As statues and monuments across the country fall at the hands of the woke mob, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem made it clear that Mount Rushmore wouldn’t be one of them.
In a response to a tweet by conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, wondering if Mount Rushmore would be destroyed next, Noem said, “Not on my watch.” As of Wednesday, her message had received some 15,000 retweets and more than 80,000 likes.
Not on my watch. https://t.co/U6gGap5Ib6
— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) June 23, 2020
The governor expanded on that point during her appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Wednesday.
“This is a national monument and the more we focus on the flaws of these men that are on our mountain, the less likely we are to recognize the virtues and the lessons we can learn from their lives,” Noem said.
Although the protests have not come for the landmark yet, the governor told Fox that there’s been "activity online where people have made threats” and noted that she is prepared to mobilize both state and federal resources to protect it.
Noem called the movement to strip the country of many of its statues “a radical rewriting of our history” and said that South Dakotans “won’t stand for it.”
Rather than destroying the nation’s icons, Noem argued that Americans should learn from them.
“This country isn’t perfect; nobody in this country is perfect,” she said. “But we learn from our mistakes, and that’s what history brings to us: each and every day is an opportunity to do better. . . [These men] did amazing things for this country and we can do even better if we work together and quit dividing and destroying but instead build each other up, encourage each other, learn, and look to creating an America that really does exemplify what their dreams were.”