George Himself Warned Us About This 229 Years Ago

Partisanship, Polarization, and “Spirits of Revenge"

Sep 11, 2025

In his farewell address to the nation on September 19, 1796, George Washington, who served two terms as President, emphasized the importance of national unity while warning Americans of the political dangers of regionalism, partisanship, and polarization.

Washington, who famously did not want to be a partisan figure, believed that the establishment of political parties would inevitably lead to division and ruin the government. He warned that opposing factions could create a "spirit of revenge" as one party gained and lost power, leading to a "frightful despotism."

He also worried that this partisanship would open the door for foreign influence and corruption, allowing the parties 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."

And Here We Are

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated yesterday during a speech on a college campus in Utah, taken down by a single bullet from 200 yards away, suggesting the precision and accuracy of a killer well-trained with long guns and scopes.

It was a despicable and unacceptable act.

Political leaders from both sides of the aisle immediately condemned the shooting and mourned for his wife and two small children.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, himself an ardent Christian Nationalist, called for civility and a rejection of violence in political discourse. He described the assassination as “detestable," emphasizing that "this is not who we are."

Kirk was the Founder of Turning Point USA, who said of gun deaths on April 5, 2023, "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."

Worth 2,981 school shootings over the past 60 years, resulting in 855 deaths and 2,385 wounded? The horrors of Uvalde, Newtown, and Columbine? The assassinations of Lincoln, JFK, and Martin Luther King? The more than 20,000 homicides every year in America?

Charlie Kirk was a central figure in Christian Nationalism, a fascist movement seeking to replace our democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy that now has a dangerous foothold in our government.

Kirk vilified Martin Luther King, spread conspiracy theories about the pandemic, hated the word “empathy,” and denounced immigrants. He claimed that birth control made women “angry and bitter,” and that their proper role was having children, not pursuing careers.

He even funded buses to take his followers to participate in the January 6 insurrection, where numerous rioters waved Confederate flags as they chanted “Kill Mike Pence!”

In short, he was the perfect poster boy for the MAGA mindset, a deliberate purveyor of hate, prejudice, arrogance, and self-righteousness. He was exceptionally skilled at it, creating the “Turning Point” movement at the age of 18 and growing it into a major force in radical right-wing politics.

But in our democracy, these views were his right to hold. Not “God-given” rights, but rights conferred onto all of us by the First Amendment to our Constitution.

President Trump, speaking from the Oval Office last night, used this tragic incident to further fan the flames of hatred, polarization, and partisanship gripping our nation.

With the unidentified assassin still at large, Trump blamed the “radical left” for the killing and listed other attacks on conservative politicians, and vowed more vengeance.

He deliberately ignored recent attacks on liberal legislators, including the assassination of Minnesota Representative Melissa Hortman, who was shot in her home along with her husband in a targeted, politically motivated assassination in June.

George Washington warned us about this partisanship, polarization, despotism, and “spirit of revenge” 229 years ago, in which "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."