“It means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration”
Donald Trump doesn’t want the Declaration in his office to honor that text or its values. He wants a rare, beloved national asset brought to him to glorify himself.Eventually Trump did get a printed Declaration behind a curtain in his heavily guarded workspace, an odd way for it to be “shared and put on display,” as a White House publicist had claimed.
This past week the television journalist Terry Moran visited the Oval Office and asked Trump what the Declaration meant to him. Trump confirmed my reading of his character by offering this ignorant blather:
Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country.Trump couldn’t explain the meaning of the Declaration, its historical significance, or its relevance to today. His comments reveal his desperation to believe that a rare copy’s presence in his office shows the country feels “unity and love and respect” for him.
Last month the White House issued a proclamation on the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, as a Boston 1775 commenter alerted me. This document was obviously not written by Trump since it was focused on the historical event, coherent, and grammatical.
Much of that proclamation landed within the realm of common accuracy. In other words, it made the usual mistakes: that Paul Revere rode to Concord, that the “shot heard ’round the world” happened at Lexington, and so on. But a lot of other cursorily researched descriptions of the 19th of April make those same mistakes.
This White House document, however, made some mistakes all its own. It described the opening skirmish as “The British ambush at Lexington.” It said that at the North Bridge “the startled British opened fire, killing 49 Americans.” The correct number is 2. (The number 49 refers to the total number of provincial dead over the whole day.) Obviously the team drawing public salaries to prepare that proclamation for signature didn’t value fact-checking.
Incidents like these show how hollow the Trump administration’s claim to value American history really is. Behind the rhetorical trumpery, the White House is trying to defund our national parks, museums, libraries, universities, humanities research, public schools, and public television. The only forms of history its occupant shows any sign of valuing are statuary and birthday parades.
8 comments:
I was very disappointed to see this attack on the President. I think you are wrong about him. He loves America and values our country's beginnings. He has sacrificed much to try and rectify the damage done by the last administration.
Trump is a convicted criminal with a lifelong habit of lying. Far from sacrificing, he has used his office to enrich himself and his family, reward people who flatter him, and massage his narcissistic ego by exercising whatever power he can grab, no matter how unconstitutional.
I’m very disappointed to see so many Americans still so enamored of his celebrity and inherited wealth that they can’t perceive reality. Voters who’ve convinced themselves that Trump shares their values will sooner or later be sorely disappointed or forced further into denial.
Thank you, J. L. Bell.
If you are looking for more on Trump's take on Revolutionary War history, try the White House's America 250 video "The Shot Heard Round the World", at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CawTnediEuU&t=675s
This video, a fairly simple telling of the day's events, is not as factually flawed as his April 19th proclamation. The fighting on Lexington Common is described as a skirmish, rather than ambush. Like many accounts though, it stereotypes the British column that day as "rather mechanical", and "outmaneuvered at every turn" on the retreat to Boston.
It also provides some insight (perhaps unintentionally) on Trump's world view. Early on it explains the stand taken by the Lexington company to not fire unless fired upon with a quote from Sam Adams that it is important to put your enemy in the wrong, including in politics.
The second half of the video focuses on "historical memory" and uses Longfellow's poem on Paul Revere to explain why the events April 19, 1775, are important, and need to be remembered. In what can only be described as an unlimited capacity for a lack of self-awareness, the video concludes with a warning that in times of peril it is in the American character to respond to darkness, and "what was done before can be done again".
Thank you for sharing the link to that video. As you saw, the one talking head in the entire video is a professor at Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian college. It has issued a “Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum” and was deeply involved in the 1776 Commission. The American Historical Association and 33 other historical societies criticized that commission’s report as lacking input from scholars of American history, full of errors, and propagandistically partisan.
Just a reminder: You can send in comments making political claims with no historical content. But you should take those comments seriously enough to stand behind them and identity yourself in some way. If you make political statements completely anonymously, I don’t perceive you as making those claims seriously, so I don’t share them with the world.
I'd attend a Healthy Living seminar hosted by Keith Richards before I 'd invest an ounce of belief in the Narcissist-In-Chief's take on the Declaration of Independence.
After following Mr. Bell’s “Boston 1775” column for years and being very aware of his painstaking research, and thorough scholarship, it’s a welcome thing indeed to see his links of 1775 to 2025. History is a continuum and not some isolated incident of the past unconnected to our present lives. It’s especially important, in this country’s present circumstance, to closely consider the voices of those early struggling years when this country’s government was formed, and that, despite flawed and intolerant detours, the progress on this path to the present day has always been toward the ideals set forth clearly in its founding documents, and then enhanced and corrected over time by succeeding generations.
To see the present administration’s utter and criminal ignorance of this country’s history and its actions to systematically break down the institutions and structures that keep its people and country safe, is alarming and is certainly worthy of a careful examination and comparison with this country’s founding which is what this page is certainly doing and, as such, it's of great service for all who take an interest in our country’s history and value the lives and wellbeing of all who live here.
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