Trump Delivers Fiery Address at Mount Rushmore
President Donald Trump chose the Mount Rushmore National Memorial on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to deliver a blistering attack against his perceived enemies. The monument, carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota, features 60-foot (18-meter) figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. However, the site itself is controversial: the 1,278-acre (517-hectare) tract was seized from the Sioux Nation, who have rejected a 1980 Supreme Court compensation of $102 million and continue to demand the return of their ancestral land.
Trump's Warnings Against Communism
In his speech, Trump declared: "We stand beneath the monument of these heroes, a true group of unbelievable people, and we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants." He warned of a "resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life." He vowed to "vanquish communism quickly" and send its proponents away, asserting that "America will never be a communist country!" The week prior, Trump had described progressive primary wins in New York City, Colorado, Texas, New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as "the greatest threat to our country since its founding."
Indigenous Leaders Reject Celebration
Leonard Peltier, an 80-year-old American Indian leader who spent 50 years in prison for indigenous activism and was freed in 2025 but remains under restriction, said the 250th anniversary was meaningless: "We're no longer going to celebrate a false government until the truth comes out and they apologise to everybody for what they did." He advised his people to "learn the White man's education" to understand and fight their enemy. Historian Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries of Ohio State University noted that the Declaration never ensured equal rights for all: "Across history, there has never been a time when all people enjoyed equal rights, equal protection under the law, and equal political power."
Former President Clinton Criticizes Trump
Former President Bill Clinton offered a starkly different view, describing the nation as "amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America's future and role in the world, and serious threats to our own institutions and to our democracy itself." He criticized the Trump administration for unleashing "masked agents on American communities to seize people from their homes" and starting "an unconstitutional war on a whim, with no clear objectives or exit strategy."
Puerto Ricans and African Americans Demand Change
Large sections of the Puerto Rican population reject US citizenship, viewing their territory as a colony. They have set aside Saturday, 18 July as Puerto Rican Day to "March for Independence" in San Juan, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, and Cleveland. Edwin Cortes, a march leader who served 14 years for seditious conspiracy, told a judge: "If George Washington were alive today, he would be guilty of sedition." Various African American groups, including the Spirit of Mandela coalition, held protest rallies demanding equality and seeking to bring the US to international justice for human rights violations.
American Democracy: A History of Restriction
John Trudell, the late writer and activist, once said of Indigenous people: "We went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. It's five hundred years later and they still can't see us. We are still invisible." The article concludes by questioning what the US will look like in another 250 years, noting that science has yet to provide a way to examine the future.
