(Washington) A park populated with statues of “American heroes”. The idea, launched by Donald Trump during the Fourth of July celebrations in a deeply divided country, does not seem intended to appease passions.
Posted on July 5 2020 at 13 h 16 Updated to 15 h 29
Jerome CARTILLIER
France Media Agency
In substance as in form, the announcement of this initiative with funding and becoming uncertain (the objective displayed is an opening to the public by 2026) surprised.
Four months before the presidential election, it further reinforces the image of a president who has given up on rallying clothes, who plays block against block.
Announced without consultation, the process comes at a time when, across the country, demonstrators are claiming the unbolt of certain statues, in particular those of the southern generals, seeing it as the celebration of a racist past.
Dodging the substantive debate, reducing the protest movement to violent acts, the republican billionaire has been posing for several weeks as a defender of the “integrity” of the country against “Marxists, anarchists, agitators and plunderers” .
For Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, the announcement of this project is primarily a political move for Donald Trump.
“He is trying to use a certain version of American history to stage his attacks on the” radical left “and to reassure the conservatives who may be frustrated by the failure of his pandemic policy [de la COVID-19] “, He explains to AFP.
The idea of this “National Garden of American Heroes”, where “realistic” rather than “abstract” statues would be gathered, was launched on Friday evening during his speech in front of Mount Rushmore which celebrates four of its distant predecessors.
This “vast park” would welcome the statues of “the greatest Americans who have ever lived”.
But how can we list these “giants of the past”, in the words of Donald Trump? Who should participate in its development?
In a first list, cited in the presidential decree, we find pell-mell, George Washington, Martin Luther King, Davy Crockett, the adventurer become hero of Disney, the evangelical preacher Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, or again Antonin Scalia, judge of the Supreme Court judge and pillar of the conservative right.
PHOTO JIM MONE, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The name of the former judge of the Supreme Court judge and pillar of the conservative right, Antonin Scalia, appears on the list of the president.
“Strange” choices
“Some of his choices about the people to be honored are a signal sent to the right, like Justice Scalia for example. Certain absences, such as that of Franklin Roosevelt, are part of the same logic, “said Julian Zelizer.
James Grossman, Director of the American Historical Association, quoted by the Washington Post , sees it as a mixture of “strange, inappropriate, even provocative” choices.
The decree also provides for the possibility of granting a place to individuals who were not Americans but who contributed significantly to “the discovery, development or independence” of what was to become the States -United.
The Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, the Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, and the Marquis de La Fayette, hero of the American Revolutionary War, are mentioned.
Several statues of Christopher Columbus have been debunked or vandalized in recent weeks across the United States. The Municipality of San Francisco has removed a navigator statue from its local parliament.
PHOTO EDWARD LEA, THE PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY VIA AP
Workers remove the statue of Christopher Columbus installed on the boulevard of the same name, on July 1 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In his July 4 speech, from the White House gardens, Donald Trump took care to mention it explicitly.
“We will fight together for the American dream, and we will defend, protect, and preserve the American way of life that began in 924 when Christopher Columbus discovered America ”, he launched, before once again defending his idea of“ park of heroes ”.
The American political class has remained largely silent on this proposal.
Notable exception: Eugene Scalia, Secretary of Labor in the Trump government. Saying he was very touched by the idea that a statue of his father was in this park, he praised the presidential initiative.
“We need heroes,” he told Fox News. “We need to admire our ancestors and recognize what is great and good in our past. And that's what the president does. ”