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Mount Rushmore

Presidents Are Not Above the Law: Our Lord and Savior Is

January 23, 2024
by Peter Feinman
The Greatest American President (LordsArt Trump Rushmore by Jon McNaughton)

Besides slavery, another way the Civil War has become part of the current political discourse is with the figure of Abraham Lincoln. In the Union, he is a revered figure. His Memorial at the nation’s capital has been the site of political gatherings, most famously the “I Have a Dream” march with Martin Luther King. He is renowned throughout the Union with schools, streets, parks, and cities named in his honor.

By contrast, in the Confederacy, Lincoln remains a forbidden person. The statues, parks, streets, named after Civil War figures are not named after him. When it comes to Lincoln we are not a “house divided” but two separate houses barely tied together. The social fabric that binds these two peoples grows weaker every day. One wonders how much longer the mystic chords will join the two parts before they are rendered asunder and the two separate peoples can each go their own way. In the meantime at least until the 2024 presidential election, we trudge on as if we will still be a single country a year from now when the President takes the oath of office in 2025.

TRUMP ON LINCOLN

When describing the Civil War, Trump brings an odd perspective to the discussion. The conflict was “so horrible, but so fascinating… [S]o many mistakes were made….That was a tough one for our country,” Trump said.

But then he reveals what really is important to him. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that.” He later added, “Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”

In response Liz Cheney wrote on X: “Which part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?” She continued: “Question for members of the GOP — the party of Lincoln — who have endorsed Donald Trump: How can you possibly defend this?”

What is being overlooked here is that everything he says always is about him. To understand these comments one must put aside his preference for the Confederate side and racism and instead ask, “What’s in it for him with these derogatory comments about Lincoln? Remember after 9/11 Trump bragged that he now had the tallest building in lower Manhattan. If Lincoln had negotiated the war, we wouldn’t even know who Lincoln was. He would not be considered America’s greatest president. He would not be on Mount Rushmore.

Now we are getting to the heart of the Lincoln disparagement.

TRUMP ON RUSHMORE

According to South Dakota Republican Governor and non-Vice-Presidential candidate in 2020 Kristi Noem, she was told straight-faced in 2018 by the current President that his dream was to become the fifth face (“Mount Trumpmore? It’s the president’s ‘dream,’ Rep. Kristi Noem says,” Sioux Falls Argus Leader, April 24, 2018).

“I shook his hand, and I said, ‘Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.’ And he goes, ‘Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’ I started laughing. He wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.”

Apparently she even gave him a miniature Rushmore with a fifth face on it! There is a certainly irony in this dream or nightmare. He actually had the opportunity to be a Mount Rushmore caliber president (Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It? June 5 2020). When one considers the coronavirus, economic collapse, George Floyd, and China, he has had abundant chances to display leadership on a heroic scale. If he had the mental necessities, cognitive skills, courage, and strength of character to rise to the occasion, he would qualify as a Mount Rushmore quality president. But how can a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old (per Mary Trump) ever be worthy of a 60 foot carving? (The Five Faces of Mount Rushmore August 10, 2020)

Just two months earlier, I had written the following Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It? June 5, 2020.

With America’s Third Civil War, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate (in 2016) made no attempt to be President of We the People. He made no attempt to be an e pluribus unum President. He saw that America was not a house divided but two houses. He did not divide America, he exploited the divisions which existed. The longtime pretend Democrat and Clinton supporter realized he had no future there just as he had none with the New York elitists whose approval he craved and never received. Instead he became a fake Republican, heard the call of Sarah Palin to take back the country from you know….those people, and answered the call. As long as Trumpicans think he is fighting for them against the terrorists, they will continue to accept him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name no matter what else happens. He is meeting expectations and still fighting as the battle is not yet over.

Obviously it is only because of Divine Providence, that at this moment of existential crisis, that our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here as President of the United States. He saved the economy once, he will do it again. He saved the country from the coronavirus. He will take back the country for real Americans. Truly we are blessed that at this moment of existential crisis, we have a President equal to if not superior to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. And if you don’t believe me, just ask him.

