Hand-over tradition of penning a letter in peril with Trump
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and president-elect Joe Biden are breaking with tradition in failing to travel to the Capitol together for tomorrow’s inauguration and it remains to be seen whether the outgoing president will leave a note in the Oval Office for its new occupant.
Previous presidential transitions have been marked with courtesy and sometimes humour – commodities in short supply during the 2020 tussle for the White House.
Mr Trump will already have departed Washington by the time his successor takes the reins but it is unclear whether the Resolute desk will have an envelope for Mr Biden to open in the departing president’s familiar handwriting as the new commander-in-chief settles into the hot seat.
As he was preparing to leave the White House in January 1989, president Ronald Reagan wanted to leave a note for his successor, George HW Bush, and reached for a pad emblazoned with a cartoon by Sandra Boynton under the phrase: “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.”
It featured a collection of turkeys scaling a prone elephant, the symbol of both men’s Republican Party.
“Dear George, You’ll have moments when you’ll want to use this particular stationary. Well, go to it,” Mr Reagan wrote.
Thus was born the tradition of departing presidents leaving a handwritten note in the Oval Office for their successors.
The missives’ contents start off as confidential, but are often eventually made public by archivists, references in presidential memoirs or via social media after journalists and others file requests to obtain them.
But the 32-year tradition is in peril this year. Mr Trump has refused to accept the results of November’s election and vowed not to attend Mr Biden’s inauguration.
That makes it doubtful Mr Trump will leave behind any handwritten, friendly advice for Mr Biden.
Presidents often write reflectively at the end of their time in office, including George Washington, who stated that he was “tired of public life” in recording why he was not seeking a third presidential term.
But historians say Mr Reagan’s is likely the first instance of a personal letter being passed between presidents as they left and entered office.
“It was a sort of a revelation that a note like this was left,” said Jim Bendat, author of Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration Of Our President.
“We’ve come to expect them. It’s a great tradition. It’s
one of those new traditions.
“And the traditions for Inauguration Day are like that – they often evolve through the years.”
Despite losing to Bill Clinton in the bitter 1992 election, George H Bush followed Mr Reagan’s lead.
He wrote: “I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course,” before concluding: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you. Good luck – George.”
Those words were so touching that the new president’s wife, Hillary, later recalled they made her cry.
Writing to that president’s son, incoming president George W Bush in 2000, Mr Clinton noted that the “burdens you now shoulder are great but often exaggerated” and that the “sheer joy of doing what you believe is right is inexpressible”.
In his own letter to president Barack Obama eight years later, the younger Mr Bush advised that “critics will rage. Your ‘friends’ will disappoint you”, but ”no matter what comes, you will be inspired by the character and compassion of the people you now lead”.
In his letter to Mr Trump in 2017, Mr Obama offered words that now appear prophetic given Mr Trump’s impeachment for inciting the deadly mob at the US Capitol.
“We are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for,” he said.
“It’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.”
Historian Mark K Updegrove said even if the note tradition stops with Mr Trump, it could start again when Mr Biden leaves office.
He has already been vice president and spent 36 years in the Senate, where tradition and bipartisan congeniality are strong.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he would do it graciously,” Mr Updegrove said.