Lingle writer's "Born to Fight: Lincoln and Trump" shows parallels between two memorable presidents

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Feb. 26—Abraham Lincoln, America's first Republican president, has more in common with the 19th Republican president than most Donald Trump critics want to believe.

That's the opinion of Gretchen Wollert, writer of the recently released book "Born to Fight: Lincoln and Trump." The new author, who lives and works on a farm northeast of Lingle, began to notice parallels between Lincoln and Trump on the road to the 2016 presidential election. As an avid researcher with degrees in both history and English, Wollert's observations began with small details, such as how both men are tall and both had a son who was 11 years old when he joined his father in the White House.

That was enough to motivate Wollert — who said she's always considered Lincoln to be America's greatest president — to seek more parallels.

"I don't know exactly how it developed, but it certainly took hold, and for four years, I've been immersed in researching this," she said. "I'm not so much an academic historian who dives into original documents. I sought the expertise of people who had already developed biographies."

Wollert read 46 books about Lincoln and Trump over the course of her research, in addition to many articles from both the past and present. As an educator who used to teach at Valley Christian School in Torrington, Wollert said she approached the research from a historian and instructor's point of view, "seeking the truth, not just opinions."

Wollert was taken by Trump's no-apologies-given attitude back in 2016, and as she continued her research, she said it was "how big his heart is under that completely self-serving facade" that rose to the top as her most important discovery about the 45th president of the U.S.

Anyone who questions the book's credibility, Wollert said, should know that every chapter has more than 30 cited works, so it's "thoroughly researched, cited and documented." Her four years of pouring over texts resulted in a comparative biography that she originally pitched to several publishers after writing the first chapter — to no avail.

"There were no takers, and then COVID-19 hit and things kind of shut down, but I also discovered that a lot of publishers are liberal, and it's nothing that they want to take on," Wollert said, noting common sensitivity to her book's subject matter. "But despite the lack of a publisher wanting to grab it up right away, I was like, 'I'm just going to keep writing this,' and it took me about nine months to finish all 10 chapters."

Wollert said she's always been a writer (she's just never been published), so she was no stranger to the writing process. Crafting a full-fledged comparative biography, however, was a unique feat that required a great deal of organization. She decided to focus each chapter on a different topic, and it took a month to narrow everything down and finalize each chapter, but she's happy with how it turned out.

After the book was done and she continued to shop it around, two publishers showed interest in September 2020. She went with Utah-based Cedar Fort Inc., the self-professed largest independent LDS publisher. (Wollert noted that she's Christian, not Mormon, and was thrilled to choose Cedar Fort because of its devoted marketing team.)

They signed the contract in October 2020 and the book was officially completed the day before the election, but everything changed after the ballot counts were announced. Wollert had been confident her book would come out during Trump's second term, so she hadn't considered what would happen if he didn't win reelection.

Her team was concerned about the new challenges of marketing the book during a Biden presidency, but Wollert chose to think positively.

"You try to market a book that says Trump and even Lincoln in the same sentence and it's an uphill battle, and it has been because the powers that be are now absolutely opposed to anything good being left over from the last four years," she said. "(But) I think it's a perfect time for this book. It gives Donald Trump a fair assessment of what he did, which half the nation believed was absolutely wonderful ... Abraham Lincoln and Trump are two of the biggest fighters throughout history, so there is no way he will ever give up willingly."

Promoting the book has been one of her biggest challenges — Wollert said Facebook is currently censoring her publisher's posts about it — but like the men she aimed to shine a light on in her work, she promises to fight any and all obstacles that come her way.

Wollert admitted the book won't be for everyone, but she looks forward to more people reading her comparison of two presidents who served during the most divided periods in American history.

"If you hate Donald Trump, you're going to hate this book," she said. "And there are people who automatically think it's satire; but it's not satire, it's absolutely real."

Niki Kottmann is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's features editor. She can be reached at nkottmann@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3135. Follow her on Twitter at @niki_mariee.