Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols held forth a few days ago to contend that Donald Trump suffers when compared to America’s first president, George Washington.

Trump favors only himself.  Washington favored the country.

Yesterday, Nichols wrote a column summarizing his conclusions.  Here, I reprint what Nichols wrote.

“I’ve been thinking about George Washington.  Or, I should say, I had a discussion some time ago with The Atlantic’seditor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, about America’s first president, which began the process that resulted in my cover story for the November issue about how Donald Trump is the kind of demagogue that Washington warned us could one day gain the presidency, abuse its powers, and refuse to relinquish office. 

“Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged.  They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the ‘spirit of revenge’ that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. 

“No man who has ever held the office is more unworthy of it than Trump — but he may hold it yet again.

“Initially, I didn’t want to write this article.  Perhaps like many other Americans, my understanding of Washington was limited to the things I’d learned in school a half century ago.  This is something of an irony, because I know a lot about Washington’s military campaigns:  I taught them as a professor at the Naval War College.  

“If you wanted an explanation of, say, the battle of Yorktown as an example of a joint and allied operation, I was your man.

“But Washington himself was, to me, something of a cipher.  (This is partly because I grew up in Massachusetts, where local revolutionaries such as John Adams were our heroes.)  And, so I studied him anew, including a visit to his home at Mount Vernon.

“As I stood in the rooms where he lived and died, I realized how human he was, with his own weaknesses and shortcomings, and how much he’d struggled with difficult decisions throughout his life while always trying to do right by his fellow citizens.  Even in his last hours, he thought of others, as he tried to reassure his grieving doctor that he was not afraid to die.

“Unlike Trump, who grasps for power to serve his own interests, Washington regarded his offices as authority entrusted to him by the American people.

“I know Atlantic readers value history and the guidance it can offer us in our daily lives as citizens.  I know, too, that these are stressful political times, when the American idea — the concepts of liberty for which Washington risked his life — are under siege.

“But I hope that you will find some inspiration, as I did, in remembering Washington, and that you can take heart from his example:  He showed us that true patriotism is not some heroic act, but a virtue we can express every day if we are guided by an innate sense of decency and a thoughtful love of country. 

“The votes cast in November will be more consequential than those in any other American election in more than a century.  As the United States confronts the choice between democracy and demagoguery, we should give thought to Washington’s example and the qualities that he possessed — ones we once expected, and should again demand, from our presidents.”

Well written, Tom Nichols.