’t have a conversation with a mob. And the rioters tearing down and defacing statues and memorials of Washington, Lincoln and Ulysses S.

Grant have proved they are not just opposed to the Confederacy — they’re opposed to the Union.

What about the charge that he declared a culture war? The left launched the culture war and the cancel culture that, as Trump said, is “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.” The president is simply fighting back against this war of political intolerance — and it’s about time someone did.

The iconoclasm we see today is rooted in a broader movement that seeks to discredit the American founding. Trump declared that no one will accomplish that on his watch. If celebrating and defending our founding principles on the Fourth of July is “dark and divisive” that tells us less about Trump than the sad state of our country.