Donald Trump’s Washington reaches a new partisan peak
His address to Congress showed that Republicans will follow their leader anywhere, and that Democrats don’t have one
“The next president of the United States will only be the president of a party,” Thomas Jefferson predicted as George Washington, with his singular stature, ceded the office. In the modern era, that cramped vision of the presidency has never been more starkly on display than it was on March 4th, when Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time in his second term. At least within the chamber that evening, he was the president of worshipful Republicans, and the scowling, leaderless Democrats seemed relevant only as his foil, or chew toy.
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Bigger than Washington”
United States
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From the March 8th 2025 edition
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