For all his talk about having the greatest first year of a President ever,

For all his talk about having the greatest first two years of a President ever,

For all his talk about having done more for black Americans than any President except Lincoln,

He had a legitimate opportunity in the real world to become one of America’s greatest Presidents if only he knew it and was capable of rising to the occasion.

These words from 2020 are still relevant today.

He shares the Confederate disdain for New York elitists who look down on him.

He shares the Confederate disdain for Abraham Lincoln since he is America’s greatest president.

He agrees with the MAGA belief in him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name.

Now he stands revealed as the true savior who will reap divine retribution on the vermin and the disloyal RINOs, those who oppose him once he is back in the White House where he belongs. He is America’s greatest President. He belongs on Mount Rushmore.

TRUMP ON JESUS

Mount Rushmore is no longer sufficient of contain the ego of the immature child indicted former president. In his “So God made Trump” video, we now see him revealed in all his divine glory. The more his mental necessities deteriorate, the grander the self-image of who he is becomes. Now he stands revealed as the pretribulationists premillennial Savior (Mike Johnson’s Bible and America: Which Bible?) not that he knows any of those terms. As he vanquishes all within his party who would rise up against him and even his would-be foes jump on his band-wagon, we see the truth of who he is: Donald Trump is the Christ, the Savior of America. The day of retribution is coming.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1373822500

 

The Five Faces of Mount Rushmore

August 10, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Whose Face Were You Expecting for the Fifth?

As with “The Three Faces of Eve,” Mount Rushmore has multiple personalities. It is like a Rorschach which tells different stories to different people according to John Taliaferro, author of “Great White Fathers: The True Story of Gutzon Borglum and His Obsessive Quest to Create the Mt. Rushmore National Monument.” It’s not exactly a palimpsest with hidden physical layers. It’s not exactly the story of the blind people and the elephant where no one can see the whole. But in way it is all of the above. It has multiple meanings simultaneously but one has to make the effort to see and understand them.

LUIGI DEL BIANCO

Probably the least familiar face of Mount Rushmore is that of Luigi Del Bianco, the chief carver of Mount Rushmore. His contribution to the creation of Mount Rushmore was long overlooked by the National Park Service (NPS). The Del Bianco family waged a tireless and ceaseless quest to have the family patriarch recognized in what at times must have seemed like a hopeless task. At last, the effort proved successful and Luigi Del Bianco now is officially recognized.

I became aware of this little known contributor to the carving because by chance I live in same village as he did, Port Chester, NY. In fact, it is the same village as his grandson Lou Del Bianco, the author of the book about his grandfather, lives. The grandson also was the driving force behind the creation of a village statue in his honor. I was there at the dedication.

Lou does reenactments of his grandfather. One fact that sticks in my mind, is how difficult it was for Luigi to get Italian food in South Dakota back in the 1930s! One should stop and pause for a moment and consider what it meant to this Italian immigrant to be working on this monument to America’s greatest presidents. He was doing so in the time of Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, and Columbus Day becoming a national holiday. In a different way, this story of Italian pride in being part of the American story is being repeated now in the journey of another people with the recent actions on Juneteenth, statues, monuments, and memorials to Middle Passage Africans, and the inclusion of their history as American history.

GUTZON BORGLUM

According to Stetson Kastengren, PhD student at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, (Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech showed why our battle over history is so fraught, Washington Post, July 5, 2020), historian Doane Robinson, who had written on South Dakota history, came up with the idea for the monument in 1923. Robinson envisioned a memorial directing tourism to a Midwestern state. He wrote to U.S. Sen. Peter Norbeck of South Dakota that the handiwork of one sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, would “‘sell’ the Black Hills and [Custer State] Park as nothing else could.”

He [Borglum] explained to an audience in Rapid City, S.D., in 1925 that the monument would honor the “empire builders” by celebrating the “founder” and “savior” of America — George Washington and Abraham Lincoln respectively — and Thomas Jefferson, “the first great expansionist” who had secured the Louisiana Purchase. The fourth president who would be featured, Borglum’s friend Roosevelt, had “thrust himself upon the western plains” as a grieving younger man mourning the deaths of his wife and mother, and had expanded the American empire via the Panama Canal. The sculptor proclaimed, “If you carve … these empire-builders the whole world will speak of South Dakota.”

