Trump failed the first test of the American experiment

James Rosen, Tribune News Service

In March 1801, Thomas Jefferson prepared to succeed John Adams as president of the United States. Four years earlier, George Washington had left office voluntarily, rejecting widespread appeals for him to serve a third term, so the Adams-Jefferson transfer of power was the first test of a core principle of the young nation: An incumbent president would give way to his successor peacefully, no matter how bitter their political differences. And the differences between Adams and Jefferson were bitter indeed. Those differences had strained their friendship and went to the heart of the experiment in self-rule that they had launched with the other Founders. Leading a new party dedicated to decentralised federal power, Jefferson had challenged Adams as his old friend neared the end of a single term as president. Their campaign was so nasty that it shocked many mutual acquaintances in Massachusetts, Virginia and beyond.

Jefferson vehemently opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, laws that Adams had promoted targeting alleged political subversion by immigrants and others. The election was close. It ended up in the House of Representatives, which chose Jefferson in an extraordinary affront to the older Adams. The competing monarchs of Europe had fought wars over succession to the throne. They’d scoffed at the newfangled notion that democratic elections, not bloodlines, could choose the leaders of a country. The caustic Adams-Jefferson campaign appeared to justify their skepticism. And yet: On March 4, 1801, when the voices had quieted and the invective had ebbed, Adams calmly yielded power to Jefferson and urged his supporters to follow his lead. The Adams-Jefferson example, with Al Gore’s graceful acquiescence to George W. Bush two centuries later, provide the strongest historical proof that Donald Trump’s actions and words, after the 2020 election and continuing today, violate the most profound American traditions of self-rule. Far worse, they form a direct assault on our constitutional democracy. In recognition of this threat, the Colorado Supreme Court last month banned Trump from the state’s primary ballot, followed by a similar prohibition from Maine’s top elections official. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ban. Former 4th Circuit Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, who served on the most conservative federal appellate court for 15 years after his appointment by Republican President George H.W. Bush, said the ultimate ruling in the Trump v. Colorado case will be among the most consequential ever by the nation’s highest court. Luttig won’t hazard a guess as to how the Supreme Court, now dominated by conservative justices, will rule, but he is sure how they should. On Jan. 6, three years to the day after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an uprising that Trump cheered on, Luttig told MSNBC: “The framers of the 14th Amendment (to the Constitution) envisioned precisely this moment when they wrote the disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment — the moment when, despite losing a presidential election, a president of the United States would attempt to remain in the presidency beyond his four-year term and prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his successor who had been elected by the American people.”

Luttig added, “Section 3 of the 14th Amendment simply could not be any clearer that the former president is disqualified from the presidency, as the Colorado Supreme Court held.” Just over 23 years ago, I reported from Florida in a postelection marathon to decide whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would be president. The state’s election officials were ill-prepared to deal with it because no one had imagined that in one of the country’s most populous states, with 6 million votes cast, a White House candidate would lead by just 537. That initial outcome was not even in the same universe as a statistical possibility. For the next 40 days, election officials followed Florida’s law, which required a recount if the margin was less than one-half of 1 percent. Bush’s lead of 537 votes was one-twentieth of 1 percent.