{"id":874,"date":"2026-07-06T15:26:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=874"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:26:05","slug":"on-americas-250th-mamdani-called-for-unity-while-trump-rewrote-the-past-moustafa-bayoumi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=874","title":{"rendered":"On America\u2019s 250th, Mamdani called for unity \u2013 while Trump rewrote the past | Moustafa Bayoumi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"><span style=\"color:var(--drop-cap);font-weight:300\" class=\"dcr-1iwzucl\">I<\/span>f Donald Trump\u2019s address on 3 July from Mount Rushmore will be remembered at all, it will be because that was the day of competing speeches, and competing visions, of the United States. Earlier on 3 July, the New York City mayor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/zohran-mamdani\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, delivered a speech that was about half as long as Trump\u2019s 28-minute address, but one that offered a far different assessment of the challenges facing his city and our nation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWe see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions,\u201d Mamdani <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/07\/remarks-as-prepared--mayor-mamdani-delivers-address-marking-amer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">said<\/a>, while seated at George Washington\u2019s desk and flanked by newly naturalized American citizens. \u201cWe see the wealthiest country in the history of the world \u2013 one where children go to sleep hungry while the world\u2019s first trillionaire hungers for more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Mamdani\u2019s speech was rich with historical references, beginning with his mention of the Lenape people who lived on the land of what we now call New York City before the Europeans arrived. (As far as I know, Trump never mentions the Indigenous nations of this land.) Mamdani\u2019s address made a (too) brief nod to American chattel slavery, before celebrating American immigration, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/07\/remarks-as-prepared--mayor-mamdani-delivers-address-marking-amer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">noting<\/a>: \u201cIrish immigrants [who] arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty\u201d along with \u201cJewish people escaping pogroms\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Next, it offered a sharp warning that the nation must not lose its way. \u201cThose ideals upon which our nation was built \u2013 they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them,\u201d the mayor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/07\/remarks-as-prepared--mayor-mamdani-delivers-address-marking-amer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">said<\/a>. \u201cOurs is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived. A nation striving each day to better itself. Therein lies the work of America \u2013 the striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">By their nature, these types of speeches are flavored with more than a dash of national self-flattery. And while Mamdani\u2019s speech was clearly situated in the conflicts of our present political moment, his rhetoric was nevertheless unifying and optimistic. The latter half of Trump\u2019s 3 July address and parts of his 4 July address were basically a stump speech for Republicans, as they face a tough midterm election season ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Trump, clearly rattled by the success of the left wing of the Democratic party in New York and across the country, has decided to return to the 1950s. He is now brazenly resurrecting cold war rhetoric, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/26\/trump-democrats-communists-midterms\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">repeatedly<\/a> labeling his opponents \u201cgodless communists\u201d, as he <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-mount-rushmore-250th-birthday-semiquincentennial-july-3-2026\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">did on Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Trump delivered yet another speech on 4 July and in Washington DC. This address, besides being almost rained out, felt more like a strange mix of a State of the Union Address and a 1970\u2019s game show, as Trump kept wheeling out old flags and centenarian veterans onto his stage as if they were all up for auction. Human and non-human props aside, his actual 4 July lecture offered, perhaps surprisingly, less substance than the one he had given the day before.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"478d52cc-c562-443c-9ca3-8d39052bb3ba\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\" class=\"dcr-d9bay7\"><figcaption data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" class=\"dcr-174mzkf\"><span class=\"dcr-vyhg7z\"><svg width=\"18\" height=\"13\" viewbox=\"0 0 18 13\"><path d=\"M18 3.5v8l-1.5 1.5h-15l-1.5-1.5v-8l1.5-1.5h3.5l2-2h4l2 2h3.5l1.5 1.5zm-9 7.5c1.9 0 3.5-1.6 3.5-3.5s-1.6-3.5-3.5-3.5-3.5 1.6-3.5 3.5 1.6 3.5 3.5 3.5z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1cipnsy\">\u2018Trump, clearly rattled by the success of the left wing of the Democratic party in New York and across the country, has decided to return to the 1950s.