Today, on a day presidents traditionally use to avoid politics and reinforce Americans’ shared values, Trump gave a speech dividing Americans into two groups: his supporters and “the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing.” Trying to get people to look away from the devastating toll of coronavirus on this country—our official death toll is approaching 130,000— Trump is staking out a position as the leader of a culture war.
Please, please, Prof. Richardson, get a team together to write new textbooks on US history for elementary, middle and high school students. Maybe it could be a project assisted by your MA/PhD students. After that, a US History 101 would be of the essence for all first year college students. I don’t know how many times, I have had to give US history lessons in my Human Rights classes. Your academic input would be such a blessing!
Many thanks once again, Heather, for this timely reminder of reality. ...And the wheel turns! To quote the dictum..."if we ignore...or are ignorant of...the lessons of history then we are destined to repeat them". It's time that the history of what REALLY happened...rather than the propaganda of subsequent generations...once again took its place at the top of the education agenda. Knowing where your country is coming from is absolutely essential in understanding where it is now and where it's going. It is one of the most important building blocks in the identity of the individual and of that of the nation.
You took the sad story of one man’s angry, divisive rant framed by a monument the history of which he did not understand, and slammed home the facts about its origins and symbolic import thereby collapsing the shaky ground out from under him.
Upon finishing this post, I was nearly breathless.
As a side note, I don't see how "far-left fascism" is even a thing. Fascists are, by their very nature, far right and antithetical to the left. Far-left fascists don't exist in my pantheon of political persuasions. Might as well use the term "communist fascists," which also makes no sense, since those two political groups are inimically hostile.
I'm struck by the parallels between the history of the late 19th century/early 20th century and 100 years later. Except we don't have a Roosevelt to stop the oligarchic kleptocracy (which we innocuously call income disparity) and to save our National Parks and Public Lands from the exploitation of greedy capitalists. A friend familiar with reservation life says wait until Americans find out what it is like to live on a reservation. But with no Roosevelt, capitalism is barreling toward collapsing on itself as income disparity hollows out the middle class consumer which capitalism depends upon and artificial intelligence displaces workers altogether. We also do not have an Edward R. Murrow journalist to take down the Trumpian form of McCarthyism with the ominous link of the double down Roy Cohn and his influence on both these despots. Add the climate crisis on top of the collapse of capitalism while we fiddle away any time we have left to turn around all this. We have a recipe for utter disaster and possibly the end of the experiment of civilization as we've come to know it. As the Chinese curse says "May you live in interesting times."
This is the second time in a short time he uses a national monument to spread his repulsive message. It must make all patriotic Americans sick. It is amazing how he is able to attract attention to himself. We had a weekend party here in Norway 🇳🇴. Guess what subject came up again and again. No favourable comments of'course, but nevertheless attention is given to Trump and the upcoming election. We fear the worst.
You remind me of I.F.Stone. I've been waiting for you for a long, long time.
<<Trump is staking out a position as the leader of a culture war.>>
I believe he is also setting himself as an authoritarian and the U.S.A. to receive him as an authoritarian cut from the same cloth as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Mt. Rushmore is a particularly apt setting for Trump to deliver a self-serving, distorted and divisive speech. Consider the political and ideological leanings of the sculptor, John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, himself:
In October of 2016, Matthew Shaer’s article, The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore appeared in
the Smithsonian Magazine, with the subhead, “The sculptor behind the American landmark had some unseemly ties to white supremacy groups.” Shaer’s article about Borglum may be accessed and read in full online. To quote one more portion of the Shaer’s article, “In letters he fretted about a “mongrel horde” overrunning the “Nordic” purity of the West, and once said, “I would not trust an Indian, off-hand, 9 out of 10, where I would not trust a white man 1 out of 10.” Above all, he was an opportunist. He aligned himself with the Ku Klux Klan, an organization reborn—it had faded after the Civil War—in a torch-light ceremony atop Stone Mountain in 1915.”
Mount Rushmore is a difficult topic for me on the theme of monuments. I have probably been there two dozen times over my 60 years. It never ceases to move me. Especially if I can get down to the lower level and sit among the pines and look up and enjoy the majesty of the whole setting. I am a South Dakota native who has lived in Washington, Michigan, Ohio, and now call Nebraska home. No other place moves my spirit in the same way.
