Trump Goes Unnamed as Bush, Obama and Clinton Turn Presidential History Into a Warning About Power
Three former presidents have entered America’s heated conversation about power and democracy without directly mentioning the man now occupying the White House.
George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are among the contributors to In Pursuit, a national history project marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Each writer examines a former president, using the past to explore leadership, character and civic responsibility.
President Donald Trump is not the subject of any essay. He is not named in the former presidents’ contributions, either.
Still, their reflections arrive at a moment when arguments over presidential authority, constitutional limits and loyalty to public institutions have become central to American politics. That timing gives the history project an unmistakable present-day weight, even as its organizers insist it was designed to rise above partisan conflict.
Bush finds strength in surrendering power
Bush opens the series with an essay about George Washington, the first president and the man who established standards that his successors would inherit.
His focus is not Washington’s battlefield victories or political dominance. It is Washington’s willingness to walk away.
Washington surrendered his military command after the Revolutionary War instead of using his popularity to seize greater authority. He later left the presidency after two terms, creating a tradition that remained voluntary until the 22nd Amendment made the limit part of the Constitution.
“Our first president could have remained all powerful, but twice he chose not to,” Bush writes in his essay for In Pursuit.
For Bush, Washington’s restraint was not weakness. It was the act that made his leadership more durable.
The lesson carries particular force after Trump refused to concede the 2020 presidential election and sought to overturn its outcome. Trump has also repeatedly raised the possibility of serving beyond the Constitution’s two-term limit, though such a move would conflict with the 22nd Amendment.
Bush does not make that comparison himself. The parallel comes from reading his argument in the political climate in which it was published.
His deeper point is institutional: the presidency must remain larger than the ambitions of the person holding it.
Obama returns to Lincoln’s unfinished work
Obama chose Abraham Lincoln, another president whose legacy is inseparable from a national crisis.
Rather than treating Lincoln as a flawless monument, Obama presents him as a leader forced to confront the country’s deepest contradiction. A nation founded on liberty had tolerated slavery, and preserving the Union ultimately required Americans to redefine what that Union meant.
Obama’s essay focuses on shared sacrifice and the long struggle to make the country’s promises real. He argues that national progress depends on citizens accepting responsibility for one another, especially when division makes common purpose difficult.
“It is precisely when the climb is steepest that we relearn how to take the mountaintop,” Obama writes in his reflection on Lincoln.
The essay does not offer an easy tale of national triumph. Lincoln preserved the Union and advanced emancipation, but the work of equality remained unfinished after his assassination.
That incompleteness is central to the project. History is not presented as a collection of perfect leaders. It is treated as a record of choices, failures and consequences that Americans must continue examining.
Clinton examines who belongs within “We the People”
Clinton’s contribution focuses on Theodore Roosevelt, whose presidency challenged powerful corporate interests and expanded the federal government’s role in protecting workers and consumers.
Roosevelt built a reputation as a champion of the “Square Deal,” but his record also contained serious racial and cultural exclusions. Clinton confronts that contradiction rather than polishing it away.
His essay asks readers to consider who has been included in America’s definition of “We the People” and who has been left outside it.
“The question is not whether we will fall short. We will,” Clinton writes in his essay on Theodore Roosevelt.
Clinton concludes that citizens are not passive observers of the national story. Their actions help determine who receives recognition, protection and political power.
That argument gives the essay a human dimension. Presidential decisions may begin in Washington, but their consequences reach workplaces, schools, voting booths and family budgets across the country.
A fired archivist is now curating the national memory
The project is led by Colleen Shogan, who became the first woman to serve as archivist of the United States after her Senate confirmation in 2023.
Trump dismissed Shogan in February 2025. She told The Associated Press that she was not informed. The White House did not respond to the AP’s questions about the reason for her removal.
The National Archives preserves federal records, founding documents and materials produced by presidential administrations. That responsibility places the archivist at the center of decisions about what the government saves and how Americans encounter their history.
Shogan now leads In Pursuit as its chief executive. She asked contributors to avoid partisan or ideological essays and to produce work that Americans across political lines could approach.
The project’s mission, according to its official website, is to draw practical lessons from 250 years of American history and use them to strengthen civic life.
That ambition becomes more striking because the project is being guided by someone removed from the government institution responsible for safeguarding the nation’s records.
Grant’s example raises the question of loyalty
Some of the series’ sharpest commentary comes from retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who examines fellow general and former President Ulysses S. Grant.
McChrystal emphasizes Grant’s resistance to demands that military leaders put personal or factional loyalty ahead of constitutional responsibility.
“Our future still depends on whether our leaders choose law over loyalty,” McChrystal writes.
Again, the essay does not name Trump. Yet the line lands in a political environment where personal loyalty has become a recurring test for administration officials and Republican candidates.
Grant’s presidency was scarred by scandals involving people around him. But McChrystal’s essay focuses on a principle that reaches beyond any administration: public officials swear allegiance to the Constitution, not to an individual leader.
Trump and Biden are left outside the frame
The project covers 43 presidents and 30 first ladies. Essays are being released each week chronologically through December.
Trump and former President Joe Biden were excluded because organizers considered their presidencies too recent for historical assessment. That choice avoids turning the series into a direct judgment on either man.
It does not, however, prevent readers from finding modern parallels.
The contributors include Chief Justice John Roberts writing about William Howard Taft, Michelle Obama examining Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton reflecting on Eleanor Roosevelt. Historians, journalists, filmmakers and political figures also participate.
The initiative is organized by More Perfect, a nonpartisan alliance involving presidential centers, scholars and civic organizations.
According to the AP, the essays had received more than 1 million cumulative Substack views at the time of its report. A related podcast had recorded 160,000 audio downloads and nearly 64,000 YouTube views. PBS has announced that a documentary based on the project will premiere on October 27, 2026.
History speaks most clearly when leaders do not
The unusual power of In Pursuit lies in what its contributors leave unsaid.
Bush does not need to name a current president to explain why surrendering power matters. Obama does not need to identify a modern political movement to warn that a divided country still carries shared obligations. Clinton does not need to point at a contemporary policy fight to ask who counts when America says, “We the People.”
These are not coded endorsements or campaign speeches. They are historical arguments whose relevance depends partly on the reader.
That may be why the project has found an audience. At a time when nearly every discussion of the presidency becomes a partisan contest, In Pursuit asks Americans to step back and examine the standards by which all presidents should be measured.
The essays leave readers with a question that reaches beyond Trump, Biden or the next election: When power is available, will America’s leaders know when to use it, when to limit it and when to let it go?
