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Note the transition:
The enemy is Democrats in cities
Our children are being taught to hate their own country
Democrats are just under 1/3 of the electorate--slightly more then Republicans.
80% of Americans live in urban areas
Who's teaching whom to hate their own country? 1/x
The enemy is Democrats in cities
Our children are being taught to hate their own country
Democrats are just under 1/3 of the electorate--slightly more then Republicans.
80% of Americans live in urban areas
Who's teaching whom to hate their own country? 1/x
Jefferson raped a 14-year-old enslaved girl. He also introduced the vicious partisan politics that remains with us today. He supported the revolutionaries in France and was the "radical left Democrat" of his day. 2/x
??
3/x
3/x
Another sleight of hand--the monuments under threat honor the people on the other side of this charge. The flag being removed flew over Pickett's forces, not Hancock's. 4/x
Roosevelt angered big business Republicans by attacking monopolies. His positions on conservation would be anathema to the GOP today. 5/x
Roosevelt's record on racial issues is complex. He was unabashedly racist but at the same time angered southern segregationists by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House and defending a black postmaster in Mississippi. 6/x
I honestly thought people were joking, but he really did a callback to Godfather Part II. RIP Mo Greene. 7/x
Overall this speech demonstrates the problem with monuments as history. Monuments represent mythology that is nearly always decontextualized and simplified. The president presents the movement to topple Confederate monuments as a movement to topple all monuments. 8/x
The move to return Mt. Rushmore to the Lakota is based on its sacredness to them and the dishonorable means by which it was stolen. It is not a wholesale condemnation of the people portrayed on it. 9/x
Meanwhile, he is defending monuments in general by associating them with the fight for freedom and racial equality when the monuments under threat valorize the fight against freedom and racial equality. 10/x
At Mt. Rushmore, the exhibit acknowledges that it is not a good fit with the national parks and notes that the Park Service was new and the country hadn't quite figured out where the parks were headed. Rushmore is a roadside attraction, unworthy of Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.
