TRUMP AS FORMER PRESIDENT: A DISCORDANT OUTLIER

Over the 245 years of the American republic, the people of the United States have come to expect certain behavior from former presidents. As with every other aspect of his association with the presidency, Donald Trump now flaunts those expectations. His conduct looks especially egregious when compared with his real peers, other one-term presidents. No matter how long his predecessors served, however, Trump looks like an aberration. 

During our lifetimes, the United States has had three one-term presidents, chief executives who got elected, served one four-year term, stood for re-election, and lost. This definition, therefore, does

not include John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford. Kennedy won one-term and was assassinated. Johnson finished Kennedy’s term, won one of his own, but didn’t seek re-election. Ford succeeded Richard Nixon after his resignation, but lost the 1976 election. 

The presidents who fit our definition come from both parties – Democrat Jimmy Carter (1977-81) and Republicans George H. W. Bush (1989-93) and Trump (2017-21). The similarity in conduct between Carter and Bush, as one-term former presidents, when juxtaposed with that of Trump, provides more evidence of 45’s decadence.

The Former President Model

Our constitution says nothing about the “role” of a

former president. We established the  conventions and traditions by example. The nation’s first president, George Washington, served two terms and didn’t run again mainly because he worried about doing anything that resembled a monarchy.

 

The colonists fought a bitter war for independence from a tyrannical king. Washington wanted nothing that suggested the new country was installing something similar. 

The two-term maximum continued as an informal limit on presidential tenure until Franklin Roosevelt won four terms, prompting the 22nd amendment that made the two-term limit law.  The country has

had 13 two-term presidents, along with some who got reelected but couldn’t finish their terms for reasons like assassination or scandal (Abraham Lincoln, Nixon). We’ve had eight one-term presidents under our definition.  There’s also the strange case of Grover Cleveland who was elected in 1884, lost in 1888, then regained the office in 1892 and served out that four-year term.

By and large former presidents, whether they served one term or two, have assumed a senior statesman role. Generally, they’ve left themselves out of the country’s day-to-day political machinations.

 

James Earl Carter, Jr. and George H.W. Bush

Jimmy Carter and the first Bush weren’t much alike as presidents. In truth, they weren’t all that alike as former presidents except in ways that speak volumes about how they conceive of the

presidency. Carter devoted himself to good  works – helping Habitat for Humanity, promoting election reform in the third world, fighting poverty, etc.  The first President Bush spent more time doing things people do when they’re retired, though he took on humanitarian relief projects at the behest of his son, President George W. Bush. These included joining in 2005 with the man who defeated him, Bill Clinton, in raising money for tsunami victims.   

If Carter and Bush did some things differently in their post-presidential lives, they also did some important things alike. Neither injected himself into politics much beyond benign activities like speaking at his party’s convention and receiving the party’s nominee during the fall campaign. Both honored the office they held by quietly counseling their successors when asked and behaving as if their election hadn’t anointed them with a divine right to influence and manage the political process though they no longer occupied the oval office.

Trump’s Mischief

Since landing at Mara Largo on January 20 this year, Trump has remained a loud political  presence. Though social  media companies banned

him for distorted, untrue statements on their platforms, at rallies, through press releases, and in interviews on friendly outlets like Fox News, Trump infects our politics on a daily basis. He retains the loyalty of millions. He keeps raising money for future campaigns and, no doubt, his own use, including his mounting legal bills. He blesses favored candidates and meddles in Republican politics nationwide.

In some states, winning a Republican primary requires Trump’s endorsement. Even established GOP leaders will bow to his wishes because they so fear being out of favor with his voters. Recently, he pressured Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump sycophant now faced with dropping poll numbers in his state, into ordering an “audit” of Democratic-leaning counties, even though Trump carried Texas in 2020 by 630,000 votes. No one could imagine Carter or H.W. Bush doing such a thing.

Trump, of course, keeps hinting he’ll run again in 2024. Some people who know him think he can’t resist, while others believe he won’t because he can’t stand the prospect of another defeat. He did, however, recently hold a rally in Iowa, a key early state on the 2024 primary calendar.

We know Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both two-term presidents who can’t run again

themselves, have campaigned for Democratic nominees who wanted to follow them into the oval office. Obama, particularly, helps Democrats raise money,

partly through direct mail solicitation of small donors.  But neither has muddied the water like Trump (nor has Trump’s fellow Republican, two-termer  George W. Bush). Neither has thumbed his nose at the expectation former presidents will maintain a sense of decorum and behave as protectors of the instruments and traditions of democracy.

The American presidency was never intended as a repository for unfettered political ambition or as a mere vessel for accumulating power its holder could dispense in service of those ambitions. By tradition and experience, the nation established norms for former holders of the job that honor the limits we put on the office itself. Trump has disregarded those, just as he flaunted so many norms while he was president.  The country should call out his behavior.  We just did our part.