There is no room at Rushmore
It's not just geology that precludes Donald Trump from enshrinement
Does what used to instill pride in America still have resonance today? (Unsplash photo by Brandon Mowinkel)
At dusk on the 4th of July when I was 9 years old, my family was having dinner in the grand Buffalo Dining Room at the base of Mount Rushmore — we usually ordered roast bison and fresh rainbow trout there in those days — when we heard a bustle and a barely audible “lights!” being repeated by several of the college students hired as summer waitstaff (including my older brother). Towering over us, the four icons of democracy had been suddenly illuminated against the cerulean sky by 62 giant 1,500-watt lamps. As the shy Filipina who had been playing dinner music at the grand piano in a corner of the room picked up the tempo and volume, we all stood and turned to face the mountain. “God Bless America,” we sang. I put my hand on my heart.
In such moments as that was my deep patriotism born. Growing up in the shadow of what sculptor Gutzon Borglum called the Shrine of Democracy, I heard over and over again the ideals of what America was said to represent: equality of all under the law; the freedom to believe, speak and act according to our conscience; and the opportunity in this blessed and beautiful land to pursue whatever path to happiness that we each might imagine.
Of course, the reality of America has always been at best an imperfect approximation of that vision. In drafting the Declaration of Independence 249 years ago, our founders didn’t foresee extending the promise that “all men are created equal” to women or anyone who wasn’t white-skinned; in practice, greater freedom and opportunity have tended to accrue to those with more resources, both political and financial.
Yet even America’s shortcomings always seemed to me to present an opportunity, because they suggested a chance to strive toward perfecting the dreams of the four presidents I had been taught to admire: George Washington, whose dignity and humility set a model for future leaders; Thomas Jefferson, whose eloquent statements of political and religious freedom established the nation’s democratic course; Abraham Lincoln, who ended American slavery and preserved the union; Theodore Roosevelt, the passionate conservationist whose progressive energy began to protect ordinary citizens against the abuses of powerful commercial interests.
On this Independence Day weekend, though, the presidents on Mount Rushmore seem not just of another time, but of some different place. Many of us have reached this national holiday with our idealism bruised and our activism exhausted, unsure if the America we thought we were inheriting and building might ever exist, or whether it ever did.
We are heartbroken that the legacy of our greatest leaders has devolved in our time to the selfish caprice of the amoral Donald J. Trump, and infuriated that the promise of equality is being rolled back, shifting even more wealth and power to those Americans who already disproportionately enjoy its benefits. We are disappointed at the apathy that is meeting the destruction of momentum in the nation’s progress toward justice for all.
It's beyond ironic that President Trump decided to use this Independence Day to sign into law the most retrogressive legislation of our time — a massive law passed by the narrowest of margins in Congress that will siphon wealth to the top tier of Americans from the middle class, reduce food aid and healthcare protection for millions of poorer citizens and overturn efforts to slow the ravages of climate change.
This is not the America that the generation of that little boy at the base of Mount Rushmore should be passing along to those who follow. What a lucky child like me couldn’t yet understand, of course, and what it is hard to accept even now, is that human progress is as tidal as the sea. In 2025, freedom and fairness are ebbing.
Unlike the tides, though, democracy isn’t carried along to its next high point by the pull of nature; it is elevated only by our own initiative. That’s why if this 4th of July is a time of tempered pride, it’s also a ripe moment to recommit to the principles that we have imagined and wished to be the reality of our land. For many of us, then, this is a moment not to set off fireworks in celebration as much as to kindle a new spark of determination.
When President Trump visited Mount Rushmore five years ago during his first term, South Dakota’s then-governor, Kristi Noem, welcomed him with a four-foot replica of the mountain, with a fifth face etched into the model’s stone, that of the real estate developer-turned-reality-TV-host-turned-President. Trump had told Noem that he fantasized about being added to the sculpture, and every Republican politician nowadays knows that you cannot cultivate success in the party without fertilizing the presidential ego. Maybe Noem, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, would have gotten a cabinet appointment anyway, but the flattery couldn’t have hurt.1
Now legislation has been introduced in Congress directing the Secretary of the Interior to “arrange for the carving” of Trump on the granite peak. The bill hasn’t gotten a hearing in the House, but Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a March podcast with Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, that “they definitely have room” to add a big Trump head there.2
That is an opinion not shared by experts. Since the carving at Mount Rushmore ended in 1941, speculation from time to time has focused on adding figures — John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were often mentioned — and geologists have always said there simply isn’t any room. Just last month, the National Park Service issued a statement to The New York Times concluding, “The carved portion of Mount Rushmore has been thoroughly evaluated, and there are no viable locations left for additional carvings.”
It is worth noting, though, that the NPS is a division of Bergum’s department, meaning the Secretary can override whoever fashioned that discouraging statement. Plus, Trump has seldom shown regard for experts in any field – including national security, economics, healthcare and education. Indeed, the world wouldn’t be in such a precarious place just now if Trump ever elevated decision-making above his gut.
But there’s risk in any effort to immortalize Trump in the granite of my old home state. Geologists note that in blasting and chiseling nearly a half-million tons of rock from the mountain face over 14 years, Gutzon Borglum’s crew uncovered fissures and fractures that greatly limited the flexibility to shape the sculpture. More work on the mountain now, scientists say, could lead to crumbling. For example, an effort to add another head next to Lincoln’s could cause the Great Emancipator’s nose to fall off.3
Science aside, though, any fair review of Donald Trump’s record — that is, an analysis beyond partisan Trumpian groveling — reveals the vast gap between what the four presidents on the mountain did and what our current president has accomplished:
George Washington brilliantly led the troops that overwhelmed England’s powerful military, then as president prioritized national unity over regional interests. He oversaw passage of the Bill of Rights, established Cabinet departments, overcame economic fragility and established a neutral foreign policy that brought stability to the young nation. Donald Trump, by contrast, avoided military service during the Vietnam war thanks to a podiatrist’s diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. He eagerly prioritizes partisanship, attacks constitutional rights – notably including freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment – and threatens such key allies as Canada and Mexico.
