Americans must join President Trump in calling for the protection of the nation’s historic monuments, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, said Saturday.
Kinzinger, who appeared on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” said protesters should not have the power to topple statues and monuments, effectively erasing part of our history.
“So here is the bottom line,” he said. “We live in a democracy. In a democracy, it takes a group of people, a majority, to make a decision about what this country does, the laws it passes.
“When you go out and disfigure a monument because you are 20 years old, you grew up in your parents’ basement, and you have had so much anguish in your life that you have never had to defend the country … when you do that, you make a decision for the rest of us and you begin to make a decision about what we want to see in our history.
“And, when you erase that, you forget the lessons we’ve worked so hard, men and women in the military, the American people, to overcome,” said Kinzinger. “And the president has done the right thing in this, for sure.”
TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO PROTECT AMERICAN MONUMENTS, MEMORIES AND STATUES
In the weeks after the death of George Floyd, a black man, kneeled by a white Minneapolis police officer, protests across the country took to the streets of the city amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The goal of the Confederate monuments and statues involved in controversy was as follows, with some shot down by Black Lives Matter protesters and others by local governments sensitive to allegations of racial injustice.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order to protect American monuments.
“I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order that protects the Monuments, Monuments and Statues of the United States, and fights recent criminal violence,” Trump tweeted. “Long prison terms for these illegal acts against our Great Country!”
Kinzinger blamed Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi for fanning the flames of the unrest and siding with “the people who disfigure the monuments.”
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“I will tell you that Republicans in the House and across the government will continue to speak,” he said.
“And the American people also need to talk about this. And make it clear that they want to protect their history.”
