Predecessors skip mention of Trump in essay project

WASHINGTON — When George W. Bush wrote an essay this year about another president named George, he avoided mentioning the one named Donald.

So did Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The three ex-presidents joined a roster of historians and authors in contributing to the “In Pursuit” project, a 250th-anniversary series that had each writer produce an essay about a president or first lady.

Though the project was explicitly designed to transcend today’s politics, some of its essays nevertheless reflect anxieties that are flaring in President Donald Trump’s era over the use of power, the health of democracy and the integrity of the presidency.

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The project (https://www.inpursuit.org/) is being curated by Colleen Shogan, the US archivist whom Trump fired last year without explanation.

Shogan instructed contributors not to be partisan or ideological.

‘Washington’s humility’

The essays, which are being published chronologically and weekly into December, cover 43 presidents and 30 first ladies.

All but Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Trump were excluded as essay subjects since their administrations were judged too fresh to be appraised by history—a call that may have also set aside passions of the moment.

But Bush’s essay celebrating George Washington is difficult to read without thinking of Trump’s reluctance to cede power after his 2020 election defeat and his musings about a third term in defiance of the constitution’s two-term limit.

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“George Washington’s humility in giving up power willingly remains among the most consequential decisions and important examples in American politics,” writes Bush—whose piece, released on Presidents Day as the first in the series on Substack (https://inpursuit.substack.com/p/george-washington-by-george-w-bush), drove heavy engagement.

Writing about Republican Theodore Roosevelt, Democrat Clinton cited Roosevelt’s drive to expand the universe of “we the people” at the expense of corporate interests, while also emphasizing Roosevelt’s exclusionary views on Black and Indigenous people.

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Besides Bush, Clinton and Obama (who wrote about Abraham Lincoln), the other contributors include Hillary Clinton (Eleanor Roosevelt), Michelle Obama (Jacqueline Kennedy), documentarian Ken Burns (Franklin D. Roosevelt), historian Michael Beschloss (Lyndon Johnson) and GOP operative Karl Rove (William McKinley).

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote about William Howard Taft—the only president who also served on the Supreme Court—while retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led US and international forces in the Afghanistan war, sized up fellow Gen. Ulysses Grant in another essay that drew much attention to its parallels today.

The “temptation to bend institutions toward personal power is not unique to Grant’s era,” pointed out McChrystal’s essay. “Our future still depends on whether our leaders choose law over loyalty.” /cb