Donald Trump’s flat partisan ramble at Mount Rushmore last night was full of bluffs, including geographical:
Tonight, on the threshold of our 250th year, we stand beneath the monument of these heroes, a true group of unbelievable people. And we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants. And that’s not easy to do, but we’re going to do it.
These men could only have been made in the USA. Their faces are engraved on these bluffs, not only because of what they did, but to remind us forever who we are [Donald Trump, speech, Mount Rushmore, 2026.07.03, transcript from Singju Post].
Mount Rushmore—”bluffs”? I have never heard anyone else—not Black Hills natives, not any of my South Dakota teachers or professors, not anybody—refer to Mount Rushmore or the other granite formations of the Black Elk/Harney Range as “bluffs”… because they aren’t, in shape or formation:
A bluff is a type of broad, rounded cliff. Most bluffs border a river, beach, or other coastal area.
Bluffs may form along a river where it meanders, or curves from side to side. River currents on the outside of the curve erode, or wear away, the lower part of a river bank. No longer supported, the upper part of the bank breaks off, leaving the high wall of a bluff. The 150-meter (500-foot) Great River Bluffs in the U.S. state of Minnesota, for example, were carved by the meanderings of the mighty Mississippi River.
Erosion also produces bluffs along the wider floodplain of a river. Over thousands of years, a meandering river gradually shifts from side to side across its floodplain. Where the meanders, or loops, of the river reach valley walls, the water may carve bluffs. In fact, a “bluff line” defines the outer limits of a river’s floodplain, and is often another name for valley wall. A floodplain’s bluff lines may be steep and narrow, or they may be wide and gentle.
Another sort of coastal bluff is the beach ridge. Beach ridges are formed entirely by waves lapping onshore, pushing sand and sediment up and away from the body of water. Beach ridges run parallel to the shoreline and are often associated with sand dunes. The Indiana Dunes, for example, are extensions of beach ridges formed by the waters of Lake Michigan. At this national lakeshore, tiny bluffs give way to larger dunes, and the ecosystem eventually creates the ideal conditions for an oak forest through the process of plant succession [“Bluff“, National Geographic Society, retrieved 2026.07.04].
Mount Rushmore is a mountain with cliffs and granite outcrops. It is not broad or rounded. It does not border a river, beach or coastal area. South Dakota has bluffs along the Missouri and the Big Sioux and the Cheyenne rivers, but Mount Rushmore is not a bluff.
Compare Mount Rushmore to Scotts Bluff 140 miles to the south. Scotts Bluff is a sedimentary formation—sand, gravel, silt, clay, and volcanic ash eroded by streams and prairie wind.
The only place where Mount Rushmore is labeled a bluff appears to be the AI-thesaurus that generated the teleprompted protions of Trump’s remarks.