Trump takes stand at monument
Mount Rushmore gives backdrop to fiery words
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL, S.D. — President Donald Trump delivered a firm Independence Day eve vow to protect America and Mount Rushmore from “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”
“There could be no better place to celebrate America’s independence than to lead this magnificent, incredible, majestic mountain monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived,” Trump said in his speech in South Dakota, at the base of Mount Rushmore.
“I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before the world this monument will never be desecrated. These heroes will never, ever be destroyed. Their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.”
In one particularly forceful statement, Trump said “cancel culture” mobs are miscalculating Americans as “weak and submissive,” but he said to cheers from over 7,500 onlookers that “Americans are strong and proud.”
“Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders to deface the most sacred memorial and unleashed a wave of violent crime in our cities,” Trump said. “Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing.
In the aftermath of protests over the death of George Floyd, calls for social justice have in some instances morphed into something else. Protesters have defaced, toppled or tried to destroy a number of statues honoring, among others, Founding Fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, because they owned slaves, and military leaders of the slave-holding Confederacy.
Trump has come down hard against such actions as contrary to efforts to remember and celebrate American history. He has taken various steps at the White House to pursue the vandals and criminalize such actions, even issuing an executive order late last month against the destruction of American monuments, memorials and statues.
“They think the American people are weak and submissive. But no,