Monument Man ~ Part Deux

Ramses II at Luxor

I started last week's episode with the best of intentions....and found hacking up a lung or two was not conducive to writing. So, let us begin again: When I was a kid, I was fascinated by giant statues of kings. I mean, really. Who would want a statue of himself that big? It was crazy! What was he trying to prove? My dad explained he wanted people to remember him as a great king and a larger than life warrior. Egyptians, we went on, were really preoccupied with what came after death and accordingly, they built pyramids and temples to show off their wealth and power. When I insisted people didn't do  that sorta thing any more, he scoffed, "au contraire, ma fille sceptique!" Since the internet hadn't been invented yet, we looked in the Encyclopedia Americana and looked at pictures of all sorts of really big statues. Napoleon, Mao, Stalin, ...you get the drift. 

And I also think most of us remember pictures showing statues of dictators being torn down and destroyed. We were inundated with images of Saddam Hussein being toppled, literally and figuratively all of Iraq. People hated his very image. Just like they hated Stalin. And Lenin. And all sorts of oppressive leaders. It doesn't matter if they were kings or queens, elected or installed via coup. The ones who put up monuments to themselves usually ended up in the dust along with the monuments. 

Sycophancy has long been a staple in both administrations of President Felon. In order to survive at his table, you have to kiss whatever ass he's demanding be kissed. Individuals and state governments must kowtow to his whims to receive any previously allocated funding. States he does not like, for whatever reasons, do not receive emergency FEMA funding. Applications are not denied; they are simply ignored. Just as North Carolina's Attorney General. I'm sure Jeff Jackson would love to tell you about that. This entire administration is based on denying assistance to those who need it most. Food and heat programs are slashed. Health care has become unaffordable to huge swaths of population, yet somehow there are funds for demolishing half the White House, building an arch , and a gold statue of him for display at some golf course. 

One can also point to his dismantling of international agreements and defense alliances together with his endless humiliation of Ukraine's Volodymyr  Zelenskyy. What he has proven repeatedly to both Americans and our allies is that he is not to be trusted. 

President Felon wants his face on a $1 coin commemorating the 250 anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This is a departure from the norm which holds no living person is depicted on a coin, yet a spokesperson for the US Mint says this breaks no law. But it actually does violate an 1886 law requiring “only the portrait of a deceased individual” appear on currency and securities. 

Back in March, 2025, Sidney Blumenthal wrote in The Guardian::

Sycophancy is the coin of the realm. In Donald Trump’s court, flattery is the only spoken language. He does not need an executive order to enforce it. Fear is the other side of the coin. Loyalty must be blind. Obedience is safety. Cronyism secures status. His whim is dogma. Criticism is heresy. Debate is apostasy. Expertise is bias. Objectivity is a hoax. Truth is just your opinion. Lies are defended to the death as articles of faith. New ones are manufactured on an industrial scale by his press office for social influencers to spread. Denying facts proves fealty. The rule of law is partisan. Russia is our trusted ally. Britain and France are “random countries”. Retribution is policy.

Frankly, the entire article is prescient and he is a harbinger of what is yet to come. 

One of the really interesting things, and not in a good way, is the lack of a national arts program that supports and preserves America's unique cultural footprint. The Smithsonian is the closest thing we have at the moment to an agency preserving American culture in all its diversity. It's important to understand that there are actually 21 separate museums and facilities under that umbrella. The following are the 14 inside Washington D.C. 

1. Anacostia Community Museum
2. Arts and Industries Building
3. Freer Gallery of Art (part of National Museum of Asian Art)
4. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
5. National Air and Space Museum
6. National Museum of African Art
7. National Museum of African American History and Culture
8. National Museum of American History
9. National Museum of the American Indian
10. National Museum of Natural History
11. National Postal Museum
12. Smithsonian American Art Museum
13. National Portrait Gallery (shares building with SAAM)
14. Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle) (visitor center)

[It's also important to note that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, while a federally owned institution, does not fall under the aegis of the Smithsonian.]

Please note the museums on this list. They represent a wide swath of Americans. They are a testament to the diversity which has made America America. And, according to President Felon, are WOKE. On August 19, 2025, he used social media to state:

The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’ The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been – Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.

He personally attacked and attempted to remove the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, only to be told he did not have the authority. Thus began the attack on the nation's cultural legacy.  An exceptionally thorough piece in The Guardian, Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’ is an absolute must-read if you want a good overview of what's happening:

To use different language, Trump wanted museums to reflect a Maga vision of American history that was nationalist and triumphalist, and downplayed reflection on darker aspects of its past, specifically its history of slavery. His views were of a piece with his other, smaller, forays into the cultural arena – his desire, for example, to build a triumphal arch in Washington, or his personal role in vetoing what were regarded as “woke” artists from becoming Kennedy Center honourees.

