Trump Says He’s ‘Bringing Columbus Day Back.’ It Was Never Gone
As part of his attempts to Make Colonizing Great Again, President Donald Trump says he is “bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.”
“The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” the president wrote Sunday on Truth Social. “They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but ‘WOKE,’ or even worse, nothing at all! Well, you’ll be happy to know, Christopher is going to make a major comeback. I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!”
It’s not surprising Trump is fond of Columbus, given the current president’s stated desire to colonize both Greenland and Canada and make them part of the United States.
Despite what Trump says, Columbus Day remains a federal holiday, as it has for decades, and is observed on the second Monday in October. Some cities and states — including Alaska, Oregon, Vermont, and Seattle — have officially recognized Indigenous Peoples Day or Native American Day on the same day. Many states do not celebrate either holiday, according to Axios.
Some places in the United States began to question honoring of Columbus, especially in light of protests for racial equity in 2020, because the explorer killed and enslaved indigenous people in Hispanola. According to analysis by The Washington Post and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at least 40 Columbus monuments have been removed from public display across the U.S., but more than 130 still remained standing as of last October.
“Celebrating Columbus is intended to erase us and ultimately is celebrating our genocide,” Indigenous rights activist Mahtowin Munro told the Post.
President Joe Biden did celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day while in office, starting in 2021 with a proclamation acknowledging “the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples” and recognizing “their inherent sovereignty.” But Biden also recognized Columbus Day each year throughout his administration. Editor’s picks
Last Congress, 67 Democratic representatives and senators introduced and sponsored legislation that would commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day in lieu of Columbus Day, but the bill did not make it to a vote.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first declared Columbus Day to be a national holiday in 1934, and in 1937, it became a federally recognized holiday thanks in large part to lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization. Although Columbus’ travels never reached North America, he became a symbol for colonization of the Americas as the first European to land on the Caribbean islands.
Given Trump’s recent losses — the stock market plummeting off news of his aggressive tariffs and his inability to finalize any trade deals, his historically abysmal poll numbers, and his failure to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine — it’s clear he’s looking to secure an easy win. Reinstating a federal holiday that was never canceled is certainly one way to do it.