Thomas Jefferson was a strong advocate for individual liberties, including freedom of religion, speech and the press. Flawed as his record was by slaveholding, a sin typical of his generation of wealthy Americans, he was the first president who assured the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another, and he cut the national debt by 31 percent during his presidency even while doubling the territory of America by his visionary addition of the Louisiana Purchase. Unlike Jefferson, Trump has denigrated First Amendment rights, attempted to overturn the fair election of a president after his first term and just now pushed through legislation that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt – mainly in order to reward the financial standing of the richest Americans. He has vigorously attacked every key element of civil rights progress of the past 60 years.
Abraham Lincoln was the foremost advocate of unity, equality and freedom in the nation’s history, not only saving the union from the Civil War but also laying the foundation of a more just and equitable society – “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” as he said during his second inaugural. Trump’s impulse is quite different: He eagerly attacks states that supported his Democratic opponents, even encouraging insurrection to overturn a fair election, and from his first appearance on the national political stage he has pushed division at every opportunity.
Theodore Roosevelt’s “square deal” for the American people greatly expanded conservation of the nation’s national forests and parks, limited the power of giant corporations and trusts and expanded the protection of consumers from business fraud. He denounced big businesses as “malefactors of great wealth” and attacked the courts as beholden to commercial interests. Trump has slashed support for national parks, forests and wildlife refuges by one-third; he is embracing steps that will make our air and water dirtier, cutting corporate tax rates despite the impact on the nation’s debt – his One Big Beautiful Bill Act raises the federal debt ceiling by $5 trillion – and is targeting middle-income taxpayers to benefit those at higher income levels.
We might also point out that Trump is the only twice-impeached president, the only president convicted of a felony (or any crime, for that matter) and the only president found liable for sexually abusing and defaming someone. By comparison, then, those in line ahead of him for honor on a stone monument might include, say, Andrew Johnson (impeached only once), Richard Nixon (pardoned before trial) and Bill Clinton (impeached for fibbing about his sex life, one of Trump’s signature habits).
Mind you, no one has seriously suggested adding Johnson, Nixon or Clinton to Mount Rushmore. So you have to wonder: Is the talk about carving Trump on the mountain a frivolous appeasement of the leader’s ego, like North Korea’s claim that the late dictator Kim Jong-Il got 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf? Or have our standards so fallen that the notion of honoring Trump at an historic monument isn’t really a farce?
Admittedly, the comfortable patriotism of my childhood was rooted in naivete about our nation’s history. I didn’t recognize the impact of racism throughout generations, the brutal toll of westward expansion on indigenous populations and the legacy of American adventurism on foreign soil. I didn’t know how many injustices had permeated a society during the decades of the nation’s history that seemed to my young view to have been marked by continuous progress.
Yet it would be equally unfair now to ignore what ought to make us grateful inheritors of the legacy of the United States.
Our Constitution enshrined fundamental freedoms and democratic principles that have inspired movements for liberty worldwide. Our nation’s rich tapestry of cultures and traditions has been a source of strength and dynamism. As a leader in scientific, technological and artistic innovation, America has contributed to human advancement. And when called upon to serve, our military and diplomatic efforts for more than two centuries have often resisted totalitarianism and repression.
Yes, the nation has fallen short of the ideals articulated by the great leaders of our past. And today we must be especially shamed by the cynicism and superficiality that has gripped our politics, leading to what seems at this moment to be the most corrupt and perhaps dangerous administration in our history.
In the decades since I grew up in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, I’ve experienced moments of hope about our nation’s future and, nowadays, great sadness, and sometimes anger, about its direction. Yet I wonder: If I found myself on this 4th of July night back in Mount Rushmore’s Buffalo Dining Room as floodlights suddenly revealed the images of those four great presidents carved into the side of a mountain, what would I do?
I would stand and sing again, I think. Probably I couldn’t avoid weeping for what we have lost to carelessness, cynicism and greed. But with those figures looking down at me, with the knowledge of what they did, how could I resign myself to today’s reality? How could I fail to hope, especially now, that blessings will accrue to America? And how could I not then commit to working, still, to make that so?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/us/politics/kristi-noem-pence-trump.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5222612-doug-burgum-mount-rushmore-trump/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/27/us/mount-rushmore-trump.html
TRAINING
DO YOU WANT TO LEARN TO WRITE OP-EDS?
If you’d like some training in writing opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live 90-minute class Rex co-teaches that is offered by Marion Roach Smith’s global platform for writing instruction, The Memoir Project. Click below for information on our upcoming schedule of classes.
Our next class is Tuesday, July 8, at 1 p.m. Eastern
Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too!
BONUS CONTENT
GET MORE FROM THE UPSTATE AMERICAN
IF YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR MORE from Rex Smith, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay.
AND IF YOUR INTEREST IS SPECIFIC TO AMERICAN MEDIA, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the seven states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org, or download the podcast there. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.”
ENDNOTE
THANK YOU for reading The Upstate American, and for joining us in the conversation about our common ground, this great country. As we together navigate these challenging times, I hope you’ll join us again next week — or send me a message with ideas you’d like to see us address.
-REX SMITH
MAGA is chipping away at the bedrock of American values, and basic decency, piece by piece.
Thank you Mr. Smith, for this beautiful, sobering, hopeful essay. All is not lost if we, those of us who care about people above profits, make sure we fight for the ideals of democratic principles.