Presidents' Day, a reminder to rethink how we judge leaders

Washington, Lincoln, Jackson, and Trump show that presidential turmoil is embedded in the fabric of the American story, and legacies can shift.

This February 16, the nation will mark Presidents’ Day, a federal holiday Americans have celebrated every third Monday of February since 1971 when Congress, rarely the source of bright ideas, merged the birthdays of the two most legendary American Presidents: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971, signed into law by President Richard Nixon, gave Americans the opportunity to enjoy newfound long weekends as several holidays, including Memorial Day as well, would in perpetuity fall on a Monday.

However, as we approach Presidents’ Day in 2026, the notion that the presidency’s current occupant, Donald Trump, has disgraced its status in a manner without precedent dissolves upon greater historical scrutiny.

Even George Washington couldn’t escape partisan rage

In truth, the partisan rage of the 2020s is hardly a novel phenomenon. Presidents as far back as George Washington found themselves the victim of it.

In 1794, following taxes levied on the distillation of alcohol to pay down the new republic’s war debts, enraged farmers plunged Western Pennsylvania into a state of full rebellion. Vigilante violence against tax collectors, through brutal tactics such as tarring and feathering, forced Washington to dispatch 13,000 federal troops to the area, and the rebels ultimately fled without a fight. The lesson here is while the Whiskey Rebellion was easily suppressed, not even the nation’s founding father could escape popular rage.

Dismantling the myth of Abraham Lincoln’s popularity  

The hatred endured by Abraham Lincoln was even worse. While the humble lawyer and great orator from Illinois now holds a near God-like status in the pantheon of American heroes, what many of you don’t know is that during his era, Abraham Lincoln was a polarizing figure. During his presidency, Lincoln was the target of multiple failed assassination plots before that fateful night at Ford’s Theater. The most spectacular of these plots was masterminded by Confederate loyalist (and future Governor of Kentucky) Luke Blackburn to deliver shirts infected with Yellow Fever to the White House and throughout union cities— explicit biological warfare long before the Wuhan Institute of Virology existed.

In 1863, after Lincoln signed the Enrollment Act, the first official military conscription law in American history, thousands of New York City workers were outraged. To members of New York’s poor and working classes, Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, was forcing them to fight a war exclusively for the rights of African Americans— men who would if freed would one day become direct competition for scarcely-available jobs.

On July 13, 1863, angry mobs, often comprising impoverished Irish immigrants loyal to the Democratic Party, unleashed their fury across the city, laying waste to entire city blocks of homes and businesses.

By the time federal troops suppressed the riots three days later, at least 119 (though likely far more) primarily African American New Yorkers had been lynched, beaten to death, and even burned alive.

While the New York City Draft Riots were by far the most horrific manifestation of anti-Lincoln sentiment, let us not forget that the Great Emancipator only won re-election in 1864 by 400,000 votes.

Time can soften opinions on divisive presidents 

Even Tennessee’s own Andrew Jackson, whose legacy in his era was tarnished by the financial Panic of 1837, among other controversies, still gazes up at us from his permanent perch on the $20 bill.

And this pattern can additionally be observed in the present day. Only last year, Gallup released a survey revealing how Americans evaluate our living former presidents. Turns out, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, while divisive and at times unpopular leaders during their tenures in the White House, now have favorability ratings higher than 50%.

Whatever your opinion of either former president, one cannot deny that both have for the most part hovered above the 24/7 news cycle and refrained from overt political attacks. Specifically, Bush has devoted his post-presidency to promoting global health, human rights, and advocacy for disabled veterans while Obama has promoted civic engagement while authoring several books and critiques of contemporary culture.

History suggests that opinions on Trump’s legacy will shift 

One also cannot deny that our incumbent President, Donald Trump, has a unique talent of driving millions of Americans into a state of quasi-madness and is viewed by this cohort as an authoritarian villain beyond redemption.

However, if even Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 with his reputation in ruins from the Watergate Scandal, eventually earned a substantial redemption in the public eye as an elder statesman and sage of foreign affairs, there is no reason that one day Donald Trump cannot achieve the same recognition.

Presidents' Day invites us to reconsider how we judge leaders

This Presidents Day, instead of hyperventilating about the 47^th President, let us recall the challenges endured by the 1^st, 16^th, 37^th, 43^rd, and 44^th Presidents and anticipate that one day Trump’s accomplishments may well be memorialized in our historical narrative.

Happy Presidents Day!