President Donald Trump tripped on history in a 4th of July speech, during which he praised airports’ role in the American Revolutionary War.
Donald Trump read most of his speech from a prepared text, but stumbled on his history by talking about airplanes during the American Revolution.
— Read Donald Trump Trips up on history, mentions airports during Revolutionary War
So, our founding fathers really were ahead of their time. Unless Trump is wrong… And that couldn’t be, could it?
History Trip Down Memory Lane for Donald Trump
Donald Trump is my age, but we grew up differently. In my world, we honored American ideals, and I believe my weekly allowance — 25 cents was a lot less than his.
When I was a kid, my dad drove us to the county fairgrounds in Montrose, Pennsylvania. My brothers, sister and I climbed up on the roof of his car. Overhead, fireworks lit up the night sky.
That was a different America, the comfortable one where we felt safe before the 1960s political assassinations, struggles for civil rights, disillusion of the undeclared Vietnam War and criminal corruption in the Nixon era.
None of these things were possible in the Ozzie and Harriet America where watching fireworks from the roof of a car. That was the delight of our summer.
Ours was a a wonderful world. Or so we imagined.
Donald Trump trips on history, the real one.
I have never been able to fully let go of that ideal America, even though it wasn’t what it appeared to be.
Tempted at times to discard that comfortable vision, I haven’t followed the impulse because the America I thought I knew then harbors an important message: we know what American greatness looks like.
That greatness doesn’t resemble the one with MAGA hats and screaming bigots.
It does have airports though, and maybe it took our founders that long to catch. Or for us to tumble backwards.
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