Hey there, America. It’s your greatest president ever, Abe Lincoln.
Before I get down to brass tacks, I want to reassure you that the afterlife is treating me well. My beard always looks spectacular, I never get hat hair and instead of calling me Honest Abe, everyone calls me by my chosen nickname of Thunderbolt Abe.
As some of you know, this Saturday marks my 202nd birthday.Though this should be an occasion for you to get me presents (a stovepipe hat embroidered with a skull and crossbones would be cool), I thought I would be generous and give you the gift of my wisdom.
That’s right: For the first time since 1864, here are my thoughts on the State of our Union.
A lot has changed since I was your president. When I look at America today, I barely recognize the vast frontier where my stickler of a dad used to make me build rail fences.
Since those days, the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, Al Gore invented the Internet and, against all odds, my favorite band Creed set aside its squabbles and staged a remarkable comeback. Clubbing has replaced pig wrestling as a popular form of entertainment and, frankly, I think you are better off for it.
Despite all our progress, however, America is hurting. The economic recovery is slower than many expected, leaving almost 10 percent of Americans unemployed. Though we recently ended combat operations in Iraq, we continue losing brave men and women in Afghanistan and are seeing new volatile situations spring up in the Middle East.
While government officials are supposed to address these issues, the divisiveness of the 2010 midterm elections and the shooting tragedy in Arizona have raised questions about the words, strategies and motives of those we choose to solve our country’s problems.
Almost every day, it seems like someone is predicting the imminent end of America as we know it, and with all of these challenges facing us, it is often difficult not to believe we are going the way of the dodo bird.
Here’s the good news: None of this is new! Sure, the circumstances may have changed and the topics politicians are debating today may bear little-to-no resemblance to the ones I made a living talking about in the 1860s.
But our country has always had charlatans unnecessarily raising fears in impressionable people.
When Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, Federalists lamented that our great democratic experiment had come to an end.
When Woodrow Wilson was up for re-election in 1916, Theodore Roosevelt compared him to Pontius Pilate with apologies to the latter. And when I ran against Stephen Douglas for an Illinois Senate seat in 1858, the smarmy little chump said my policy to end slavery would “dissolve the Union if it succeeds.” (Author’s Note: My policy ended up saving the Union, so you can take that one to the bank, Steve.)
No one can say our current economic woes rival the personal danger our Founding Fathers faced as the leaders of a new nation Great Britain wanted to hold onto, and no one can say the vitriolic health care debate that has divided Democrats and Republicans comes anywhere close to the rancorous slavery debate that threw us into the Civil War. One score minus four days ago, John Boehner gave Barack Obama a thumbs-up at the State of the Union. Do you think Jefferson Davis and I ever gave each other a thumbs-up? Think again.
My point is this: we are going through dark times now, but we have gone through even darker times before. We need to do what we have always done: dust ourselves off, buck up and face our problems with some good old American grit. As Dr. Phil McGraw once said, “No dog ever peed on a moving car.”
I realize that quote doesn’t have anything to do with what I’ve been talking about, but y’know what? I like Dr. Phil, it’s my birthday and I’ll quote who I want.
You’re welcome for the advice, America, and happy birthday to me.