Presidents’ Day 2026. I wonder how the “dear leader” will encourage us to observe it. Perhaps he will suggest that Trump be added alongside Washington and Lincoln. After all, he has claimed to be more patriotic than Washington and to have done more for Black citizens than Lincoln. That bizarre fantasy aside, how will the rest of us observe Presidents’ Day?
Perhaps this year, more than in others, it must be more than another day off.
It was said of Washington that he was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” according to General Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee in a eulogy delivered in Philadelphia some months after Washington’s death. It is less easy to summarize Lincoln in a single poignant line. Perhaps it is the Gettysburg Address, and his appeal to the “better angels of our nature,” that best expresses the reason we set aside this day to honor him along with Washington.
Each, in his own way, worked to unify a nation fractured by violent disunity. Each sought to reconcile and heal deep wounds of enmity while strengthening the nation’s foundations so that a better future could be built—and would be built. Each was a person of his own time and condition in life. Each made errors of judgment, as all of us do, and some of those errors appear egregious in hindsight. They are historical realities not to be ignored but to be learned from. Yet it would be wrong to dwell on them, because the good they worked so hard to achieve on behalf of the future far outweighs the mistakes they made.
This Presidents’ Day would be a good time to reflect on the office itself, and on the character of those who have occupied it with courage and commitment on behalf of the people—sublimating their own considerable egos and personal interests to the general welfare of the nation. Forty-six men have held that office. Most were adequate to the task. Some were not. A few might fairly be labeled scoundrels. A very few demonstrated contempt for the office, for the people, and for the future. Until recently, Nixon was many people’s candidate for worst president in modern times. Yet even he presided over landmark environmental protections and opened diplomatic relations with communist China.
The same cannot be said for our current president. There appears to be no limit to the depths and breadth of the corruption to which he will descend in pursuit of self-aggrandizement and personal enrichment. He lies with such frequency that counting them has become futile. His visceral contempt for others is directed at anyone he considers threatening, inconvenient, or irrelevant to his own desires. That will not prevent the various lackeys and courtiers of palace intrigue from proclaiming him the greatest president in American history.
I hope this Presidents’ Day will be observed with reflection on the best of our past and hope for our future. I regret that it must also be observed with a measure of shame—for what we have allowed to happen when we elected him not once, but twice, knowing full well the damage he brings wherever he goes and in whatever he does.