As the highway miles droned by yesterday, I got to thinking about presidential libraries. Specifically, I got to thinking about our current president's legacy library.
As someone who enjoys libraries very much, my mind jumps to libraries as homes of books, quiet reading time, and learning from the billions of words penned by other people. When I think about those features of a library, it occurs to me that they do not resonate with what I know about the character of our current president. So I got to thinking: Perhaps his legacy space will not be a library.
Will he have a presidential golf course? This would seem to jive with the leisure-of-the-wealthy glitz and glam attempted by the president's personal brand. Or perhaps a presidential gun club? If he is going to persist with his persecuted-by-liberals persona, then such a venue would seem to endear him best to his commiserating base. Or, in closer parallel to the world that brought him to power, perhaps he will found a presidential media network; if he is president of that network then he can continue to be addressed a "Mr. President," lending weight (if deceptive) to his assertion that he should still be president of the United States for at least another four years. Such a network, dedicated to the alt-right cause, would allow him to continue megaphoning his opinions to the world, whipping up conspiratorial sentiment, and firing people at least weekly on camera.
After ruminating on these ideas for a bit, I had the opportunity to look up some basic facts about presidential libraries. Their central purpose, it turns out, is to serve as collections of papers, records, and memorabilia from past presidents--things that would not be easily accessible on the golf course or at a gun club.
But then: What kind of documents would stand on center stage at a presidential library for our current president? Copies of the First Step Act and the tax reform bill with his signatures on them may appear there. (Or should Congress get the historical credit for legislation?) I suspect that he doesn't write many letters or correspond in any way that would be historically notable or edifying for future generations to read. There is, however, a treasure-trove of tweets that have been screen-shot by journalists over the past four years. Will there be a digital archive of those tweets? And will the archivists footnote those tweets (and perhaps his speeches, etc.) with fact-checking? (Perhaps, in order to attract younger visitors to this presidential library, the archivists could devise a true/false trivia game based on his tweets. Prizes might include a coupon for $5 off a Mar-a-Lago membership.) Will lawsuits filed against the president during his incumbency be included? Or letters of resignation from and letters of dismissal to all of the officers that departed under duress during his administration?
The more I think about it, the more fascinating this presidential library will be, not because of its similarities to the memorabilia of past presidents but because of its stark differences in tone and medium. I have never been troubled by the thought of Americans largely forgetting the name of their forty-fifth president. But just as we ought to wonder every time we see Andrew Jackson's image on our 20-dollar bill, we ought to have a place at which we can dig deeply into the strange and disturbing events between the January 20ths of 2017 and 2021.
Even if it will not be a place where I can enjoy the scent of old writing and the expanse of erudite ideas, I may just look forward to this eventual presidential library. Retrospect on this past political season will, I expect, help me to be grateful for the present that is soon to come.
~ emrys
No comments:
Post a Comment