Monuments, Not Democracy
Florida congresswoman, Anna Paulina Luna, has proposed adding Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore. The proposal is unlikely to succeed—but that is beside the point. What matters is what the idea reveals.
Mount Rushmore is not about policy or governance. It is about permanence, myth, and elevation above ordinary politics. To argue that Trump belongs there is to argue that democracy should reward dominance and spectacle rather than institutions, restraint, and accountability. This is not conservatism or patriotism. It is monument-thinking—the belief that a single figure should eclipse the system itself.
Trump’s career has never been centered on governing. It has centered on branding power: his name larger than the structure beneath it, loyalty personal rather than constitutional, attention valued over stability. From buildings to crowds to stone, the logic is consistent.
Democracies are not built to honor men. They are built to limit them. Mount Rushmore was never meant to expand, and democracy was never meant to revolve around one name. When leaders seek monuments instead of institutions, the danger is no longer symbolic. It is structural.
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