Donald Trump has never been subtle about his love of monuments—especially ones that feature himself. In 2020, during a Mount Rushmore speech soaked in fireworks and white grievance, he proposed building a “National Garden of American Heroes.” His vision? A patriotic Disneyland of 250 statues featuring a handpicked list of historical figures, including George Washington, Harriet Tubman, Antonin Scalia, and, let’s be honest, probably himself.
At the time, it was widely dismissed as political fanfiction—another Trump stunt designed to troll liberals and court white nostalgia. But now, in 2025, the fantasy is clawing its way into reality.
Thanks to a $40 million boost from the House and a well-timed land offer from a mining company, the garden may finally find a home just below Mount Rushmore. And if that sounds dystopian, buckle up: it’s not just about statues—it’s about staking ideological claim to stolen land.
Trump’s Monument Dream Turns Mount Rushmore’s Sacred Ground Into Symbolic Property
The proposed site for the garden? Forty acres in the Black Hills, offered up by Pete Lien & Sons, a mining company with a history of conflicts with Indigenous groups. The land is less than a mile from Mount Rushmore—a monument already carved into a mountain the U.S. stole from the Sioux Nation in violation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.
For Lakota organizers and tribal leaders, it’s insult on top of injury. First the government took the land. Now it wants to fill it with statues chosen by a man whose political brand thrives on culture war spectacle and historical whitewashing.
“It’s absurd,” said Taylor Gunhammer of NDN Collective, “to claim you care about preserving history while you let a mining company destroy sacred ground.”
See also: “Dictator Approved”: How a Giant Sculpture on the National Mall Just Dragged Trump
Statue Politics and the Cult of ‘Greatness’
Trump’s original 2020 executive order didn’t just list familiar names like Harriet Beecher Stowe or Frederick Douglass. It also included Christopher Columbus, Andrew Jackson, and other figures whose legacies are soaked in colonization and violence. Notably absent? Native American, Hispanic, or Asian-American historical leaders.
His defenders say the garden is a tribute to greatness. His critics know better. It’s an ideological land grab—using taxpayer-funded marble to declare which histories matter, and which don’t.
In Trump’s words:
“Once we make that decision, those great names are going to be up there and they’re never coming down.”
Subtlety isn’t the point. Permanence is.
From Rushmore to Ego-More
South Dakota’s Republican governor Larry Rhoden is fully on board.
“The Black Hills mark the perfect location,” he wrote in a letter to Trump. “Together, we will make this project happen.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Dusty Johnson is already pushing to make the garden permanent—because nothing says “representative democracy” like enshrining an unelected short list of heroes selected by a twice-impeached president.
Let’s be real: this isn’t about honoring history. It’s about controlling it. It’s about rewriting the past to look more like a Trump rally and less like the complicated, multiracial, contested story it actually is.
See also: At NATO Summit, Trump Says Iran Strikes Were “Essentially the Same” as Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Land Remembers What the Statues Forget
The Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the Black Hills were taken illegally. The U.S. offered $1.3 billion in compensation. The tribes refused. What they want isn’t cash. It’s land. It’s recognition. It’s justice.
Trump’s monument mania is more than vanity—it’s colonization in slow motion. It’s rewriting who belongs on the land and who gets to tell the story.
And if the garden gets built, don’t be surprised if a statue of Donald J. Trump is the first one to go up.
