The woke left harbor a fierce, unrelenting hatred for Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay.
In 2021, the New York City Council voted unanimously to remove a bronze statue of Jefferson from its chamber. The statue had stood there since 1834. Councilors framed the sculpture as a constant reminder of injustices once perpetrated against racial minorities. They cited Jefferson’s ownership of slaves as the embodiment of that injustice while ignoring his authorship of the Declaration of Independence.
At the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded, the student newspaper published an editorial demanding the removal of every reference to him. It accused the famously liberal university of upholding white supremacy. The editorial even linked Jefferson’s presence to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Efforts to diminish Jefferson have reached his historic home at Monticello. Exhibits and programming there face justified criticism for fixating on his slaveholding and supposed relationship with Sally Hemings. These displays overshadow his roles as statesman, inventor, and advocate for individual liberty.
The assault on Henry Clay follows the same destructive pattern.
In summer 2020, during protests after George Floyd’s death, activists from Take ’Em Down NOLA marched in New Orleans. They called for the removal of Clay’s prominent statue in Lafayette Square. Organizers labeled it a symbol of racism and colonialism. The effort targeted figures with ties to the antebellum South.
In San Diego’s Rolando neighborhood, parents and activists launched a petition drive to rename Henry Clay Elementary School and its adjacent park. Critics highlighted Clay’s slave ownership and political compromises. The campaign succeeded in 2024. The school now bears the name of a black woman.
This change is a victory for woke identity politics, which reduces Clay’s legacy as the Great Compromiser to fit contemporary grievance narratives.
Of course, the woke vendetta extends far beyond Jefferson and Clay.
During the 2020 George Floyd protests, activists in Portland, Oregon, toppled a statue of George Washington. They spray-painted it with messages like “Destroy Racists” and “BLM.” In San Francisco, protesters defaced and pulled down a bust of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant led Union forces to victory in the Civil War and later crushed the Ku Klux Klan. No matter. He is a dead white male. Similar attacks hit Christopher Columbus statues in multiple cities and even some abolitionist monuments.
It takes no genius to deduce that these acts were a calculated program to dismantle American historical memory. The goal was to install a warped narrative of perpetual white guilt over balanced accounts of innovation, glory, and unity.
Thomas Jefferson earned his place among America’s greatest figures.
From youth onward, he displayed an extraordinary intellect. He attended the College of William and Mary. There, he mastered mathematics, politics, and literature. His ideas shaped the American experiment. After legal training, he entered public service in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769.
He advocated colonial independence. In the Second Continental Congress, he drafted the Declaration of Independence. Adopted on July 4, 1776, it became the transcendent charter of human liberty. Jefferson championed religious freedom through the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. It laid the groundwork for the First Amendment.
He would serve as the Old Dominion’s governor, Uncle Sam’s minister to France, his secretary of state, the vice president, and, finally, as America’s third president. In this role, Jefferson secured the Louisiana Purchase. That deal doubled the nation’s size and opened frontiers of opportunity.
Later, he founded the University of Virginia to equip future generations with knowledge to preserve freedom. He died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of independence.
Henry Clay rose from humble Virginia beginnings during the Revolutionary War. Born April 12, 1777, he became one of the most consequential statesmen in U.S. history. Representing Kentucky in Congress, he drove the American System. This included protective tariffs to nurture domestic industry, a national financial structure for growth, and federal investments in roads, canals, and improvements. These bound the nation together.
Clay understood that political independence required economic self-reliance. Sovereignty demanded industrial, financial, and commercial strength. As Speaker of the House, senator, and secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams, he shaped national debate. Nominated for president three times, he placed the country above himself.
His vision of unity and strength helped forge the Republic.
On April 13, 2026, President Donald J. Trump issued a presidential message for Jefferson’s 283rd birthday under the America 250 initiative. He hailed Jefferson as a true American visionary and one of the greatest champions of liberty. Trump pledged that America would remain a shining beacon of freedom.
On April 10, Trump proclaimed April 12 as a Day of Celebration for Henry Clay’s 249th birthday. He directed the redesignation of Room 208 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building—the historic secretary of state office—as the Henry Clay Room.
These honors mark a bold counterstrike against leftist barbarism. At the dawn of the nation’s 250th anniversary, Trump reclaims American heritage. He elevates Jefferson and Clay as exemplars of patriotism and service. Grievance mobs no longer dictate the story.
Their desecration of monuments creates a vacuum. Into that void they pour a distorted tale that justifies reparations, DEI mandates, open borders, and the erosion of merit. Trump’s unapologetic honors affirm that great Americans like Jefferson and Clay deserve public celebration.
Their legacies built liberty, unity, and strength. Erasing them betrays the Republic they forged. Honoring them fortifies it for generations. In a time of deliberate forgetting, Trump’s stand echoes like a warning from history itself.
Civilizations that dishonor their founders invite their own undoing.
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