President Trump pledged in a pair of speeches over Independence Day weekend to defend America’s history and ideals and warned against a left-wing campaign that seeks to wipe out the “very blessing our ancestors fought so hard for.”
“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children,” Trump said in remarks July 3 at Mount Rushmore prior to the annual fireworks display.
Trump referenced recent attacks on and removals of statues honoring George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and various abolitionists.
“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. “Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive. But no – the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them.”
The left-wing campaign, he said, “threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled [and] bled to secure.”
Trump also criticized the so-called cancel culture, which he blamed for “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.”
“This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America,” he said. “This attack on our liberty … must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly.”
Americans, Trump said, “believe that our children should be taught to love their country, honor our history, and respect our great American flag.”
“We stand tall, we stand proud, and we only kneel to Almighty God,” Trump said.
During a July 4th speech, Trump urged Americans to learn from the heroes of history.
“Our past is not a burden to be cast away, it is … a miraculous foundation that will lift us to the next great summit of human endeavor,” he said. “The incredible story of American progress is the story of each generation picking up where the last finished – linked by time, by fate, and the eternal bonds of our national affection.
“Those who would sever those bonds would cut us off from the wisdom, the courage, the love, and the devotion that gave us everything we are today and everything we strive for tomorrow,” he said. “We cannot let that happen. We will not throw away our heroes. We will honor them, and we will prove worthy of their sacrifice. These are great heroes.”
In both speeches, Trump referenced an executive order he signed establishing the National Garden of American Heroes, an outdoor park with statues of numerous individuals, including John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, Harriet Tubman, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett and Billy Graham. The order says it will open prior to July 4, 2026.
Trump acknowledged the nation’s flaws but said, “The beauty and the glory of our constitutional system is that it gives us the tools to fight injustice, to heal division, and to continue the work of our Founding Fathers by expanding and growing the blessings of America.”
No nation, Trump said at Mount Rushmore, “has done more to advance the human condition than the United States of America” and “no people” have “done more to promote human progress than the citizens of our great nation.”
Trump quoted the Declaration of Independence – “all men are created equal” – and said those “immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom.”
“Our Founders boldly declared that we are all endowed with the same divine rights, given [to] us by our Creator in Heaven,” he said. “And that which God has given us, we will allow no one, ever, to take away.”
Related:
Boston to Remove Replica of Abraham Lincoln Statue Funded by Freed Slaves
Protesters Target Founding Fathers, Topple Statues of Washington, Jefferson, Grant and Others
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Scott Olson/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
