A Consideration of Presidents' Day

Ah, Presidents' Day, yet another holiday which allows workers to take a day to travel or engage in recreation during the period in which much of the continental US experiences its worst weather.  Personally, I typically work on the day, which suits me fine.  Part of me suspects that the holiday is a result of lobbying by the ski/snowboarding industry.

As most USAsians know, Presidents' Day is a bit of a portmanteau holiday, created by combining the individual holidays celebrating the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  For non-American readers, there aren't a lot of national holidays here in the 'States, and paid time off is pretty rare, usually reserved for full-time workers.

Now, Presidents Washington and Lincoln, generally speaking, are revered figures in the USA, despite their flaws.  Washington was a slave owner, but he was a damn good president for white male landowners, and in a remarkable move for the time, retired rather than seeking a lifetime position, as he stated in his farewell address, in which he also inveighed against factionalism and regionalism.  Yeah, he was a great president for white male landowners.

Lincoln, of course, signed the Emancipation Declaration, in which he freed all the slaves that he was legally unable to do, as they resided at the time in a hostile foreign nation, founded by traitors.  He tried, and while he espoused the white supremacist ideas common to white men of the day, he was a progressive by those standards. He was in a tough spot, and he saved the unity of the nation at the cost of a sea's worth of blood.

Presidents' Day, though, by not specifying particular presidents, can be seen as a day for stolen valor by lesser presidents, monsters like Andrew Jackson and corrupt boobs like Warren G. Harding.  Maybe we need a Bad Presidents' Day, in which angry citizens can throw dirt clods at dirty clods.   Personally, I didn't think that Donald Trump was the worst president in US history until 2020- until the pandemic hit, George W. Bush had a higher body count due to his corruption and incompetence.  Boy, howdy, though, did Donald lap Dubya in that final year, and that even worse coda to his maladministration in January 2021, when (unlike Washington) he decided that he DIDN'T wish to relinquish power.  I shudder to contemplate that anyone could be a worse commander-in-chief.

So that's this year's take on Presidents' Day, a day I devoted to work and handling a state-mandated car inspection.  I'd rather have a day off in June. truth be told.