Heather Cox Richardson used her newsletter on this year’s Flag Day to remind us all just how tenuous was the Continental Army’s 1783 victory over the larger and more established British forces. Her comments on General George Washington’s leadership bring up another momentous and improbable triumph which was crucial to our nation’s founding: Washington’s choice a few months later to voluntarily resign his leadership of the army and with it the near-certain opportunity to have reigned as autocrat over the territories he had done so much to free from Kingly rule. 

By that act of humility and principle, he granted the newly-ex colonies critical time to mature into what the USA has been – imperfectly but earnestly – until very recently: a nation of the people, governed for the people by the people’s chosen representatives.

Many watching today fear we shall not see such a transition to representative rule when the current administration’s tenure ends in January 2029.  A man who has deceptively denied the results of one election and appeared to encourage his followers attempt to overthrow its result, who seems to regularly ignore the rule of law and aggrandizes his own birthday through a grotesquerie of brutality, defacing a landmark of which he is at most temporary steward, is unlikely to accept even the clearest electoral defeat with graciousness, humility or respect for tradition, law and Constitution. 

Such a man cannot be trusted to follow in the footsteps of one like General – later, President – George Washington. 

E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which a President’s determination to hold onto power might play out and just how extensive the resulting damage might be.  The novel was written and is offered as a cautionary tale, while there is still time to avoid anything like the events it imagines. 

To those ends, E Unum Pluribus is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the page’s top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/