Comparing Donald Trump’s Greatest Speech To Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
By: Christyl Rivers
Tags: Sexism, 2020, Trump, Politics, Racism

Comparing Donald Trump’s Greatest Speech To Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

The greatest president of all time says some stuff

Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash

Two men for the ages

Abraham Lincoln, a president almost as great, and nearly as victimized, as is Donald J. Trump, provided one of the best speech’s in American history.

It is called the Gettysburg address.

In this speech, Lincoln is memorializing fallen heroes of the great civil war. It was indeed, a great war, as great as the great country made great in just four great years by Donald J. Trump.

The most significant parts of the Gettysburg address refer to “a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

More than a century later, it is all too easy to see the flaw in “all men are created equal,” since it entirely leaves out the ladies, our overlord cats, and our soon to be overlord robots. Then there is the racism over which the civil war was fought in the first place, which was only ended by Donald J. Trump. By his own admission, he is “the least racist person” you could ever know.

His scheme to “dominate the streets” and “don’t be dominated” by the virus, would certainly have worked if only the whole world had bothered to become as least racist as Trump is.

The speeches

Donald’s best speech is arguably more succinct, pithy, and strong than Lincoln’s. Millions of children, adults, parrots, and even some computers like Siri and Alexis have memorized it verbatim. This only happens with the world’s greatest speeches.

“Person, woman, man, camera, tv.”

It is of course, the unassailable, “Person, woman, man, camera, tv.” Note the first part of the speech honors intersectionality, humanity, and equality. A “person” comes before “woman” and even before “man.”

Although some scholars interpret this to allude to another kind of person — say a person who is a cat, a wallaby, or perhaps a majestic redwood tree that is given the name of a confederate war “hero” (who might rather have been named, “Cindy.”) most people assume that he is referring to a human person. This is also supported by the evidence, that despite many protestations to the contrary, Mr. Trump even sees himself as a “person.”

By the fourth refreshing word of the speech, “camera,” we get an emotionally impactful sense of how very important cameras have become to unite one another. Thanks to this great man — and cameras — we have had inclusive Zoom holidays from viral free Easter through to viral free New Year’s Eve.

The word ‘tv’, just two letters, concludes the speech. This is not just genius, but stable genius. It is compendious.

Memory

In the middle of Lincoln’s speech, he mentions that “the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” Now this could be due to Lincoln’s inability to have a memory quite as excellent as Mr. Trumps, who has aced the memory test that repeats these five important words repeatedly.

Or, Perhaps Mr. Lincoln’s speech, unfortunately, uses so very many words. Had he stuck to less than six words, like Mr. Trump, he may have found the Gettysburg address could have been pruned down to a much more succinct, and therefore, memorable five words:

“Liberty good, war bad, Unite!” or maybe: “Equality! Of, by, for all!” Or even, “Person, get Ken Burns!” Which is only four words, and gets us right back to the essentials that Trump has uncovered to make history come alive: persons, cameras, and, of course, tv.

Universality

Whereas Lincoln ends his great speech remembering the consecrated ground at Gettysburg by mentioning that a government forged of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth, Trump sees clearly that what we ALL share. Truly, even far beyond our willingness to vote we all celebrate the free right to watch tv. He doesn’t say some egghead, smarty pants, college elite, version of a word such as “television.” He could have gone with the more impressive and poly-syllabic “television.” But, note that Trump does not even capitalize tv, displaying a rare genius for humility that Lincoln never quite achieves.

It is fully implied, without being boasted about, that every American, no matter their political affiliation, race, color, or creed, knows what really matters: tv! And, of course, although tv can create incredible numbers of votes for absolute fascist leaders, it is just so gosh, darn, universal.

I think we can all agree here, if we are looking for the fate and universality shared by all people of our planet, that persons, cameras, and tvs’ are what have made us all that we can be.

What words mean

Let us visit once again, the incredible soaring rhetoric of each word. First, there is “person.” What if, for the first time in all of human history, we were to give even half a thought to the idea of ‘what is a person?’ If we counted most people as persons, the whole world would change.

Then there is “woman.” It helps one realize, doesn’t it, that a thing called ‘a woman’ actually may exist. Is she an object? Is she a sin? Is she a help-meet? Is she a TEN? We may never know, because the speech moves on, quickly.

Then, as if to counter that ‘woman’, we can all feel great relief at knowing that with the third word of the speech, “man”, arrives on scene. You, need have no worries that feminism will destroy all civilization because, whew, the ‘man’ is here. Let’s let the ‘man’ mansplain just why this is so critically important, when historians, and histori-ettes, who assist them, (or is it history -esses?) investigate more deeply all the implications of this.

The fourth word, ‘camera’ suggests more than just our Zoom meetings. There is also the total control of all data because they own you now. No, you should not be concerned (not AT ALL!) that a 1984 police state level of constant, and unending, surveillance, is real now, because they don’t want you to know that.

Finally comes the opiate of all masses, ‘tv.’ This provides us not just entertainment, a constant promotion of the 1 %, and the reassurance that all your conspiracy theories have screeching support, it also provides that you won’t be bothered finding out what is really happening with the world as that will, in fact, not make you laugh or cheer for the super hero movie of the week.

A prophecy of freedom

And let us not forget, also, dear patriots, that Lincoln concludes his ‘almost okay’ speech with the hope that “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Was Abraham Lincoln prophetic? Did he foresee the unrelenting activism of those fighting racism, sexism, climate crisis, and more; and that such a struggle would, indeed, bring about a “new birth of freedom?”

Nah. We have tv, now. It is far more likely that people will grab their camera, and/or deeply look into it to see themselves and our society, reflected back by way of the tv.

All we can be entirely certain about is that our dear leader, Predator Donald J. Trump, has inspired millions, if not billions, of people around the world, to do our very best to remember and learn by, these profound, and highly inspiring words:

“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. tv.