How Pence could ease transition
And prepare for his political future
When Joe Biden takes the oath of office as our 46th president, he might find himself upstaged at his own inauguration. It won’t be his running mate who steals the limelight as the first woman ever installed in either of our top two executive offices. Nor would the outgoing chief executive, Donald Trump, play his customary role as the focus of media scrutiny and public controversy.
In fact, many Washington insiders expect him to become the fourth president in history to decline to attend the swearing-in of his successor.
If Trump does shun the national spectacle dramatizing the peaceful transfer of power, Vice President Mike Pence could make a high-profile decision to reshape his own political future and place in history. By standing with his wife, Karen, on the inauguration platform, surrounded by the Biden and Harris families, Pence could definitively distance himself from Trump’s selfdestructive refusal to concede.
If his allegations of voter fraud continue, dramatized by street fights and ongoing law suits, Trump remains unlikely to offer the gracious congratulations that characterized defeated incumbents in the past.
‘America must always come first’
In 1992, the last president to lose a bid for reelection, George H.W. Bush, said on election night: “I just called Governor Clinton over in Little Rock and offered my congratulations. … Our entire administration will work closely with his team to ensure the smooth transition of power. There is important work to be done, and America must always come first, so we will get behind this new president and wish him well.”
Such a statement before the inauguration would amount to an admission by Trump that he never really believed the claims of massive fraud. It’s easier to imagine the MAGA Man heading out of town before the jubilant Democratic crowds begin jamming the capital city.
That’s what John Adams did in 1801, after losing a toxic race to his old friend Thomas Jefferson. The sixth president, Adams’ son John Quincy, followed the same course when he evacuated Washington ahead of celebrations for Andrew Jackson in 1829. The last sitting president to avoid participation in inaugural ceremonies, Andrew Johnson, stayed in his White House office signing last-minute papers while Ulysses Grant took the oath of office. Johnson might have feared booing from hostile crowds in 1869, having recently — and barely — survived impeachment.
Unlike Johnson, Trump retains tens of millions of followers, and he may summon them to a “counter inauguration.” He could revel in revisiting the “stolen election” themes and, no doubt, boast of a bigger crowd than “Sleepy Joe” Biden — regardless of the actual audience size for either man.
Declaration of independence
In this context, Pence could contribute powerfully to a peaceful transition and the mending of a frayed social fabric. At least he should welcome Kamala Harris and husband, Doug Emhoff, to the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, as the Bidens welcomed Mike and Karen Pence in 2016.
To turn up to honor Biden’s assumption of power would also provide a personal declaration of independence from Trump’s angry, ugly obsessions. For four years, Pence defended the president, but as the Orange Overlord leaves office, he must become his own man at last. With Trump openly musing over his own potential candidacy for a triumphant 2024 return, and with other allies and family members available as more logical heirs to Trumpism, Pence would preserve, rather than damage, a potential run of his own by displaying dignity and class to conclude his vice presidency.
Most significant, his participation in a cherished ritual of the republic would signal recognition that the presidential election and its winner both counted as legitimate. A platform appearance by the departing VP might be criticized as shallow symbolism, but at a time of poisonous polarization, healing gestures can only help.