Mount Rushmore National Memorial looms large in the American imagination. Patriots and citizens flock to the Black Hills to see the effigies of four great U.S. presidents. Donald Trump, it seems, is the monument’s greatest admirer.
I’m curious to see whether he will be the fifth 60-foot-tall white man permanently to occupy the famous cliff face in South Dakota. Kristi Noem said he wanted it, and legislation has been introduced to make it so. To enshrine him before history judges his presidency seems unwise.
Parting with reason, it appears that Trump’s followers are certain he will bring the change God intends and that a holy mountain might again play a central role in their story.
Mount Rushmore emerges from the fine granite of the Black Hills, or Pahá Sápa as the Lakota people call them, their sacred place of origin. The granite—Harney Peak granite—is named after General William Harney, the U.S. cavalry officer who ordered the slaughter of more than 80 Lakotas, half of whom were women and children, in retaliation for the deaths of much fewer U.S. soldiers in 1855.
The initial spark of the violence was a stray ox. However, the catalyst was growing white aggression and hatred towards indignant “savages,” as the Lakota were viewed when they resisted forced removal from their lands. The Black Hills were finally occupied and taken by force by the U.S. government in 1877, breaking the 1868 Ft. Laramie treaty recognizing them as Lakota lands.
Jeff Ostler connects this theft to the white lust for gold in “The Lakota and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground.” David Truer, a member of the Ojibwe tribe, provides an alternative narrative: the EuroAmerican attempt to “disappear” Native peoples from the land is met with persistent resistance and resilience.
But why these four particular faces? Why were these presidents chosen to “deface and defile” the sacred hills?
Mount Rushmore was named the “Shrine of Democracy” in the 1930s as it was carved by its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. The four faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt represent and communicate, he said, “the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States.”
The U.S. Park Service’s description of the shrine is notable: “Over the decades, Mount Rushmore has grown in fame as a symbol of America—a symbol of freedom and hope for people from all cultures and backgrounds.” Ironically, for many Lakota and other tribes, the monument stands as an obscene gesture of dominance and control.
It was carved in the early 20th century as tribal political action and self-advocacy were on the rise, often supported by organized Christianity. This symbolic middle finger to Native American rights buried pro-Indian movements and progressive Christian advocacy under its rubble.
The entablature plaque at Mount Rushmore begins with: “Almighty God, from this pulpit of stone, the American People render thanksgiving and praise for the new era of civilization brought forth upon this continent.” It declares, “Far-sighted American statesmanship acquired by treaties, vast wilderness territories, where progressive, adventurous Americans spread civilization and Christianity.”
Twenty years later, Vice-President Nixon humbled the Christian crowd at the 1957 Billy Graham Crusade in Yankee Stadium with a similar manifest destiny reasoning. “One of the most basic reasons for America’s progress in the past, and for our strength today, is that from the time of our foundation, we have had a deep and abiding faith in God,” he preached. Republican and Democratic presidents before and after Nixon issued similar sentiments.
In other words, American Christianity has tended to see itself as the soul of America’s greatness and strength. It has defended God’s own self by defending America against its enemies, those who might weaken the nation. For many Christian Americans, Rushmore stands as a testament to that soldiering faith.
The original plan was to carve Western heroes into the rock. But Borglum—a man said to harbor racist sentiments and associate with Klan activity, as well as working on the Stone Mountain Confederate memorial in Georgia—decided on these four American expansionists.
All four were central to the United States’ successful displacement of Native peoples and possession of their lands.
Washington planted the seeds of expansion into the Ohio Valley. Jefferson signed the Louisiana “purchase” of western lands stolen by other powers. Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, enabling supercharged settler colonialism. Roosevelt expanded US control to the Pacific, the Caribbean and Central America.
Not all the ideas and actions of the famous four presidents would appeal to Trump, however.
Washington went home rather than serving another term. Jefferson spoke against obstructing the administration of justice and inciting insurrections. Lincoln emphasized moral rather than transactional leadership. Roosevelt instituted government-mandated social reforms and economic regulations.
Here, we return to Donald Trump and a second term for making the case (by others, of course) that his image belongs on Mount Rushmore.
If enough American Christians are duly convinced legions of anti-God and anti-American enemies from within have made America pathetic and weak, they will add Trump’s face to the Rushmore pantheon.
Simply scrolling through news sites clearly shows that Trump wants to grow U.S. power through a new era of expansion, preservation and unification—to quote Borglum. According to Trump, Greenland and Panama need to be absorbed and a sovereign Canada needs to disappear.
White wealth, advantage and dominance must be preserved. Civil and religious laws need to be unified. American Christians will then go to Mount Rushmore, waiting for the hero at the imagined new mountain of God.
Could it be that Trump and his promises are simply a new Golden Calf, worshipped in a sense, followed by many American Christians impatient for some new future, believing God is “making America great again?”
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Professor of religion at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
