GOP Honors Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday With An ‘Alternative Quote’ (TWEETS/VIDEO)

The official Twitter account of the Republican National Committee – the self-proclaimed “party of Lincoln” – decided to commemorate President Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday by sharing one of his quotes.

The quote that they chose was a nonpolitical one. It was also trite, uncontroversial, and vaguely optimistic, like something you’d find on a motivational poster in the atrium of a human resources department.

Unfortunately for the GOP, the quote was also something that Lincoln never actually said.

 

According to James Cornelius, whose job as the curator of the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is to literally know everything about the ex-president, there’s no proof Lincoln ever said that.

There is, however, plenty of proof that the quote came from it came from an advertisement for the book The Second Forty Years, by Edward J. Stieglitz. This ad read:

“The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years!”

Whether Lincoln is turning in his grave for having written an ad in 1947 for a self-help book on the aging process and how to deal with menopause is unknown. Frederick Douglass, however, is likely smirking.

President Donald Trump, however, didn’t seem to mind the inaccuracy, posting the quote to his Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQas9rfDbWp/?hl=en

The internet, needless to say, had a field day with the gaffe, misattributing all sorts of clearly modern quotes to the Civil War president. The RNC eventually took the tweet down. It’s still on Trump’s Instagram.

The widely distributed misattribution is just a sign of the times, though. The administration, particularly through the mouthpieces of Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer, has played fast, loose, and careless with easily-verifiable facts. When challenged, however, they’ve just shrugged and moved along, showing a clear disregard for the truth.

That their disregard has finally come to their own self-proclaimed political forefather should come as no surprise.

Featured Image Screenshot Via YouTube Video.