I guess it’s a bit arrogant to think of your own life as a history, but, well, there it is. Maybe it helps that the narrative is largely a process of bouncing off other people, of what they taught me or the mysteries they left.
This is started the day before Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. — -“Joe” to most folks — will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. The country survived the 45th, but I’m not the only one who thought that issue was in doubt several times. The outgoing president was so fond of being an autocrat he tried to make the wish the father of the fact. I’m fairly certain that the new POTUS will not be asking anyone to refer to him as “The Joe.”
The Donald is scheduled to leave tomorrow but I expect he has left tonight. One reason is that he does not plan to attend the inauguration, apparently considering himself still POTUS, with four more years to get the Constitution amended to allow life terms. He also skipped the tradition of the outgoing president giving the incoming president a tour of the White House, a snub First Lady Melania Trump also delivered to Dr. Jill Biden. As snubs go, this one is completely symbolic, since the Bidens have been guests of the Obamas many times while Joe was vice president — they can find the restrooms without a guide or a map.
I’m writing this the morning of the inauguration, and I see I was wrong. Mr. Trump did resist the lures of Mar-a-Lago long enough to deliver a speech to compete directly with Biden’s inaugural address. Trump’s remarks were expected to be longer than he normally speaks, but I’ve seen nary a word reported yet.
Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough observed on his daily show how easy it would be and how good for the country it would be if President Donald John Trump awoke from his last night in the White House (maybe he will sleep with his Twitter account frozen), walked across the street to Blair House, and shook hands with Joe Biden, who is going to need all the help he can get.
Do you expect that gesture or any other that attempts comparison with George Herbert Walker Bush’s famous letter to Bill Clinton? Me either. More likely, we’ll hear another whine that Biden is a pretender to the Trumpian throne. Mr. Trump has spent four years ignoring the national interest, so his last day in office is probably too late for the epiphany that the election was for the nation and not for any individual.
The other reason that possibly motivates Mr. Trump to decamp the White House without seeing Biden is that last night there was a ceremonial remembrance of the 400,000 Americans sent to early graves by COVID 19. A custom the Trump administration discarded along with the pre-inaugural White House tour is the president’s role as Mourner-in-Chief.
Tragedy sometimes strikes on a scale that appears to be too much for one person, one family, one clan, one tribe, one nation. History nerds think of FDR speaking after Pearl Harbor or any number of instances when Barack Obama traveled to console the survivors of mass shootings. George W. Bush was never noted for extemporaneous eloquence, but he knew it was his job to visit the ruins of the Twin Towers that fell on September 11, 2001, and when confronted by television cameras while scampering over the ruins, he picked up a bullhorn and delivered a message of defiance that was exactly what people needed to hear from a leader at that moment.
When people hear that a leader feels what they feel in a moment of great distress, the leader’s words form a bond that will be hard to break. The time President Obama ran out of words and broke into “Amazing Grace” will live forever.
COVID 19 is not the only disaster to which President Trump had trouble finding an authentic response. Any time something bad happens in Puerto Rico, I can’t help thinking,
Well, I guess they have plenty of paper towels, each roll blessed by the touch of the POTUS.
Unable or unwilling to share the nation’s feelings, Trump has joined a tiny few of other one-term wonders: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and Andrew Johnson — all of whom failed to observe the traditional niceties with their successors. Excepting John Adams, because nothing was yet traditional about handing off the presidency. It’s not exactly an honor roll on which Mr. Trump inscribed his name.
The nation appears to have survived Trump, although he leaves several ticking bombs for Mr. Biden to defuse. It’s reasonable to take a deep breath and thank whatever Power guides us that we will not wake up one morning to discover the White House was destroyed in an accident that occurred when the POTUS was freebasing bullshit.
Instead, we can hope we’ve seen the end of post-truth politics.
Science will be more than a discarded fashion statement and scientific tools will be deployed against the menace of COVID 19 and the even greater menace of climate change.
The U.S. might regain a leadership role in the struggle between democracy and autocracy, starting with calls to Ottawa and Mexico City attempting to repair historical friendships and continuing with a letter to President Vladimir Putin expressing concern about the fate of Alexi Navalny.
I’m an elderly man trying to predict how another elderly man, Joe Biden, will recover from the damage inflicted by still another elderly man, Donald J. Trump.
It’s past time to pass the torch of leadership in this country.
I find myself remembering my dear friend John Henry Faulk, the entertainer whose lawsuit broke the blacklist of the fifties. John Henry was in the habit of calling grown men “honey.” I did a double-take the first time.
I am reminded this morning that he was not a lawyer, but he was one of the few persons I know who committed the Constitution’s Preamble to memory. He would be appalled by the Trump administration, and he would be thinking of what Mr. Trump did to offend each clause:
We the people of the United States,
Trump had a very limited view of who should be included as “people of the United States.”
in order to form a more perfect union,
Trumpian politics thrived on division.
establish justice,
Enough “Trump judges” to outvote treasonous “Democrat judges.”
insure domestic tranquility,
After the mob takes the Capitol…
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provide for the common defense,
Against the smoldering remains of NATO?
promote the general welfare,
Did you like his proposal to replace Obamacare? Cheaper. More people covered for less money. Pre-existing conditions treated by the Healthcare Fairy. The plan never got a vote in the House or the Senate…Trump didn’t know he had to introduce a bill to get a vote…
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,
(“Of course my posterior enjoys liberty,” quoth The Donald, “but your ass is your problem.”)
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The document that follows the Preamble was ratified in 1788. It creates a republic, governed by democratic procedures as the meaning of “we, the people” has continued to expand. The blood spilled at Lexington and Concord was still wet on the ground when this grand experiment began. Our democracy must have seemed fragile when it needed defense by French naval cannon backing up the New England farmers.
We were able to return the favor done us by the French people.
Perhaps, after all these years, we acquired an exaggerated sense of our own puissance. If so, let us all thank Donald John Trump for reminding us
Democracy IS fragile.
We can keep it only if we believe we can and if we understand that democracy means we do not always win.
Mr. Trump has mounted a serious challenge to the quaint idea that an incumbent who loses an election is obligated to clean out his desk and go home — after offering his congratulations and any aid the new officeholder may require. It is not entirely clear that the challenge is over but, thanks to Mr. Trump, the wake-up call has been delivered.
Joe Biden is a decent man who does not have to fake empathy and who has worked helping run the government Trump was unable to run all his life. Still, Joe Biden cannot preserve our fragile democracy.
We shall all do it together or it will not be done.
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Previously Published on Medium
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