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Seeking and winning the presidency has been a magical voyage of discovery for Donald Trump.

Tuesday night, he divulged a most remarkable finding: Abraham Lincoln was are you sitting down for this? a Republican.

Most people dont even know he was a Republican, Trump told a group of Republicans. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people dont know that.

Its possible that somebody doesnt know that Lincoln, the first Republican president, was a member of the Republican Party, also known as the Party of Lincoln. But it has not been for lack of effort on Trumps part. He has repeatedly tried to educate the populace on this little-known fact.

August 2016: Most people dont know this. The Republican Party is ... the party of Abraham Lincoln.

September 2016: A lot of people dont realize that Abraham Lincoln, the great Abraham Lincoln, was a Republican.

October 2016: A lot of people dont know that its the party of Abraham Lincoln.

Beyond this Lincoln revelation, Trump has happened upon many other things that people didnt know. Such as the complexity of health care: Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, he said recently. And the existence of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895: Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

Later, touring the new African American history museum in Washington, Trump discovered that slavery was bad. Spying a stone auction block, Trump said, according to Alveda King, a part of his entourage: Boy, that is just not good. That is not good. King also told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that upon seeing shackles for children, Trump remarked: That is really bad. That is really bad.

Who knew?

Trumps discoveries of seemingly obvious things raise two possibilities: 1) He thinks people are awfully stupid, or 2) he is discovering for himself things the rest of us already knew. Which is true? Nobody knows. But we do know that there are many other things Trump thinks people dont know about.

Sunday school: I talk about Sunday school and people dont even know what Im talking about anymore. Its true.

That Bill Clinton signed NAFTA: A lot of people dont know that.

What a value-added tax is: A lot of people dont know what that means.

That we have a trade deficit with Mexico: People dont know that.

That Iraq has large oil reserves: People dont know this about Iraq.

That war is expensive: People dont realize it is a very, very expensive process.

That the country is divided: People dont realize we are an unbelievably divided country.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Trump, in his bid to educate the public about things he has learned, takes on a professorial tone. Talking about the Johnson Amendment on church-state separation, Professor Trump told an audience that its something people dont know in the kind of detail and depth that I have explained it to you today. Trump had just explained to them the Johnson Amendments provenance: This was Lyndon Johnson in the 1970s.

The Johnson Amendment was passed in 1954. Johnson retired in 1969 and died in 1973.

Trump claims that a lot of people dont know that U.S. taxes are the worlds highest and that nobody knows the U.S. murder rate is the highest in 45 years. For good reason: Those things arent true. Conversely, just about everybody knows that Russia was behind the election hacking, but Trump long asserted that nobody knows if its Russia.

While Trump has said nobody knows everything, he claims to come pretty close. In his own words:

Nobody knows health care better than Donald Trump.

Nobody knows the tax code better than I do.

Nobody knows politics better than I do.

Nobody knows the politicians better than me.

Nobody knows the system better than me.

Nobody knows more about debt. Im like the king.

By contrast, Trumps list of things other people dont know about is extensive: the heroin problem in New Hampshire, Ben Carsons performance in the primaries, President Obamas record on deportations, the number injured in the Paris terrorist attacks, the hikes in Obamacare premiums, eminent domain, the existence of two Air Force One planes, Afghanistans mineral deposits, Hillary Clinton flunking a bar exam and the authenticity of Trumps hair.

Trump may be correct when he says most people dont know how much hes worth and dont know that hes a nice person. But hes surely wrong when he says people dont know how bad things are.

A lot of people dont know it, but our countrys in trouble, he has said.

If we didnt know it before, we do now.

Twitter: @Milbank

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Lincoln was a Republican, slavery is bad and more discoveries ... - Washington Post