Borglum brought his own baggage to the creation of Mount Rushmore. His connections with the Confederate monument in Georgia’s Stone Mountain and the Ku Klux Klan make his role in the creation of the national monument problematic. So whereas Del Bianco was overlooked in the NPS telling of the story, Borglum’s biography was minimized to ignore the more distasteful elements of his life. But here is where the NPS is missing an exceptional opportunity to tell the story of America. Just as the Italian immigrant celebrating the history of his new country is part of the Rushmore story, so too are the Confederates who sought to destroy that country and the KKK which sought to destroy the ideals of that country. Here is where the NPS could make the visit to Mount Rushmore much more than a drive by tour with photo-ops and a tourist shop. It could tell the full story of the Mount which would be much more compelling.

THE FOUR PRESIDENTS

The four Presidents are the most familiar part of the Mount Rushmore experience. Even people who have never been there are likely to have seen the image at some point. Yes, it is a heroic portrayal of these four white men and the country they led. The “shrine to democracy” expresses leadership during four phases of American development: birth of the nation, westward expansion, preservation of the Union and emancipation, and industrial revolution. This is the traditional story, one which the NPS is skilled at telling.

Naturally today, there is a Woke version about these four men as well. I addressed that in a previous blog (Woke American Exceptionalism Is Still American Exceptionalism, July 23, 2020).

SIOUX LAND

To the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache, the land is sacred.

The Great Sioux Nation consider the Black Hills a place of refuge that provides food, water, shade and sites to perform sacred rites. The hills belonged to the Sioux under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that stated the territory consisting of what is today western South Dakota was “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Sioux Nation. (Kastengren)

IN the last few decades there has been various machinations in Congress and by the Sioux over land and money without there being much change.

As a result, some people want to turn the clock back and restore the land to the time before white people.

“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism, that’s still alive and well in society today. It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land, then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide,” said Nick Tilsen, Oglala Lakota, who wants to see the monument removed and the Black Hills returned to the Lakota.

Julian Bear Runner, the president of the Oglála Sioux, said that Mount Rushmore should be removed in response to the recent controversy.

Unless the Sioux hire ISIS and/or the Taliban, this is not likely to happen. There needs to be a more constructive resolution in the real world.

MOUNT TRUMPMORE

According to South Dakota Republican Governor and non-Vice-Presidential candidate in 2020 Kristi Noem, she was told straight-faced in 2018 by the current President that his dream was to become the fifth face (“Mount Trumpmore? It’s the president’s ‘dream,’ Rep. Kristi Noem says,” Sioux Falls Argus Leader, April 24, 2018).

“I shook his hand, and I said, ‘Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.’ And he goes, ‘Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’. “I started laughing. He wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.”

Apparently she even gave him a miniature Rushmore with a fifth face on it! There is a certainly irony in this dream or nightmare. He actually had the opportunity to be a Mount Rushmore caliber president (Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It? June 5 2020). When one considers the coronavirus, economic collapse, George Floyd, and China, he has had abundant chances to display leadership on a heroic scale. If he had the mental necessities, cognitive skills, courage, and strength of character to rise to the occasion, he would qualify as a Mount Rushmore quality president. But how can a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old (per Mary Trump) ever be worthy of a 60 foot carving?

MOUNT RUSHMORE: AMERICAN CIVICS TEACHING OPPORTUNITY

In the current issue of World Wildlife Magazine, Cindy and Harry Eisenberg, members of the WWF Northern Great Plains Advisory Committee, were asked about their interest in protecting the Northern Great Plains. Cindy responded:

“We fell in love with South Dakota when we visited Mount Rushmore.”

Harry spoke about a ceremony with local tribal leaders in 2005 when 16 bison were released on the plains of northern Montana, the first bison on the land in over a century.

The Northern Great Plains Indians were the subject of two blogs on the cancelled conference this year of the Organization of American Historians:

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) Conference: What Would Have Been Presented? April 22, 2020

Organization of American Historians Conference: II April 26, 2020.

