In 1796 George Washington gave a famous farewell address in which he issued a dire warning about the nascent “German Republican Society” and the “Democratic Society of Pennsylvania.” Speaking plainly he predicted that these new political parties:

Are likely 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.

According to Washington’s private correspondence as shared at the Mount Vernon museum that maintains his personal effects and Presidential legacy, he was filled with misgivings about serving as the chief politician in a newly-formed country. At one point he even wrote:

So unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties.

But the power of the will of the former colonists with whom he had fought battles to overthrow English oppression seems to have inspired him to overcome this reluctance. His response to the news that his election victory had been certified was this:

Whatever may have been my private feelings and sentiments, I believe I cannot give a greater evidence of my sensibility for the honor they have done me, than by accepting the appointment.

The legend of the reluctant leadership of George Washington, our first President, has spread throughout the years as a tale of a man who did not seek power nor did he have an ambitious nature, but rather accepted the burden of leadership in order to help his fellow man. We only have the accounts of his contemporaries and his own writings to base this narrative on, but it paints a moving and noble portrait of a man who earned his fame as a slave-owning farmer who went to war against his own countrymen and the government to which he was a Subject.

America loves the story of a reluctant leader, of a man not driven by personal gain who invests his life in helping others. Or at least, I should clarify, until recently.

“I revere this office, but I love my country more”

When President Obama’s second term in Washington ended, many Americans expected (as is the usual custom) that his Vice President Joseph Biden would be the next to lead our country. There was a degree of reluctance around Hillary Clinton, a woman who was perceived to have stood behind an unfaithful but politically powerful husband for the sole purpose of political gain. To put it plainly, even as a teenager I believed the narrative that her sole aim was to eventually become the first female President of the United States.

Joe surprised us all by stepping aside, citing the need to focus on his family (with one son that had died, and another fighting a destructive bout of substance abuse) as being more important than his political ambition. And yes, we all knew that Joe had for decades wanted to be POTUS, he had run enough times, and spoken plainly about having been inspired by John F. Kennedy to reach that office. And yet, despite all of that, he seemed to place the welfare of his family above those dreams.

But after four years of Donald Trump, years stained with the deaths of over one million Americans (subsequent reports from the CDC maintained that a better federal response could have mitigated 40% of those lost lives, to the tune of 400,000 needless and preventable deaths.) Trump’s entire Presidency was a repudiation of the dignity of the office. He spoke openly about the bodies of famous politicians and journalists, he insulted world leaders from Twitter at 3am, and when a mob of torch-wielding white men descended on Virginia chanting Nazi slogans and wearing swastikas — Trump referred to them as “very fine people,” even after one of them killed a bystander.

Somewhere along the line, much like the legend of George Washington, Joe Biden heard the cries of his fellow citizens and felt the responsibility to respond.

“Nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition,”

What sealed the deal for me was a particularly poignant moment during the final debate between Trump and Biden. After nearly an hour of trying to argue politics with a man who only talked about himself (and incidentally refused to disavow politically violent domestic terrorists like the “proud boys,”) Joe turned directly to the camera and addressed the viewers:

He doesn’t want to talk about the substantive issues. It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.

And in that moment, for me, the distinction between them was starkly evident. Here were two elderly men, both of whom had a powerful ambition to ascend to the highest seat of power in the country. One was descending into conspiracy theories, hinting that his political and ideological opponents hold their beliefs because they “hate the country.” The other was urging us to see one another, regardless of political affiliation, as “friends and neighbors” with whom we would need to work in order to overcome the challenges of a post pandemic economy.

I remember saying to my wife after that debate, “If Joe Biden does nothing else aside from step into the job and restore some kind of dignity and statesmanship, if all he does is give us a ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ presidency, he will have been one of the greatest Presidents in my lifetime.”

But that was in September of 2020, and January of 2021 was still ahead.

“The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule.”

For decades the certification of election results after an election have been the most boring of procedures; so boring as to barely warrant news coverage beyond a dry footnote. This was no “ordinary” election.

In the weeks leading up to the day of voting, Trump began to spew a message that the election was already “rigged against him.” Before a single vote was cast, he already began to say that he would indeed lose, and that it would be because he was “cheated.” Now this was not a new tactic for Trump or his people. They had purchased and registered the “stop the steal” website domain during the republican primaries in 2016… the first time he began to claim that he would lose an election due to “widespread fraud” and “rigged results.”

But this time the rhetoric was different, because as his numbers slid in the polls, members of the media began posing the question: “Will you commit to the peaceful transfer of power after this election is over.” He never said yes.

