S*** the President Says – 7/6/2020

Ladies and gentlemen, behold, some s*** the president said during the previous week:

“I am here as your President to declare, before our country and before the world, this monument will never be desecrated.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, SD.

He’s talking about Mount Rushmore, which as far as I can tell no one wants to take down. You might call it a “preemptive strike.” The alternative is that our president can’t see the difference between statues of the men that built America and the confederate generals that fought to the death to tear it apart.

“Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders…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.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore.

Statues of our founders? He really does think he’s the president of the confederacy, doesn’t he? This should be such a simple choice for Republicans: do they want to defend the “values” and the “history” and the “culture” of the confederate south that enslaved people, or do they want to defend the cause of Abraham Lincoln’s (that guy Republicans like to remind us so often was of their party) army that fought to defeat slavery and preserve the United States? You can’t claim both.

“We will defend, protect, and preserve the American way of life, which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, SD.

This was some speech. It began with President Trump defending a mountainside from no one, and quickly transitioned to honoring Columbus for discovering America. The problem? Columbus never set foot in North America. He set sail from Spain and landed in the Caribbean, believing until his death it was Asia. Of course our president loves him.

“Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, SD.

No one in America teaches kids to hate America. No one. Imagine for a moment our president thinks he’s leading the confederacy, though, and this begins to make sense. Indeed, confederates often cited “natural law” to justify subjugating African-Americans.

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore.

Is this a confession? This sounds a lot like a description of the Trump presidency to me.

“The radical view of American history is a web of lies. All perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, SD.

This “radical” view of history is the acknowledgement that many founding fathers were, in fact, slaveholders. It’s true; they were. This truth is offensive to some who would rather view our founders as some sort of collective deity, but sometimes the truth is messier: while our founding fathers were great and progressive men worthy of honor, they also came complete with all the warts and sins men have always possessed. That’s all. It doesn’t seem so radical to me.

“This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American revolution.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore.

Sigh. No, all we want is an honest accounting of race in this country. From its founding through the Civil War and the Jim Crow era right through the struggles of present day for minorities to play by the same set of rules as everyone else. If that goal doesn’t sound like the America you want, then maybe you don’t know what America was supposed to be in the first place.

“Under the executive order I signed last week…people who damage or deface federal statues or monuments will get a minimum of ten years in prison.”

7/3/2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, SD.

Whenever you hear people say they like our president because he “tells it like it is” or because he’s “not a politician,” know that he signs executive orders like this all the time, and that they aren’t worth the paper on which they’re printed. A president can’t decide the length of your prison sentence. This was pure politics.

The ranks of the “silent majority” seem to have dwindled to…one?

If the evening news were really “fake,” though, wouldn’t they just make it up? It’s incredible how often this president embarrasses himself attempting to slander something.

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That’s our report for this week. Be sure to check out the links for more info on any particular topic and, as always, thanks for reading.