I’ve recently been taken to task for comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and George Wallace. The people who take exception to these comparisons view Trump in a substantially different light than I do. They also don’t seem to realize that before Hitler gassed the Jews and other “undesirables,” and before Wallace supported turning fire hoses on black protesters while peacefully protesting, their words foreshadowed the actions they would eventually take. Likewise, Trump’s words are foreshadowing a dark, authoritarian future if he wins next month’s election and is allowed to re-occupy the White House.
In my opinion, comparing Trump to history’s worst tyrants and racists is appropriate, even necessary. In fact, now is the time to call out the similarities, before he actually carries out the insidious plans he has for immigrants, women, and others. But today, rather than comparing Trump to tyrants, I’d like to compare him to one of our founding fathers, and one of our greatest Presidents, George Washington.
Living 225 years after Washington died, it’s easy to take his greatness for granted. In fact, for many of us, he has become more of a caricature than a real blood and flesh person. We hear the stories of how he chopped down a cherry tree and couldn’t lie about it (an apocryphal story, to be sure), but we often overlook the actual great things he did.
If you’ve seen the Broadway musical Hamilton, (If you haven’t, you should), you know that Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda made a point of stressing just what a paradigm shifting thing it was to have Washington give up the power of the presidency.
In the show, the George Washington character, as he is preparing to relinquish his position as the most powerful man in the country, sings a song called “One Last Time.” The song’s lyrics talk about how important it is for Washington to give up his position so the country can learn to move on. He goes on to sing about how people will come to view the peaceful transfer of power as strength, not weakness.
The song sung by the Washington character builds to a crescendo and becomes quite emotional. Then, as it ends, the King George character comes onto the stage and sings the song “I Know Him.” The first lines of that song are:
“They say George Washington’s yielding his power and stepping away
Is that true?
I wasn’t aware that was something a person could do
I’m perplexed, are they going to keep on replacing whoever’s in charge?
If so, who’s next?
There’s nobody else in their country who looms quite as large.”
The idea that anyone in power would voluntarily step down was revolutionary at the time. Even more revolutionary was the idea that the United States government would continue to replace the person in charge, not through force or coup, but through elections. It was a radical new concept, and it changed the world.
In his 2020 book, First and Always, A New Portrait of George Washington, historian Peter Henriques writes: “(Washington) proved that his truest allegiance was to the republic by voluntarily surrendering power. It was the first of many peaceful transfers of power in the unprecedented American experiment.”
But as Tom Nichols, conservative pundit and former professor at the Naval War College recently wrote in The Atlantic, “Less than a year after the (Henrique’s) book’s publication, however, Trump would subvert this centuries-long tradition by summoning a mob against the elected representatives of the United States, after refusing to accept the result of the vote.”
Nichols’ article is instructive in the clear-eyed way it compares our first president to our forty-fifth. He begins his article by talking about John Kelly, the former Marine Corp general who served as Trump’s first Chief of Staff. In speaking about Washington at a symposium at the first President’s home in Mount Vernon, Kelly told the story of perhaps Washington’s greatest and longest lasting act. When his time in the White House had ended, Kelly said, “He went home.”
Kelly described Trump as a “person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.” As Nichols writes, “(Kelly) was making a clear point: People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to democracy. They may hold different titles—even President—but at heart they are tyrants, and all tyrants share the same trait: They never voluntarily cede power.”
Nichols goes on to write:
“Forty-four men have succeeded Washington so far. Some became titans; others finished their terms without distinction; a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy. But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.
“All but one, that is.
“Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the ‘spirit of revenge’ that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to ‘seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,’ and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.
“Today, America stands at such a moment. A vengeful and emotionally unstable former president—a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, an admirer of foreign dictators, a racist and a misogynist—desires to return to office as an autocrat. Trump has left no doubt about his intentions; he practically shouts them every chance he gets. His deepest motives are to salve his ego, punish his enemies, and place himself above the law. Should he regain the Oval Office, he may well bring with him the experience and the means to complete the authoritarian project that he began in his first term.”
Washington was a legitimate war hero. In fact, many Presidents served in the military. And even those that did not still understood the importance of military obedience to the rule of law and civilian authority. That is, all but Donald Trump.
Trump, who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War due to alleged bone spurs, expected the military to be loyal to him, not to the country. Nichols writes: “(Trump) did not understand (or care) that members of the military swear an oath to the Constitution, and that they are servants of the nation, not of one man in one office. Trump viewed the military like a small child surveying a shelf of toy soldiers, referring to ‘my generals’ and ordering up parades for his own enjoyment and to emphasize his personal control.”
Washington was an uncommonly humble man who held himself to a high standard. In fact, he set the standard that future presidents would seek to emulate by taking responsibility for events–particularly failures–that happened on their watch. Presidents Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt are well known for the responsibility they each took for decisions made during the Civil War and World War II respectively. But they are not alone.
When American troops attempted to rescue hostages in Iran during his presidency, Jimmy Carter took responsibility for the failure of the operation. Likewise, it would have been easy for John F. Kennedy to blame Dwight Eisenhower for the Bay of Pigs failure in Cuba. After all, the plan for that operation was formulated during Eisenhower’s time in the White House. But Kennedy demurred, humbly taking personal responsibility for the unfortunate outcome.
There are many other examples as well. However, Donald Trump is not one of them. He has a long history of blaming others when things go wrong and denying responsibility for any failures. Perhaps the greatest example of this occurred during the COVID pandemic, as millions of Americans fell ill and the White House failed to adequately address the mounting deaths. When Trump was asked about this failure, he replied, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
As Nichols points out, “Washington’s character and record ensured that almost any of his successors would seem smaller by comparison. But the difference between Washington and Trump is so immense as to be unmeasurable. No president in history, not even the worst moral weaklings among them, is further from Washington than Trump.”
He then goes on to list some of the more obvious differences:
- “Washington prized patience and had, as Adams put it, “the gift of silence”; Trump is ruled by his impulses and afflicted with verbal incontinence.
- Washington was uncomplaining; Trump whines incessantly.
- Washington was financially and morally incorruptible; Trump is a grifter and a crude libertine who still owes money to a woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting.
- Washington was a general of preternatural bravery who grieved the sacrifices of his men; Trump thinks that fallen soldiers are “losers” and “suckers.”
- Washington personally took up arms to stop a rebellion against the United States; Trump encouraged one.”
“Trump is the man the Founders feared might arise from a mire of populism and ignorance, a selfish demagogue who would stop at nothing to gain and keep power. Washington foresaw the threat to American democracy from someone like Trump: In his farewell address, he worried that ‘sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction’ would manipulate the public’s emotions and their partisan loyalties ‘to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
Comparisons of Trump to both Adolf Hitler and George Wallace are fair and appropriate. History bears out the similarities between Trump and the worst tyrants and extreme racists through the ages. But as you can see from the foregoing, there is almost no similarity between George Washington, one of our greatest presidents, and Donald Trump, one of our absolute worst.
Addendum: Here are videos of the two songs I referenced above. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a live performance video of “One Last Time.” Instead, I included a reaction video from a vocal coach who is listening and watching Chris Jackson’s performance of the song as George Washington (How about that voice on Chris Jackson?). Somehow, the vocal coach reacting to Jackson’s performance found a live version of the song, but I couldn’t. The other video is a live performance of “I Know Him” sung by Jonathan Groff as King George III.
