“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
–Gerald R. Ford
Some people think that imperial United States of America is closely related to and destined to fall like the Roman Empire. Lead water pipes were among the reasons for Rome’s fall, as the educated had these pipes and died young from drinking from lead-poisoned water. Tragically, with the recent developments in Flint, this theory may actually be gaining some traction.
Let’s assume America will fall like Rome. When all the people we have invaded over the years have sacked our cities and enslaved our women and children, what will they think of us? Will they compare Gillette Stadium to the Coliseum? Is Gillette a part of the mysterious Fortune 500 that controlled so much of our country in its imperial greatness? Why are there so many guns laying around? Why did people listen to country music? Who was the great Tupac Shakur? Why couldn’t he die? Why did people facing imminent destruction by a host of enemies take all these selfies of themselves running away? What is the religious connotation of "420 blaze it"?
So many questions.
One question that will never be asked by these Vandals and Visigoths and North Koreans is whether or not we worshiped our political leaders. They will see the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and know that we worshiped them like the Romans of old worshiped their semi-divine emperors. The Gerald Ford Museum is an 11 million–dollar lesson in narcissism by a man whom I had respected.
The enshrinement of President Ford begins early in the tour. Visitors are instructed to watch a video that plays every 3 minutes in a large room with a bench and a projector. If I had known nothing at all, after watching the video I would have thought that Gerald Ford was some mix between Lincoln, Gandhi, and any number of Catholic martyrs. I was unaware of how courageous and insightful his decision to pardon Richard Nixon was, but I am unlikely to forget it because I heard it repeated about 1,000 times in the course of my 30-minute tour. The rest of the video was difficult to remember because it was so incredibly self-serving and relatively boring.
This assessment may seem harsh on Gerald Ford, but I have only admiration for him as a President. He effectively dealt with rampaging economic issues, did not send troops back into South Vietnam when it was attacked but rather used military resources to get children out of South Vietnam, saw respectability restored to the White House, and he married a model. As far as Presidents go, he’s probably underrated.
What is absurd about the Gerald R. Ford Presidential museum and the other Presidential museums, is that the American people allow past Chief Executives to build their own federally maintained shrines. A people who place such heavy restrictions on what the Chief Executive can and cannot do apparently have no issue with giving that same Chief Executive significant latitude to build their own immortal legacy.
That being said, the libraries do accomplish some positive good. Clinton used his to transform an old warehouse district into a tourist district in Little Rock, and Barack Obama will place his in the south side of Chicago, presumably to transform the area with the hundreds of millions of dollars of upcoming construction and the hundreds of thousands of tourists who will come and visit.
As I was leaving the museum, I passed the gift shop containing all sorts of overpriced Presidential bobble-heads. I asked the security guard what the most popular of the bobble head was. He checked the numbers behind the counter and answered proudly, "The Donald Trump ones are by far the most popular.”
Lord help us.
