During a press briefing on Monday, President Donald Trump claimed that in 1917 the Spanish flu probably ended the Second World War.

I suspect Trump suffers from dementia, but I’m certain he suffers from permanent brain freeze.

How preposterous was Trump’s statement, let’s count the ways:

The Spanish flu began in the summer of 1918, not 1917. During the coronavirus pandemic Trump has repeatedly stated that the Spanish flu began in 1917, and I assume that his aides gingerly corrected him in private. Trump, who is no history major, probably made an honest mistake the first time he referred to the “1917 pandemic”, but he is loath to admit a mistake and keeps claiming that the Spanish flu began in 2017. The stable genius can keep repeating a lie a thousand times, and he can even issue an executive order, but history books won’t change the start time of the Spanish flu to 1917.

The stable genius probably meant to refer to World War I, the final months of which overlapped with the spread of the flu.

World War I ended when Germany’s allies realized that it was impossible to win the war, and one by one they withdrew from the global conflict leaving Germany to fight alone. Germany finally signed an armistice, not quite a surrender, but an agreement to stop the fighting. World War I ended with a whimper, not a bang, and certainly not because of the Spanish flu.

If Trump isn’t fired by the American public this November, his incompetence and ignorance might lead to World War III, and the end of human history.