Was the land taken from the Lakota? Yes, of course, it was. Just like every other square inch of land was taken from some tribe. Reparations were paid to the Lakota in the 1980’s which they refuse to spend. The pot of money has grown over the years. It could be put to good use providing water and sanitation to reservation houses as well as improved healthcare. But they want the land back.
I must admit to having a less favorable view of the Lakota after reading Joe Starita’s. “I Am a Man": Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice. The Ponca played by the rules and got short shrift from our government. The Lakota fought back and were given the Ponca’s ancestral lands. It’s complicated.
I recall in the ‘80s that there was a proposal to depopulate the upper Great Plains and convert it to a nature reserve. The states are sparsely settled. The few million of us who live here could find somewhere else to live. How arrogant!
But what about my immigrant grandfather’s legacy? He came from Central Europe at the turn of the last century as a child. He walked behind a wagon to eastern South Dakota so his father could claim farm land. He had no part in the political aspirations of Washington, DC politicians. He built a successful farming and livestock operation and many of his relatives settled on the same Eastern South Dakota land most of which is technically part of the Yankton Reservation. My great aunt carried cottonwood saplings from the Missouri River bank so she could claim her own land.
My other grandfather whose ancestors date back to the Revolution came west after fighting in the Civil War. He was a tinsmith, musician , and owned a general store.
And then there is South Dakota as a state. With a population of 800K, they barely qualify as a large city. Yet they have produced George McGovern, Tom Daschle, and John Thune, all powerful Senators in their time. I also am old enough to remember when South Dakota voted Democrat.
South Dakota has no usury laws so groups like Citibank have offices there. South Dakota state government has many ways of pandering to rich people: no state income tax, no state inheritance tax, low license fees for motorhomes and boats, exclusive pheasant hunts and buffalo round-ups offering opportunities to rub shoulders with state policymakers, and a complex trust law environment that allows people to control their assets from the grave, long after they're gone.
One trust site boasts: “These laws have crafted some of the leading dynastic trust laws in the nation — if not the world. South Dakota’s dynastic trust benefits were ranked first in a recent survey of wealth professionals.
The state is ranked first for its trust decanting laws and other benefits such as protections of discretionary trusts from a divorcing spouse. South Dakota’s trust benefits outweigh any financial anxiety.”
A decade ago, South Dakotan trust companies held $57.3bn in assets. By the end of 2020, that total will have risen to $355.2bn. Both Rachel Maddow and The Guardian have reported on the fact that folks from all over move their money to South Dakota with no benefits to the state other than the jobs of the trust officers and lawyers.
The state has a strong agricultural base. It is the largest industry in the state, $21B. South Dakota routinely ranks among the top 10 states for the production of hay, sunflowers, rye, honey, soybeans, corn, wheat and cattle. Tourism is also a significant contributor, bringing in about $2 billion, annually.
I recall how appalling it was to watch the Taliban destroy the huge Buddha carved in the side of a mountain. Destroying Rushmore would be equally appalling for me. And we’d just have a blown up mountain side. Maybe work on the Crazy Horse monument could progress faster.
All that to say that the monument movement seems like a no brainer until it includes one you hold dear. Then it gets complicated.
Thank you for the history. Though I have visited Mount Rushmore, there is much I didn't know, or have forgotten. The nearby Crazy Horse Memorial is also relevant to today's discussions of monuments and who gets to establish them, and who decides to take them down. I saw Crazy Horse in 1993 and am surprised that it has not progressed very much, as shown on the website, but it's still amazing. Numerous descendants of the original sculptor (white man from New England) are still working on it. Maybe it should always be a work in progress, like America.
When the Lakota and their supporters invoke their sacred rights to the Black Hills, it usually isn’t noted that they weren’t there from time immemorial, at least not permanently; in the 18th century they pushed other tribes, notably the Cheyenne and the Crow, out of the Black Hills before making it their own and declaring it sacred to them. Not that this justifies what the US government later did or allowed to be done to the Lakota, but it’s worth remembering that in history not all victims are pure and innocent (peoples such as the Cherokee of the Trail of Tears come a lot closer.)
First of all, thank you Heather for this walk through history.
When I read 45’s speech at Mt Rushmore on July 3, it struck such fear in my heart that I had tears running down my face. He rose to an entirely new level of hatred, and the only thing I could see was Hitler’s face. He is both figuratively and literally dividing and tearing this country apart, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and family members against each other. I am truly frightened.
Heather, Trump isn't crafting and scripting his propaganda and these abhorrrent "shows". Who is? Who are the producers? Miller? Who and what institutions are the cabal propping Trump up?
