You see a lot of blog post, op ed pieces, etc., like this one, in which the question is asked, more or less: how will history treat Trump and his enablers. The unspoken assumption in most of them is that history will be written from a perspective more or less in line with today’s. But that’s not how it works.
This history of the Civil War and it’s aftermath was written by Southern apologists for about a hundred years. It was gospel, for instance, that the Johnson Impeachers and the “Radical” Republicans were the bad guys, while it became a given that the president who handed the South back to the confederates was unfairly impeached and deserved to be acquitted. I just finished The Impeachers, by Brenda Wineapple, and wasn’t I surprised (sadly, no) to find that Edmund Ross, one of John F. Kennedy’s ghostwriter’s Profiles in Courage for casting the deciding vote against impeachment, not only kept a horror show in office, but probably took a bribe for doing so.
Wasn’t I also a bit surprised, when I read Dante’s Divine Comedy, to find that it was Brutus, the guy who tried to save the Roman Republic, such as it was, in the innermost circle of hell rather than Caesar. He made a comeback when Shakespeare got his hands on him, but, again, that’s how it works.
History is written by the winners.
If Putin succeeds in using his tool to destroy the American republic, we can look forward to a history in which Trump overshadows Lincoln and Washington, and his enablers, both within his administration and in the obsequious Senate, are considered heroes, while Adam Schiff will become another Thaddeus Stevens, who for a hundred years was considered a villain.
This year’s election will likely make all the difference. All the more reason for us to back whoever the eventual nominee might be, even if (shudder) his initials are JB.
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