Benjamin Franklin | Bob Schwartz

March 31, 2026

Trump is a Quaker. Why is he instigating so much global damage and death?

Above is the Penn Quaker mascot. That isn’t Trump in that costume, though we don’t know what other cosplay he dabbles in. You can tell it isn’t him because however silly this costume is, that Quaker is in good shape.

Trump brags about his successful student career at the Wharton School, claiming to have finished first in his class, though the University of Pennsylvania will neither confirm nor deny anything about his time there. What we know is that he arrived at Penn for his junior year, after two undistinguished years at Fordham, and is remembered for not being engaged in class and leaving for New York every weekend.

He is, however, a Quaker, as in the nickname for Penn students. William Penn was famously a Quaker, while Benjamin Franklin, credited as founder of the university, was famously not. The curious thing is that Trump loves Ben Franklin, recently putting up a statue of him in the former Rose Garden, probably because it is supposed to remind us that he is a stellar Penn grad (“the best student ever at Wharton”) and because Franklin is pictured on the $100 bill. However, Trump never mentions that he is a Quaker, perhaps because he doesn’t actually know that is the Penn nickname or because he really, really doesn’t like oatmeal. Or peace.

November 7, 2018

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Possibly the most famous and prophetic quote from the American Constitutional Convention is attributed to Benjamin Franklin. America was not just a new nation; it was a new kind of nation, so naturally people wondered just what kind of a nation it was to be:

As Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, on September 18, 1787, a certain Mrs. Powel shouted out to him: “Well, doctor, what have we got?,” and Franklin responded: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

America has voted, there will be a Democratic-led House, and it appears that the Republic, which has been under serious internal siege for the past two years, is a little closer to again being kept.

It is just one step toward having an effective check on a leader and a ruling party intent on subverting virtually all of the principles that Franklin and friends embodied in the new nation. But a step in the right direction it is.

Franklin and friends are cautiously relieved. They, more than any, know how hard this is. So they are smiling a little. And so are many Americans.

September 7, 2018

Ben Franklin: My University of Pennsylvania Should Revoke Trump’s Diploma

“By the way this idiot Woodward who wrote this book which is all fiction said that I said something like that, but he put it in a crude manner…The concept is true, but the way it was said was very…hey, I went, like, to the best college.”
Trump at a North Dakota rally

Trump self-importantly crows about his degree from Wharton (like all the time), the business school of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Trump’s point is that he must be, like, a genius with that Penn degree. Penn, is, like, a very good school that continues to provide its students with an excellent education. Though in some small number of high-profile cases, it appears to be casting pearls before swine.

The bigger point is Ben Franklin, credited as founder of the university. Above is a photo of the Ben Franklin statue at the center of campus, in front of College Hall.

Penn has tried to walk a fine line in its relationship with Trump, and with other members of his family who have attended Penn. Just as the sins of the father should not be visited on children, the sins of the alumnus should not be visited on a college. Penn did the best it could, given what it had to work with.

Ben Franklin is having none of it. Among our American founders, he is the most famous for not suffering fools. That’s why he is asking the University of Pennsylvania—his University of Pennsylvania—to revoke Trump’s diploma. That won’t stop Trump from continuing to say he went, like, to the best college, but it will give the best college a way to say: thanks for the compliment and PR, but no thanks. And it will give Ben Franklin a way to stop spinning in his grave, just a few blocks from Independence Hall. Because this is not what he envisioned for the first-ever Penn grad in the White House. Not, like, at all.