Presidents’ Day? Not exactly
As if we needed insult to injury, even as Donald Trump is trying to illegally rip our government and democracy to shreds, we have to go through the ignominy today of a holiday named “Presidents’ Day.” It’s pretty much the last thing we want to celebrate right now. But as always, there’s a little more to the story.
For one thing, “Presidents’ Day” doesn’t exist – at least not at the federal level. Various states have a holiday today with the name “Presidents’ Day” or something similar. But officially, the federal government still lists today’s holiday as “Washington’s Birthday” – a celebration of President George Washington’s February 22nd birthday on the Monday before.
Some states use today to officially celebrate both Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was on February 12th. The point is that the definition of what we’re celebrating today is all over the place. Why am I bringing this up, and what does it have to do with the current so-called President?
Based on the way today’s holiday is defined at the federal and state level, today is not really a celebration of all U.S. Presidents. It’s a celebration of Washington and to a lesser extent Lincoln – the ones we can all agree were at the top of the class. There’s nothing that says today is a celebration of a crook like Richard Nixon, or a lunatic like Andrew Jackson, or a monster like Donald Trump.
In fact today represents an opportunity to put Donald Trump – by far the worst “President” in our history – in contrast with legitimate Presidents who tried to do the job correctly. So rather than boycotting Presidents’ Day over Donald Trump, let’s use today to celebrate the Presidents who did right by us. It’s a great way to spell out just how brazenly Trump is doing wrong by us.
