Trump isn’t the first recent defeated president to leave office, but he is the first to reject the legitimacy of his loss and to threaten vengeance while attacking not just his enemies but his supporters.
Perhaps the drummers who are trying to gin up a decent turnout for Donald Trump’s departure on his voyage to Florida on Air Force One will succeed, but at this point the “sendoff” is looking to be the kind of aggressively avoided public event normally associated with the reopening of a salad bar after an E. coli outbreak. Truth be told, presidential farewells often occur under some sort of a cloud. Looking at the 16 presidents who held office in the century before Trump, three (Harding, Roosevelt, and Kennedy) died in office. One (Nixon) was forced to resign. Four (Hoover, Ford, Carter, and George H.W. Bush) had just been defeated for reelection. Two others (Truman and Johnson) had been denied renomination after a primary setback. One (Clinton) had recently been impeached. Reagan and George W. Bush had late-second-term swoons in popularity and effectiveness. Eisenhower and Obama had the bittersweet experience of turning over the White House to the opposing party. Calvin Coolidge probably had the most fortunate farewell, leaving office on his own terms in March 1929 before he could bear the crushing burden of the Great Depression that October. But Trump’s defenestration is being accompanied not only by thrilled celebrations among his enemies (including the solid majorities of the public who “disapprove strongly” of his presidential job performance as he exits), but private and sometimes public relief among his supporters and allies. For everyone at Joint Base Andrews who will wave good-bye with a heartfelt pang of regret, there will be several thinking “good riddance” or “don’t hurry back” and some waving with a middle finger. It’s useful to examine why Trump’s departure will be the least regretted ever. The very definition of “graceful loser” requires admitting defeat, accepting responsibility for it, and acknowledging the legitimacy of the winner’s victory. Trump famously did not do any of these things. It’s telling that one of the men with whom Trump is vying for the mantle of “worst president ever,” Richard Nixon, lost in 1960 by an eyelash, and despite legitimate reasons to believe he was counted out in Illinois, chose not to contest John Kennedy’s election. For the fifth time in American history, citizens were denied the catharsis of a resolved presidential election for weeks and months after Election Day.
