POLITICS: This President’s Day, remember what George Washington can teach us (and Trump)

Though rarely honored these days exactly on Feb. 22, his actual birth date, “Presidents Day” is officially still Washington’s birthday.

And that’s entirely right and proper, as every American should happily honor our first chief executive.

Washington was a man for the ages. Born a Virginia aristocrat, he carefully cultivated his virtues — self-control, moderation, civility; his strengths physical and moral — to become the most widely admired presence first in the 13 colonies, then in the new nation.

As president, he also set the future course of the US government itself. He understood he was setting precedents that had to last — even as many disagreed on what precise form our government should take.

It was Washington who emphasized that America was a republic when he rebuked those who wanted a monarchy or an exalted president.

As we move through the aftermath of a bitterly fought presidential election, it’s important to remember Washington’s example. 

Yes, he — and the entire generation of the Founders — achieved greatness none of their successors could hope to match. 

That’s due partly to his personal qualities, partly to the historical ferment he lived through. 

But, as his biographer Richard Brookhiser tells us, “His life still has the power to inspire anyone who studies it.” 

And President Donald Trump still has much to learn from the father of our country. 

Trump’s agenda is in many places desperately needed, in others misguided. 

Bringing RFK Jr. into the Cabinet, for example, sets a precedent dangerous and damaging to the country. 

It’s something Washington would never have done: Elevate a morally murky crank to a position of tremendous power. 

Or take his dangerous score-settling move to remove protection for statesmen like Mike Pompeo who put their lives at risk for him and their country.

And even when Trump is right on the merits, he tends towards most un-Washingtonian hip-shooting. Take his “Mar-a-Gaza” idea.

It is on its face no more fanciful than the standard tropes of “Mideast peace plans,” such as imagining the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas in charge, or that somehow Hamas can be left to govern. 

But to announce a drastic policy-posture change out of the blue, with zero specifics, and clearly half-off-the-cuff, is itself risky. 

And the proposal’s innate maximalism suggests his view of the presidency is tinged with ideas of imperium.

That cuts the hardest against the central political teaching Washington has bequeathed to us. 

Trump is far from the first president to indulge in such ideas.  

After Washington and the rest of his generation, America saw a string of increasingly mediocre presidents — a mediocrity redeemed by the miraculous appearance of his greatest successor, Abraham Lincoln, and one the office again sank into soon after his death. 

Yet for each successive office holder, the question remains open: Will you do your best to govern as those great men did?

Or will you allow the pettiness of day-to-day politics to constrain you?

Trump has shown some evidence he is at least trying to do the former. 

Witness his raised-fist clamber to his feet in Butler; that took real courage.

Or the central theme of his campaign against Harris, the idea that America can under the right policies enter a new Golden Age: There is deep ambition and seriousness there, for all Trump’s impulsiveness. 

That ambition has been matched by a whirlwind of focused and in large part efficacious activity from Day 1 of his second term, one that shows no sign of slowing. 

Energy and the breadth of vision are what America needs. 

What Trump still has to learn from Washington is a steadier hand, a calmer spirit.

We — alongside every American of good faith — are rooting for him.