Trump tramples on sacred Lincoln ground
That Donald Trump ventured to hallowed ground once trod by Abraham Lincoln naturally invites comparisons. One Trump supporter asked his Twitter followers to vote on who gave the better speech at Gettysburg. Trump won, of course, by a landslide. Talk about rigged.
Not that there weren’t similarities. Both men spoke on days ending in the letter “y.” Both were in Pennsylvania, and the weather was good. It was pretty nice on Saturday, and when Lincoln visited on Nov. 19, 1863, “the sky was cloudless,” one eyewitness said. But that’s about it.
Lincoln uttered about 275 words in fewer than three mesmerizing, poignant minutes. “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,” he said humbly. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Trump began by spending four times as long — 13 minutes — listing his grievances. He singled out all the women who have accused him of improper behavior or sexual assault. On the very day he was channeling his inner Lincoln, a former porn actress named Jessica Drake said Trump offered her $10,000 to come back to his room after they met in Lake Tahoe in 2006. “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,” Trump vowed.
Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War, but this wasn’t necessarily evident when Lincoln appeared. He spoke with humility about whether the American Experiment would survive. “We are engaged in a great civil war,” he said, “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” He was burdened by division and hatred.
“President Lincoln served in a time of division like we’ve never seen before,” Trump said, adding, in a rare display of eloquence, “It is my hope that we can look at his example to heal the divisions we are living through right now. We are a very divided nation.”
Trump should know. He has spent a year and a half dividing it.
Lincoln dreamed, prayed for a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Trump, with his religious tests, misogyny and ethnic stereotyping, thinks some are more equal than others.
“It is my privilege to be here in Gettysburg, hallowed ground where so many lives were given in service to freedom,” he said. A nice sentiment that he then trampled on by saying that the democracy so many died for is a sham — broken, rigged and conspiring specifically against him.
Trump has said more than once that he would be the greatest president ever, except for Honest Abe. That’s as laughable as it gets, until you consider what Donald Trump Jr. recently said: that given the scope of his dad’s career, the presidency would be a “step down.”
I’ve got news for you, son. For Lincoln and all the others, the presidency was not a step down. It was the highest honor of a lifetime.