O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nathan Graziano
A 2007 survey commissioned by the United States Mint found that an abysmal number of Americans could name the first four presidents. Only 7% of respondents could name George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison—all Founding Fathers—in the order they were elected as presidents.
Seeing that we recently elected a person who also probably couldn’t name them—forget the order—I’m going to guess that this number is even lower in 2025.
Let’s face it, there are some presidents whose stories are sexier than others and they get more attention in public school curriculums. Even the dimmest of bulbs could probably tell you something about George Washington, or Abe Lincoln, or JFK, or FDR. Something probably sunk in through osmosis.
But I’m willing to wager that most people—even people, like me, who read a lot and enjoy learning about history, but are not historical scholars—don’t know a ton about the 20th president, largely due to the fact that he was only in office for three months before being assassinated.
I’m talking about James Garfield, and on Nov. 6, Netflix dropped a captivating four-episode series titled “Death by Lightning” that examines Garfield’s unexpected rise to the highest position in the land and his quick demise, as well as exploring the demented mental unraveling of his assassin.
When we meet James Garfield (Michael Shannon), he is enjoying the rustic life, away from the political sphere, living in the woods with his wife, Crete (Betty Gilpin) and their children. After being summoned by his friend Senator John Sherman (Alistair Petrie) to speak on behalf Sherman’s bid for the party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Garfield finds himself at the center of an unlikely rise to the party’s nomination, which he didn’t want, then a position he never intended to hold.
Meanwhile, his killer Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen) has been released from prison and gone to live with his sister Franny (Paula Malcomson). Mentally deranged, Guiteau soon finds himself on a collision course with the future president, who he goes on to shoot in a Washington, D.C., train station.
Now, as aforementioned, I am not a historical scholar, and I haven’t widely researched James Garfield, but I’m going to assume—perhaps erroneously—that historical scholars were consulted when it came to fact-checking the show’s scripts for accuracy.
And there is much to learn about Garfield, who was a Lincoln-Republican and a progressive for his time—an ardent supporter of the equal rights of Blacks and an equally ardent opponent of government corruption in Washington, D.C.
One can’t help but notice some of the interesting parallels with current events and our current government. The philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Clearly, we’re not learning from history in the United States. I mean, only 7% of people knew the first four presidents in 2007, long before the smartphone made reading books essentially obsolete.
But maybe watching a series such as “Death by Lightning” on Netflix is another way for us to learn about history, a modern modification, and this series is certainly worth the look.
You can reach Nathan Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com.