Please, please, Prof. Richardson, get a team together to write new textbooks on US history for elementary, middle and high school students. Maybe it could be a project assisted by your MA/PhD students. After that, a US History 101 would be of the essence for all first year college students. I don’t know how many times, I have had to give US history lessons in my Human Rights classes. Your academic input would be such a blessing!
Many thanks once again, Heather, for this timely reminder of reality. ...And the wheel turns! To quote the dictum..."if we ignore...or are ignorant of...the lessons of history then we are destined to repeat them". It's time that the history of what REALLY happened...rather than the propaganda of subsequent generations...once again took its place at the top of the education agenda. Knowing where your country is coming from is absolutely essential in understanding where it is now and where it's going. It is one of the most important building blocks in the identity of the individual and of that of the nation.
One of your best efforts.
You took the sad story of one man’s angry, divisive rant framed by a monument the history of which he did not understand, and slammed home the facts about its origins and symbolic import thereby collapsing the shaky ground out from under him.
Upon finishing this post, I was nearly breathless.
Brava!
As a side note, I don't see how "far-left fascism" is even a thing. Fascists are, by their very nature, far right and antithetical to the left. Far-left fascists don't exist in my pantheon of political persuasions. Might as well use the term "communist fascists," which also makes no sense, since those two political groups are inimically hostile.
I'm struck by the parallels between the history of the late 19th century/early 20th century and 100 years later. Except we don't have a Roosevelt to stop the oligarchic kleptocracy (which we innocuously call income disparity) and to save our National Parks and Public Lands from the exploitation of greedy capitalists. A friend familiar with reservation life says wait until Americans find out what it is like to live on a reservation. But with no Roosevelt, capitalism is barreling toward collapsing on itself as income disparity hollows out the middle class consumer which capitalism depends upon and artificial intelligence displaces workers altogether. We also do not have an Edward R. Murrow journalist to take down the Trumpian form of McCarthyism with the ominous link of the double down Roy Cohn and his influence on both these despots. Add the climate crisis on top of the collapse of capitalism while we fiddle away any time we have left to turn around all this. We have a recipe for utter disaster and possibly the end of the experiment of civilization as we've come to know it. As the Chinese curse says "May you live in interesting times."
This is the second time in a short time he uses a national monument to spread his repulsive message. It must make all patriotic Americans sick. It is amazing how he is able to attract attention to himself. We had a weekend party here in Norway 🇳🇴. Guess what subject came up again and again. No favourable comments of'course, but nevertheless attention is given to Trump and the upcoming election. We fear the worst.
This gives perspective to all the Republican crying about DC statehood.
More history I was never taught. Thank you.
Referring to Mount Rushmore, a Lakota woman I was having dinner with asked, “would you carve your mother’s breast?”
You remind me of I.F.Stone. I've been waiting for you for a long, long time.
<<Trump is staking out a position as the leader of a culture war.>>
I believe he is also setting himself as an authoritarian and the U.S.A. to receive him as an authoritarian cut from the same cloth as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Mt. Rushmore is a particularly apt setting for Trump to deliver a self-serving, distorted and divisive speech. Consider the political and ideological leanings of the sculptor, John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, himself:
In October of 2016, Matthew Shaer’s article, The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore appeared in
the Smithsonian Magazine, with the subhead, “The sculptor behind the American landmark had some unseemly ties to white supremacy groups.” Shaer’s article about Borglum may be accessed and read in full online. To quote one more portion of the Shaer’s article, “In letters he fretted about a “mongrel horde” overrunning the “Nordic” purity of the West, and once said, “I would not trust an Indian, off-hand, 9 out of 10, where I would not trust a white man 1 out of 10.” Above all, he was an opportunist. He aligned himself with the Ku Klux Klan, an organization reborn—it had faded after the Civil War—in a torch-light ceremony atop Stone Mountain in 1915.”
Mount Rushmore is a difficult topic for me on the theme of monuments. I have probably been there two dozen times over my 60 years. It never ceases to move me. Especially if I can get down to the lower level and sit among the pines and look up and enjoy the majesty of the whole setting. I am a South Dakota native who has lived in Washington, Michigan, Ohio, and now call Nebraska home. No other place moves my spirit in the same way.
Was the land taken from the Lakota? Yes, of course, it was. Just like every other square inch of land was taken from some tribe. Reparations were paid to the Lakota in the 1980’s which they refuse to spend. The pot of money has grown over the years. It could be put to good use providing water and sanitation to reservation houses as well as improved healthcare. But they want the land back.
