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Speaker 1: Looking ahead down the road aways. When mister Trump goes

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down to defeat in November, after he's done complaining about

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the rigged election, the unconstitutionality of Biden's withdrawal, the AI

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enlargement of Kamala Harris's crowds, the oppression by the fake news,

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he will finally turn his attention to the creation of

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the Trump Library, two words that do not sit comfortably together.

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And my guess is that he will designate Mari Lago

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as the site for the government to maintain and for

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him to have the right of residency. A special wing

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will be created for the public display of top secret documents.

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He will, of course want to control the narrative of

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the library, choose the historians who will be in residence

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there so it will proclaim his greatness and the tragedy

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of his unjust defeat, and the meaning of his martyrdom.

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There will be a great deal of capitalization of key

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words at the library, and in the portraits of himself,

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will be no flaws of pigmentation nor strands of hair askew.

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The faithful will come to the site and rededicate themselves

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to the great cause, but eventually they will all die off,

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and one day a young executive will take charge and

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she will ask herself, what do I do with this

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trash heap? And then once more America will need to

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deal with the delicate issue of what to do with

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historical relics from shameful periods of the past. Other nations

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deal with this. We are not alone. Brussels is full

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of magnificent buildings paid for by Belgium's vast profits from

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the African slave trade in the Congo and elsewhere, same

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with London. Outside of Berlin is the enormous moldering estate

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of the late Joseph gerbels Hitler's right hand man, which

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the stigma of fascism and the Holocaust has rendered unusable.

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Germans simply wanted to disappear, and eventually it will, but

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not nearly soon enough. Some great architecture was accomplished during

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the Nazi era and was preserved, but people had to

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pretend not to know they were once decorated with swastikas.

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In America, some statuary and memorials honoring Confederate heroes have

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been quietly removed. The statue of the old imperialist Teddy

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Roosevelt on horseback has been removed from the steps of

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the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan and shipped to

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North Dakota, which doesn't want it either. History is a

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complicated business. There are high plateaus and also a good

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deal of swamp. The Little Big Horn Battlefield in Montana

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was preserved in honor of General Custer, who there gave

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his life along with his men of the Seventh Cavalry,

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a sacrifice that no longer strikes anybody as noble. What

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is the good of preserving an enormous sight of military

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stupidity in an unjust cause. The granite monument on Last

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Stand Hill was put up in eighteen eighty one, five

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years after the debacle, and in two thousand and three

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a monument was erected to the Lakoda, Arapaho, and Cheyenne

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who wiped out the arrogant jerk and his poor soldiers.

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Tourists still come to look at this, But why it's

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a dishonest historical site. The reason for its existence is

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a piece of trivia. A few hundred white guys on

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horseback thought they could spook a few thousand Native men,

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and they were dead wrong about that. But the larger

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context of the story is lost The real enemy wasn't

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the Seventh Cavalry, but the smallpox and other diseases that

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Europeans brought to the Great Plains that decimated the tribes.

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The whole wretched mess should be torn down and the

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land set aside for the instruction and practice of native religion,

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the sweat lodge, the sun dance, the quest for visions

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and dreams, the worship of the Creator. I'm an Episcopalian,

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and I think I could profit from a few months

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dancing and sweating out on the plains dreaming. I've had

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dreams of miserable times in my own life, marital misery,

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these fascistic periods when I threw myself militantly into realizing

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my vain ambitions and abandon spiritual wakefulness entirely. The Little

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Bighorn would be a national spiritual park, meant for people

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of all colors and religious beliefs or unbeliefs to gather

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on the prairie and attempt to rediscover the best parts

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of themselves and let those bloom and bear fruit and

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the crappy stuff whither away. As for what to do

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with Mara a lago fifty years from now, when Trump

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is long forgotten. I take no position. The number of

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lies he has told has surely passed one hundred thousand,

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and is close to two maybe three hundred. Of him

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is a waste of good marble, and that's the truth.

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Garrison Keeler is taking a Prairie Home Companion Christmas to

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Saint Paul, New York and Galveston, Texas. Celebrate the December

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holidays with music, sketches, the news from Lake Wobegon, and

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a whole lot of holiday cheer. Tickets are on sale.

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For details, clickthevents page at Garrison Keiller dot com