Sunday, July 5, 2020

Trump's powerful message of rage

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/04/opinions/trump-mount-rushmore-speech-monuments-rhetoric-dantonio/index.html


 
Breathe easy, America. President Donald Trump's got this. A deadly pandemic is tearing through the country, but the statues are going to be all right.

Trump swooped into the heartland on Friday and delivered this news, along with a message of rage at the foot of Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Ignoring the fact that nearly 130,000 Americans have already died from Covid-19, with new cases topping 50,000 a day, he stoked fears of an "angry mob" engaged in "a merciless campaign to wipe out our history." In an address that could be called "American Carnage II" for following the emotional blueprint he laid out in his inaugural address, Trump declared that federal officers would be dispatched to protect monuments and statues wherever they were threatened.

Trump's 40-minute speech was a master class in rhetorical deception. He lumped together the racists of the Confederacy with the figures on Mt. Rushmore, insisting they are all being reconsidered in the same way. Several elected officials have ordered the removal of Confederate monuments in an effort to recognize the painful legacy of slavery, while the debate over monuments of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt is more nuanced, given their positive contributions to the nation. No sweeping effort is being made to remove all of these monuments and to suggest one exists amounts to sounding a false alarm.
In his speech, Trump appeared to want to associate himself with the more admired figures of the past; as he spoke of Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others, Trump sounded like a fifth-grader reading random pages of a history book. There was Washington crossing the Delaware, Jefferson dispatching Lewis and Clark and Roosevelt overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal.
In the simpleton's view of history offered by Trump, there is no room for the slaves owned by Washington and Jefferson or for Roosevelt's white supremacy. According to this perspective, sins and flaws must be denied; otherwise the greats of history cannot be honored. This is, of course, what a child might think upon learning that his or her parents are not quite perfect. But with maturity, children, like citizens, can both revere their heroes for their strengths and criticize them for their failings -- and judge who, in the end, deserves to be on a pedestal.

2 comments :

  1. It is childish to look at historical figures and to try and fit them into neat "Good" and "Bad" categories. If you look to disqualify any historical figure of importance the minute you find a shemetz of badness to him (badness being defined as going against 21st century social justice principles) there will be none left.
    Look at George Washington. Yes, he owned slaves. He was also a vain prig. But he helped found the republic that would go on to bring wealth and freedom to much of the world. He was a complex figure and has to be appreciated as such but today it's "He owned slaves! Cancel him!"
    Look at Roosevelt. From a Jewish perspective, he is a villain for his actions against us during the War. Imagine if he'd been president in 1947 at the time of the UN vote on Israel. But he also shepherded the US successfully through the Great Depression and helped the Allies defeat Hitler, y"sh. One could be a simpleton and cancel him for his crimes against us, sure.
    It's the SJW left that has the simpleton's view of history, not Trump.

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  2. not childish at all to decide if a person is worthy of praise i.e. make a statue

    of course it is important to identify the values of society. this has nothing to do with shemetz. a confederate was a traitor.

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