This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 6, 2020:
In announcing that he had signed an executive order creating a National Garden of American Heroes during his Mt. Rushmore speech on Friday night, Trump displayed a masterful understanding not only of the national psyche but how such an order would put his critics on the defensive.
The national psyche is fed up with destruction, especially of national monuments celebrating American heroes. It reflects an increasing level of disgust and distrust of the national media, which opposes “everything Trump.” His executive order is a mark of political genius.
At Mt. Rushmore on Friday night the president said:
I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.
Let us go forward united in our purpose and rededicated in our resolve. We will raise the next generation of American patriots, we will write the next thrilling chapter of the American adventure, and we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.
His executive order made clear the purpose of the statuary park:
America owes its present greatness to its past sacrifices. Because the past is always at risk of being forgotten, monuments will always be needed to honor those who came before. Since the time of our founding, Americans have raised monuments to our greatest citizens….
These statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal. They preserve the memory of our American story and stir in us a spirit of responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten. These works of art call forth gratitude for the accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation.
These monuments express our noblest ideals: respect for our ancestors, love of freedom, and striving for a more perfect union. They are works of beauty, created as enduring tributes. In preserving them, we show reverence for our past, we dignify our present, and we inspire those who are to come. To build a monument is to ratify our shared national project.
His order names a task force to plan for the park, to be completed no later than July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The statues “should depict historically significant Americans … an individual who was, or became, an American citizen and was a public figure who made substantive contributions to America’s public life or otherwise had a substantive effect on America’s history.”
His order provided guidelines for his task force:
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