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.
Well at least Trump has indicated his lies will focus on Communism. You know the billions he is giving to the communistic farmers and ranchers and all the others he is buying with his welfare. Too bad those suckers who put 10,000 dollars into his Trump crypto still have 364 dollars for a loss of 96%. They lost a total of 3.8 billion. I saw this woman in Iowa was claiming what a smart businessman he still is because he made 1.4 billion himself. Its really hard to look at the ignorance of his followers. He will say whatever they want to hear.
Millionaire’s kids pay pros to take their college tests.
He’s dumb like a stump.
“No bluffin’.”
The memorial sits on the northwest edge of the Black Elk Batholith created during the Trans-Hudson Orogeny.
grudznick doesn’t know much about orogenies or progenies or multiple orogenies like the Black Hills probably are, but they are not bluffs. Mr. President Trump is a flatlander.
I would think the name itself is explanatory. Rushmore Mountain or Rushmore Bluff?
Of course, if the baby president wants to call to Rushmore Cliff, that’s what it is. The emperor wears no clothes, but he always carries a Sharpie.
Please don’t insult us flatlanders, we know our geographic features. We can see all of them.
Ask G. A. Custer what bluffs are.
Captain Benteen and Major Reno got an administrative switching for failing Lt. Colonel Custer. Although, by most accounts, in the long run Generals Harney, Crook, Terry, and Sheridan got what they wanted. It was not having significant geographical features in the Black Hills named after them, but they got that too. Custer too.
He uses a low IQ speech writer. Lame speeches repeating the same thing: “I stopped 8 wars, Iran’s army is gone, their navy is gone, their Air Force is gone…” over and over and over and over again.
Exactly right, sx123. But in a hundred speeches like that he’s never said one word. ARMY. You know, Donald. Our Army vs their army. Iran is three times larger than Iraq. Military strategists predict at least four years of heavy combat to attain what Trump’s been claiming as already done. That’s “complete and total victory”. Right now, we’re at about 40% total victory and we’re begging peace.
Celebrate America. USA just lost another war. #sucks
The Tomahawk Diatreme is a volcanic pipe formed by a violent, gaseous explosion and the Tomahawk Lake Country Club in Lawrence County actually overlaps this plug. It features a wild, exposed assortment of igneous rocks, ancient volcanic ash, breccia, and magma rubble that cooled millions of years ago. There is a mountain of quartz crystal in the same formations some of it with amethyst in the Benchmark area.
$20 says Trump would dynamite the memorial if the Park Service says his likeness won’t be carved into Six Grandfathers.