It’s Time To Cancel Presidents Day

The fracturing of society in recent years under the strain of Donald Trump’s presidency and the racial reckoning spurred by George Floyd’s murder has had one positive consequence: A widespread awakening of interest in the American past.

Curiosity about the country’s history has been a pathway to something more bracing: Sharp arguments about the meaning of the past, and about the lessons people living today should draw from the lives of people who died long ago.

Long-forgotten lives, like the dozens of people killed in the Tulsa race massacre, are being vaulted into public consciousness. More controversially, people who long enjoyed revered status in the national story are being dethroned as national heroes.

Historical reappraisal has been especially vigorous in a particular arena: the U.S. presidency. Woodrow Wilson, a president whose reputation among many historians placed him in the ranks of “near-great” leaders, has in recent years become toxic because of new attention to his deeply prejudiced racial views.