SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Twenty and seven years from now, the mystical chords of memory may recall the way Donald Trump compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, praising him one day and criticizing him the next. It is entirely appropriate and appropriate that our descendants should investigate why the 45th president, who hopes to become the 47th, continues to call himself the 16th.
“This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington,” Trump said in a video introducing “Trump digital trading cards” in December 2022, shortly after announcing his third run for president .
The Republican has often exalted the name of the Great Emancipator and compared himself or others to him – he has been treated worse than Lincoln, he has done more for the blacks than anyone since Lincoln, and so on. It has become a recurring refrain in Trump’s unique rhetoric, the meandering stream of random cultural references, dire warnings about the dangers of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ election, personal grievances and self-promotional narratives that he has come to describe as “the fabric.” ”
On October 13, Trump invoked Lincoln in California to castigate Harris.
“What the hell is wrong with our country? Look, we used to have the greatest: Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “Now look at this stuff. Can you believe what we’re doing? She is so bad.”
Later that same week, a ten-year-old boy from Tennessee called into Fox and Friends to ask who Trump’s favorite president was when he was a kid. Trump cited GOP role model Ronald Reagan, even though he was in his 30s when Reagan was first inaugurated. in 1981. He then turned to Lincoln, but tempered his praise with some late doubts about the war that broke out six weeks after Lincoln’s first inauguration.
“Lincoln was probably a great president, although I’ve always said, why hasn’t that been sorted out yet?” said Trump, who has repeatedly claimed that if he had remained in office, the wars in Ukraine and Israel would never have happened. “You know, I’m someone who – it doesn’t make sense. We had a civil war.”
Harold Holzer, a renowned Lincoln biographer and chairman of the Lincoln Forum, marveled at the progress of Trump’s peculiar version of history.
“The problem with Trump’s use of Lincoln is that it’s a kind of malice toward some, and then malice toward many, and ultimately even malice toward Lincoln,” Holzer said.
Countless political hopefuls have tried to grab hold of Lincoln’s long coat. The difference, Holzer said, is that most associate themselves with the humble Illinois rail splitter without making comparisons.
Barack Obama sent a stunning message during Lincoln’s birthday weekend in 2007, when he stood on the grounds of Springfield’s Old State Capitol, where Lincoln served eight years in the House of Representatives, to announce his campaign for president. And at this year’s Democratic National Convention, Obama called on “the better angels of our nature,” whom Lincoln summoned in his first inaugural address, to urge the nation to come together.
Gerald Ford, who reluctantly stepped in as vice president during the Watergate scandal, tried to temper expectations by declaring after his swearing-in, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.” When asked how he felt after losing the presidency to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, another Illinoisan, Adlai Stevenson, recalled Lincoln’s response from a similar circumstance: He was reminded of the little boy who stubbed his toe – he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.
“It is not a new phenomenon. There’s a whole history of presidents referring to other presidents in these kinds of ways,” said presidential researcher Justin Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University. “Trump’s approach to doing this is unique, as is everything with Trump. It is often less nuanced or delicate.”
Trump himself is not particularly fixated. While President Joe Biden was still in the race, Trump suggested that Jimmy Carterwhose presidential history has not been treated gently, was relieved that Biden fared worse.
Trump’s apparent love-hate fascination with Lincoln is a function of his desire to preserve and build on his legacy, Vaughn said. (The Presidential greatness projecta survey of political scientists co-authored by Vaughn and last updated in December lists Lincoln as the greatest president in US history, with Trump dead last, an assessment over which Trump and Biden sparred during their June debate) .
On the Civil War, Vaughn said it’s the dealmaker in Trump who suggests the broken Union could have been repaired without war. But the entire history of slavery in the United States was based on compromise.
Holzer said that war between the states was probably inevitable to cleanse slavery and ultimately create a unified nation.
“Better negotiators than Donald Trump, including Henry Clay, tried to resolve the sectoral crisis without success,” he said.
Trump has consistently maintained that he is more done for black Americans than any president since Lincoln, citing his work as president criminal justice reform and the creation of so-called opportunity zones designed to attract investor dollars to underserved communities.
By comparison, Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in rebellious states, a bold but political document that shocked both the Union-loving North and the secessionist South. And his ruthless and masterful lobbying played a crucial role in Congress’ passage of the 13th Amendment, forever abolishing involuntary servitude in the US, just weeks before his assassination.
Based on the Emancipation Proclamation alone, “there is no comparison to be made between former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Trump,” said Daina Ramey Berry, dean of the humanities and fine arts at the University of California-Santa Barbara and an expert on the subject of the history of slavery. . Although the proclamation had no immediate effect, once slavery was eradicated, Berry said “people saw Lincoln as the Great Emancipator and an advocate for unity and freedom.”
How the self-effacing Lincoln might react to the dust cloud is anyone’s guess, but it brings to mind an incident when he was still a lawyer on the circuit.
Once, in Bloomington, Illinois, fellow lawyer Ward Hill Lamon, who was to accompany Lincoln to Washington and become his self-appointed bodyguard, tore his pants just before the court convened for the afternoon. The other lawyers mockingly organized a collection to replace Lamon’s pants.
When the hat was presented to him, instead of a coin, Lincoln dropped in a piece of paper on which he had scribbled, “I can contribute nothing to the purpose intended.”
___
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed.