The night before John Avlon’s book Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations was scheduled to be published, Barack Obama gave his own farewell speech to the country, in which he warned the country that the “democratic ideal” might soon be under attack.

The symmetry was pure coincidence, Avlon, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, told me. But there was also a degree of synchronicity between the two. George Washington’s farewell address was a 6,000-word warning to future generations, cautioning the American people to beware fundamental threats to democracy: excessive debt, foreign interference in domestic politics, hyper-partisanship. Obama’s own address, some 220 years later, hit on many of the same themes. “Honestly the timing has worked out in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated, exactly right,” he said. “Because there are storm clouds on the horizon, and things feel deeply unsettling.” Here, in an interview with the Hive, Avlon talks about Washington’s civics, the rise of political polarization, and how the latter risks annihilating the former.

Vanity Fair: Washington’s farewell address may not have the same resonance as Lincoln’s speeches, but among political scientists, it’s one of the most scrutinized pieces of literature. What drew you to write about it now?

John Avlon: I kept bumping into it as the founding document that provided the most ballast for my political faith. I began my first book, Independent Nation, with a quote from Washington about his political independence, and I quoted the farewell; and I closed Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America with an extended riff on the farewell as Washington’s warning against hyper-partisanship. I became fascinated with this document, and I found out it had been the most famous American speech before it sort of faded. It was more widely printed than the Declaration of Independence. It really was civic scripture.

We grew up doing the Gettysburg Address—272 words. The farewell is over 6,000. But the more I got into it the more I realized that it had this amazing resonance throughout American history. I got fascinated with not just the speech as a former speechwriter, but the afterlife of the idea and the way it echoed throughout American history.

There certainly seems to be some resonance there between Washington’s appeals to civics and democratic norms, and the election of a man who doesn’t seem particularly interested in either.

I do think the timing of the book has worked out in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. Because there are storm clouds on the horizon, and things feel deeply unsettling. We’re going into uncharted territory against the rising tide of illiberal democracy around the western world. I think that’s when we can find new comfort in rediscovering first principles, when enduring values offer outsized comfort because they impose a sense of perspective, which is what history at its best does.

Ideally this is a work of applied history, something we can learn from and a frame to help guide our decisions going forward. This is a time to focus on enduring values, for the simple fact that the character of the country didn’t change on Election Day. And while we may be going into a very difficult and challenging period, now is exactly the time to focus on our foundational documents and the founding fathers’ wisdom.

If Americans elected Trump, what does that say about our own civic values, and how they’ve changed?

What’s most important to remember about Washington’s farewell as we read it, is it is a prophetic document. He wrote it as a “warning from a parting friend,” beginning that tradition of farewell warnings encapsulated by Eisenhower. Washington, Hamilton, and Madison had studied previous democratic republics, and studied how they had fallen, and Washington told us to focus on three main dangers: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, and foreign wars.