Up there with his threats to cultural sites and assertions that his critics are traitors, one of President Trump’s more tedious delusions is that he’s a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. This isn’t just silly — it’s ludicrous, even if you have a high opinion of Trump.
Still, at a rally last week, Trump pointed to a recent YouGov poll that showed 53% to 47% of Republicans view him to be a better president than Lincoln. Trump said he told Melania Trump, “I just beat Abraham Lincoln in a poll.” The president then doubled down on this narrative as he signed a U.S.-China trade deal on Wednesday. Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs says Trump claims that “[Trump is] the greatest [president] of them all. I said, does that include Washington and Lincoln? And he said yes. Now I don’t know if he was for real, but that’s okay.”
Now, I recognize that some of Trump’s supporters will suggest he’s only teasing here. But I don’t buy it. When he makes these references, he does so with a wry nod, as if Republicans have discovered some profound moral truth. And considering the president’s rather galactic-size ego, it would fit that there are few limits to his positive self-perception.
But really?
Okay, yes, Trump deserves significant credit for policies that have unleashed rising prosperity and opportunity across society. The president must also be saluted for being to China what Harry Truman was to the Soviet Union, a much-needed force against imperial aggression. But judged against Washington and Lincoln, these successes fade into deep insignificance.
Washington led a ramshackle army and turned it into a professional force that, at least in the early years of the Revolutionary War, struggled against overwhelming odds. But Washington won freedom. And in so, literally won America. More than that, Washington’s resignation as Continental Army commander in chief set the principle that power does not come from the barrel of the gun, but from the consent of the people. As president, Washington then established the institutions of our enduring government and a condition of peace and neutrality with Britain and France.
Lincoln’s record is similarly extraordinary. Leading the nation through the brutal Civil War, Lincoln had to grapple with great family tragedies and the mental strains of both himself and his wife. And yet, Lincoln used his presidency to ensure that victory wasn’t simply a matter of national survival but national advancement. He freed the slaves and enshrined his victory over the South with magnanimity. He did indeed bind up the wounds to our national psyche. Lincoln’s duty to our country and its values exemplify why America is the greatest nation on Earth.
In the end, Washington and Lincoln also hold something else over Trump in the pantheon of presidential greatness: character. Unlike Trump, those two presidents recognized that the nation’s unity was more important than their individual popularity or political interest in any one moment. They saw America for what it is, a great experiment, but one that depends on Americans of very different opinions ultimately being able to find common cause in each other. To make many, one. Trump does not seem to share that understanding.
On that basis, and in assessment of their relative accomplishments, reality delivers an unimpeachable verdict.
Washington and Lincoln were better presidents than Trump.
