Inauguration day historically is the one day both parties tone down their rhetoric and come together to celebrate democracy.
Our Republic is stronger when political leaders demonstrate to Americans that a transfer of power can happen without a single bullet being fired.
But Donald Trump doesn’t know much about history, and hasn’t shown a lot of interest as president learning about it.
Thus why he’s reportedly making plans to upstage president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration by exiting the White House via Marine One and flying on Air Force One to a rally in Florida where he will announce he is running for president again in 2024.
A circus clown to the bitter end.
The final use of presidential air travel and Florida rally would take place January 20, 2021, sources told Axios, the same day of Biden’s inauguration.
If carried out, this means speculation is true that after Trump snubbed Biden by refusing to concede the election, he then plans to further diss the former vice president by not attending the inauguration for the peaceful transition of power from one president to the next.
Trump has claimed he would participate in a peaceful transfer if the election were conducted fairly, which he still asserts it was not.
A few Republican lawmakers are already floating last-ditch efforts to overturn the results by vowing to launch an official challenge to the Electoral College votes when Congress certifies the election for Biden on January 6.
Trump held his first rally since the night before Election Day when he campaigned for Georgia Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Valdosta on Saturday evening.
He spent his fair share of the night, however, lamenting the circumstances surrounding the presidential election.
Trump is not expected to invite Biden to the White House or even call him according to insiders.
Biden transition officials said Trump’s attendance at the inauguration, or lack thereof, won’t affect their plans.
Already, Trump has raised millions of dollars for his leadership political action committee, “Save America,” which was launched last month as an intermediary vehicle to fund his post-presidency plans.
Though nearly 500 emails have been sent seeking donations for an “election defense fund,” the fine print stipulates that as much as 75 percent can go toward the new group.
Biden aides didn’t expected a traditional transition if he won the election.
Specifically they didn’t anticipate that Trump would invite Biden to the White House and had concerns about such a meeting during a pandemic given the lack of safety protocols followed in the West Wing.
It would be a rare, although not unprecedented, breach of norms for a sitting president not to attend the swearing-in of his successor.
John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson all skipped the event while Richard Nixon departed the White House after his resignation and did not attend Gerald Ford’s swearing-in.