Lincoln at age 209- Time Traveling and Ironic Coincidence

Abraham Lincoln was born two hundred nine years ago today, in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father and mother were part of the hardscrabble “great American unwashed,” as the 16th president would often refer, decidedly different than the trappings of wealth that attended the birth of his 29th successor, Donald J. Trump. Lincoln, almost universally considered to be America’s greatest president, was primarily self-educated, while Trump was afforded top-notch education- first, at the prestigious Kew-Forest School and New York Military Academy, and then at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, earning high marks in economics. On its surface, nothing would suggest any degree of commonality between Lincoln and Trump, and yet exchanging these two men in the respective times in which each served as president, a strange irony of coincidence emerges upon considered study.

When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the United States was a bitterly divided country on the very precipice of the deadliest war in American history. Having  barely received 39% of the popular vote in a four-way race, his election was the spark that touched off secession and, ultimately, war against the eleven Confederate States of America. At the time, Lincoln was arguably the most hated of presidents in the seventy-one years since the election of George Washington. Roundly lampooned in the newspapers of his day, Lincoln faced opposition from both major parties, Democrat and Republican, and even from within his own cabinet. At a time when national unity should have been the order of the day, given the fact that the country was at war with itself, Lincoln’s presidency was a bitter and lonely struggle against treachery, both from within and without. He was regularly thought to be a dolt of little intelligence and poor manners, and his common man’s parlance of verbal communication was routinely scorned by the elite of establishment politicos in the nation’s capital, who scoffed at his penchant for bawdy stories and backwoods humor. His own re-election in 1864 was far from certain, as the embattled president ran against an army general whom he had twice fired from command, one George B. McClellan. McClellan’s platform was based on making peace with the rebellious south, a very popular sentiment following three bloody years of conflict, and yet it was Lincoln who ultimately prevailed against all of the political forces conspiring against him.

Excise the fact of civil war during Lincoln’s presidency, and one can obviously draw parallels between Lincoln and Trump.

Like Lincoln, Donald Trump was very much an outsider to establishment Washington at the time he was elected. Like Lincoln, Trump was and is hated by members of both political parties, and is roundly lampooned in the newspapers of today, as well as with a broadcast and cable media that did not exist when Lincoln was alive. Faced with treachery from within his own cabinet who, in Trump’s first year of office, has routinely leaked information to the media, just like Lincoln’s own cabinet regularly did, all in a seemingly-concerted effort to bring down a sitting president. Often assailed as something of a dunce, with poor manners and coarse speech, as well as a tendency towards less-than-diplomatic tweets and intemperate language, Trump’s “style” is frequently at odds with establishment politicians in Washington, D.C., who consider themselves to be of a higher class than their tawdry president. Like Lincoln, Trump was elected with less than a majority of the popular vote. Like Lincoln, Trump has had to face strong opposition from the legislature while trying to piece together some semblance of coalition government, just as his opponents in the House and the Senate from both parties, attempt to parlay partisan division into legislative dysfunction.

It is often said that history has a way of repeating itself- and in ways not fully realized until after the fact, when we can look back retrospectively of all that’s occurred. Leadership, true leadership, can only be achieved in the face of adversity and in the midst of opposition. While it is too early just yet in his administration, to determine whether or not the test of time will find favor with the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it is certain that the sentiments of adversity and opposition to his presidency have adjoined in an atmosphere ripe with both the need and opportunity of great leadership on the part of the president. Given all that he has achieved in his first year of office, under the less-than-ideal circumstances in which he finds himself, the new president seems poised to harness the reins of history in a way which will find favor, once his own time in office has passed…

…and all in the irony of coincidence he shares with Abraham Lincoln, no less.

 

-Drew Nickell, 12 February 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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