A Graceful Exit
When Congress convened last week to certify the presidential-election results, the riot that interrupted the proceedings caused an unbridled response on social media. Many of the comments focused on President Trump and his bluster leading up to the riot and his silence as the mob ascended to the capitol. President Trump’s words and conduct prompted some to circulate the letter that President George H.W. Bush gave to President Clinton on the day of Clinton’s inauguration.
The letter began with Bush’s assessment that “I feel the same sense of wonder and majesty about this office today as I did when I first walked in here.” The entire message is one of grace and encouragement—both of which we need more of in politics. And while Bush’s letter is representative of his statesmanship, it is the words Bush chronicled in his journal that have seemed most relevant to me this week.
Before leaving the Oval Office, Bush recorded the following:
I’ve tried to serve here with no taint of dishonor, no conflict of interest, nothing to sully this beautiful place and this job I’ve been privileged to hold. Misjudgments maybe on this issue or that, but never misconduct. Never doing anything that would tarnish and hurt the presidency.
…They say, “what motivates you?” And I used to be teased about service for the sake of service. Well, it does motivate me. People should give, but it’s service with honor, service with a flair for decency and hopefully kindness…I don’t think they can lay a glove on me in the final analysis on serving without conflict, never for personal gain, always bearing in mind the respect for the office I’ve been privileged to hold...”
I came across this passage in Jon Meacham’s biography of Bush, Destiny and Power. Bush’s three core values show up repeatedly in Meacham’s book: honor, duty, and country. As his presidency came to an end, Bush felt that he had lost the ability to reach the younger generations. Despite having achieved some of the strongest approval ratings of all time after the Gulf War, those ratings slipped drastically by 1992 and resulted in him becoming a one-term president.
Despite feeling like his voice had become muted by 1992, Bush’s values are increasingly desirable today. In some ways, it seems like a low benchmark to want a president who pursues decency and kindness or a desire to never tarnish the office of the presidency. Sadly, this week has brought only the opposite.
As one commentator put it, “Well that escalated steadily for four years.” Still, a number of elected officials and members of President Trump’s cabinet have commented (off the record) that they never expected an outcome like people storming the capitol. Yet it should be no surprise that words do indeed have meaning. One verse that has stayed with me over the last four years is Ephesians 4:31: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” And going back to one of the most formative verses of my youth from Proverbs 17: “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.”
Sadly, these traits of circumspection and peacemaking have never been the way of Donald Trump. Since President Trump ran for office, the absence of decency and kindness has been his calling card. One indelible image from his campaign in 2016 was then-candidate Trump speaking at a South Carolina rally, when he mocked New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski. Kovaleski has a chronic condition that affects the movement of his arms. Similarly in 2016, Donald Trump told his rally-goers in Iowa, “"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell…I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.” The measure of President Trump’s kindness has not grown sweeter over the past four years.
President Trump has spent four years deceiving and contradicting, and his protestations about the election results culminated with the pre-riot rally that included Donald Trump Jr. proclaiming “…we’re coming for you and we’re going to have a good time doing it!” Rudy Giuliani then followed with, “If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat.” Finally, President Trump ended with “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong…I know everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building. To peacefully, patriotically make your voices heard.”
While President Trump’s final words may be tame, they cannot be viewed out of context. He has spent his pre-presidency, presidency, and post-election presidency wrapping a fuse around his supporters. Since even before the election in November, he has made false claims that the election was somehow rigged. And since November, he has yelled and sued without any evidence that his election had been stolen. So it should be no surprise that the people who have been listening to him indeed concluded they needed to stop the broad-scale treachery. But this is exactly why words matter—why truth matters.
Indulging in lies with the justification that “it doesn’t hurt anyone” is wrongminded and—from a political standpoint—a lazy and dangerous abdication of responsibility. The current debate is whether Congress should impeach President Trump. What frustrates me most is that the cabinet of oath-bound officials have not proceeded to enact the 25th Amendment by declaring the President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” For those who have been watching for the past three months, it is hard to make any claim that the president has been or has been able to serve the office to which he was elected. That became even clearer as President Trump told his followers to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness.”
All of this should not be surprising. As stated above, “that escalated steadily for four years.” President Trump follows a philosophy popularized by Norman Vincent Peale. Here are some tenets from the linked Political article:
“Believe in yourself!”
“Staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding.”
“Hold this picture [of yourself succeeding] tenaciously…no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”
“Never think of yourself as failing”
“Depreciate every so-called obstacle.”
The ideas go on, and it brings clarity to how President Trump operates: never let a good dose of reality get in the way of what you desire. While it’s bad enough to follow this mindset as an individual, it is broad-scale damaging when you hold elected office.
We often refer to elected office as a public trust. This label exists because we live in a republic. We do not charge elected officials to simply represent the people who voted for them or the people who like them in a particular moment. We charge elected officials to serve the whole. The president’s oath of office is not for one group but the country and the constitution, which provides for the succession of one president to the next.
When President Washington graciously retired to Virginia instead of grabbing power as a king, he set a norm that has been followed for over two hundred years (with a slight deviation by FDR). Presidents of far more popularity and talent than President Trump have lost but at least mustered enough grace and humility to concede without destroying the place like a drunken rockstar in a hotel room.
“Honor, duty, and country” may have seemed old fashioned in 1992, and it may seem that kindness and “not tarnishing the presidency” may have been a low standard as laid out by President H.W. Bush. But I long for these aspirations by our elected officials. As Washington left office, he warned about the dangers of embracing political parties—a “spirit not to be encouraged.” He feared that the constant danger of embracing factions would become an unquenchable and consuming fire. Washington’s warning is all the more prescient after last week’s mayhem.
I do not expect either an impeachment or enactment of the 25th Amendment in the next ten days. But I do expect a reaction from last week, and it is my hope that the response is adherence to President Washington’s warning. For me, I have committed to writing my elected officials more regularly to offer my concerns and my praise for their actions. As Benjamin Franklin noted, a republic only works with vigilance. What happened over the past four years under President Trump has made our Founders’ warnings all the timelier and worth remembering.
