After graduating high school, I went off to college, taking with me the tenets of my upbringing: work ethic, responsibility, patriotism, charity . . . and freedom. I loved learning especially about America's founding fathers (and mothers) and the great eras of yesteryear, which fed my independent spirit and proud nature. "We hold these truths," "lives and fortunes," "conceived in liberty," "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and "land of the free and home of the brave." I became and remain a very passionate and patriotic student of American history.
Anxious to realize my American dream, I drifted away from the home of my youth and followed Greeley's adventurous mandate of the past and went West. Doggedly persevering through all the ups and downs of this land of opportunity, my opportunity came with a husband and a small farm and ranch that aided the raising of four daughters on lots of chores, wide-open spaces, the Golden Rule, trust in God, and commitments to study hard and treasure freedom. I supplemented an agricultural income with teaching, coaching, and myriad other money-making ventures. My girls learned firsthand the courage and tireless effort required for their own American dream.
While all this was going on, America was taking on a character different than the one I embraced when embarking on my journey westward. She slowly but surely acquired a split-personality-promising freedom one day and taking it back the next. We experienced a school system that disregarded American history in subtle but concerning regularity. "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," must have been working for some other people. The most helpless and dependent in our nation didn't have a voice. We watched the EPA, the IRS and the FBI attack ordinary folks. We long-ago bid farewell to freedom of religion in public places. Freedom of association was a courtroom away from extinction. Other rights, big and small, were becoming inconvenient to the powers that be. Our cherished America was looking haggard and mollifying, and it was sinking fast into mediocrity.
To me Abraham Lincoln was America's greatest president. And I thought I knew a lot about him, after all, I taught schoolchildren for years what a wonderful example of leadership he showed in a very divisive time in our historical past. He was the savior of a nation in turmoil. The epitome of honesty and humility and an icon of American greatness! Lincoln was the powerful and serious statesman embodied in his memorial statue in Washington DC, and the masterfully wise and eloquent communicator in the Gettysburg Address. Indeed, he was these things, but he was so much more. I realized that I didn't know Abraham Lincoln after all-not really!
My journey of discovery began in 2016 when a field of talented political stars and presidential wannabes fell like dominoes in the wake of Donald Trump. He was a fighter and seemed to champion the people. He beat the odds (and the polls) and became a brand-new president who wasn't supposed to win. More than half the country voted against him of which half of them truly hated him! Many in his own party considered him an ill-equipped outlier. These attitudes sprang from a country divided ideologically amidst differences many deemed irreconcilable. Needless to say, a large part of America didn't seem to accept the election and thus began a war of sorts-subversive, constant, and not at all civil. If only they could have seceded. But the nineteenth century was so different than the twenty-first. Or was it? 2016 was in fact very much like 1860, and the new guy now is so startlingly similar to the new guy then. The new president was very tall (6'4, give or take an inch,) whose youngest son was ten years old, accompanied by a first lady ostracized by Washington elites and a hostile, biased press. This scenario seemed familiar. Initially, I dismissed the absurdity: Donald Trump like Abraham Lincoln? After four years, forty-six books, endless hours of social media videos and articles, archived interviews, immeasurable news stories and tweets, I concluded and went on to prove the most improbable thing in the world: Trump and Lincoln are more alike than different. And not just in superficial, insignificant ways such as height or political party, but deep down in character traits such as ambition, faith, ego, humor, tenacity, and the propensity for fighting. This list grew longer and longer as I uncovered more unlikely but true similarities hidden by a historical record sometimes reluctant to fully humanize a martyred president.
Revealing Abraham Lincoln's lesser (and lesser known) qualities was at times uncomfortable. But he remains my favorite president for whom I have greater respect now than ever-he became real. And Donald Trump--he became my second favorite president as I discovered a wealth of lesser-known qualities hidden beneath his well-cultivated façade.
As I reveal to you the man behind the myth, or, rather, the men behind the myths, the experience may be at times uneasy, awkward, and even startling. But the truth promises to betray misconceptions through enlightening if not refreshing discoveries behind these deceptively kindred and very real presidents.
Gretchen Wollert, all rights reserved.