As part of his pre-July Fourth pledge to take back America from those who would trample wholesale its history and traditions, Donald Trump has signed an executive order decreeing the restoration of the works of public art defaced or destroyed by anarchists over the past two months. “These statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal,” the order states, adding that “[t]o destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance.”
They preserve the memory of our American story and stir in us a spirit of responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten. … 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. …
These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn. My Administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory.
As part of the re-remembrance, the president’s order calls for the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes, where the sculptures will live.
The Left’s response to the gesture has been as predictably derisive as it is gratuitously insulting. Here’s the Washington Post:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Among 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.
So attempting to undo the damage wrought in the heat of the moment by violent hordes who destroyed statues of abolitionists and founders of a school for black children, the president is the combative one — not the “protesters”? Interesting take.
Other liberals are complaining about what they view as an improper focus, accusing the president of fretting over slabs of marble instead of addressing “systematic racism,” a non-existent malady that they invented to stir up the black community and Antifa.
