Mt. Rushmore, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is rightly known as “The Shrine of Democracy.” Between 1927 and 1941, led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, some 400 local workers carved the monument. Amazingly, considering the technology of the time—workers were lowered from the top on hand-cranked winches--no lives were lost during construction.  

There have been aborted attempts to put others among the four carvings on Mt. Rushmore, including Susan B. Anthony, and Barack Obama.  One of my college professors maintained a long-running, curmudgeonly, joke about putting Harry Truman on the mountain.

Graphic: Twitter Screenshot

In its own way, the idea of Obama dominating the mountain was of a kind with eternal Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) attempts to denigrate the very idea of the monumental carvings. Remember this from former Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas? 

“Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is—we are above that now. We’re not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial. We stand for something, I mean in a way, Obama’s standing about the country, above, above the world, he’s sort of God.”

Graphic: Author

Why shouldn’t “the one,” the more than man “sort of God,” be on Mt. Rushmore with giants like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln they revile? They also revile Borglum, and the very idea and existence of the monument:

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That didn’t stop them for advocating for “The One’s” triumphal inclusion:

“History undoubtedly will accord President Obama a special place by virtue of being the first African-American president,’ said Prof. Paul Wahlbeck, chair of the political science department at GW. But although Wahlbeck confidently acknowledged his belief that Obama will soon join the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, he said he is also ‘reluctant to venerate political leaders while or shortly after they served.”

One might think Obama’s 2013 shuttering of Mt. Rushmore, and every other national park, over a congressional budget battle that temporarily shut down the government, might have harmed his chances, particularly since he was so arrogantly pleased about it. He even directed rangers to block off scenic overlooks, so none could so much as catch a glimpse of the monument.

Witness the spectacle of President Obama not only shutting down all national parks, but actually erecting ‘barrycades’–barrycades that must be rented, replete with federal workers who must be paid to put them up and patrol them–to prevent elderly veterans from visiting the WWII and Vietnam Memorials, memorials that have no gates or doors, that simply reside in fields where one may walk to and fro at any time of the day or night.

Graphic: Author

Since then, D/s/c presidents have done all they could to denigrate everything relating to Mt. Rushmore, and to deny Americans any pleasure in the experience. Joe Biden, every year, has denied fireworks displays there at the Fourth of July, ostensibly due to fire dangers, and to avoid bruising the sensibilities of American Indians.

This, therefore, should be no surprise:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mused Sunday morning that President Biden could be added to Mount Rushmore after choosing to step out of the 2024 race. [skip]

"He was in a good place to make whatever decision – the top of his game," Pelosi said. "Such a consequential president of the United States, a Mount Rushmore kind of president of the United States."

Stahl asked, "Are you really saying that he belongs up there on Mount Rushmore? Lincoln and Joe Biden?"

"Well, you got Teddy Roosevelt up there, and he's wonderful," Pelosi clarified. "I don't say take him down. But you can add Biden."

Why didn’t Obama make the cut? And why not put a Titan “at the top of his game” at the top of Mt. Rushmore? Sadly, reality intrudes once more on D/s/c alternate reality:

Since 1989 the National Park Service has worked with RESPEC, a rock mechanics engineering firm, to study the structural stability of the sculpture and to install rock block monitoring devices that assure long-term preservation of the sculpture, she said.

‘RESPEC supports our long-held belief that no other rock near the sculpted faces is suitable for additional carving.’ [Mount Rushmore National Memorial Chief of Interpretation and Education Maureen] McGee-Ballinger said. ‘RESPEC also believes that if additional work were undertaken it is possible that exposing new surfaces could result in creation of potential instabilities in the existing carving.

Tragically, even “The One,” “The Lightbringer,” was not sufficiently powerful to transmogrify unstable granite such that his visage could inspire future generations. How could we expect Joe Biden—or Nancy Pelosi—to succeed where he failed?

Graphic: Twitter Screenshot

‘Twas not politics defeated “The One,” the little girl sniffer and the party of science, but geology.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.