George Washington’s Nightmare Is Here — a Warning From the Father of the Republic
MAGA politics proves why the first president warned against the rise of factions that put party above country
George Washington’s Farewell Address was never meant as a ceremonial goodbye. It was a field manual for keeping a fragile republic alive. His deepest worry was that Americans would one day surrender their common identity as citizens and retreat into warring factions. He called the “spirit of party” a “frightful despotism” — a force that could tear down self-government from the inside.
Two centuries later we are watching that prophecy unfold. The movement rallying behind Donald Trump has turned party loyalty into a test of national loyalty, rewarding vengeance over duty and treating the Constitution as an obstacle to be bent or ignored.
Washington’s nightmare has arrived, dressed in red hats.
The reluctant partisan
Washington was not naïve about human ambition. During his presidency he tried to govern above the fray, drawing both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson into the same Cabinet in the hope that disagreement could serve the public good.
What he got instead was trench warfare: dueling newspapers, personal vendettas, and an early proof that factions could paralyze a young government. That bruising experience shaped the Farewell Address of 1796. He urged Americans to “discourage and restrain” the partisan fever before it corroded civic unity.
He had seen how easily personal grievance could metastasize into organized obstruction. His warning was less philosophy than battlefield report.
“Sharpened by the spirit of revenge … a frightful despotism”
Washington feared that once a faction gained power it would use the machinery of government to punish the other side rather than to serve the whole. The result, he said, would be alternating cycles of domination and retaliation — government by vendetta.
It is hard to read that line today without hearing an echo in Trump’s promises of “retribution” and in the MAGA habit of treating opponents as traitors to be purged. Prosecutions launched as pay-back, investigations weaponized against political rivals, threats to jail critics: all of it fits Washington’s description of party passion turning into despotism.
The door to foreign influence
Another fear proved equally prescient. Washington warned that factional rivalries would “open the door to foreign influence and corruption … through the channels of party passion.” A divided nation, he knew, would be ripe for manipulation by foreign powers eager to tilt American policy to their advantage.
That too is no longer a hypothetical. We have lived through a presidential campaign that welcomed Russian interference, a White House that tried to strong-arm Ukraine for political dirt, and a movement that still treats Vladimir Putin more as ally than adversary. Partisanship has again become a Trojan horse for foreign entanglements.
From common good to cult identity
Perhaps the most corrosive change of all is cultural. Washington believed a republic could survive only if citizens put loyalty to the common good above loyalty to a faction or a charismatic figure. Today, MAGA has flipped that hierarchy on its head: personal loyalty to one man now outweighs fidelity to the Constitution itself.
We see it in the branding of dissenters as “enemies of the people,” in state legislatures gerrymandered to entrench one party’s rule, in the refusal to accept verified election results unless they favor the faction in power. This is precisely the disunion Washington foresaw — citizens defining themselves first as partisans and only second, if at all, as Americans.
Governance reduced to vendetta
The cost of this factional mindset is not abstract. It shows up in near-constant brinkmanship over keeping the government funded, in election denialism that erodes public trust, in the politicization of law enforcement and the courts. Policy debates that once turned on evidence and persuasion now hinge on whether an idea helps or harms one’s tribe.
Washington warned that such habits would weaken the nation’s capacity to govern itself. We can see the damage already: legislative paralysis, lurching foreign policy, and a public discourse more focused on punishing opponents than solving problems.
Why the warning still matters
Some dismiss the Farewell Address as the relic of a bygone age. Yet the very speed and scale of modern politics make Washington’s insights more relevant, not less. Social-media outrage cycles reward factional passion; gerrymandered districts and billionaire-funded primaries hard-wire it into the system. What he called the “spirit of party” now has digital accelerants — and billion-dollar patrons.
The lesson is that the threat to democracy rarely comes first from invading armies. It comes from the corrosion of civic virtue inside the gates.
A republic still worth saving
Washington ended his message with a plea for unity grounded in reason and duty, not in uniformity of opinion. He knew disagreements would persist; the danger was letting them harden into permanent factions that treat compromise as betrayal.
That warning is now our assignment. We cannot undo the invention of political parties, but we can choose not to let any faction — left, right, or populist cult — claim a loyalty higher than the Constitution. Civic virtue is still the only durable answer to factional passion.
Upon reflection
I often think of Washington’s other great act of restraint: resigning his military commission after victory in the Revolution. He proved that power could be relinquished for the good of the republic. Contrast that example of disciplined service with today’s strongman theatrics and calls for vengeance.
Do you think that Donald Trump will give up the presidency voluntarily? January 6th, 2021 and Trump’s statements about running for a 3rd term give us a clue. The distance between Donald Trump and George Washington is the distance between a functioning republic and a failing one. Think about that.
Washington warned us that the republic would endure only if we discouraged the spirit of party. We ignored him — and now face the consequences he foresaw. The cure he offered still holds: reason, civic duty, and loyalty to the common good above loyalty to any faction or man.