Whereas the first Trump administration left cultural matters largely alone, in his second term it has made them a priority. Through lawsuits and executive orders, threats and intimidation, the administration is seeking to shift the country to the right, an abrupt and extreme escalation in the long battle for control over the narrative of American history fought by both the right and the left. To do so, he is targeting the institutions – universities and museums – that form people’s minds and imaginations, their sense of identity. “The goal,” as one senior employee of the Smithsonian told me, “is to reframe the entire culture of the United States from the foundation up.”

If the goal is to reframe American culture, it comes with his face on everything. His likeness, his litany of lies, his dubious accomplishments, and worst of all, it's at the loss of our national identity. Vice President Bedbug has been assigned to the Smithsonian's board of directors in order to supervise the shift toward MAGA . What's left of the White House issued a broadside last March called Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History It is possibly the most nauseating crock of shit one can imagine....to date. It begins:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered

If that doesn't chill you to the boots, one section is particularly egregious in its nefariousness:

Sec. 2.  Saving Our Smithsonian.  (a)  The Vice President, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary, Lindsey Halligan, Esq., shall work to effectuate the policies of this order through his role on the Smithsonian Board of Regents with respect to the Smithsonian Institution and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo, including by seeking to remove improper ideology from such properties, and shall recommend to the President any additional actions necessary to fully effectuate such policies. 

(b)  The Vice President and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall work with the Congress to ensure that future appropriations to the Smithsonian Institution:

(i)   prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy; and

(ii)  celebrate the achievements of women in the American Women’s History Museum and do not recognize men as women in any respect in the Museum.

 (c)  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Secretary of the Interior shall take any other measures within their authority to promote the policy of this order. 

(d)  As appropriate, the Vice President shall, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary, Lindsey Halligan, Esq., work with the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader, to seek the appointment of citizen members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents committed to advancing the policy of this order.

Considering his racist, white supremacist proclivities, it's easy enough to deduce his intentions. 

But what does this all have to do with monuments? Everything. The reframing of American history to remove honesty and replace it with his bleached version is to further isolate the US from the real world. By casting himself as superhero, military hero, or even some sort of evangelical religious leader, he is mythologizing himself in a way the framers of our Constitution specifically warned about. In his Substack today, John Dickerson tackled exactly that issue:

The framers described power as “a cancer,” and an “ocean.” They believed it possessed an “endlessly propulsive tendency to expand itself beyond legitimate boundaries,” as Bernard Bailyn describes it in The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Men withered under power’s sway. Patrick Henry warned, “If your American chief be a man of ambition, and abilities, how easy it is for him to render himself absolute.” Samuel Adams argued that power defied human restraint: “Such is the depravity of mankind that ambition and lust of power above the law are predominant passions in the breasts of most men.”

A chief executive who envisions himself as grandly as President Trump does exhibits the self-regard the framers feared most. This leads, they believed, to a president who privileges loyalty and whims above duties to the country and the people. The psychology of such rulers convinces both themselves and their followers that to please the ruler is to please the state.

Maddie McGarvey/NY Times

One might conclude this continued aggrandizement borders on self-deification and may be a preliminary step in the establishment of some kind of dynasty à la the Kim family of North Korea, with Barron as his designated heir. Even the attempted fashion deification of Melania in her Amazon extravaganza is an element to be considered. And of course, we would be remiss not to mention Don the Colossus, the 15' statue that has been commissioned, is supposed to go to Florida...assuming the sculptor is paid. 

And then there's his Arch of Independence, a 250' monstrosity destined for Memorial Circle on the mall, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial and smack dab in the middle of the Washington National Airport's flight path...an airport already known for midair collisions. Of course, it has to be bigger than any other arch in the world, bigger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, or the Arch of Constantine in Rome, or Monumento a la Revolución inMexico City. One might think the size of his arch must be inversely proportional to the size of his winkie.

Not nearly as far-fetched as it might have sounded the first time around, there is a distinct drive to not just to redact American history into something that favors his brand of narcissism; he is setting himself up with royal aspirations. One might be a one-off, but clearly there is a pattern emerging...and it's not a good look for America.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We are at the very precipice of dangerous times. The proposed SAVE act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) is, in reality, an act designed to suppress the vote by making it significantly more difficult to cast a vote. In essence, much of that act serves as a poll tax, something that will disenfranchise millions of voters. Various election bodies have repeatedly said voter fraud is almost nonexistent, but this administration is the one that asked for exactly that: for the state of Georgia to produce 11,780 votes. In case you forgot, the phone call and request by President Felon was recorded by Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger:

What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

None of this is an aberration for this president or his administration. They are nothing more than a house of cards built on a bed of lies. The deeper this goes, the more We, the People are in jeopardy of losing our right to vote in a free and fair election. Having been living in a war zone these last few weeks, I have come to seriously fear what the government can do....what they may do....and whether or not it can be stopped. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
The best thing for an old fashioned head cold is

soup, sleep, and trashy novels. 

Trust me on this one.