Believe it or not, Washington's Farewell Address wasn't televised like Ike's was; it was distributed to all Americans via Twitter.

Just kidding: Washington didn't have a Twitter account because he didn't have any children to set it up for him.

So he decided to deliver it in the form of a letter, published in newspapers and pamphlets across the country in 1796. The parallels between the two Addresses are striking.

For example, Washington also warned his readers to watch out for individuals or special interests having too much influence on public policy and the government taking on too much debt for future generations to pay back. He also used the colonial mythology of America, which was surprisingly similar to the mythology of WWII-era America. Some ideals never change.

Of course, there are plenty of differences. For one, Washington's letter is long and wordy, as was the style back then. By comparison, Ike's is refreshingly concise. Then there's the fact that Ike was concerned about the unfathomable sums of money and enormous corporations that could influence public policy, while Washington was concerned with such basic things as political parties, which he felt could lead to dangerous partisanship and divisiveness.

Thankfully, Washington was wrong about political parties: Democrats and Republicans love each other, and Congress as a whole is more popular than Taylor Swift and Beyoncé combined.