Ideals, Myths and Negativity Storms: Biden and the 2024 Election

Let’s start with the fact that hero-worship is baked into the American political equation. Our first president was the man who led the revolution against the British. Washington served from 1789–1797. The people wanted him to remain president until he died, or at least start a third term. He was tired. He was 64 years old. In 1800, if men weren’t killed in war or by disease, most didn’t live much longer than that. He retired to an estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia and died two and half years after exiting The White House. You can tell from his photograph how irritated and exhausted he was. Not a hint of a smile.

Washington wrote a “farewell address,” though he never delivered it publicly. It appeared in newspapers. Those who were literate shared word that Washington was done. He warned the nation of creating any permanent ties with other countries, who might interfere with the burgeoning country’s democratic ideals and autonomous goals of political and religious freedom and economic possibility (for white males especially). He was correctly frightened of the geographic sectionalism and divisions between the north and the south. At the time, from the perspective of Washington and the federal government, the frontier west (Appalachia) was a mystery box of wilderness, loosely held by the French and mostly occupied by Native Americans, while the southern colonies consisted of plantations full of enslaved Africans, poor whites and a small portion of wealthy slave-owners. Washington knew it would be messy…