There is both conservation and academic interest in land to say nothing of the event at Little Bighorn.

In short, there is a lot of American history connected to this site. That one mount with the four faces has ties to multiple facets of the story of who we are as a people as well as who we want to be as our journey continues. For the NPS, there is the challenge to go beyond the traditional to embrace all aspects of this one site. A land can be sacred to more than more people and for more than one reason. The reality is, for Americans, the land belongs to all us including Sioux, Italians, Presidents, conservationists, scholars and a host of others. The practical question for us a people is whether we are ready to tell that story in the fullest to build a better tomorrow or if we are to remain trapped in past.

Woke American Exceptionalism Is Still American Exceptionalism

July 23, 2020
by Peter Feinman
American Exceptionalism (“A Union in the Interest of Humanity – Civilization Freedom and Peace for all Time.” ca. 1898, Donaldson Litho Co.; Library of Congress)

Woke American exceptionalism is still American exceptionalism. This realization occurred to me last week when I was watching a Woke presentation online and the term flashed in my mind. It wasn’t exactly a “eureka” or OMG moment as the light bulb clicked on. But it was a coming together of thoughts that brought order to chaos and helped me make sense of what has been transpiring in the culture wars especially recently.

Woke American exceptionalism is a derivative of standard American exceptionalism. America is still inherently different from all other countries but from a different perspective. It retains the Christian, Protestant basis. But it expresses not simply an “America First” value but an “America Alone.” In other words, it pronouncements often occur as if the rest of human history hadn’t occurred and that the only humanity that matters is the one here because we are exceptional.

Below are the examples that led me to this realization.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The American Revolution looms large in traditional American exceptionalism. We were God’s New Israel fighting Pharaoh for freedom. We were led by people of Providential inspiration who brought us to victory. We were born and constituted by sacred documents.

Not quite with Woke American exceptionalism. If anything it was the reverse which happened. The people who led the so-called Revolution and the documents they created are to be condemned as the products of a racist, sexist, imperialist people. The country they created far from being an example for the world completely failed to meet Woke standards.

So where does the United States in 1787 rate on the Woke scale of judgement?

How many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries were there in the world in 1787?

Of those countries, how many declared their basis on the principle of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” or something similar even if it was honored in the breach?

Of those countries, how many had never occupied the land of another people?

Was what was exceptional about the United States in 1787 was that it existed in a world of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious  countries of no slavery and freedom for all that included no conquered land and were in compliance with Woke standards?

Perhaps instead of judging the United States of 1787 based on Woke values today, it also would be appropriate to examine the United States in comparison to where the rest of the world rates on the Woke scale. Instead of simply condemning the United States for failing to live up to the vision expressed in 1776 and 1787, how many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries even had such a vision then in the first place that they could fail to observe?

TOPPLING STATUES OF SLAVE-OWNERS

In the last few weeks, the toppling of the statues of slave-owners has accelerated. Founding Fathers who also owned people have been particularly targeted. In a previous blog, I wrote about the competing views of two New York Times op-ed writers (To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”). One, Bret Stephens, called for determining whether the person in question had helped advance the country towards the goal of creating a more perfect union. The other, Charles Blow, drew a line in sand: if you own people, then you should be toppled.

At the very end, after I had written the blog, a thought occurred to me. I added this ending before I posted it:

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?

It was this comment that started me towards Woke American Exceptionalism a week later, to thinking beyond America. How many Pharaohs, Caesars, kings, and emperors didn’t own people? If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are to be toppled, what does that mean for the non-American slave-owners? What does it mean for the tourist sites of many countries once tourism begins again? What does it mean for the holdings of museums? Are all slave-owners from all places from all times to be toppled or just the white ones?

MOUNT RUSHMORE

The event that put the pieces together in my mind was a program “Whose Hero? New Perspectives on Monuments in Public Landscapes” by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience on June 24 and 26. I was only able to watch part of the initial program and it was a few weeks before I could see the taped version of it. The specific presentation in question was by Sally Roesch Wagner, the Executive Director, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation (whom I know). She is from South Dakota. Her topic was mostly about Mount Rushmore. It has been in the news lately and will be the subject of a future blog.

