Trump's Mount Rushmore Speech Targets One Ideology

President Trump used Mount Rushmore as a backdrop on Friday night to recast the midterm stakes as a fight against "communism," branding his political opponents "godless" and "evil" as he pressed for stricter voting rules and the end of the Senate filibuster. Pitching his SAVE America Act, which would tighten voter ID requirements, Trump told supporters, "We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms," warning that unnamed enemies want to weaken gun rights, sideline the English language, and import "newcomers" hostile to "our way of life," per the New York Times.

The AP reports that the "darkly political" speech, delivered on the eve of the nation's 250th birthday, swung from patriotic messaging to dire warnings. The outlet notes that "Trump's language evoked the Red Scare of the 1950s, when alleged communists were persecuted and blacklisted from jobs across America." The president called communism "the enemy of July 4, 1776," described it as a greater threat than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and said it stands for "death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil."

It was Trump's second culture-war address at Mount Rushmore in six years, this time aimed at a rising progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The night closed with fireworks over the monument as Trump briefly returned to praising America, but not before again labeling the "Communist Party" as a mix of "illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn't want to work." Meanwhile, a White House spokesperson had something to say about Trump and the site where he spoke. "There would be no better addition to the iconic Mount Rushmore than the 45th and 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump," Taylor Rogers said in a statement to the Washington Post.