Once it’s started, mob hard to stop
What do George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Father Junipero Serra and Christopher Columbus have in common?
None were Confederate generals, and yet all have had their statues torn down by mobs in the last few days — or, in the case of Roosevelt, had New York’s Museum of Natural History announce that a Roosevelt statue at the museum’s entrance will soon be removed.
The mobs ripped down statues in Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and several other cities without any fear of police interference.
Now add to the list Andrew Jackson, another president who was not a Confederate general. On Monday night, a mob attempted to tear down the Jackson statue in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Since the statue is on federal ground, U.S. Park Police intervened, saving Jackson from crashing to earth.
So what is next? Probably more violence. After all, what is the disincentive for new mob attacks on historical monuments? Certainly not law enforcement.
And some influential voices seem quite happy with things as they are. Consider this: Mob members sprayed graffiti all over the statue of George Washington brought down in Portland. Among the graffiti was “1619.” That was a reference to The New York Times’ much-praised “1619 Project,” which sought to argue that the United States was not founded between 1776 and 1789, in the period from the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the Constitution, but in 1619, with the arrival of the first Africans brought to Virginia to be sold as slaves.
So recently, noting the “1619” graffiti on the downed statue, the New York Post published an op-ed entitled “Call Them the 1619 Riots.” That caught the attention of the Times’ Nikole HannahJones, creator of the “1619 Project.” Call them the 1619 riots? “It would be an honor,” she tweeted. “Thank you.” Hannah-Jones and the Times won the Pulitzer Prize for the “1619 Project.” The project’s lessons are being turned into a school curriculum. Given today’s mood, more destruction surely lies ahead.