Much of Sally’s presentation was information about Mount Rushmore, its design, its purpose. Then she strayed into not history or politics but to psychology. I will not repeat or summarize what she had to say about the heterosexual white male except to note her enjoyment in denigrating them for these expressions of power like Mount Rushmore. It was at that moment when I had my moment of clarity.

What I thought of was Abu Simbel.

Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Wikepedia)

You are looking at four giant-sized statues of a male. Unlike Mount Rushmore, the four personages are the same person, Ramses II, Pharaoh of the Exodus. He is a slave-owner who needs to be toppled by Woke standards. The Founding Fathers identified with the Israelites “who were slaves in Egypt” and sought to escape the yoke of Pharaoh as they did of King George III. It was while listening to Sally about Mount Rushmore that I thought of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Then I thought of the other Egyptians male rulers who had built giant statues to themselves. Then I thought about rulers of other lands like Mesopotamia. Kings (and Queens) build things. They build cities, temples, forts, palaces, irrigation systems, roads, and victory monuments and statues in their own honor.

We used to build things in America. From the Erie Canal to the Apollo Moon Landing, we were a society that built things. Only lately, meaning in the 20th century, did we start building edifices for each and every President called Presidential Libraries. In human history, it is hardly unusual for rulers to shout their praises to the heavens. Typically rulers commemorate themselves. In any event, listening to Sally talk about Mount Rushmore led to think about Abu Simbel and then to all the ways rulers have for millennia throughout the world build in their own honor.  Part of what is unusual about Mount Rushmore is that none of the people on the mount commissioned the work. Mount Rushmore is part of a larger story of the human experience. But then again, Woke American Exceptionalism isn’t interested in what people elsewhere have done, only what evil Americans have done.

SAVAGES

Now that I was aware of Woke American Exceptionalism, I was prepared for it. I then watched an education program by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). In that program, the presenter spoke about the use of the word “savages” to describe American Indians. He cited both primary sources and textbooks.

His references to “savages” immediately caused me to look beyond white Americans. Once again, Egypt was way ahead of us on describing people as subhumans who live like animals.

Lo, the miserable Asiatic,
He is wretched because of the place he’s in:
Short of water, bare of wood,
Its paths are many and painful because of mountains
He does not dwell in one place,
Food propels his legs,
He fights since the time of Horus,
Not conquering nor being conquered,
He does not announce the day of combat,
Like a thief who darts about a group.
(The Instruction to Merikare)

Just so you know I am not picking on the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians voiced similar views.

The Martu who know no grain
The Martu who know no house or town
The boors of the mountains…
Dresses in sheepskins,
Lives in a tent at the mercy of wind and rain
Does not offer sacrifice
He digs up truffles in steppe but does not know how to bend his knee
He eats raw meat. In life he has no house, in death he lies lot buried in a grave.
(The Marriage or Myth of Martu)

The uncivilized “other” has been around for a long time. Typically the “other” is portrayed in unflattering terms.

Here is an example from a World War I recruiting poster. Without the words, would it have occurred to you that Germans were the savage other?

The Hun versus Lady Liberty (Recruiting Poster https://en.wikipedia.org)

 

One of the lessons I was reminded of from Woke American Exceptionalism is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Science fictions fans are aware that First Contact and Close Encounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind can be fraught with danger (Columbus Day: Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Sooner or later, people with disproportionate power over another people tend to use it….and justify it on the basis that the foe aren’t real people as we are.

Finally, let’s not forget Christianity and Woke American Exceptionalism. Once upon a time, indigenous people throughout the world lived in peace and harmony with each other and nature. Then white people arrived and the Original Sin occurred. Now those people need to repent and restore the purity which once existed. It’s one of our oldest stories.

TrumpVirus, Lafayette Square, and Portland Statues, Monuments, and Memorials

July 21, 2020
by Peter Feinman
This is not a drill. The jack-booted thugs have landed. Repeat. This is not a drill. (http://www.quickmeme.com)

With all the talk about toppling statues and defacing monuments and memorials, it is time to start thinking about the new ones which should be erected. Typically, wartime leaders build just such markers to their greatness and their triumphs. Our wartime thinks he deserves to be on Mount Rushmore. However that possibility does not seem likely. Instead We the People should consider the statues, monuments, and memorials appropriate to his leadership.

