The Great American State Fair is over, and it can reasonably be declared a dud — one more item on a list of D.C.-based initiatives from President Donald Trump that were intended to gin up patriotic sentiment around America’s 250th but were instead greeted with a chorus of disdain. There’s the Reflecting Pool that turned green; the plans for a giant triumphal arch facing the Lincoln Memorial; the D.C. statues newly swathed in gold leafing. “Grandiosity without grandeur” is how Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz describes Trump’s efforts to beautify the city. Thus far, it’s fair to assume that most Americans have not been impressed.
And yet we’ve all gotten so used to rolling our eyes at Trump’s ham-handed civic ideas that we may have missed a key detail. Amid all the lame, garish, outre plans, there is one that actually holds some promise: Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes.
Yes, the origins of the concept are far from enlightened: Trump originally promoted it during his first term to troll the left over the removal of historical statues across the country. But at least in theory, the idea of a park containing statues of 250 American heroes is a worthy one. In fact, if executed correctly, it could help to solve an underappreciated national crisis: As our politics have grown absurdly polarized, we have lost any sense of a common historical narrative.