What will we call this time in American history? The Trump Era or the Trump Error?

The American Civil War was called a lot of things: the War Between the States, the War of the Rebellion, the Freedom War, the Great Lost Cause.

Some genteel white people who didn’t want to dwell on the past called it the Late Unpleasantness.

Fair enough. It was indeed unpleasant.

These are unpleasant times, too. And it matters what we call them. Many of us are bewildered by what has happened. But future generations will require a simple explanation in four words or less. And those few words will both reflect our values and shape them.

Think of how public perceptions would have been different if the Civil War was known as the War to Free the Slaves, or if Westward Expansion was called the Destruction of the Tribes.

As Election Day approaches, we don’t know who will win, or how this era of American history will turn out. These are days of exceptional uncertainty. But even so, let’s go ahead and give the historians some options for naming and framing this time:

The Trump Era: Not clever, but it works no matter what happens or how you feel about it. Some people who detest the president might be offended by us giving him a prominent place in our history, but hey, it’s reality. He’s had an enormous impact.

The Fiasco: If you view Trump’s time as a disaster that this country may never recover from, this might be a good choice. Related options: the Catastrophe, the Deplorable Days, or the Great Unraveling.

The American Detour: If you think Trump’s time has been damaging but can be quickly overcome, this could work. Other options include the Disruption or the Derailment. And if you’re optimistic enough to think we could come out of this stronger, there’s the Reboot.

The Great Waste: If historians want to focus on the policy setbacks under Trump, they might adopt this name. After all, the damage has been enormous: health care reform on life support, action on climate change rolled back, our global standing torched, the gun culture glorified, the judiciary corrupted, public trust eroded. Other options that reflect this regression: the Deconstruction, or the Undoing.

The Era of Magical Thinking: We’ve seen a systematic assault on science and rabid enthusiasm for wingnut theories such as QAnon. The fact that Trump still says Mexico will pay for the wall demonstrates that a sizeable portion of the American public will believe anything. If we wanted to broaden our scope beyond Trump, we could emphasize how political dishonesty has gotten exponentially worse in recent decades, from Bill Clinton’s lie about sex to George W. Bush’s lie about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to Trump’s lies about everything. That might call for a name like the Age of Deceit, the Death of Facts, or the Wrong Time. Or we could nod to the Watergate scandal by adopting the phrase “All the President’s Mendacity.”

The Great Shutdown: Depending on how protracted this pandemic is, the virus could be more lasting in the public memory than the Trump presidency. This name would work to describe both COVID-19 and the collapse of American standards. Same for another option, the Down Time. (And perhaps this is the place to stipulate that if Trump isn’t dislodged from the White House and ends up writing the history, this era will be known as something Orwellian like the Trump Triumph or the Time We Locked Them All Up.)

The Second Civil War: I hate to think this could be an accurate description of where we are as a country. But our divisions — and some people’s violent reactions — mean it can’t be discounted. Please, people, let’s be hate-speech abolitionists.

The Rough Patch: This could be our contemporary version of the Late Unpleasantness — “We’ve gone through a rough patch, but we’ll be just fine.” May we come out of this as a whole nation, shrug off our wakeful nightmare, and push America forward. Rather than call this the Trump Era, we could remember it as the Trump Error. And then we could make the rest of this decade the Boring Twenties.

Mark Jacob, the co-author of eight books, is former metro editor of the Chicago Tribune and former Sunday editor of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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