TRUMPVIRUS

The first topic for consideration is the TrumpVirus. Here is an area where our wartime leader rates himself a “10” and would not do anything different. He often proclaims how we are the envy of the world for our handling of the virus. Surely that appreciation can be expressed physically with commensurate statues, monuments, and memorials.

Statue

The obvious statue which comes to mind is the image of our heroic wartime leader brandishing his most powerful weapons in the fight against the TrumpVirus. I am referring, of course, to Little Donne Disinfectant wielding the one thing the coronavirus fears above all else – disinfectant! The statue should be of our wartime leader holding a bottle of disinfectant while the coronavirus slithers away in horror.

Think of Nero. Nearly 2000 years later and he is still remembered for fiddling while Rome burned…EVEN WITHOUT A STATUE! Think of how long Little Donnee Disinfectant will be remembered with a statue in his honor.

Funding for the statue should be easy. How much would Clorox play so the bottle of disinfectant isn’t Clorox? Similarly, how much would Lysol pay so it isn’t Lysol? The major issue to be decided is the size of the statue. Should it be a life size statue or one larger than life? And if larger than life then how much larger? Statue of Liberty large? Washington Monument large? Trump Tower large?  The size is open to debate.

The statue also should be bathed in a heavenly aura. This glow will represent the divine assistance Our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, each time he invoked heavenly help to effect a miracle cure. After all, it is hardly unusual for divine right-kings and son of God rulers to pray for divine assistance in the midst of or prior to a battle.

Monument

Commentators frequently note that the death toll from the TrumpVirus exceeds that of multiple American wars combined. Plus the number is still rising and will continue to rise in the indefinite future. Therefore building a monument comparable to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial with 58,318 names may be impracticable. Who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people will end up dead due to the TrumpVirus.

Perhaps instead of one national monument dedicated to all who died of the TrumpVirus, there should be multiple monuments throughout the communities and states of the country. Once upon a time, the coronavirus was comparatively contained. But now it has metastasized and is everywhere. So any single monument to reflect the experience of the TrumpVirus would have to be conceptual.

Or perhaps it could be digital. Instead of a stone monument to the deceased perhaps a digital monument could be built. It would show the increased number of deaths over time with a suitable caption or voiceover. Some of the cable shows already have done something like this. For example, the map might start with 15 dots becoming zero and then gradually increase to fill in the whole country. Think of the vaunted Red Wave the wartime general always is talking about. We saw it in action in 2018.  We are seeing it in action in 2020 as Trumpican Senate candidates exult in the boost to their own reelections derived from the wartime President’s superb handling of the coronavirus. The digital projection could show the same red wave color spreading as the deaths of Americans sweep the country each time the wartime leader says the coronavirus is contained and under control.

LAFAYETTE SQUARE

Lafayette Square is indelibly etched into the American national consciousness as the site of the greatest military victory by a sitting President ever. Of course, American Presidents prior to becoming President had great victories as generals. Of course, American Presidents presided over great victories led by others. But what President himself has personally had such a stirring victory as the one by this wartime leader? Plus it was not against the coronavirus or even foreigners, but against Americans themselves. The closest parallel may be George Washington’s leadership in the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania [where decades earlier he had launched his military career in the French and Indian War].

I predict that Lafayette Square will become a great tourist draw. Tourists will flock to the site where America’s wartime leader dominated the square as no leader had before him and none will since. They will reenact the strenuous march to victory following his footsteps painted on the ground. They will approach the history sign erected to mark this heroic victory. And then convulsed in laughter they will take a selfie next to the cardboard cutout of the wartime President proudly holding a Bible upside down thrust to the heavens. Truly it will be a site to behold.

PORTLAND

But our wartime leader did not stop with dominating a mere square. It was just the start of a more ambitious effort to take back the country. He would seize the Democratic-governed areas one-by-one if he had too before all bowed down before him and knuckled to his will. It would be like Cornwallis taking back the colonies one-by-one in the South. To mix war metaphors, Portland may be our Fort Sumter, the place where America’s Third Civil War, became a true battlefront.

