While Dorothy was therapeutically passing her hands all over my body, she told me that in the 1940s no one was obese because the men were men and the women were women. “How do you know?” I asked her. “I have a picture,” she proudly told me. “The picture’s black-and-white,” she emphasized. “The men wear trousers and the ladies wear dresses. Some people might be big-boned, but no one’s fat.” “What year was the picture taken?” I asked. She enthusiastically told me the year was 1945! I told her that’s the year World War II ended. “If you say so!” she harrumphed.
Dorothy didn’t believe me when I told her that 1945 was the year World War II had ended. She dismissed me as a Seattle Liberal whose lips chatter upon being thawed from having lived in the blue bubble for too long. “There are alternative facts and alternative media,” Dorothy informed me. “The only good TV anchor is Sean Hannity. I listen to what he has to say,” she said, “and I filter it through the universe that lives inside of me.” Then she handed me a paper cup filled with cold water, as if it was a rude awakening, and told me to hydrate for the rest of the day. I was willing to drink Dorothy’s cold water, but I know too much about reality to drink her Koolaid.
As I gulped the water, I had a chilling thought about the history we are currently living through in America. During this past Fourth of July, the President told us in his “Salute to America” speech that the Continental Army “took over the airports” from the British during the American Revolutionary War. Wow! Airports in the 1770s! It’s incredibly scary that an American President could have said such a thing. It’s like claiming Lewis and Clark talked to Sacagawea on cell phones as they crossed the Rocky Mountains. What’s scarier is the notion that Trump makes these gaffes on purpose. When the President says dumb things, it makes his supporters feel good about not being smart or educated. He is saying to them: you can be dumb, very dumb, but I still get to be your President to make America great again.
There is the likelihood that Trump does not know why nationalism was suppressed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Four nations, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, were afraid of nationalism because it had given Napoleon the fuel to stomp all over Europe. The outcome of the Congress of Vienna resulted in a “balance of power,” nearly a hundred years of peace in Europe—until everything fell apart, resulting in World War I. The long span of peace in Europe served as a model for future historians and diplomats. Later in the 1970s, Henry Kissinger was often credited with striking a “balance of power” similar to the Congress of Vienna. Kissinger’s diplomacy kept us out of war by pivoting among the Soviet Union, China and the United States. Keep in mind: at Harvard, Henry Kissinger taught history.