Donald Trump has co-opted the White House Rose Garden for him and his wife to speak at a frankly and explicitly political event. Mike Pence is doing the same thing tomorrow night with Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine (that’s its official name). To make matters worse, Fort McHenry is closed for two days for security purposes and to permit preparations for Pence’s appearance. Those locations aren’t the personal property of Donald Trump or Mike Pence. They belong to all of us.
My modest proposal is that the Biden/Harris campaign should identify a federally-owned facility for a campaign appearance, and tell the appropriate federal authority exactly when they want to use it — and that they expect the same assistance from federal employees in preparing and using the site as the Trump campaign received. They could either use Fort McHenry again (as a Baltimorean, I’m quite certain that they’d be far more welcome than Mike Pence), or perhaps the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island (both of which are part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument). When the Trump administration turns them down, Democrats should then raise absolute hell about Trump treating OUR property as though he’s a monarch and all government property belongs to him to do with as he wants.
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