Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Can George Washington inspire Biden to greatness?

Being a hero is about knowing when to lean in and when to step away

Clancy is co-founder of Citizen Connect and board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Citizen Connect is an initiative of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, which also operates The Fulcrum.

King George III reputedly said George Washington was the greatest man in the world for voluntarily relinquishing power. The indisputable fact is that Washington’s action remains remarkable in human history. And he actually did it at least two times.

On Dec. 23, 1783, Washington resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army and returned to Mount Vernon. He did it again when he declined to run for a third term as president by publishing his Farewell Address on Sept. 19, 1796. In June 1799 Washington was yet again urged to run for president and declined.

His reasoning on each occasion was a complex mix of the personal and political, but the bedrock was an unwavering commitment to put the good of the nation above personal gain and the factions that would ultimately become our toxic party system.


The situation today is very different, but the core principles and concerns Washington raised in his Farewell Address remain completely valid. For example, his greatest fears about political parties have in many ways come to pass, writing that “they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

For him emphasizing what we have in common as Americans was the real foundation of our strength and freedom. Washington called on us to indignantly frown upon “every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

I don’t belong to either political party and like so many Americans I yearn for better choices in the 2024 election. I’d actually like both Trump and Biden to step aside for new faces with fresh ideas, but any change to the core election equation seemed impossible until Thursday’s debate. I went to bed very frustrated and disappointed by what I heard from both candidates — Trump for the lies and relentless self-congratulation and Biden for bouts of incoherence and sounding like a shadow of himself. But I woke up with a sense of possibility — the chance (however slim) that the election sequel we’ve all dreaded doesn’t have to play out that way.

For the good of the nation I encourage both men to consider withdrawing from the election. Among a variety of reasons is the fact they are both elderly. Washington was 64 years old when he decided not to run for a third term and stated, “every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.”

Given their personalities I think it’s unlikely in either case and almost inconceivable when it comes to Trump. On the other hand, I could imagine Biden coming to such a difficult decision. Much of his campaign is premised on the existential threats to democracy and the rule of law. If that is his core motivation then making a great personal sacrifice becomes not just possible, but a moral imperative.

Both men have earned the right to run at the top of the ticket for their parties. I would just ask them to seriously consider the profound and historic opportunity they are presented with. One or both of them could make a decision that would put their love for America forever beyond dispute. It would not be an act of capitulation, but rather an act of profound courage and integrity. I’ll end with another quote from Washington’s heroic Farewell Address: “I have the consolation to believe that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.”

Read More

Complaint Filed to Ethics Officials Regarding Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
red and white x sign

Complaint Filed to Ethics Officials Regarding Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

On Friday, March 21, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) related to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick urging the purchase of Tesla stock on March 19th.

CLC is a nonpartisan legal organization dedicated to solving the challenges facing American democracy. Its mission is to fight for every American’s freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process, particularly Americans who have faced political barriers because of race, ethnicity, or economic status.

Keep ReadingShow less
Understanding the Debate on Presidential Immunity

The U.S. White House.

Getty Images, Caroline Purser

Understanding the Debate on Presidential Immunity

Presidential Immunity: History and Background

Presidential immunity is the long-standing idea that the president of the United States has exemption from liability or legal proceedings for acts related to the duties of presidential office. Contrary to popular belief, presidential immunity is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution; only sitting members of Congress are explicitly granted judicial immunity through the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Rather, the concept of presidential immunity has arisen through the Department of Justice’s longstanding policy against prosecuting presidents in office and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Article II, which has developed through a number of Supreme Court cases dating back to 1867.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Trump 2.0: Navigating the New Political Landscape

With Trump’s return to the White House, we once again bear daily witness to a spectacle that could be described as entertaining, were it only a TV series. But Trump’s unprecedented assault on our democratic norms and institutions is not only very real but represents the gravest peril our democratic republic has confronted in the last 80 years.

Trump’s gradual consolidation of power and authoritarian proclivities, reminiscent of an earlier era, are very frightening on their own account. But it is his uncanny ability to control the narrative that empowers him to shred our nation’s fabric while proceeding with impunity. His actions not only threaten the very republic that he now leads but overturn the entire post-WWII world order, which is now in chaos. Trump has ostensibly cast aside the governing principle with the U.N. Charter of Sovereignty. By suggesting on multiple occasions that the U.S. will “get Greenland one way or another,” and that Canada might become our 51st state, our neighbor to the north is now developing plans to protect itself from what it views as the enemy across the border.

Keep ReadingShow less
Free Speech and Freedom of the Press Under Assault

A speakerphone locked in a cage.

Getty Images, J Studios

Free Speech and Freedom of the Press Under Assault

On June 4, 2024, an op-ed I penned (“Project 2025 is a threat to democracy”) was published in The Fulcrum. It received over 74,000 views and landed as one of the top 10 most-read op-eds—out of 1,460—published in 2024.

The op-ed identified how the right-wing extremist Heritage Foundation think tank had prepared a 900-page blueprint of actions that the authors felt Donald Trump should implement—if elected—in the first 180 days of being America’s 47th president. Dozens of opinion articles were spun off from the op-ed by a multitude of cross-partisan freelance writers and published in The Fulcrum, identifying—very specifically—what Trump and his appointees would do by following the Heritage Foundation’s dictum of changing America from a pluralistic democracy to a form of democracy that, according to its policy blueprint, proposes “deleting the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), plus gender equality, out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.”

Keep ReadingShow less