In Brief: Trump Was Right About Jefferson Statues
The NYC Commission voted to remove the Thomas Jefferson statue from city council chambers.
The iconoclasts of the Left are never done. Confederates? Christopher Columbus? Now Thomas Jefferson. You’re next, George Washington.
“[Donald Trump told us this would happen, and now it has,” writes Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. “On Monday, the New York City Public Design Commission voted to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from the City Council chambers at New York’s City Hall. The statue is 188 years old. The vote was unanimous.”
According to WABC, the statue will likely now become part of a woke recasting of American history with Jefferson in a villain’s role. The Jefferson statue “was expected to go on ‘long term loan’ to the New-York Historical Society by the end of the year, where it would be included in educational exhibits with the proper historical context that likely will include discussion of Jefferson’s slave ownership.”
There was no mention of whether or not these discussions would include any mention of Jefferson’s authorship of the Declaration of Independence or of the anti-slavery statements he included in its first draft, or of the fact that he referred to slavery as a “moral depravity” and a “hideous blot.”
As with most of the Founders and generations both before and after them, there was conflict — including inner conflict — about slavery. And the Christian West is still the first civilization in the history of the world to abolish slavery for moral reasons. But whatever.
Back in August 2017, Trump predicted that this day would come. At the same time that he was speaking about the infamous Charlottesville rally in remarks that would be twisted and willfully misrepresented by Joe Biden and others to claim that Trump was justifying white supremacist violence, Trump spoke about the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue there. “Many of those people,” he said, “were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. So this week, it is Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.” The New York Times added: “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the president noted, were also slave owners. ‘I wonder, is it George Washington next week?’ Mr. Trump said. ‘And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?’”
Leftists laughed off Trump’s warning, but here we are — Trump has been proven right.
The war against the statues was never about ending the honoring of Confederates. It was always about destroying the will to national unity that led to those statues being erected in the first place.
The endgame of the statue-removers is to make the average American ashamed of being American.
Spencer concludes:
The real reason why the Left hates Thomas Jefferson is for all the things for which he should rightly be celebrated: Because he fought against tyranny. Because he helped create a free republic. Because he placed statements in those founding documents that would ultimately lead multitudes of the citizens of the new nation to believe that slavery was wrong and immoral, and give their lives to bring about its abolition. Jefferson is just the sort of man whom the fascist thugs of Antifa, busy smearing ACAB on the sides of building and hurling obscenities at police in pursuit of their vision of socialist utopia, and their moneyed backers would despise and fear. They want a docile American populace, frightened into submission to their authoritarian vision. The example of Thomas Jefferson could inspire Americans instead to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to preserve our hard-won freedoms. Can’t have that. The Jefferson statues must come down.