Sure, he said “I’ll commit to it if I win,” and other such remarks clearly designed to further the narrative that he was being cheated out of what he was owed, what he deserved. And again, here was Donald Trump trampling on the norms of the office of President by refusing to uphold the concept that every president since the Civil War had supported: that win or lose the good of the country was more important than the results of the election of the ambitions of the man who lost.

Sure, they brought over sixty different court cases claiming “widespread fraud” and the majority were heard by Trump-appointed judges, but not a single one that could have overturned the ballots in a state challenge or changed the outcome of the election was successful. Many of these cases were dismissed by Republican judges “with prejudice” for lack of evidence.

Further still came the release of a phone call with the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia in which Trump pleaded repeatedly that he “find the votes” needed for Trump to win. He begged publicly for this man to abandon his sworn duty and “rig” the election in favor of Donald Trump.

All of this culminated in a moment that shocked the nation in which thousands of Trump’s loyal supporters armed in body armor and riot gear stood for hours listening to members of Trump’s own inner circle call for “trial by combat” and implore them to “fight to take back their country.” This so called “rally” was held at the exact moment that congress was holding this usually boring procedural move of certifying the votes from every state. At the end of the rally, Trump called on his zealous supporters to march to the capitol. He even lied and said he would march with them, but instead returned to the White House and watched on television for hours as his fans trampled and beat the police, built a platform with a noose while chanting “hang Mike Pence,” and broke into the Capitol building sending congressmen running for their safety as these armed insurrectionists stalked the halls looking exact revenge and “stop the steal.”

In a sick echo of the failure to repudiate the nazis in Virginia several years earlier, Trump eventually went before a camera and weakly told these rioters to “we love you” before asking them politely to go home.

He never said he would uphold the peaceful transfer of power, and he did everything he felt he could get away with to prevent it.

“The power is in your hands. The idea of America – lies in your hands.”

Three years later Donald Trump is once again ascendent in his so called party. And just as Washington warned us, “a cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled man will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for himself the reins of government.”

But Joe was not able to meet the challenge of Donald Trump’s ambition the way he did in 2020. In their first and only debate, Biden gave a weak performance that had the opposite effect of his debate all those years ago. Instead of reassuring us of his commitment to the good of the country over his personal ambition, Biden descended into bickering over his golf score and seemed to lose his train of thought. Even if this was a man undiminished in his capacity to lead from a place of selfless love for his fellow man, the perception was irrevocably distorted by that single public spectacle.

For three weeks, the effect of his 2020 debates was inverted. It was Biden whose poll numbers slipped. It was Biden whose approval ratings declined steadily. It was Biden who had members of his own party calling for him to step aside for the “good of the nation.”

But unlike Trump who has answered every member of the Republican party who publicly dared to criticize him with threats and political backstabbing, Biden listened to his supporters. In a written statement on Sunday afternoon, Biden announced that he would not seek re-election and endorsed his Vice President for the highest post in the country.

Tonight, Biden addressed the country and spoke plainly about his reasons to step aside in such a critical moment:

I have decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation

In that moment I was struck with the same feelings he inspired during that debate in 2020: here was a man who was choosing the welfare of his country, his party, and his fellow Americans over his personal ambition. Here was a man who, like Washington, was shying away from power as its own end, sheerly out of concern for the welfare of his neighbors.

I have no doubts that in the coming days members of both parties will try and “spin” this unprecedented moment into a calculated and cynical political move. I’m sure that whatever genuine sentiment he expressed as he once again addressed the camera and the nation and reminded us:

Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter, from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States.

As I watch the online enthusiasm for Kamala Harris build, I can’t be grateful to the man who heard the call of the country first to lead us, and then to let us lead ourselves, and listened. Just as George Washington was an unabashed slave owner and personally responsible for the violent deaths of scores of his own countrymen, Joe Biden was both an imperfect man and an imperfect President. Nor am I wishing that Biden’s imperfections be glossed over with a sheen of blind nostalgia the way they have been with George Washington.

Rather I’m looking at this critical moment in American history with Donald Trump yet again looming over the country like some specter poised to undo the work of centuries of tradition and democracy, and seeing that Joe Biden’s greatest achievement was in fact restoring dignity and honor to the office of the Presidency.

For as Biden reminded us in an echo of his 2020 address to the nation during that crucial debate:

This sacred task of perfecting our Union is not about me. It’s about you. Your families. Your futures. It’s about ‘We the People.’

And against all odds, I hope that his vision of our potential and our value survives.