Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, but he reacted completely differently than the 10 previous presidents who had also failed in their bids to remain in office.
Ronald Reagan, in his 1981 inauguration speech, declared, “The orderly transfer of authority … is nothing less than a miracle.” Jimmy Carter, the president he defeated, sat beside him.
For Trump, Reagan’s “miracle” was merely a mirage. Instead of turning the White House over to his successor and assisting in an orderly transfer as Carter had, Trump attacked the election itself.
Now, the House of Representatives is holding hearings on Trump’s efforts to keep the presidency, winding up with the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.
The American tradition of an orderly transfer originated in 1800, after the fourth presidential election when President John Adams lost to Thomas Jefferson. Adams became the first incumbent to be denied re-election. Like Trump, he had been soundly defeated and strongly disliked his opponent, seeing him as a danger to the young republic.
But Adams accepted the result. Jefferson did not destroy America, and the two rivals eventually became friends. They died on the same day, the Fourth of July marking the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The other sitting presidents before Trump who lost were John Quincy Adams (John’s son, in 1828), Martin Van Buren (1840), Grover Cleveland (1888), Benjamin Harrison (1892), William H. Taft (1912), Herbert Hoover...
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