Washington must be spinning in his grave

MOUNT VERNON IS 21 miles from my home. Lately I can almost feel the tremors from the nation's general-turned-first-president spinning in his grave there.

- JACKIE CALMES COLUMNIST

MARINES stand guard outside the Wilshire Federal Building, one test of how far Trump can go in violating the Constitution.

(MARIO TAMA Getty Images)

George Washington, who set long-followed precedents by voluntarily giving up first military and then civilian power, and who built the foundation of the nation's wall between its military and partisan politics, would by all historical evidence be appalled by successor Donald Trump's escalating efforts to tear down that wall in his drive for unprecedented dominion. But Washington likely wouldn't be surprised. In fact, he warned America about the likes of Trump.

In his farewell address, Washington cautioned against political parties lest “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” subvert them to their individual ends. “Sooner or later,” he predicted, “the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Later is now.

More than two centuries on, the checks and balances that Washington’s fellow founders wrote into the Constitution to guard against a monarchical president with a standing army at his command — they'd just thrown off a king, after allare proving inadequate to the charge. But like Washington, those founders probably wouldn't be shocked by Trump and his power grabs. Instead, I'm confident, they'd weep at Congress’ and the Supreme Court's dereliction of duty in deferring to the president rather than standing up to him as coequal branches of government.