I must admit to having a less favorable view of the Lakota after reading Joe Starita’s. “I Am a Man": Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice. The Ponca played by the rules and got short shrift from our government. The Lakota fought back and were given the Ponca’s ancestral lands. It’s complicated.
I recall in the ‘80s that there was a proposal to depopulate the upper Great Plains and convert it to a nature reserve. The states are sparsely settled. The few million of us who live here could find somewhere else to live. How arrogant!
But what about my immigrant grandfather’s legacy? He came from Central Europe at the turn of the last century as a child. He walked behind a wagon to eastern South Dakota so his father could claim farm land. He had no part in the political aspirations of Washington, DC politicians. He built a successful farming and livestock operation and many of his relatives settled on the same Eastern South Dakota land most of which is technically part of the Yankton Reservation. My great aunt carried cottonwood saplings from the Missouri River bank so she could claim her own land.
My other grandfather whose ancestors date back to the Revolution came west after fighting in the Civil War. He was a tinsmith, musician , and owned a general store.
And then there is South Dakota as a state. With a population of 800K, they barely qualify as a large city. Yet they have produced George McGovern, Tom Daschle, and John Thune, all powerful Senators in their time. I also am old enough to remember when South Dakota voted Democrat.
South Dakota has no usury laws so groups like Citibank have offices there. South Dakota state government has many ways of pandering to rich people: no state income tax, no state inheritance tax, low license fees for motorhomes and boats, exclusive pheasant hunts and buffalo round-ups offering opportunities to rub shoulders with state policymakers, and a complex trust law environment that allows people to control their assets from the grave, long after they're gone.
One trust site boasts: “These laws have crafted some of the leading dynastic trust laws in the nation — if not the world. South Dakota’s dynastic trust benefits were ranked first in a recent survey of wealth professionals.
The state is ranked first for its trust decanting laws and other benefits such as protections of discretionary trusts from a divorcing spouse. South Dakota’s trust benefits outweigh any financial anxiety.”
A decade ago, South Dakotan trust companies held $57.3bn in assets. By the end of 2020, that total will have risen to $355.2bn. Both Rachel Maddow and The Guardian have reported on the fact that folks from all over move their money to South Dakota with no benefits to the state other than the jobs of the trust officers and lawyers.
The state has a strong agricultural base. It is the largest industry in the state, $21B. South Dakota routinely ranks among the top 10 states for the production of hay, sunflowers, rye, honey, soybeans, corn, wheat and cattle. Tourism is also a significant contributor, bringing in about $2 billion, annually.
I recall how appalling it was to watch the Taliban destroy the huge Buddha carved in the side of a mountain. Destroying Rushmore would be equally appalling for me. And we’d just have a blown up mountain side. Maybe work on the Crazy Horse monument could progress faster.
All that to say that the monument movement seems like a no brainer until it includes one you hold dear. Then it gets complicated.
Thank you for the history. Though I have visited Mount Rushmore, there is much I didn't know, or have forgotten. The nearby Crazy Horse Memorial is also relevant to today's discussions of monuments and who gets to establish them, and who decides to take them down. I saw Crazy Horse in 1993 and am surprised that it has not progressed very much, as shown on the website, but it's still amazing. Numerous descendants of the original sculptor (white man from New England) are still working on it. Maybe it should always be a work in progress, like America.
When the Lakota and their supporters invoke their sacred rights to the Black Hills, it usually isn’t noted that they weren’t there from time immemorial, at least not permanently; in the 18th century they pushed other tribes, notably the Cheyenne and the Crow, out of the Black Hills before making it their own and declaring it sacred to them. Not that this justifies what the US government later did or allowed to be done to the Lakota, but it’s worth remembering that in history not all victims are pure and innocent (peoples such as the Cherokee of the Trail of Tears come a lot closer.)
First of all, thank you Heather for this walk through history.
When I read 45’s speech at Mt Rushmore on July 3, it struck such fear in my heart that I had tears running down my face. He rose to an entirely new level of hatred, and the only thing I could see was Hitler’s face. He is both figuratively and literally dividing and tearing this country apart, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and family members against each other. I am truly frightened.
Heather, Trump isn't crafting and scripting his propaganda and these abhorrrent "shows". Who is? Who are the producers? Miller? Who and what institutions are the cabal propping Trump up?