New adventures in alternative facts
American presidents make history because their words and deeds can radically affect the course of humanity. The current president, Donald Trump, is putting his personal stamp on history by making a mockery of it.
In an interview Monday on Sirius XM radio, Trump stated that President Andrew Jackson had been “really angry” about the Civil War and questioned why the opposing sides couldn’t work out their differences to avert disaster. Like many things Trump says, the facts have a way of making him look worse than silly.
Jackson left office in 1837. The Civil War didn’t even start until 1861, 16 years after Jackson’s death. And there’s nothing in the historical record to suggest that Jackson undertook any initiative to address the fundamental cause of the war: the South’s refusal to abolish slavery. Historians say Jackson didn’t oppose slavery and, in fact, owned slaves himself.
Tension between the North and South escalated dramatically after Jackson’s death despite efforts by Congress in the 1850s to preserve unity. The war became inevitable when Southern states seceded from the union. There was no opportunity, to use Trump’s words, for things to be “worked out.”
The White House says Trump’s remarks were misconstrued. When his historical knowledge was challenged, Trump responded with a tweet that Jackson saw the war coming “and was angry. Would never have let it happen!”
Trump’s radio remarks were spoken as he does far too often — off the cuff without an authoritative base of knowledge. He appears to be bored with reading and doesn’t immerse himself in books or other literature dealing with history or current affairs. His preferred information medium is television.
Whether to read is his prerogative. But being well-informed and deeply immersed in the facts should be an absolute requirement of the presidency. Trump’s repeated misstatement of fact reflects the shallow base of knowledge that guides his important decisions, such as launching missiles against Syrian targets or dispatching warships toward North Korea as nuclear tension escalates.
The likelihood of making rash decisions and issuing policy declarations based on half-baked ideas only increases when the president chooses to be under-informed. Would a better-informed president launch a tax-reform plan that would plummet the nation into trillions of dollars of debt?
His decision to engage in what he called a “very friendly” dialogue with President Rodrigo Duterte, of the Philippines, on Saturday was another good example of the dangers. Duterte, who has publicly aligned himself with Adolf Hitler, has unleashed police to execute thousands of drug suspects on the streets and openly mocks the notion of human rights.