Jon Meacham is, as Wikipedia writes, “a well-respected, Pulitzer Prize-winning, and New York Times bestselling presidential historian and journalist.” So he should know about the triumphs and disasters of American presidents through history, right?

Well, you’d think so. But then he came out with this comment about President Trump:

Historian Jon Meacham on Pres. Trump's tweets regarding congresswomen of color: "He has joined Andrew Johnson as the most racist President in American history."https://t.co/9OkXhD9kl9

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 16, 2019

And because he was in the friendly confines of MSNBC, no one challenged him on that. What’s more, Chris “Tingles” Matthew helped him out:

However, Meacham is forgetting a few things. In fact, he’s forgetting a lot of stuff about other presidents.

Now I don’t like to plunge in Whataboutism, but there’s a lot here to unpack.

Like Woodrow Wilson, who segregated federal workers, and excused it with this:

“The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest.”

What’s more, Wilson’s wife Ellen may have also encouraged departments in Washington, DC, to designate separate working, eating, and bathroom facilities for black employees.

Let’s move up to January, 1942, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered “enemy aliens” — immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Japan — to register with the US Department of Justice. They then received a “Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality.” But that was just the start; FDR also signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese resident aliens and citizens of Japanese descent into internment camps. But while the Japanese bore the brunt of FDR’s bigotry, some Italians and Germans were also sent to camps, too.

Sites of German-American internment in WWII; wikimedia commons; CC BY-SA 3.0.

Surely Jon Meacham, being the renowned historian he is, knows that in the 1950’s Lyndon Johnson made this comment:

This is an LBJ quote reported by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Keep in mind when you toss around "most racist president ever." pic.twitter.com/iFFj2kU6at

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 16, 2019

“Negroes getting uppity?” On top of that, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin reported that LBJ quote, and Goodwin is no conservative.

Moreover, those are all Presidents from the 20th century. Meacham is also forgetting, perhaps conveniently, that eighteen presidents from the 18th and 19th centuries owned slaves, including Founders Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. Ironically, the last US President to own a slave was Ulysses Grant, who commanded the Union Army in the Civil War, the war that ended slavery.

Furthermore, how can we forget President Andrew Jackson and how he removed Native-Americans from their lands?

Yet Trump is the president who has committed the Unforgivable Sin of being the “most racist” since Andrew Johnson. And words from a notable historian, no less. Never mind, Meacham hates Trump, and that’s what counts. I suppose.

Featured image: Andrew Johnson/public domain/cropped.