Hello My Honest Readers,
I have a dim memory from grade school that we once had a holiday celebrating Abe Lincoln’s birthday (Feb. 12), and also one celebrating Washington’s birthday (Feb. 22). And then, or so I thought, the two days were eventually combined into one general “President’s Day” holiday on the third Monday in February.
Turns out that’s not quite the real story. Washington’s birthday has been a federal holiday since the 1880s but Lincoln’s never was. The reason I remember a holiday for both Washington and Lincoln is because I grew up in Indiana. Lincoln’s day was observed as a state holiday in Indiana, as well as in Kentucky, Illinois, and several other northern states. It now seems obvious to me that it would have been a big struggle to get Southern states to agree in Congress to a national holiday for Lincoln.
Yet I was a little surprised to read today in the blog of the National Constitution Center that “there is no national holiday called President’s Day.” Do people know this? I had to double-check to see if I had landed on a not-entirely-credible website by mistake. But this is indeed from the National Constitution Center (a worthwhile museum to visit, by the way, if you are ever in Philadelphia, if only to stand next to the life-size statues of the drafters of the Constitution, so you can appreciate the height of the peg-legged playboy Gouverneur Morris and the shrimpiness of James Madison).
The explanation: when Congress in 1968 passed the Uniform Monday Holiday bill (which took effect in 1971), there was talk about honoring both Washington and Lincoln. But Congress rejected the name change to “President’s Day.” It’s officially still Washington’s Birthday. The marketers rushed in to call it President’s Day, and now one might think it’s a general day to honor the likes of Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. It is not!
The Constitution Center’s blog led me to one more point of confusion: Indiana now makes Lincoln’s birthday a state holiday, but observes it on the day after Thanksgiving. (The CC acidly notes that “more states celebrate Black Friday than Lincoln’s birthday.”) Did I misremember it being in February when I was growing up? Well, according to a story in the Indianapolis Star, Indiana moved the Lincoln holiday in 1979 (which was after my grade-school years!) to November—and Washington’s birthday was rescheduled as an Indiana holiday to occur on December 24. Consequently, Hoosiers get three days off (including the federal holiday in February) to honor Washington and Lincoln.
Presidential trivia: We have never had a U.S. President born in Indiana. Hoosiers claim Lincoln because he spent his formative years there. They also claim President William Henry Harrison (born in Virginia) and Benjamin Harrison (born in Ohio), both of whom launched their careers in Indiana. The Harrisons are the only grandfather/grandson presidents. William H. Harrison, the ninth president, died after 31 days in office. His grandson, Benjamin, was the 23rd president. It is also worth noting that Indiana has given us two of the most ludicrous vice-presidents ever: Dan Quayle and Mike Pence.
Our political lore links both Washington and Lincoln with honesty. And yet our so-called President’s Day is a now a false and empty holiday with no political meaning. If I were in Congress I think I’d introduce a bill to officially declare the third Monday in February as “Presidential Honesty Day.” It would be a day of reflection, in which all are encouraged to consider how the very existence of the modern presidency has brought shame upon a nation that gives lip service to lofty principles of democratic government. We would all try to speak honestly about presidential dishonesty.
There is a voluminous body of work about the problems with presidential governance. Yet in light of the last four years, we now can see that things are even worse than scholars have told us. As I wrote in a Baffler column in the beginning of the Trump years:
It’s safe to say that nowhere in this vast body of studies—there are seven essential reference works and 214 “Important Works” listed in the bibliography of Cronin and Genovese’s The Paradoxes of the American Presidency—will you find extended consideration of “the deranged presidency.” None of this work, which so consistently falls into the Great Man school of history, has a chapter in it labeled “When the President is an Unqualified Twit.”
As things unfolded, we also came once again to face this uncomfortable truth: No matter how corrupt a president is, no matter how abhorrent his actions, we do not have the necessary power to remove him. Or, to revise that, the power to remove him depends on the opposing party holding a supermajority in the Senate, which is about as rare as the re-visitations of the Hale-Bopp comet.
The central question facing all Americans who want to honestly confront the problem of the presidency is how we can tolerate putting our highest elected official beyond the reach of the law. There is nothing more undemocratic than that. There is nothing more disgraceful to a republic that was founded in reaction against monarchy.
I guess I’ve been stewing about this since the day Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. This is from my most recent Baffler column, entitled “Shit Happened,” which I think some of you have perused by now:
No country that fancies itself a democratic beacon for the world should tolerate what the United States presidency has become. Even in the best of times, the presidency functions as a cult of personality. In the worst instances, it is a place where it is nearly impossible to answer crimes with enforcement. Nixon said straight out that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” When Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon so he could have a peaceful retirement in San Clemente, California, he confirmed that we regard our presidents as above the law.
But for four years we have had to wrap our heads around this awful truth: a consummate liar with a history of corrupt dealings had found his way into the place of greatest immunity. Once he gained that office, he was protected from any consequences of financial self-dealings (such as the use of the Secret Service and the White House to enrich himself and to promote his campaign for reelection), from his many conflicts of interest, from his wider family’s enrichment from public office, and even from blatant disregard of Congressional attempts to hold him accountable, as when he and members of his administration refused to comply with legal subpoenas. There are multiple instances that could be construed as obstruction of justice, right up to one of his final acts when he issued a pardon to Steve Bannon.
And now, for his incitement of the white riot of January 6, he has been impeached by the House, and judged guilty by a margin of 57-43 in the Senate. And, once again, the majority does not rule, and he is said to be acquitted.
On the up side, Trump will continue to be in legal jeopardy for some time. If you haven’t read it, take a look at this Times profile from Sunday. It’s about Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia. She is looking into Trump’s violation of a Georgia law dealing with “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud.” She sounds like Trump’s worst nightmare: a black woman who takes the law seriously and is, to borrow the words of the late Shirley Chisholm, “unbought and unbossed.”
On the down side, I don’t think this country is capable of ever delivering equal justice under the law to a former president. We have lost our ability to see a president as someone who is the equal of the ordinary citizen. I keep thinking about the woman in Fort Worth, Texas, who was prosecuted for “illegally voting” in the 2016 election. Crystal Mason, a mother of three, had a tax fraud conviction on her record; thus, as a felon, she was barred from voting. After she cast a provisional ballot, which was not even counted, she was given a five-year sentence and sent to jail. (She is now free again as she appeals her case.) Donald J. Trump attempted to corruptly and fraudulently reverse a national election and yet . . . we know he will never feel the weight of the law the way one black woman in Fort Worth did who tried to cast one ballot.
Well, he’s out of power, at least for now, so let’s all try to keep our sunny side up, I guess.