Trump’s post-election blunders illustrate the downside of allowing a defeated president to continue serving
ETHAN JOHANSON: The tumultuous few weeks leading up to President Joe Biden’s inauguration demonstrates the need to consider shortening the length of time between the presidential election and Inauguration Day.
After losing the election to Biden in early November, former President Donald Trump perpetuated baseless claims about mail-in voting and voter fraud, pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to flip the state’s certified result, and urged former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. A faction of Trump’s supporters, emboldened by his claims that Democrats stole the election from them, staged an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, resulting in the loss of five lives and the impeachment of Trump. Meanwhile, as the coronavirus pandemic raged on, Biden voiced concerns about the Trump administration’s withholding of information that could have helped the incoming president handle the public health crisis after taking office. The turbulent state of American politics following the 2020 election and the shorter periods of transition followed by most other established democracies bear the question of whether or not the United States’ 11-week separation between the election and inauguration is too long.
Until 1933, the swearing-in of a new president occurred on March 4, reflecting the slow rates of transportation and communication. After improvements to travel and communication and the efforts of Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, who argued that elected officials voted out of office were not reflective enough of the people’s will to continue serving for such a long period of time, the Constitution was amended, moving Inauguration Day to its current date of January 20.
Although the 11-week transition period seems excessive compared to England and France, where neither the British prime minister nor the French president have to wait more than two weeks before assuming their position, there are benefits to a longer time interval between the election and inauguration. Incoming presidential teams can use the nearly four-month window to build the president’s cabinet and administration, get briefed on matters of national security, and initiate the process of moving into the White House. Some attribute the Bay of Pigs invasion’s missteps to the lack of coordination between the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Despite the advantages of a longer transition period, Trump’s post-election handling of the coronavirus, incitement of an insurrection, and historical examples of lame-duck presidents— often hamstrung by their limited popularity—struggling to respond decisively to crises illustrate the merits of shortening the length of time between the election and Inauguration Day. For example, “secession winter,” during which Southern states began seceding from the Union, occurred during the transition of power between James Buchanan’s and Abraham Lincoln’s administration. While Buchanan lacked the political strength to act swiftly and decisively, Lincoln’s inauguration occurred too late for him to prevent the impending Civil War. Similarly, Herbert Hoover struggled to govern during the Great Depression in the winter of 1932-1933 when incoming President Franklin Roosevelt held the popular mandate. Some, including American legal scholar Sanford Levinson, who cites George Bush’s order that sent troops to Somalia in 1992, question the democratic validity of allowing recently defeated presidents to make consequential decisions.
Trump’s continued laissez-faire approach to combating the coronavirus pandemic illustrates another flaw of allowing an outgoing president to remain in office for several months: the people’s call for a change in leadership during a crisis involving daily life and death consequences gets delayed. While Trump continued to resist mask-wearing mandates, the U.S. death toll from coronavirus reached 400,000 on January 19, the day before Biden’s inauguration. Biden, interpreting his victory as a mandate to implement a stronger, more centralized response to the coronavirus pandemic, issued a series of orders tightening mask-wearing restrictions on federal property and updating data collection systems. Biden’s aggressive approach aligns more closely with the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly disapproved of Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis.
Instead of spending his final months in office assisting Biden’s transition to the White House in the midst of a public health crisis, Trump used the bully pulpit of the presidency to legitimize false claims about mail-in voting and voter fraud. The 11-week wait before Biden’s inauguration may have helped prevent the development of a constitutional crisis. Had Biden’s swearing-in immediately followed the election, a bitter Trump, not having had sufficient time to explore every single legal--and questionably legal--avenue to challenge the result, may not have been as willing to relinquish his office. Nevertheless, maintaining control of the presidency for several months after his defeat enabled Trump to gradually sow doubt and division among the American people about the election results, culminating in the insurrection at the Capitol.
The United States’ democratic institutions survived Trump’s power-hungry tendencies, but the 11-week wait for the new president’s inauguration delayed the necessary change in approach to combating a deadly public health crisis. Handling ongoing crises and preserving democratic institutions in the future might depend on hastening the installment of newly elected presidents.
Ethan Johanson is a freshman in the College from Portland, Oregon. Planning on studying Government, his interests include politics, computer science, and journalism.