January 24, 2024
Nikki Haley. She got beat by eleven points yesterday by the former guy: Donald Trump. If someone is reading this generations from now, they will go, “Nikki who?” That's how history is, we don't remember the losers, we barely remember the winners. Few historians can remember who threw their hat into the ring at the political conventions of the past or ran a primary campaign a generation ago. Even knowledgeable historians do not remember who the losing presidential candidates were several election cycles ago. And the further back it goes the murkier it gets.
Who remembers that McClellan was the losing candidate against Lincoln in 1863? They might remember him as the failed general of the Army of the Potomac during the civil war. The general who drove Lincoln to despair and caused him to pine for a general “. . .who will fight?” Lincoln got his fighting general, finally, in the person of Ulysses S. Grant. And a winning general, too. McClellan wanted a negotiated solution. Just like Donald Trump said he could have made happen if he had been alive back in the day and calling the shots. What hubris. Trump will be remembered though. Even if our democratic republic crumbles around us. The world remembers its despots. Mothers throughout history scare their children with the stories of their crimes. But mostly history is forgotten.
The path on which I walk here in North Augusta is called the Greenway. I thought it was just an environmentally friendly appellation. The name is apropos, it is lined with trees and runs through a forested green belt. Wrong. There is a sign, a pretty good sized one too, commemorating the Mayor of North Augusta who put the deal together to rip out the railway tracks and turn it into the wonderful paved recreational path that it is today. The guy's name was Thomas Green. Go figure. The sign is made from some artificial construction material, unfortunately it turns out that it is permeable. It once was very colorful and Mayor Green’s picture and bio are prominent. It once was prominent. Today the grime on the sign makes it illegible. I even tried to rub some of the dirt off it to read it better. No success. The film of time has become part of the permanent surface, obscuring the text and the mayor’s image. Hence, The Greenway means something other than what the founder and his community boosters intended. Just like history becomes shrouded in the dark mist of time once living memory fades.
Who will remember Nikki Haley now that the New Hampshire primary is in the rearview mirror? Not even some of her descendants.
