Trump continues to do oppositions to see his face sculpted on the back of Mount Rushmore, just on the opposite side of the one immortalized in granite by the presidential podium in American history: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. This week he set another milestone by becoming the first of his heirs to sit on the bench. Accused, furthermore, of a crime not very epic: he perpetrates
Trump continues to do oppositions to see his face sculpted on the back of Mount Rushmore, just on the opposite side of the one immortalized in granite by the presidential podium in American history: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. This week he set another milestone by becoming the first of his heirs to sit on the bench. He is also accused of a not very epic crime: perpetrating a massive fraud to silence a porn actress.
So, to compensate for the stature of a statesman that the court has reduced, Trump has given himself – even more – to hyperbole. Lately he proclaims himself, for example, capable of ending with a stroke of a pen the two most flammable wars in which the world is mired: Ukraine and Gaza. And in January he even traveled back in time dressed in the captain’s suit a posteriori to make amends with Lincoln and ensure that the Civil War – 600,000 dead – could have been avoided by “negotiating.”
His desire to climb to the same pedestal on the Mall from which Lincoln contemplates Washington raises blisters. Three weeks ago he once again caught up with him in a hitherto undisputed field: “I have done more for the black community than any president since Lincoln. And maybe including Lincoln,” she added. The problem is that Lincoln did a lot for that community. He emancipated it to begin with, laying the first stone to abolish slavery with his proclamation of 1863.
The similarities between the best and worst of US presidents (as established by a recent survey among historians) are, at least, discreet. The two are active in the same party, the Republican one. The two prevailed over better positioned candidates from a establishment who looked at them with condescension. The two were attacked by the press. Both reigned in eras of extreme polarization: the Civil War (1861-1865) and the period 2016-2020 (which, because it cannot be classified, is simply called Trumpism).
Lincoln came to power in 1860 with the country divided in two by slavery. Three days later, South Carolina declared its victory a “hostile act” and launched the processes to break away from the Union. Trump’s mandate fueled a polarization that escalated into a pandemic and ended up with his followers searching for Nancy Pelosi in the Capitol’s rooms..
The differences between the two are, however, striking, and are rooted in reasons of character and political stature. Lincoln avoided the insult to his rival and saved the country from rupture with integrative leadership. Trump has been rubbing salt in all the wounds.
