President of the Divided States of America, Time Magazine said of Donald Trump, president-elect, when naming him Person of the Year in 2016. It was a cheap shot. I doubt that a newly elected Hillary Clinton would have been described that way had the election outcome been different. Still, Time was on to something. The country was divided. While conservatives and many Republicans were happily surprised at the election results, much of the rest of the country felt various emotions from outrage to fear. “Not My President” became the slogan of the Left.
Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is this week. He was born 211 years ago.
When Lincoln was elected president, there were divisions in the nation. The divisions were so intense, the country literally fell apart. The typical voter who cast his ballot against Lincoln in 1860 viscerally felt that the first Republican elected to nation’s highest office was not my president.
Clearly, Trump and Lincoln presided over a politically divided nation. I wondered though, are there other similarities between the two presidents?
One similarity is their use of tariffs. Lincoln had been a member of the pro-tariff Whig Party before joining the newly formed Republican Party. Trump has been vocal about tariffs for years prior to his running for president. Both men can correctly be called protectionist.
Trump, during his two years in office, tended to allow Congress in take the lead in the policy-making arena. The attempted repeal the Affordable Care Act and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are two examples of this. Lincoln, appearing to adhere to Whig philosophy, believing in Congressional supremacy, deferred to national legislature in passing laws such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Land-Grant Act (also in 1862). Both men respected the separation of powers.
One can even observe something somewhat less substantive in comparing the two men. Both were very popular in West Virginia, each getting 68% of the vote.
There is one area where Lincoln and Trump can claim a meaningful contribution: the lives and aspirations of black Americans.
Lincoln’s record is well known to most Americans. During the Civil War, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which, only formally, freed the slaves in rebel territory. Lincoln also persuaded Congress to propose the Thirteenth Amendment, which, in fact, banned slavery in the nation.
Trump cannot yet claim anything quite that historic, but he has made a difference in the lives of blacks. He increased funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Trump signed into law the prison reform called First Step Act, where over 90% of those freed under the act were black. He signed an executive order that created a council within the White House to promote investment “opportunity zones” or economically distressed areas. Trump has enforced laws against unlawful migration into the country, which has opened employment opportunities for black Americans.
Trump hired Betsy DeVos to lead the U.S. Department of Education. A longtime advocate of expanding education opportunities for students in primary and secondary schools, including charters schools in Detroit, Secretary DeVos has spent her time in office promoting school choice options across the country. A majority of blacks favor school choice programs.
Both Lincoln and Trump have been friends to black Americans.
Trump’s campaign theme was America First. He announced his intention to pull the nation out of the Paris Agreement (climate change). Trump withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (trade). He also persuaded NATO members to increase their defense spending. Trump has acted in ways to place the interests of America first, not subordinate to the interests of other nations or foreign institutions.
Lincoln facing a secession crisis, prosecuted a war against the Southern states in rebellion. It was the bloodiest war in U.S. history, but the union was restored.
While running for a second term, in August 1864 Lincoln issued a memorandum to his cabinet expressing concerns that the voters could make him a one-term president. It went as follows:
“This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such grounds that I cannot possibly save it afterwards.”
Lincoln’s plan can be summed up in two words: America First.
Trump rejects globalism if it imperils national sovereignty. Lincoln rejected sectionalism when it imperiled the nation state. Both men are nationalists.
Trump’s time in office is not over. He still has work to do. He must keep his promise to secure the Southern border and get the migration crisis under control; continue to nominate judges that respect the Constitution, including justices to the Supreme Court; and reduce the nation’s debt by limiting the scope and size of government, including reforming Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
If Trump accomplishes those things, he might get a ticket to Mount Rushmore.
First things first. For Trump to be regarded as great, he must do one thing that Lincoln also managed to do: win reelection.