Which is more divisive? Tearing down our nation’s heroes and monuments, demeaning the accomplishments of a great country, casting patriotic Americans as relics from a bygone era, painting the United States as profoundly racist … or railing against these things, as President Trump did at Mount Rushmore?
In response to the president’s Independence Day event, the New York Times thundered “Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Speech to Deliver Divisive Culture War Message.”
We ask the Times, who declared that war? Who decided that our country’s history is not something to honor, but rather a dark stain on our nation’s conscience?
FRED FLEITZ: AT MOUNT RUSHMORE, TRUMP RIGHT TO HIGHLIGHT DANGER LEFTIST RADICALS POST TO AMERICA
Could it be the liberal elites like those running our universities and the New York Times who have decided that we are better off shouldering a collective guilt than celebrating our successes on the battlefield, in the laboratories, on the playing fields and every other place where Americans have triumphed?
Who chose to divide our country and our politics by gender and by race? Who declared our differences more significant than our common cause?
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It wasn’t Republicans; it was Democrats who cultivated identity politics and ripped apart the fabric of this nation.
The Left has been chipping away at our culture and our values for decades. They deride religion, abhor tradition and sneer at patriotism. To what end? What do they celebrate? What statues will they erect?
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All wars incur casualties. The culture wars threaten the optimism and positivity that have long driven this nation and attracted millions to our shores. They threaten the pride we take in our founding and in our founders, the freedoms we cherish and the aspirations we pass on to our children.
This is the heritage the Left wants to deny; this is the battle joined by President Trump at Mount Rushmore.
The Times writes that Trump created a “straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism.”
There is no “straw man.” Millions of Americans were horrified by the riots in Minneapolis, New York and elsewhere that spiraled out of control. They are shocked that Democrat-backed groups call to defund the police while crime is surging across the nation.
In the city of Seattle, the disorder led to the terrifying spectacle of “CHOP,” a downtown zone taken over by gun-wielding anarchists who barred the police. The liberal mayor allowed this disorder to fester until finally several people were shot, included two who died. That is the very definition of mayhem.
The Times says President Trump “signaled even more clearly that he would exploit race and cultural flash points”; isn’t that what Democrats have done?
As for totalitarianism, on that score too, many would agree with the president. It is not the government that is demanding “complete subservience,” as dictionaries define the term. The intimidation is instead coming from the leftist mob, enabled by social media.
When scores of people are losing their jobs because of years-old tweets or remarks that are racially insensitive by today’s standards, when college-bound students find the doors slammed in their face because of un-woke social media posts, when a professor loses his post at Michigan State University because he shared data suggesting cop shootings are not racially biased, or the New York Times fires an editor because he publishes an opinion piece not conforming to the paper’s liberal code, millions are intimidated, afraid to speak up.
The Times says President Trump “signaled even more clearly that he would exploit race and cultural flash points”; isn’t that what Democrats have done?
They are the ones calling the president racist and demanding the loyalty of black voters. When Democrat candidate Joe Biden told talk show host Charlemagne tha God “… if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” he was roundly criticized for taking the African-American vote for granted. Of course he does, that’s who gave him the nomination.
Neither Biden nor any other senior Democrat has rebuked those destroying America’s monuments, or denounced those who burned and looted neighborhoods in our most liberal cities. They have also not condemned the intolerance of the Left. A recent poll shows they are out of step; 71 percent of Americans oppose the defacing of our statues and 69 percent said news editors or CEOs should not be fired just because they criticize the Black Lives Matter movement.
With their silence, Democrats have given Trump an opening.
The Times casts his speech as a desperate attempt to rally his base. Note that Rasmussen puts President Trump’s approval rating among likely voters at 47 percent on July 3; that is one point ahead of where Barack Obama stood on the same date in 2012, the year he was reelected.
It is true Trump’s polling has slipped, mostly because of a virus he didn’t create and an economy crippled by measures meant to contain it.
But the economy is rebounding sharply, which Politico recently described as the “scenario that Democrats are dreading.”
And the coronavirus, though spreading more rapidly than expected, is becoming less fatal. Even as the number of cases surges in some parts of the country, deaths appear to have stabilized at roughly 600 per day, down from 3,000 daily in April and May. That isn’t good enough, but it’s progress.
Everything about Trump’s Independence Day speech offended liberals, including the setting. CNN introduced the address with this: "President Trump will be at Mount Rushmore, where he’ll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans.”
In 2016, CNN described Bernie Sanders “taking in the majesty of the moment as he visited this monument to four great American presidents."
When President Obama visited, CNN described it as “majestic.”
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Mount Rushmore has not changed.
In this “dark” speech so scorned by liberal commentators, President Trump proclaimed anew “the ideals of the Declaration of Independence,” and vowed to “never surrender the spirit and the courage and the cause of July 4, 1776.” Perfect.