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">But democratic socialists are clearly not the \u201cgodless communists\u201d Trump claims. Take our mayor, for example. Since Mamdani is a Muslim and a democratic socialist, he would be a Muslim communist and not a godless one. Please get it right, Mr President. Of course, the whole \u201cgodless communists\u201d thing is pure fiction, but, as Trump well knows, it\u2019s easier to fight the enemy who lives in your imagination than your actual opponent challenging you at the polls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Mamdani offered sober assessments of political opportunism. \u201cAt every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/07\/remarks-as-prepared--mayor-mamdani-delivers-address-marking-amer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">said<\/a>, \u201cDivision is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Trump, on the other hand, simply rewrote the past. \u201cAs for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they\u2019re doing something much worse than slandering our past,\u201d Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-mount-rushmore-250th-birthday-semiquincentennial-july-3-2026\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">said<\/a> on 3 July. \u201cThey are slandering and attacking our future \u2013 not going to let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">But Trump <em>was<\/em> delivering his speech on stolen land. That day, he was on Mount Rushmore, which is in the Black Hills, sacred territory of the Lakota people, who call the area He Sapa. \u201cA more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history\u201d is how a <a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/448\/371\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">1980 US supreme court opinion<\/a> described the theft of the Black Hills from the \u201cSioux Nation of Indians\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">As historian Nick Estes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hcn.org\/issues\/53-1\/indigenous-affairs-social-justice-the-battle-for-the-black-hills\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">points out<\/a> about that supreme court decision: \u201cThe court awarded the tribe $102 million; today, with the accumulated interest, it comes to nearly $2 billion. But the Lakota position remains unwavering, as shown by the popular slogan, \u2018The Black Hills are not for sale!\u2019 The relationship with He Sapa cannot be translated into money. The land itself, the tribes said, must be returned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Trump\u2019s hubris is legendary (he has <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Politics\/trump-heads-mount-rushmore-kick-off-america-250\/story?id=134443201\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">suggested<\/a> he wants his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DaUlJYyjqhe\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">face on Mount Rushmore<\/a>), and he obsessively repeats, as he did in this <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-mount-rushmore-250th-birthday-semiquincentennial-july-3-2026\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">speech<\/a>, that the United States was \u201claughed at, mocked\u201d, and seen as a \u201cnation in decline\u201d just two years ago. \u201cAnd today,\u201d Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-mount-rushmore-250th-birthday-semiquincentennial-july-3-2026\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">says<\/a>, \u201cWe are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Everybody respects us like no nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">But the polling doesn\u2019t bear any of this out. The Pew Research Center recently found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/global\/2026\/06\/23\/trump-gets-negative-reviews-internationally-as-fewer-say-u-s-is-a-reliable-partner\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">sharp declines<\/a> in US favorability around the globe. And what I imagine must really upset the president is that democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani <a href=\"https:\/\/maristpoll.marist.edu\/polls\/mayor-mamdanis-first-100-days-april-2026\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">polls<\/a> at a significantly higher approval rating (48%) than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Donald Trump does<\/a> (39%).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Mamdani\u2019s speech illustrated his gifts of public speaking and emphasized his vision that the country is at its strongest when we look out for each other. \u201cWe see America each time working people demand more \u2013 not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/07\/remarks-as-prepared--mayor-mamdani-delivers-address-marking-amer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">said<\/a>. Trump\u2019s speech was an appeal to an abstract future greatness based on defeating fictionalized enemies and returning to an often-mythical past. Both are versions of the United States of America. Between the two, between reality and fiction, we must choose where we want to live.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\n<li class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Donald Trump\u2019s address on 3 July from Mount Rushmore will be remembered at all, it will be because that was the day of competing speeches, and competing visions, of the United States. Earlier on 3 July, the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, delivered a speech that was about half as long as Trump\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/b76467b7e96b0e5990a1602eadf5169eb494d37d\/10_0_3333_2667\/master\/3333.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5765edb1790e769e14249485c5918858","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}