Eight days after President Trump was sworn in for a second term, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced legislation to carve his face into Mount Rushmore.

Her legislation was later seconded by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) who told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that adding Trump to the carved images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt was “essential,” citing Trump’s “accomplishments in restoring American greatness.”

Trump has long aspired to be part of Mount Rushmore. During his first term, he told Kristi Noem, then a South Dakota representative and now Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, that it was his “dream” to be on Mount Rushmore. Noem later gave Trump a model of Mount Rushmore with his visage on it.

We don’t know what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln might have thought about Trump joining their esteemed group. But we have a very good idea of what Theodore Roosevelt would have said.

In 1910, Roosevelt gave an address at the Sorbonne in Paris on the nature and responsibilities of citizenship. The most-cited quote from that speech is Roosevelt’s invocation of the “man in the arena ... whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood” and “spends himself in a worthy cause.”

The White House Instagram account recently likened Trump to Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” quote, placing Trump’s triumphant visage amidst the ruins of Rome’s Colosseum.

It is unlikely whether either Trump or anyone else........

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