Joshua Scheer
President Donald Trump kicked off America’s 250th Independence Day celebrations with a speech at Mount Rushmore that centered on patriotism, anti-communism, and the upcoming midterm elections. Speaking beneath the monument to four U.S. presidents, Trump urged Americans to defend the nation’s founding ideals against what he described as a growing “communist menace.”
Trump argued that progressive Democrats—particularly the recent wave of democratic socialist primary winners in New York, Colorado, and other states—represent the greatest ideological threat to the country. He also linked his anti-communist message to immigration, claiming that some newcomers embrace values incompatible with the United States and saying they should be expelled.
The speech comes as Republicans seek to make left-wing Democratic victories a central issue ahead of the November midterms, while also facing political pressure over persistent inflation and rising gas prices following the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Trump repeatedly framed the election as a battle to preserve America, declaring that the United States “will never be a communist country” and warning that Republicans could lose the midterms if they fail to mobilize voters.
The Mount Rushmore event was the first of two major Independence Day appearances for Trump, who was also scheduled to address a large crowd on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., ahead of the annual Fourth of July fireworks celebration.
Of course Donald Trump hates communists. Fascism has long defined itself in opposition to communism, and throughout much of the 20th century, communist and socialist movements were among the most organized forces resisting fascist regimes. The Democrats, meanwhile, have too often failed to confront authoritarianism with the urgency it demands, repeatedly compromising with power instead of challenging it.
Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the struggle between fascism and communism movements has shaped modern history. Whatever one thinks of communist governments, it was communist and socialist resistance movements that played a central role in defeating fascism across Europe during World War II. Fascism, by contrast, left a legacy of dictatorship, persecution, war, and mass death.
Trump continues to draw from that tradition of demonizing while wrapping himself in the language of patriotism and nationalism.
Today I created Trump’s Mount Rushmore—a portrait of the figures and ideas that have served as his guiding lights.
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