Joe Biden’s blind crusade to undo and destroy every part of President Trump’s legacy seemingly knows no bounds. Last week, Biden set his sights on Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes, a planned sculpture park honoring our country’s greatest historical figures, which was announced last year. Biden’s decision to cancel the Garden is the latest salvo in an escalating culture war that has seen the Biden administration fully submit to far-left liberal ideologues who want to radically remake the country’s identity.
President Trump first announced the National Garden of American Heroes during his landmark speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020, in response to what he called “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.” As AMAC has reported, activist groups like Black Lives Matter along with the intellectual left, exemplified by the New York Times’ 1619 Project, are actively seeking to reframe American history as a story of racism and oppression rather than hope and progress. As the President noted in his speech, this dangerous and divisive ideology is infecting everything from corporate board rooms to elementary school classrooms. At the time Trump gave his Mount Rushmore address, the country was experiencing a wave of attacks on statues and monuments of historical figures like George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Abraham Lincoln.
At the conclusion of his remarks, he revealed that he had just signed an executive order to create the new national monument. The Order stated that “on [the Garden’s] 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.”
The park would have boasted hundreds of statues, ranging from founding fathers like George Washington and Samuel Adams to warriors for justice like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr., to sports icons like Cy Young and Kobe Bryant. Shortly before leaving office, President Trump issued another Executive Order that included nearly 250 additional names for inclusion in the Garden and further paved the way to begin work on the project. The Department of the Interior was well underway in making preparations to begin construction and had narrowed the location down to a few finalists. All in all, it appears that the initiative was nearly fully baked as Trump departed the White House and only needed the green light from the new Secretary of Interior.
Instead, Biden unceremoniously dropped his own Executive Order canceling the project late on a Friday afternoon earlier this month—presumably hoping to avoid much media coverage heading into the weekend. The Biden administration likely understands that its radical interpretation of American history is out of step with most Americans – Democrats and Republicans alike – who love their country. There was no attempt at an explanation from the White House as to why Biden opposed the patriotic, pro-American project designed to honor our country’s heroes.
The grim irony of Biden’s move to revoke Trump’s Executive Order was not lost on conservatives, who pointed out that the cancellation of the Garden of Heroes is effectively confirmation of Trump’s claims about Democrats’ attempts to “dismantle our country’s history, institutions, and very identity.”
The Garden was slated to include monuments to Americans from all races, religions, and creeds, reflecting the great diversity of America that Democrats constantly claim to revere. Yet the Biden administration canceled the project anyway. In doing so, Biden has now employed the full power of the federal government in service of liberal cancel culture, bending the knee to the left-wing activists that now control the Democratic Party.
While the corporate media largely ignored Biden’s latest attempt to erase or cancel American history, some conservatives took to social media to express their outrage. In a tweet, freshman Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) called the decision “incredibly discouraging,” going on to say that “our exceptional history and heroes should be celebrated, not denigrated.” Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was more direct, tweeting that “Biden canceled the National Garden of American Heroes because he hates America, hates our history and is ok with the cancel culture tearing down America’s statues.”
Since taking office, Biden has gone about rescinding nearly all of President Trump’s Executive Orders to promote patriotism and the teaching of American history, replacing them with policies that instead support a “woke” version of history that views America as inherently racist and sexist. The same day Biden killed Trump’s orders creating the Garden, Biden also rescinded a Trump executive order that directed the Department of Justice to prioritize prosecuting people who desecrated federal monuments, which Trump signed in response to widespread riots last summer.
While the National Garden of American Heroes may be just the latest casualty in the left’s war on American history, it could prove to be a rallying point for conservatives and all Americans tired of seeing their founders and greatest icons torn down, both literally and figuratively.
There could still be an opportunity for the project to be built, however. If enterprising Republicans in the House and Senate insist on including it as part of future legislation, it is hard to imagine Congressional Democrats would die on the hill of stopping a statuary garden—and equally unlikely that Biden would veto legislation for that reason alone. Perhaps patriotic Americans across the nation will come together and let their members of Congress know they want to see the National Garden of American Heroes built before the goal originally envisioned, the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026.