Lincoln’s Dream & Trump’s Nightmare

A more perfect Union.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls


President Abraham Lincoln is a personal hero. The debate as to who is the greater president, he or Washington, is a conundrum I often think about. While Washington laid the nation’s original cornerstone, it was Lincoln would laid the foundation for a new, stronger house.

In a sense, the America we live in, the America we long for, the America that at our current erratic, lawless tyrant would have us believe he is making great “again” is Lincoln’s America. What made Lincoln such a powerful historical force is he lived in a time before the segmentation of society that we now live in.

We remember Lincoln as a statesman, but he was much more. If you plopped him in modern America, he could be a late night talk show host. Or maybe he might find fame on SNL. He could be a law professor. He was a gifted writer and storyteller. Given the opportunities of the modern world, he might simply be a screenwriter in Hollywood.

I only bring him up because you could, in a sense, call Trump something of a disruptor to Lincoln’s long-ago imagine of America. I would even suggest that Lincoln is modern America’s Harri Sheldon. Lincoln formulated a plan — uniting the Union under the rule of law and equality — and Trump is The Mule. The Mule, as you may know, is a character in The Foundation Saga who screws up The Sheldon Plan to create a Second Galactic Empire after 1,000 years, instead of 10,000.

We come to a moment of decision. One that I think Lincoln himself would be aghast at. There’s a reason why several notable historians say we’re now in a “cold civil war.” Some tectonic flaws in the House that Lincoln Built are beginning to grow critical. We no longer have shared values. Even universal truth — the thing that holds everything together — is beginning to be questioned.

The central problem is the Republican Party no longer the party of Lincoln. It no longer believes in the gift that Father Abraham gave us all — liberal democracy. As such, someone who is criminally incompetent such as Trump now is erratically at the wheel of the ship of state. Lincoln was our captain during the fateful journey of civil insurrection. Trump now wilfully not only raises the spectre of a war that would, again, pit brother against brother, he wants to make America a nation not of Lincoln’s dream, but of blood and soil.

Historians need a narrative. They need a way to assure us that the long arc of history does, in fact, bend towards justice. But that is misleading. America has been very lucky. Our birthright is a Constitutional system based on truth and the rule of law. Trump would have us believe that our tribunes, our truth tellers, the press, are the “enemy of the people.” He wants to bring darkness to the land. To end American exceptionalism. To make us a nation based on lies and the arbitrary administration of the law based on power.

I’d like to think that Lincoln, if he was alive today, would see Trump’s craven injustice. Whatever he was doing, be a screenwriter or late night TV show host, Lincoln would come to the forefront of this crisis. Like many people at the time of the Civil War, Lincoln was afforded an opportunity to prove himself in ways he ordinarily would not. U.S. Grant himself was nothing but a drunk for nearly a decade before Lincoln picked him to end the scourge of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The point of all of this is leadership comes with consequences. By definition, courage is seeing danger and rushing towards it, not away from it. We are now in a crisis that is only going to get worse as our American Caligula continues to be emboldened by the callow sycophancy of what was a great and grand old party.

We have a Union. It is up to ensure that we continue to make it more perfect and not succumb to the siren call of tyranny.

Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

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