Standing in front of the carved faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on Friday night, President Donald Trump told a crowd in South Dakota that communism was making a comeback in America. The speech at Mount Rushmore opened the July Fourth weekend and the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
“There is now 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 and our great success,” he said.
He did not treat it as an ordinary political fight. “These are not mere political disagreements, like differences over taxes or regulations,” Trump said. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country.” He called the ideology “death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil,” and put the choice to the crowd in plain terms: “You can be loyal to Karl Marx, or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”
At another point he said: “The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”
Midterms and the filibuster
Trump tied the speech to November’s midterms. The only way to make sure Republicans win, he said, is to abolish the Senate filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and a valid photo ID to cast a ballot. The Maine Wire reported that he also promised to “vanquish communism” and quickly remove people who hold ideologies he called anti-American.
He named no individual politicians. The Maine Wire said his remarks were widely read as aimed at Democratic socialist candidates and the progressive wing of the party after recent primary wins.
The rest of the speech
Much of it was patriotic, as the New York Post described it. “Tomorrow we mark 250 years of glorious independence and 250 years of majestic American freedom,” Trump said. He called the United States “the strongest and most powerful country on earth.”
He praised the economy and said tariffs were driving a wave of new plants and factories. On the military, he said the U.S. had won two world wars and the Cold War, then added: “We beat Venezuela in one day and we knocked the hell out of Iran. They’re dying to settle.” He said Washington had given Iran “a week off for a funeral because we’re nice.”
On American identity, he said: “You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built, you must love our country.” He closed by calling this “the beginning of the golden age of America.”
Criticism
Civil rights advocates and political opponents objected, according to the Maine Wire. They accused Trump of using the anniversary to attack rivals as “evil” and “godless,” and some said the rhetoric echoed the Red Scare of the 1950s.
Others pointed to the venue. Mount Rushmore sits in the Black Hills, land the federal government took from the Sioux Nation in 1877, and critics said the setting was used to push a curated, exclusionary version of American history. Trump presented the speech as a defense of liberty, patriotism and national identity.
Sources
- Trump rails against ‘mortal threat’ of communism during America 250 Mount Rushmore speech
- Trump warns of "communist menace" in speech at Mount Rushmore
- Trump Condemns Communism as ‘Mortal Threat’ During Mount Rushmore Independence Day Speech
