George Clooney this week praised Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 election as ‘the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington’. We heard this idea echoing throughout Democratic circles even before Biden stood down in late July – that he was nobly standing aside, in the manner of America’s first president, relinquishing power to save democracy for the greater good. Step forward the 21st century answer to John Adams: Kamala Harris.
It’s all such obvious rubbish. George Washington wanted to retire (for the third time) to Mount Vernon after his first term but was persuaded to run again in 1792 by Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and others. In 1796, he published his Farewell Address, which spelled out that he would not stand for a third term and urged Americans to put aside political differences for the sake of the Republic (not democracy, per se). Washington finally left office aged 65 in 1797.
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