The lyin’ king Trump is the kind of leader Washington feared and reviled
The other day I found myself staring at George Washington’s teeth.
They were not wooden as the lore said. On a trip to Mount Vernon, Virginia, which I never visited as an adult, although my hometown was named after him, I learned that his spring-loaded dentures were made from human, horse, and cow teeth. Washington was always worried that his teeth would fall out of his mouth. These chompers kept him in constant pain. But the Father of the Country wasn’t complaining, unlike the Crying Baby of the Country we have now.
“I can’t imagine two people more different than George Washington and Donald Trump,” Ron Chernow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of our first president, told me on the occasion of the 250th birthday party Trump missed for America.
“Washington was cautious, reserved and polite, avoiding any display, ostentation or self-promotion,” Chernow said. “In the case of Donald Trump, I think there is incessant boasting, boasting, and self-assertion that is completely foreign to George Washington and so contrary to his idea of how a public official should behave.”
While we have a man who thinks he is a king, it is illuminating to look back at the life of a man who refused to be a king.
“We govern largely with common sense,” Trump said, signing a presidential memorandum on Monday.
The word is “manage” Mr. President, not “manage”.
Speaking of heat boiler this weekend, Trump boasted about his Independence Day speech on the Mall: “I’m going to give a really long speech, just to show that I can do anything.”
Commanding the Continental Army, the hero protected the nascent democracy, realizing its fragility. Cadet Bone Spurs maliciously erode him, seeing him as an obstacle to their unbridled desire for power and cash grabs.
Washington was loved by many for giving away the power he could hold. Trump is criticized by many for seizing power that he does not have the right to do. One of them was methodical and discreet; He hoped to consult the Senate more than the Senate required of him. The other is driven by caprice, choosing his own legislative powers over tariffs and war. As president, Washington actively avoided intervening in congressional races. Trump is interfering in the primaries to take revenge and test loyalty.
John Adams praised Washington for its self-restraint, a trait foreign to Trump.
One of them was modest; It was reflected in the elegant but decidedly understated furnishings at Mount Vernon. The other is megalomaniac—reflected in the blinding gold fittings around the West Wing and the extravagant ballroom that would dwarf the White House, which was meant to provide a contrast with the extravagant palaces of Europe.
A famous person doesn’t lie. The other one can’t stop lying.
Almost the only thing they have in common is the legend of Washington chopping down the cherry tree. And while Trump usurps East Potomac Park to build a luxury golf course, he might want to do the same with some of our historic cherry trees.
Chernow weighed in on Trump’s astonishing fraud in office. Trump raised $US1.4 billion ($2 billion) from crypto startups in the first year of his second term. (He made a fortune, even though the value of the memecoin he sold to his supporters is astronomically less now than when he took office.) Overall, his first year in office netted him at least $2.2 billion. “George Washington had impeccable integrity – there was not the slightest hint of scandal during his presidency – and he was always very reluctant to accept gifts of any kind for fear that people might interpret it as a bribe,” he said. Washington was bitter before accepting shoe buckles from David Humphreys, his aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War and speechwriter during his presidency.
Trump is an expert at giving freely. He made his first flight on Wednesday on a Qatar Force One plane with his fake library and massage chairs. (If he leaves, he plans to detain the plane when he leaves.)
When Trump was asked last year how he could mock the Constitution and accept such a generous salary from a foreign government, he cheerfully replied: “I might be a stupid person and say, ‘Oh no, we don’t want a free plane.'”
“Trump can make all this money on cryptocurrencies and meme tokens, and there’s nothing in the Constitution that specifically prevents that from happening other than the president’s own sense of shame and integrity — and those don’t seem to apply very strongly to our president,” Chernow said. “Trump is very good at finding these holes in the system. He seems to have a sixth sense.”
“Our founders were very concerned about the emergence of a demagogue in the future,” Chernow said. “Their fear was what was called the man on horseback in the 18th century; the idea that, after a bloody revolution, the victorious general would turn victory into power and become a dictator.”
Washington loved his horses, but he wanted to be a farmer, not a ruler.
“The American people were willing to entrust him with great power because he did not seem eager for power,” Chernow said. “He did so out of a sense of duty and service and felt burdened by the powers he assumed. He was able to return to Mount Vernon only three times during the eight years of the Revolutionary War.”
Chernow admitted he was worried. “My greatest fear right now is that we forget who we are as a people, because democracy is not just a matter of establishing institutions and principles – it’s also a matter of adhering to certain customs and traditions that have developed over time. These started with George Washington, who established a benchmark of presidential behavior: that the president be gracious and dignified, courteous and humble, sincere and responsible. He had a natural gravitas and dignity that I think is really necessary for the office. And now we have a president who, I say, has probably never read a history book.” The historian, whose biography of Alexander Hamilton formed the basis of the musical phenomenon, also accuses Americans of neglecting to learn about the miracle that Washington and other founders created, a miracle that is now at stake.
“If they don’t have a basic understanding of what the entire design is supposed to be, you can’t start explaining to them that the system the founders created is being broken,” he said. “That’s why memory is so important.”
Mount Vernon’s memory keeper is Lindsay Chervinsky, a cool young historian who is executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library.
He gave me a tour of Washington’s notes on his visit to the Senate; One of his tender love letters to Martha; and Martha’s recipe for her husband’s cocktail of choice, the “cherry splash”—a potent blend of cherries, French brandy, white sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
Chervinsky is trying to stay positive on the occasion of the country’s half-centenary.
“When people ask me what Washington will think today, my first reaction is that there are a lot of things that he will be disappointed by and find quite recognizable, if not ideal,” he said. “But I think the overriding feeling would be happiness that the nation is still here, because most republics don’t last that long, and he knew that.”
This article was first published on: New York Times.
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