Remembering the Real Presidents of Presidents’ Day

The legacy of the presidents for whom this day exists has proven problematic for our current one

For most Americans, Presidents’ Day is little more than a mid-winter sales bonanza, a chance to buy discounted appliances with long names, like the GE Profile™ Opal™ Nugget Ice Maker + Side Tank, or the bObsweep Dustin Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum and Mop with 100-Day Dock.

Like so many of our holidays, it’s become commercialized. Today, it’s about products more than presidents; about Lincoln Continentals more than Lincoln.

That’s a shame, for we should seize every chance we get to reflect on our history, especially at a time when so many traditions are being fed into the woodchipper.

The holiday has always been a little vague—ever since it came into existence. In 1968, Congress decreed that Washington’s birthday (February 22) would be celebrated on the third Monday of the month. That gave Americans a three-day weekend, beginning in 1971, but it also meant that it never falls on the right day. Confusion deepened when many (but not all) states opted to call it “Presidents’ Day” to honor Lincoln as well, although it can never fall on his birthday (February 12) either. This year, the day falls on February 17, the birthday of Michael Jordan and Paris Hilton.

If Lincoln will be relatively absent this year, that fits the moment, at a time when the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, is renaming US military bases after Confederates (notably, he changed the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, however claimed that he was doing so to honor a WWII soldier named Roland Bragg, rather than Confederate Southern Gen. Braxton Bragg) and canceling the Pentagon’s recognition of February as Black History Month.

That is only a sampling of many ways in which American history is being resurfaced (not unlike the White House Rose Garden, which may be macadamized. A paradox of the four-week-old Trump Administration is that it is already hectoring Americans to “provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026,” while displaying little awareness of the Declaration, or the Civil War that was fought to defend it, or the Civil Rights movement that deepened it.

It’s as if we are being taught by a Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum and Mop.

Exhibit A might be the inaugural address, which departed from precedent in countless ways. Let’s be honest: inaugural addresses are never as good as we want them to be, with their swollen bombast and unfulfillable promises. But they do serve a useful function, allowing a new president to reflect on where we are in America’s journey, and to express a few thoughts that are mildly historical.

Traditionally, that has included an acknowledgement of previous presidents – particularly the one who has just left the stage. It is a tradition going back to John Adams, who required nearly two paragraphs to thank George Washington in 1797. The tradition was on display through gracious remarks from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter in 1981, from Bill Clinton to George H.W. Bush in 1993, and from Barack Obama to George W. Bush in 2009. It is a way for the presidents to talk to each other, and to pay respect to the millions of Americans, from both parties, hanging on every syllable.

That tradition does not include Donald Trump. He did not thank Barack Obama in 2017, nor did he thank Joe Biden in 2025. To be sure, Joe Biden did not thank Donald Trump in 2021, either, but Donald Trump was not there to be thanked—he had skipped out on the inauguration, breaking another tradition.

Trump did talk about history in his recent address. He claimed to “have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history,” as if the Civil War and the world wars never happened. He also mentioned two presidents, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, whom he clearly admires. But in each case, his journey into American history was short-lived, transactional, and wrong.

With McKinley, he promised to restore the name of the mountain in Alaska that was once named after him (despite the fact that Alaskans overwhelmingly reject the move), and praised him for being “a natural businessman” who made our country “very rich.” While the U.S. was certainly wealthy, McKinley was a small-town lawyer who owned modest commercial properties in Canton, Ohio–a town of 8860 in 1870, when he was beginning his career. This is hardly the stuff of Gilded Age fortunes. In fact, it was McKinley’s normality, not his wealth, that led to his political success. In 1896, he famously ran for president from his front porch–a porch that that Americans could relate to.

Trump’s historical excursion continued when he said McKinley “gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal,” adding that 38,000 American lives were lost to build the canal.

Roosevelt became president after McKinley’s assassination–no one “gave” him money–and most of the people who died during the digging of the canal were laborers from the West Indies (roughly 20,000 died during an earlier French attempt, then about 5,600 more during the American phase). The number of Americans who died was around 300 – or a little below 1% of Trump’s claim.

Unlike Trump, both McKinley and Roosevelt acknowledged the founding fathers in their inaugural addresses, and Lincoln was noted for being important to them as well. McKinley had fought in the war to end slavery, and Roosevelt wore a special ring to his inauguration, with a strand of Lincoln’s hair inside. That sent a message to all Americans that Lincoln’s core values lived on.

But Lincoln has never been easy for Donald Trump. The likeness of our 16^th president towered over the 45^th during a televised town hall in April 2020, at the foot of Lincoln’s statue, inside the Lincoln Memorial (in a space that expressly forbids political events). Later, it was reported that the pink marble floor had sustained scratches and gouges.

But Lincoln towers in other ways–his unmatched eloquence, his capacity for forgiveness, and the simple fact of his success in rebuilding a better country, appealing to our better angels. That success came at great cost, but for the right reasons. Meanwhile, Trump has gone out of his way to wonder why Lincoln couldn’t reach a “deal” to avoid the Civil War, repeating Confederate arguments that the war was somehow Lincoln’s fault.

The other primary president honored on Presidents’ Day also presents problems for our incumbent. George Washington has come down a peg in recent decades, because of his ties to slavery, but he remains essential to any understanding of the presidency. That includes both the powers of the office and the limits on that power, carefully embedded in the Constitution, which Washington endorsed in his every act (including presiding over the drafting of the document). Perhaps his greatest act of leadership was his decision to step down after two terms, understanding that a graceful departure would set a meaningful precedent. In these ways, small and large, the presidents continue to talk to each other—and to us.

Ted Widmer is the author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington. He recently wrote the introduction to My Fellow Americans, a book about the inaugural addresses, published by Oxford University Press.