Pakistan, July 16 -- This year, as the United States marks 250 years of independence, it is natural to look back and measure the America of 1776 against the country today. So much has changed: morals and politics, economics and demography, fashion and cuisine, literature and the arts. The presidency itself has run through forty-six occupants; forty-five white men and a Barack Obama. Which raises a question: have presidents changed as much as everything else over two and a half centuries? How does the current occupant of the office compare to the very first one?

Few pairings could be more different than George Washington and Donald Trump. Washington was discreet, reserved, and courteous. He avoided show, ostentation, and self-promotion of...