Donald Trump has long expressed his fascination with the imposing monument
Washington:
Under the fire of his silence in the face of the growing number of coronavirus cases in America, President Donald Trump goes to Mount Rushmore on Friday for a night of fireworks he hopes to appease a nation he is struggling to unite .
On the eve of the country’s independence day, the Republican leader will speak in the shade of four of his notable predecessors: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, whose heads are carved in the granite of the South Dakota.
The billionaire real estate tycoon who became president, who apparently turned a blind eye to the shocking increase in the number of virus cases in many American states, was openly exuberant about the Rushmore event.
Some 7,500 people are expected – and social distancing is not on the agenda.
“We are going to have a wonderful evening. It will be fireworks as few people have seen. It will be very exciting,” he said on Thursday.
Will Trump talk about the pandemic that killed nearly 130,000 people in the United States and the resurgence of cases in the south and west of the country?
The country’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, said the hike “put the whole country at risk”.
So will Trump wear a mask, setting an example for the nation after resisting for months, as many politicians and others, even in his own camp, have asked him to do?
The Republican president is in a difficult political situation, badly dragging his democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls four months before the presidential election.
For now, he sticks to a proven message, which he conveyed on Thursday: the coronavirus crisis is “managed”, the American economy “roars”, and 2021 will be a “phenomenal” year.
But unlike Europe, infection rates and daily case totals are increasing in the United States, and some states are breaking their own sinister records almost every day.
Fauci warned that the country could potentially see 100,000 new cases a day if things don’t change.
For the time being, many states have suspended efforts to reopen their economies. Some have even backed down and re-imposed restrictions on bars, restaurants and beaches.
No social distancing
The man in the Oval Office can expect a warm welcome in South Dakota, a sparsely populated state that he easily won in 2016 with more than 60% of the vote.
Republican state governor Kristi Noem is certainly not going to spoil his party.
“We told these people who feared they might be able to stay at home,” Noem told Fox News.
“Those who want to come join us, we will distribute free masks if they choose to wear one. But we will not take social distance.”
The last incumbent US president to visit Mount Rushmore was George W. Bush in 2002.
Trump has long expressed his fascination with the imposing monument, which was carved in the Black Hills from 1927 to 1941.
In 2017, he even joked that one day his face would be set in stone with his four predecessors – which is unlikely.
“The rock that surrounds the carved faces is not suitable for additional sculpture,” said National Park Service spokesperson Dana Soehn.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum wanted to “represent the first 150 years of American history – the birth, growth and preservation of our country,” she said.
“The National Park Service believes that … the work is done in its current form.”
The Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans, set out on President Rushmore’s journey in their own way.
In a video released on the eve of Trump’s visit, the group highlighted famous quotes from Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln to present their legacies.
As for Trump, the group said, “The worst American president will not be recalled or worshiped.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