Remember how often we have been warned about jack-booted thugs and their black helicopters. Think of the National Rifle Association (NRA) running a four-page ad in the center of its American Rifleman magazine in 1993. It showed goose-stepping, jackbooted legs under the question, “What’s the First Step to a Police State?” The NRA followed up in 1995 with a reference to federal agents as “jackbooted government thugs” in a fund-raising letter.

Now we know all the rantings and ravings of the vast rightwing conspiracy are true. Now we know all the warnings about the Government are true. Now we know that the incessant call for the American people to arm themselves against the Government are true. Our wartime President has made his move against Portland. Other cities are to follow. We could not celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre this year due to the coronavirus. But now we have an opportunity to relive it. The wartime President will crush the Patriots until only the Loyalists to him remain. Isn’t that worthy of a statue?

So let’s not just topple statues, monuments, and memorials. Let’s think about the new ones to create in recognition of our wartime President. He has triumphed over the TrumpVirus, dominated Lafayette Square, and is seizing the cities that defy him. Truly he is worthy of being on Mount Rushmore if only there was room for him.

Mount Rushmore Opportunity for a Little Little Boy: Does He Know It?

June 5, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Macho Macho Boy Twins (Photo: AP)

In American history, there have been three existential moments when the fate of the United States was at risk: creation, secession, and depression.

CREATION

At the birth of the country, there was no guarantee that it would be successful. There was no guarantee that the fledgling states would successfully constitute themselves. One person made a difference and earned the reputation as the indispensable person. We will never know if without George Washington, the United States would have been created or not. What we do know, it is not simply by chance that he was in that position. People picked America’s first action hero to command the American forces and people wrote the Constitution with the expectation that he would be President. He fulfilled expectations.

SECESSION

At the secession, one may reasonably posit that the election of Abraham Lincoln triggered the event. But the idea that America was a house divided already was known. If it hadn’t been Lincoln’s election that immediately led to the Second Civil War, it would have been something else. It is easy to imagine that America’s Second Civil War could have ended with two separate countries as we are today except not legally. No one anticipated that Lincoln would become America’s greatest president outside the Confederacy. He exceeded expectations.

DEPRESSION

At the depression, one may reasonably posit that the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a direct result of the failure under Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt was elected to save America. No one knew that there would be a second and unrelated threat looming just years away –World War II. Similarly, Roosevelt’s success in the 1930s during the depression did not necessarily mean he was right person to be the wartime leader. Roosevelt first fulfilled and then exceeded expectations when the second threat arose.

Today, if one would to identify the three greatest American presidents, outside the current White House and the Confederate states, the answers would be Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Historians can play the “what if” counterfactual one on do times make the person or does the person make the times. The other Roosevelt is likely to be a favored choice for Presidents who could have risen to the occasion to save the country had the opportunity existed. It is a lot easier to select Presidents who would have failed miserably had they been President during these crises or whose shortcomings precipitated the crisis in the first place.

MOUNT RUSHMORE OPPORTUNITY

At this moment in time, America experiences multiple threats. The times cry out for a Mount Rushmore President to lead us from the calamities facing us. It seems as if fate is piling it on, confronting America with one challenge after another. We are facing:

1. the attempt by the Middle Kingdom to wrest world leadership from us

2. America’s Third Civil War

3. the global coronavirus crises

4. the global economic recession if not depression

and, of course, below-the-radar, climate change which hasn’t disappeared from the real world even as it recedes from the news media due to all the other events.

To some extent, during the 2016 election We the People given our Electoral College system picked a President to deal precisely with most of these issues.

With climate change, the choice was simple. The candidate who denied that climate change existed and who claimed it was a Chinese hoax won. As one might expect, the anti-science values of his supporters carried over into other science-related issues. He has meet expectations.

