Warnings to us from the father of our country.
Being a historical documentarian, seeing what American is going through now is pure torture. Most everything we are experiencing or have experienced has happened to us before and yet we never seem to learn from it. Did you know that foreign entities actually tried to help get Thomas Jefferson elected!!! Perhaps we can find solace in these actual sections from George Washington’s Farewell Address to the Nation at the end of his second term of office published September 19, 1796. Note the spelling is of the time and not mistakes.
"...As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great & powerful Nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter...
...Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens,), the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real Patriots, who may resist the intriegues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause & confidence of the people, to surrender their interests...
…'tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another--that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character--that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. 'Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard...
...In offering to you, my Countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression, I could wish--that they will controul the usual current of the passions, or prevent our Nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the Destiny of Nations: But if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now & then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign Intriegue, to guard against the Impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be a full recompence for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated..."
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― S?ren Kierkegaard