Donald Trump has used his final dregs of power to order the construction of 250 statues immortalising significant figures in US history in the proposed “National Garden of American Heroes.”
The expansive list of those Trump intends to honour include musicians, artists, astronauts, actors, politicians, athletes and other notable American icons (and, strangely, a few non-Americans.)
Amongst the coterie of musicians set to be celebrated are Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Other names proposed include Neil Armstrong, Crispus Attucks, Clara Barton, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Berlin, Kobe Bryant, Andrew Carnegie, Julia Child, Christopher Columbus, Walt Disney, Theodor Geisel aka “Dr. Seuss”, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barry Goldwater, Woody Guthrie, Alfred Hitchcock, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Inouye, Amelia Earhart, Ronald Reagan, Paul Revere, Jackie Robinson, Nikola Tesla, Harriet Tubman and Alex Trebek.
“The chronicles of our history show that America is a land of heroes. … the gates of a beautiful new garden will soon open to the public where the legends of America’s past will be remembered,” Trump wrote in Monday’s order.
The order went on to address the destruction of confederate statues that took place during the Black Lives Matter protests back in June last year.
“Across this Nation,” the order outlines, “belief in the greatness and goodness of America has come under attack in recent months and years by a dangerous anti-American extremism that seeks to dismantle our country’s history, institutions, and very identity.”
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“On its grounds, the devastation and discord of the moment will be overcome with abiding love of country and lasting patriotism. This is the American way. When the forces of anti-Americanism have sought to burn, tear down, and destroy, patriots have built, rebuilt, and lifted up. That is our history.”
Donald Trump first unveiled his plans to build a park brimming with statues of the “greatest Americans to ever live” during a visit to Mount Rushmore in July in the thick of the Black Lives Matter protests.
“To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance,” he said in an executive order at the time. “These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn.”
We’re sceptical that Donald Trump will be able to pull off a feat of this magnitude in the eleventh hour. Though perhaps he’ll use his abundance of spare time following after he’s left office to build it as a sort of passion project.
