Donald Trump, American president, has had his trials and tribulations with history. The main problem is he doesn't seem to know any. This is the man who once marked the start of Black History Month by describing Frederick Douglass—an abolitionist icon who died in 1895—as "someone who has done an amazing job" and "is being recognized more and more." He constructed a monument on one of his golf courses to the River of Blood, a Civil War battle he said took place there but that local historians say "did not happen."

"How would they know that?" Trump asked The New York Times when reporters told him in 2015 historians considered his plaque a fiction. "Were they there?"

Thanks to Politico, we've got a new addition to the series. Our president went to visit Mt. Vernon, the historic home of George Washington, with French President Emmanuel Macron last April. It was predictably presidential: Trump suggested, maybe jokingly, that if Washington was smart he "would've put his name on" the property, because you never see that name anywhere. He asked whether Washington was "really rich" amid the tour guide's discussion of Washington's real-estate holdings—an attempt to hold Trump's attention. Apparently, hitting a museum with the President of the United States isn't far removed from visiting one with a 14-year-old.

Trump plays a round at his course in Scotland, which may also have hosted a Civil War battle. Ian MacNicol Getty Images

But the real takeaway came in the form of a quote from one of the presidential aides who's doing our country proud every day.

Many Americans don't fare much better than the president when it comes to a knowledge of the basic facts of American history—and one person close to the White House said the president’s supporters aren’t bothered by the fact that he isn’t a history buff.

“His supporters don't care, and if anything they enjoy the fact that the liberal snobs are upset” that he doesn’t know much history, this person said.

This is the whole ballgame. The academic field of history—a fount of knowledge that undergirds our civilization—has been reduced to a niche hobby for "liberal snobs." Like everything else about The Trump Era, this is the result of late-stage conservative ideological decay. Anti-intellectualism has always been a force in American life, and the disdain for expertise—and the political utility of conflating it with elitism—powered the Bush 43 and Reagan presidencies as much as this one. But now, in The Great Unvarnishing, people say the quiet parts out loud.

Take this Genius Brain Congressman, for instance, who yesterday embarked on surely the dumbest line of questioning in the history of the Capitol building:

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Watch this for your morning laugh. @RepThomasMassie is apparently serious but this is the dumbest line of questioning in committee this year, and that’s hard to do. pic.twitter.com/QIuaPuzCbA — Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) April 10, 2019

Sir? Sir. You sound like a fucking moron.

But you can see what Congressman Massie was going for: painting John Kerry as some elitist snob with degrees, when the only proof you need that climate change ain't real is a little common sense. Never mind the scientists who have devoted their lives to studying this, venturing to Greenland and Antarctica to gather data and evidence to determine what's actually happening in the world. Err, uh, arts—science—pseudoscience! Jesus, this country deserves a better class of hack.

But this is the Republican Way now. Why should the United States president know what happened before he was born? Why should he study his predecessors in this one-of-a-kind job with one-of-a-kind stakes and responsibilities, learning where they made mistakes and where they found success? What use to him would it be to know about the battles of race and class and ideology that have shaped the country he now leads?

In fact, why should he have to know much of anything at all? After all, it's more than ignorance at work here. Trump magicked up a Civil War battle on his golf course because he does not believe in objective reality—that we have gathered truths about our world through observation and the scientific method and together they form the framework of how we understand the world. The truth is whatever you can get enough people to believe. All versions of past events are intrinsically equal. What matters is who does the best job selling theirs. This is the guy who just last week decided to throw it out there that windmill noise causes cancer.

"Write your story the way you want to write it," Trump told the Times after he was repeatedly pressed for evidence to corroborate the River of Blood's existence. "You don't have to talk to anybody. It doesn't make any difference. But many people were shot. It makes sense."

Who cares if it actually happened? It makes sense!

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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