A ship that arrived in Dover, England, on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 22, 1793, brought some bloody news from France.

The Wednesday edition of the London Evening Mail told the story in detail. It carried a simple headline: "Execution of Louis XVI."

Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is pushing back against the state’s proposed changes to their Standards of Learning, or SOL, which included, among other things, no longer referring to George Washington as the “Father of our Country” and James Madison as the “Father of the Constitution.”

While it’s easy to consider President George Washington as a Founding Father from long ago, his political milieu of the 1700s had at least one thing in common with today: People used misinformation to try to gain political advantage.

And, yes, even George Washington was a target. 

Forged letters from before his presidency claimed to show that Washington privately sympathized with the British monarchy and thought the American cause was doomed.  The very idea that the first president didn’t ardently support the new nation was scandalous.

Donald Trump claims to be “the greatest president in the history of our country,” better than Lincoln or Washington, and Republicans seem to agree. And yet, one of the most important foundational texts in U.S. history, written by one of those “lesser presidents,” warned about figures like Trump and the danger they pose to the United States.

The Virginia church that George Washington attended for two decades plans to tear out a memorial to the nation’s first president because the plaque could make some worshipers feel “unsafe or unwelcome.”

What would our first president think of our 45th? George Washington would be horrified by Donald J. Trump’s claim that there were “fine people” among those who rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, with neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white nationalists, and that they were morally equivalent to those who protested the event.

Another much needed lesson in American history for our liberal friends.