Tag: Trump culture war

Trump turned July Fourth into a partisan event. The damage could be long-lasting.

Washington Post logoPresident Trump, with two speeches in two days, has turned the Fourth of July from a joyful and unifying patriotic celebration of America’s founding values into a partisan political event. The damage could outlast his presidency.

From near the base of Mount Rushmore on Friday night and from the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday night, Trump tried to write himself into the history of America as an implacable wartime president. His enemy, however, is not the Nazis of the 20th century or terrorists of the 21st century. Instead, it appears to be those in America who disagree with him — a caricatured blue America.

Trump knows his reelection campaign is in trouble. He sees the fight against this enemy of his creation as his pathway to victory in November. His political weapon of choice is exaggerated and at times racist rhetoric designed to pit Americans against Americans. Never in our lifetimes has the Independence Day holiday been used for such divisive and personal ends. Continue reading.

Historians question Trump’s choice of ‘heroes’ for national garden monument

Washington Post logoAmong the combative and unusual ways President Trump chose to celebrate Independence Day, some historians were particularly puzzled Saturday by his announcement for a new monument called the “National Garden of American Heroes” populated by a grab bag of historical figures chosen by his administration.

The garden, Trump explained in a Friday night speech at Mount Rushmore, was part of his response to the movement to remove Confederate statues and racially charged iconography across the country.

“Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities,” Trump said. “This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped.”

In response, Trump said he plans to build “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.” Among the statues to be erected in the garden — spelled out in an executive order — are evangelical leader Billy Graham, 19th-century politician Henry Clay, frontiersman Davy Crockett, first lady Dolley Madison and conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Continue reading.

In Trump’s new version of American carnage, the threat isn’t immigrants or foreign nations. It’s other Americans.

Washington Post logoIn his inaugural address, President Trump sketched the picture of “American carnage” — a nation ransacked by marauders from abroad who breached U.S. borders in pursuit of jobs and crime, lured its companies offshore and bogged down its military in faraway conflicts.

Nearly 3½ years later, in the president’s telling, the carnage is still underway but this time the enemy is closer to home — other Americans whose racial identity and cultural beliefs are toppling the nation’s heritage and founding ideals.

Trump’s dark and divisive 42-minute speech at the foot of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota late Friday served as a clarion for his campaign reelection message at a time when the nation — already reeling with deep anxiety over the devastating public health and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic — is also facing a cultural reckoning over the residue of its racially segregated past. Continue reading.

On the country’s birthday, Biden offers hopeful counterpoint to Trump’s message

Washington Post logoJoe Biden on Saturday offered a counterpoint to the dark and defiant Fourth of July message President Trump delivered at Mount Rushmore, striking notes of unity in a video and op-ed released on the nation’s 244th birthday.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee noted that the Founding Fathers were flawed, pointing out that President Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and that women were not granted the full rights of citizenship until 1920. But he said their ideas still offer hope.

It was a stark contrast with Trump, who focused Friday on the men who built the country, saying they are heroes and that those skeptical of the country’s founders are part of a “radical ideology” and a “left-wing cultural revolution.” Continue reading.

Even amid recession warning, 2020 will hinge on the culture war

Washington Post logoIt is often argued by those on the left that Democratic candidates are proposing ideas that would actually better serve the working-class and middle-class Americans who are backing President Trump. But this argument assumes that it is the president’s economic policies that draw his supporters to him. Data doesn’t suggest that was the case in 2016. And that idea will be put to the test as Trump heads into 2020 facing uncertainties about the economy.

“It’s the economy, stupid” is a popular saying in political circles, intended to suggest that Americans vote based on how well the economy is doing. And part of the 2016 narrative suggested that was true. Economic anxiety was regularly touted as one of the main reasons Trump supporters chose him over Hillary Clinton.

As a result, Trump regularly points to what many economists have labeled a good economy when trying to convince voters that they are doing much better under his administration than they were before his election.

View the complete August 15 article by Eugene Scott on The Washington Post website here.