As a teenager, George Washington copied out 110 rules of conduct. The first reads: “Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.” Rule 65 goes further: “Speak not injurious words, neither in jest nor earnest. Scoff at none although they give occasion.” Rule 59 says: “Never express anything unbecoming, nor act against the rules moral before your inferiors.”
None of these rules concern policy, party or winning. They concern how one carries oneself while pursuing those aims—even when the other side has supplied every excuse not to. Washington tried to live by them, and the effort helped him confer gravitas and honor on the American presidency.
When he suspected that his former secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, was encouraging the newspapers to attack him, Washington did not answer in public. He sent a private letter complaining that his every act was described “in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket.” When he addressed the nation in his Farewell Address, he named no names. He warned only against “the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension.”
The presidency 230 years later is far less stately.
For most of the 19th century, presidents did not campaign for themselves nor attack opponents by name. Andrew Johnson broke that norm when he engaged hecklers during his 1866 speaking tour. Congress made those speeches the basis of the 10th article of impeachment, charging him with a “high misdemeanor in office” for a series of “intemperate, inflammatory and scandalous harangues.” In that era, undignified presidential speech was treated as an impeachable offense.
Things began to change in the 1990s, however, as the television era brought on a wave of informality. The well-known turning point was 1994, when a teenager on mtv asked Bill Clinton, “Is it boxers or briefs?” Chuckling, Clinton replied, “Usually briefs.” Conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby later summed up the trend: “Subtly at first, then shamelessly, presidents traded dignity and gravitas for approval ratings.”
As a general rule, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama still observed the long-standing taboo against attacking political opponents by name. Yet each leaned further into celebrity culture. Harry Truman took his daily walks in a suit and tie; by contrast, Clinton and Bush jogged before the cameras in shorts and sweaty T-shirts. In 2012, Obama “slow jammed the news” with Jimmy Fallon on late-night television to promote his student-loan policy. Two years later, he promoted his health-care law on Between Two Ferns, an online comedy show built on insulting its guests. Even Mike McCurry, Clinton’s former press secretary, cautioned that Obama should “worry about the dignity of the presidency.”
Each step may have seemed harmless on its own. Taken together, though, they taught Americans to see the president less as a head of state and more as an entertaining personality. Once the office had become a stage, it was only a matter of time before someone used that stage for insults.
Donald Trump grasped early that social media let a politician bypass the press and speak to voters directly, and he used it to call out his critics and rivals. That alone is no offense. But by doing it with childish nicknames and personal insults, he has disrespected the office he holds. Conservative writer Jim Jamitis made this point in 2017, arguing that trading insults with critics was both “disrespectful of his office” and “counterproductive.” Nearly a decade later, the trend has grown far worse.
In January, amid his push to acquire Greenland, the president sent a message to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre: “Considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
This is what Jamitis meant by counterproductive. A president who wants to be remembered as a peacemaker should want the conversation to be about the wars he claims he ended. Instead, every outburst made the story about himself. Such petulant, self-absorbed rhetoric can only be described as childish.
Isaiah 3:4 prophesies, “And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” Too many of our leaders today, from both ends of the political spectrum, exhibit the immature, undisciplined behavior of children. President Trump, though he does have a valiant, fighting spirit that many of his predecessors lacked, certainly exhibits such immature, undisciplined behavior and speech.
The presidency was never meant to be a stage for childish outbursts. Restoring its dignity does not require suppressing toughness or conviction. It requires that those who hold the office remember what Washington understood as a boy: how one speaks is inseparable from the honor of the position itself.