The spirit of the founders is still alive after 250 years

The Delaware of Destiny, or: How Two Men Crossed Rivers (One Frozen, One Full of Alligators on bath salts) and Lived to Appoint the Next Generation of Troublemakers

There is a particular flavor of courage that history reserves for the men who look at a map, notice that the enemy has all the good real estate, and decide the map is wrong. George Washington had it in spades. So does Donald Trump. The difference is mostly wardrobe and the fact that one of them crossed an actual river while the other crossed several indictments, a couple of assassination attempts, and the entire Globalist/UK establishment.

Washington’s moment of theatrical bravery is taught to schoolchildren with fife-and-drum accompaniment: the night crossing of the Delaware, Christmas 1776, Hessian mercenaries snoring off their holiday goose while American troops arrived with wet powder and worse tempers. What gets less emphasis is the part that actually demonstrated genius. Earlier that same year, in the Battle of New York—really the Battle of Long Island and the subsequent evacuation—Washington stared at an impossible situation, realized the British were about to bag his entire army, and performed the 18th-century equivalent of ghosting. Under cover of fog and a convenient wind shift, he slipped 9,000 men across the East River in the dead of night without losing a single one to capture. That is not the courage of the last stand. That is the courage of the man who understands that living to fight on better terms is the entire point of having an army.

Trump’s version arrived in the summer of 2024, though the river in question was made of entrenched power structures demanding compliance with their plans. Choosing J.D. Vance was not the safe, establishment-approved move. It was the political equivalent of loading the boats at midnight while the Hessians were still digesting. The response was immediate and kinetic: an assassination attempt that grazed an ear and proved, among other things, that the Secret Service can also be compromised. Washington at least had the advantage of fighting an enemy that mostly observed the rules of 18th-century warfare. Trump’s opponents have demonstrated how an unseen hand can exist under the visible political appearances. Then came the cabinet. Washington eventually learned that surrounding yourself with men who had actually fought in the war, rather than drawing-room theorists, produced better results. Trump reached the same conclusion roughly 248 years later. Pete Hegseth at Defense, Tulsi Gabbard at National Intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services, Marco Rubio at State—these were not gestures toward party unity. They were declarations that the old maps no longer applied, and that the hunted would now become the hunters. Washington’s critics called him a backwoods surveyor who would never understand European diplomacy. Trump’s critics called his choices “unvetted.” Both complaints missed the same point: the people who had been vetted by the previous regime had produced the very problems the new regime was elected to solve.

The territorial wars are where the comparison gets properly undignified. Washington spent years fighting Native American confederacies that understandably objected to being told their land was now part of someone else’s “manifest destiny.” The fighting was ugly, the treaties were frequently broken, and the strategic objective was always the same: control of the ground. This military experience provided the foundations of Washington's ability to lead the revolutionary army. Trump’s version played out in the zoning boards, union halls, and concrete suppliers of New York City. The “natives” in that particular conflict included both the traditional organized-crime families who treated construction like a protected racket and the elected officials who treated permits like a retirement plan. Trump did not arrive with muskets. He arrived with lawyers, branding, and a willingness to sue everyone simultaneously. These legal battles gave Trump the experience and insight that would enable him to recognize and dismantle the criminal groups in the federal government. One man built a nation, the other man rescued that same nation.

The Epstein matter sits in the same category of calculated risk that Washington would have recognized. While previous administrations had treated the financier’s island as a kind of off-the-books diplomatic reception area for the powerful and compromised, Trump’s Justice Department executed the arrest that finally ended the operation. The subsequent handling of the files had the practical effect of a shield of protection to anyone in Trump’s immediate orbit, while also enabling a shift in the power structure controlled by bribery and blackmail. It was not subtle. It was not polite. It was the political version of burning the enemy’s supply depot before they could use it against you. Washington burned New York rather than let the British have it intact. Different century, same logic.

What both men shared, beyond the obvious appetite for risk, was the rarer talent of knowing when the current battle was already lost and the only remaining victory option was survival until the next one. Washington’s retreats were not defeats; they were re-positionings. In the same way, Trump’s seeming defeat in 2020 was used as an opportunity to slip away and plan a final victory over the establishment interests, including the building of a support base in the technology, energy, manufacturing and banking businesses; a plan for sharp reductions in both government regulations, employees, agencies and cabinets; an end to forever wars; ending the fraudulent political funding and control mechanisms spread within the nation and across the world by USAID and a wide range of NGOs; a re-implementation of the Monroe doctrine, while securing additional territory and direct influence for the US in Greenland, Cuba, Venezuela, and possibly Alberta; building a dominant position in space, on the moon, and on Mars; separating the United States from the control by the 'rules-based' order of Europe and the UK; re-implementation of the American System of economics following the original implementation by Alexander Hamilton under President Washington; breaking the criminal connection of pharmaceutical companies to US health agencies that has undermined the health of Americans; and the creation of a unified team that can carry this vision forward in future years.

So here we are, two hundred and forty-odd years after one man crossed an ice-choked river to save a revolution, watching another man cross a political minefield while carrying the same basic instruction set: take the daring shot when the odds are terrible, withdraw before the trap closes, and never let the people who already own the map tell you where the borders are allowed to be. Washington did it in a powdered wig. Trump does it in a red hat. The essential maneuver remains unchanged. The river is still cold. The enemy is still surprised when you actually show up. And the people who thought they had already won are still trying to figure out how the boats got across in the first place.