Today Donald Trump placed his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible to swear into the office of the Presidency of the United States of America. The hands he uses to “grab [women] by the p***y.” The hands he uses to tap out angry tweets at three a.m. The hands he uses to barge into Miss America dressing rooms. On the Bible of the man who freed the slaves.

This isn’t an issue of American policy. This is an issue of American integrity.

The presidency is a seat held by some of the greatest men in history. It’s a seat of power and honor. The President of the United States does not simply lead America, they lead the world’s leading superpower, the progressor of democracy, the Western nations. It is a seat sacred not only to America but to the idea of government as a whole.

American presidents pioneered modern Republican democracy. They wrote the Constitution. Under their leadership, we have conquered wars, liberated the oppressed. We landed on the moon. We tore down walls. We legalized love.

Presidents have failed, as well. Andrew Jackson eradicated the Native Americans. Andrew Johnson was horrifically corrupt and had no regard for the Constitution. James Buchanan’s mismanagement led pretty directly to the Civil War.

But there was still always respect for the office. That, the structure of government and American resilience have powered our nation through.

I’m not worried about our future.

I’m worried about our dignity.

I get the appeal of Trump. The middle class is frustrated, and the “common man” rhetoric is appealing. It’s what won Jackson his election. But then again, Jackson abused the Constitution more than any other president in history (including Obama. Sit down, Newt Gingrich. Nobody asked.)

And presidents have been crass before. Like, Lyndon B. Johnson happened. I get that.

But no president has been so publicly ridiculous. We would get written up at school for saying the things Trump has said. I would be ejected from my position of newspaper editor if I tweeted like him. It’s absurd that I hold my social media account to a higher standard than the President of the United States of America does.

The office of the POTUS is intended for greatness, and I dearly hope that the path of the office will not be curved by the sexist roadblock that is Donald Trump. Hopefully he will not set precedent for the quality of the men and women who will follow him as president. And hey, maybe he’ll surprise us. I hope he proves me wrong and remembers his inaugural promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The American people deserve dignity, and as does our history. The seat held by George Washington, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, JFK, and 38 other great men deserves it. The fact that might be infringed upon is a heavy weight that will rest on today.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

-Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address