Nothing in Donald Trump’s presidency has been as unbecoming as his exit. He is putting new strains on his beleaguered party, which has surely suffered enough.
It’s not often these days that you see a one-termer. The last of them was George Bush the elder, who was also not young when he was elected and seemed to have lost all his zeal for the job when the Cold War ended, the cause that defined his real mission for most of his very long life.
Our first president to lose after only one term was John Adams, who was not even half the politician that either his predecessor or his successor was. So crushed was Adams by his loss, a crushing assault upon his own ego, that he chose to leave town before dawn on the day his successor was sworn in.
Thus, he was the first of a group of sore losers. In 1933, Herbert Hoover had been so depressed by the Depression and by his own loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt that he said barely one word in the drive to the Capitol. In 2016, with the dream of her life at long last extinguished, Hillary Clinton did not seem pleased. As Bill Clinton’s wife, she was forced to attend Trump’s swearing-in as a former first lady, just as sitting Vice Presidents Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were forced to sit there and try not to look not all that unhappy as their victorious rivals (John Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon himself eight years later) were being sworn in in their place.
Trump isn’t the first to sulk after losing but might be the first to make his sulk matter. His party is in the midst of a war for control of the Senate, in which his words (or lack of them) may count. In the current Senate, which goes out on Jan. 5, the Republicans hold a majority of 52-48. In November, the two Republicans running for the two Georgia seats won spots in the Jan. 5 runoff, neither of them reaching 50%.
If both Republicans win, they hold on to the Senate. If they hold one, they still hold on to the Senate, though the margin is smaller. If they lose both, the Senate is tied, and tie votes will be broken by Vice President Kamala Harris. This would give Democrats total control of the elected branches of government.
Republicans are frantic not to let this happen. To prevent it, they need both Trump’s Republican allies and foes to go out and vote for their party. A war stoked by Trump between his fans and his critics can cripple their chances, and that is the reason they will not tell Trump to sit down and be quiet until after the last votes are cast.
But before we condemn them, let us recall that we have seen this before. Men such as Kennedy and Eisenhower, who were courageous in war under gut-wrenching pressure, held their own tongues in an excess of caution when a man named Joseph McCarthy held sway.
