Last July, as the Republican party decried and sensationalized calls to take down statues of problematic figures, then-President Donald Trump announced an executive order to build a "National Garden of American Heroes."
The plan was for a massive garden featuring statues of everyone from Annie Oakley to George Patton, with money for the project to come from the Department of the Interior.
Trump said in his announcement of the order:
"Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities ... I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Guard of American heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live."
Months later, during his last days in office, Trump signed a second executive order expanding the number of proposed statues from around 30 to over 200.
The plans were met with skepticism from historians like Michael Beschloss, who said:
"No President of the United States or federal government has any business dictating us citizens who our historical heroes should be. This is not Stalin's Russia. Any American who loves democracy should make sure there is never some official, totalitarian-sounding 'National Garden of American Heroes,' with names forced upon us by the federal government."
This week, in an executive order undoing a flurry of Trump-era executive orders, President Joe Biden put the final nail in the coffin of the fanciful park, announcing that its plans had been "revoked."
While performative displays of patriotism play well among Trump's base, many Americans were happy to see the plans scrapped.
But the news mostly led to further mockery of the fanciful project.
Other camps were predictably infuriated.
Trump has yet to comment on the matter.
