The Facebook page “Historians on Donald Trump” has emerged as a new medium for historians to voice their opposition to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Historians Ken Burns and David McCullough created the page after Burns gave the commencement address at Stanford University on June 12. In that speech, Burns called Trump “glaringly unqualified” and “an insult to our history.”
According to the Facebook page, its main purpose is to allow historians to “share their point of view on why Donald Trump’s campaign is so troubling from a historical perspective.”
Burns and McCullough use the page to post submissions by distinguished historical scholars in the forms of written statements or videos. The central theme of the posts is that historians critique Trump not along political lines, but on historical precedent.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a Liberal or Conservative issue, a red state, blue state divide. This is an American issue. Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents, members of the party of Abraham Lincoln, have declined to support him,” Burns said.
McCullough, who normally remains neutral on contemporary political issues, also issued a statement of his own on the page.
“Why would we ever choose to entrust our highest office, and our future, to someone so clearly unsuited for the job,” asked McCullough. “President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who so admirably served his country his entire career, said there were four key qualities by which we should measure a leader: character, ability, responsibility and experience. Donald Trump fails to qualify on all four counts.”
The page went live on July 12, and featured Being Nixon: A Man Divided author Evan Thomas III. Since then, 20 additional scholars have contributed to the project, and over 5,000 people have “liked” the project on Facebook.
