Columbus Day Agendas

The idea of crafting greatness and honor around Columbus’ exploits began in the 1920s, when the “Ku Klux Klan tried to create a lily-white country by attacking not just Black Americans, but also immigrants, Jews, and Catholics.” Given WWI was blazing the “government emphasized Americanism,” demanding immigrants “reject all ties to their countries of origin.” Then, in 1934, in a bid to bring Italian Americans into the Democratic party, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a federal holiday.

On Cotober 13, 2025, in a presidential proclamation, President Donald J. Trump, proclaimed that Columbus made landfall in the modern-day Bahamas. Upon his arrival, he planted a majestic cross. In fact, others tell a version that suggests Columbus needed the natives to guide his boat into port and it is highly unlikely there was a majestic cross.

Unfortunately, the facts of history, ore often ignored, especially by this administration. Across the 200 years, since Columbus landed, approximately 90% of native peoples “living in the Americas died due to displacement, enslavement, war, and especially disease.” Today, most historians’ view Columbus’s legacy as leading to the “destruction of America’s Indigenous peoples as the brutal triumph of European white men over those they perceived to be inferior.”

And yet, on this Columbus Day, a day now known to many as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, President Donald J. Trump proclaimed Christopher Columbus was a true American hero. And every citizen is eternally indebted to his relentless determination… Above all, we commit to restoring a Nation that once again dares to tame the unknown, honors our rich cultural inheritance, and offers rightful praise to our Creator above,” says the man who does not know how to hold a bible side right-side up.

Christopher Columbus was a true American hero, proclaims President Donld J. Trump, as he sends military troops against his own people. You have to hand it to the man, he is certainly determined to echo his (Columbus’) resolve, as did the Ku Klux Klan 100 years ago.

Quoted comments are informed by, historian, Heather Cox Richardson.

Comments in italics are quotes from The White House Proclamation.