I doubt that many of us foresaw the dystopian era when a failed casino owner would presume to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln – the worst president in history invoking the very best.
Alas, that’s where we are. A guy who’s told 18,000 lies is obsessed with Honest Abe. A guy who has sought to divide us since the moment he descended the Trump Tower escalator somehow wants to be mentioned in the same breath with the guy who died seeking to unite us.
This sick dissonance was on display, yet again, on Sunday when Fox News staged a virtual “town hall” at Lincoln’s feet inside the iconic memorial. Trump uncorked this fine whine for the ages:
“I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. Uh, the closest would be that gentleman right up there. They always said, ‘Lincoln – nobody got treated worse than Lincoln.’ I believe I am treated worse.”
We’ll get back to that shortly.
One thing before we proceed: Trump’s civilian death toll, from the coronavirus, is already 70,000; Lincoln’s civilian death toll, during the entire Civil War, was 50,000.
So let’s immediately stipulate that Trump couldn’t hold Lincoln’s pen if it was duct-taped to his fingers.
Trump keeps trying, though. Back in 2018, he boasted about himself: “Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln.” The only flaw in that tweet was the fact that polling was first introduced in the 1930s when Honest Abe Lincoln was 70 years dead.
Then, last year, during a trip to Texas, Trump intimated that he’s stronger in Texas than Lincoln ever was: “Abraham Lincoln could not win Texas…Couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. Abraham Lincoln, Honest Abe, couldn’t do it!” Trump was actually right, although rest assured he didn’t know the reason: Lincoln couldn’t win Texas in 1860 because his name wasn’t on the ballot. He was banned because he headed what Texans derisively called “the black Republican party.”
At times, Trump has conceded that he might not measure up to Lincoln – but only because Abe had him beaten on fashion: “I’ve always said I can be more Presidential than any President in history except for Honest Abe Lincoln – when he’s wearing the hat. That’s tough, that’s tough. That’s a tough one to beat.”
Which brings us to Sunday night’s stagecraft. Trump clearly believes that he beats Abe on victimhood, that the press is meaner to him than it was to Abe. I’m not so sure about that. I did a little checking.
A newspaper editor in Wisconsin, Marcus Pomeroy, wrote that Lincoln was “the fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism…the worst tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero.” Harpers Magazine called Lincoln “a despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, monster, ignoramus,” as well as “scoundrel, perjurer, swindler.” A U.S. senator wrote in the press that Lincoln was “poor white trash.” A New York newspaper said of Lincoln that “Barnum should buy him and exhibit him as a zoological curiosity.”
Nor do I recall that Trump was the target of an assassination plot on the eve of his Inauguration. President-elect Lincoln was supposed to be whacked in Baltimore, on the final leg of his train trip to Washington. Detective Allan Pinkerton sniffed it out, and Lincoln had to be hustled through Baltimore wearing a Scotch plaid cap and a long military cloak. The press spread false rumors that he’d been forced to wear one of his wife’s dresses, and the Baltimore Sun huffed: “Had we any respect for Mr. Lincoln, official or personal, as a man, or as a President Elect of the United States…the final escapade by which he reached the capital would have utterly demolished it…We do not believe the presidency can ever be more degraded by any of his successors than it has by him, even before his inauguration.”
This episode alone would seem to qualify as worse treatment than anything meted out to Trump – along with the fact that virtually half the country took up arms and refused to recognize Lincoln’s presidency; and the fact that some of his top generals, most notably George McClellan, refused to heed his orders, referred to the president as “nothing more than a well-meaning baboon,” and wound up running against Lincoln in 1864.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: Lincoln was shot in the head and died in a boardinghouse bed.
Although I suppose Trump would point out that, until the very moment when the assassin struck, Lincoln was treated very nice by his audience.
But to really gauge Trump’s sensitivity about Lincoln, check out his reaction to the new 60-second ad sponsored by a group of sane Republicans who call themselves The Lincoln Project. Trump isn’t happy that these critics are using Lincoln iconography to make their fact-based case that Trump is a body-count disaster. At 1 a.m. today, he rage-tweeted that “their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe. I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad.” (“Moonface” is Lincoln Project founder George Conway, the eminent attorney who was once on Trump’s short list for U.S. Solicitor General.)
It was a shame – but no surprise – that the Fox News hosts at Lincoln’s feet failed to challenge Trump’s claim that he’s more maligned than Abe ever was. If only they’d had the presence of mind to mention Ford’s Theater – or to point out that Abe never urged citizens to drink bleach. His statue might’ve signaled thumbs-up.