George Washington stopped by the office last week for a chat.
Yes, that George Washington. You know, the father of our country. Don’t laugh. Some people claim to talk to God. Others hold séances to conjure up the ghost of their late aunt Gertrude. I talk to the Founding Fathers.
Washington said he wanted an update on the presidential election.
“This is shaping up to be an extremely turbulent year in American politics,” I told him.
“How so, young man?” the president asked.
“Well, we just had the New Hampshire primary a week ago, and the man who won the Democratic primary isn’t even a member of the Democratic Party.”
“That is unusual.”
“It gets worse. The man who won the Republican primary hasn’t actually voted in a Republican primary in more than 36 years. It’s entirely possible that once the party conventions are over this summer, each party will have nominated a candidate that has no real ties to the core beliefs of the party that nominated them.”
The president frowned. “Why is this happening?”
“There are several reasons,” I said. “First, our government has become ineffective. Candidates makes all kinds of promises to get elected, but when they get to Washington, they forget about all the promises.
“And there’s another problem. Too many of our politicians are more concerned about protecting their political parties than solving the problems of the country. It’s become easier to blame the other side for everything that’s gone wrong than it is to come up with real solutions.”
Washington sighed.
“A lot of voters are angry, and so they are gravitating to these outsider candidates, but it looks like these candidates are just telling the voters what they want to hear. For instance, that Republican candidate is saying a lot of populist things that have fired up Republican voters, but for most of his life, he has said he was pro-choice, pro-gay rights and pro-government health care, which are issues that have always been associated with the Democrats. Only for some reasons, this doesn’t seem to bother Republican voters this year.”
I told President Washington that most people still consider the Constitution one of the greatest documents ever written. But these days, we are sometimes left wondering whether either political party pays much attention to it.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “You know, I never joined a political party. And I warned the boys in Philly that, left unchecked, cunning and unprincipled men would use the political parties to usurp the power of the people. I truly hope that is not happening in America now.”
The president paused for a moment and rubbed his chin, apparently deep in thought.
“You know, young man, we didn’t always agree with each other when we were writing the Constitution. You’d be amazed at some of the ideas that wacky Ben Franklin came up with.”
“You and Mr. Franklin didn’t get along?” I asked.
“Oh, we were friends,” Washington said. “We just didn’t agree with everything the other said. But when we got in that room in Philadelphia, we knew we were doing something important. So we put all our ideas out there and worked through it to get the best Constitution we could.”
President Washington stood up to leave.
“It sounds like it is a challenging time for America,” he said. “I’ll pray that the people make the right decisions to protect their liberty and their freedoms.”
“So will I, Mr. President. So will I.”