With China, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate was one who had no interest in America’s role in human history or position in the world. Everything was transactional. Everything was a zero-sum game. There were no allies, only transactional relationships. We pulled out of the anti-China alliance the previous President had put together. The new President did so because he vowed to undo whatever Obama had done. The new President did try to apply his transactional zero-sum values to trade the Middle Kingdom but so far without much to show for it. Now he is trying to blame China for the coronavirus crisis and turn China into Mexicans and Salvadorans. That will work with Trumpicans again in the election but has little substance in the global arena. He has not met expectations but is still trying; plus the game has changed due to the new circumstances.

With America’s Third Civil War, the choice also was simple. The winning candidate made no attempt to be President of We the People. He made no attempt to be an e pluribus unum President. He saw that America was not a house divided but two houses. He did not divide America, he exploited the divisions which existed. The longtime pretend Democrat and Clinton supporter realized he had no future there just as he had none with the New York elitists whose approval he craved and never received. Instead he became a fake Republican, heard the call of Sarah Palin to take back the country from you know….those people, and answered the call. As long as Trumpicans think he is fighting for them against the terrorists, they will continue to accept him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name no matter what else happens. He is meeting expectations and still fighting as the battle is not yet over.

With the coronavirus, that was unexpected. Just as Roosevelt had been elected for one crisis, the depression, and then had to face another one, so to now there was a second crisis unrelated to the first. The winning candidate was elected to save real Americans by taking back the country, not to fight a virus. Whereas Roosevelt proved successful in dealing with the unexpected, the same does not apply now. Success if fighting against immigrant people does not translate into success in fighting against an immigrant virus. Still, he has claimed success, asserted he wouldn’t have changed anything, and declared himself a “10.” The wartime President against the invisible enemy has won and saved over 2 million American lives in the process. By November, the coronavirus crisis will be over if it isn’t already and who will remember the problems of the spring.

With the depression, again the unexpected occurred. The United States economy already was on its way back in 2016. The one action taken to help rich people get richer did not contribute to a more successful economy. Now we are on our way back. By November we will be back and who will remember the problems of the spring.

To recap, the winning candidate did do what he pledged to do…up to a point. He did wreak havoc with the international arena. He did ignore climate change. He did fight immigration. He did insult, demean, and mock the politically correct, the news media, and the Republicans who did not accept the new Trumpican order. He did not end Obamacare. He did not return manly manufacturing jobs to the United States. He did not return manly coal mining jobs to their former number. He did save America from the coronavirus and did rebuild the economy. So despite his dishonesty, ignorance, narcissism, above-the –law behavior, and conduct as a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck, he had and still has a legitimate chance win the Electoral College again.

What is important to realize is that the immature child playing imaginary games where he makes up the roles genuinely believes he has succeeded as a wartime general and that Trumpicans accept his version of the truth as communicated via Tweets and Fox.

WARTIME GENERAL FOR AMERICA’S THIRD CIVIL WAR

The same considerations apply to the ramped up Third Civil War in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Bonespur Boy is seeking to replicate his wartime victory over the coronavirus over the thugs and terrorists.

“We will end it now.”

“If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

“My administration will stop mob violence, and stop it cold.”

“These are terrorists. These are terrorists. And they are looking to do bad things to our country.”

“Only I can save our country because I am a very stable genius, the smartest person in the room.”

You want empathy? Try weak wimpy sleepy Joe Biden. I will dominate the streets. I won the battle of Lafayette Square (The Battle of Lafayette Square: The Greatest Victory in American History). Real men don’t wear masks. Real men don’t go into bunkers (except to inspect them!). I am Macho Macho Man like Putin, ruler for life as I should be, too.

Obviously it is only because of Divine Providence, that at this moment of existential crisis, that our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here as President of the United States. He saved the economy once, he will do it again. He saved the country from the coronavirus. He will take back the country for real Americans. Truly we are blessed that at this moment of existential crisis, we have a President equal to if not superior to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. And if you don’t believe me, just ask him.

For all his talk about having the greatest first year if a President ever,

For all his talk about having the greatest first two years of a President ever,

For all his talk about having done more for black Americans than any President except Lincoln,

He had a legitimate opportunity in the real world to become one of America’s greatest Presidents if only he knew it and was capable of rising to the occasion.