Transition

Writing on the last full day of the Donald Trump presidency, some glimpses from its beginnings, in 2017:

“Come here, Tom Cotton.”

It was a cordial command, an example of Joe Biden’s ceaseless hunger for political camaraderie. He was in the final hours of his last January as vice president, Biden, and as in every odd numbered year since taking office he was swearing in senators, one after another, in photo-op ceremonies. Thus biden by Biden, up strode the junior senator from Arkansas, Cotton and clan, to be flattered and schmoozed and hugged and maybe even bussed by an old school Irish pol, legendary for his across-the-aisle friendships, for nurturing bi-partisan legislation. You might call it the art of the deal, but might choose not to.

Biden is hoping his interpersonal skills will help move his program through a House with a shrunken Democratic majority and a Senate his party “controls” only because his vice president will break any tie votes. His vision of the Senate is an illusion, writes former Arkansan Kathy Kiely in the Washington Post:

“Biden…would rather master the Senate the old-fashioned way, through relationships. The question is whether they still count for anything in a chamber whose members spend more time on jet planes and at fundraisers than they do socializing with one another — and where partisan polarization has increased in the decade since Biden left.”

As if to underscore Kiely’s point, in the hours before Biden was to take the oath of office the Tom Cotton he bantered with so easily four years ago was on the Twitter attack: the president-elect’s immigration plan was “mass amnesty” with “no regard for the health or security of Americans.” And worse.

In that same January four years ago, this column made some predictions. Among them that Mr. Trump would resign before his term ended. He would be encouraged to step down, I wrote, at the behest of “increasing numbers of Mr. Trump’s own party, appalled at the unending stream of fabrications spilling from his lips and spurting from his Twitter account; and aghast…at the hash he has made of the executive branch and its responsibilities, foreign and domestic.” Here’s some more from that column:

• “Our allies ‘will openly express alarm at U.S. foreign policy, its incoherence. Scrutiny of such ties as may exist between Mr. Trump and some of his administration with Russia and China will intensify. Executive branch resignations will multiply, as will conflict of interest complaints. At some point…one or more of his tax returns will make its way into the public domain, revealing what he always had hoped to forever conceal.’”

• “The corporate community will be in polite rebellion,” inflation will resume and the Fed would “of course” raise interest rates.

• Upon his resignation, “Victory is his, he will proclaim, won against a rigged system that tried but failed to frustrate him.”

• There would be impeachment attempts, I foresaw, which would fail.

So, let’s score that column.

Mr. Trump did not resign, though reliable reporting suggests he might as well have; indeed there is some question as to what extent he fully assumed the presidency. His concluding weeks in the White House, we are told, were consumed by attempts to overturn the election he lost to Biden, and rants about the disloyalty of those who had been loyal to him (literally) to a fault. The years of his tenure plainly did not witness Mr. Trump immersed in public policy.

The adults in his party were always appalled and aghast at his rhetoric, his unending lies, and his chaotic administration of domestic policy (coronavirus, for example) and foreign affairs (Russia, China and North Korea in particular). But they discovered that Mr. Trump was more popular in their home states and congressional districts than they were. So, basically, they kept quiet.

Conflicts of interest? No president has ever steered more public money to his own private enterprises, family included, than Mr. Trump. Resignations? Plenty, and disturbingly, many from the national security wing of his administration. And, sure enough, some of the president’s tax returns became public, enough to confirm that he had consistently lied through his teeth about the taxes he paid his national, state and local governments as well as his wealth.

Elements of the corporate community are indeed in rebellion, not only against Mr. Trump and his businesses but against Republican senators and representatives who attempted to short-circuit the electoral college vote.

On his way out, Mr. Trump is, yes, still claiming victory at the 2020 polls, still claiming the system is rigged. And, yes, an impeachment ended in acquittal, as may the second, now pending.

In all, a pretty accurate reading of what was to come if I do say so myself. I wish I had been wrong in all of it. (Oh, inflation: There is none, and the Fed most certainly did not raise interest rates. Nobody’s perfect.)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve Barnes is a columnist with Editorial Associates in Little Rock.)