John Adams demonstrated what a transfer of power ought to look like in America when he handed over the presidency to his successor, Thomas Jefferson.
The 1800 presidential race between Adams and Jefferson was an intense battle between two friends-turned-adversaries. But despite a contentious press and a heated political climate, neither the Federalists nor the Democratic-Republicans saw the election as the last of its kind.
Democrats today, however, seem to have a much bleaker view on the future of democracy in America. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, prominent voices in the Democratic Party asserted that the 2024 election would be the final one the U.S. would see if Republican nominee Donald Trump won.
It is strange, then, that in the election’s aftermath, Democrats keep stressing the importance of a “peaceful transfer of power” come Jan. 20, 2025.
If the Nov. 5 election truly was the last of its kind because Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, then how are Democrats so willing to give up power to the one who supposedly will destroy fundamental features of American democracy? They routinely compared Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, perhaps sparking at least two assassination attempts.
In a speech delivered a couple days after Trump’s victory, though, President Joe Biden promised “a peaceful and orderly transition” to the second Trump administration.
Biden did this after months and even years of characterizing Trump as a tyrant or fascist, then dropping out of the race amid discouraging polls so his vice president, Harris, could try to prevent Trump’s return to the White House.
“Yesterday, I spoke with President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory,” Biden said Nov. 7. “And I assured him that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.”
That’s quite the shift from the alarmist message from Biden, Harris, and other Democrats on the campaign trail.
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” late last year, former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., warned that a dictatorship was imminent if Trump is elected president.
“A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in,” Cheney told co-anchor Savannah Guthrie on Dec. 4, 2023. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution.”
During a Harris campaign rally Nov. 4, veteran talk show host and personality Oprah Winfrey said: “We don’t get to sit this one out … it is entirely possible that we will never have the opportunity to cast a ballot again.”
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was among Trump’s growing coalition of supporters who said the opposite was true.
“I think this is the last election if Trump doesn’t win,” Musk told host Joe Rogan on the Nov. 4 episode of his popular podcast.
As Inauguration Day approaches, Americans should keep a close watch on what exactly a “peaceful transfer of power” entails. After years of casting Trump as a dangerous bigot, racist, and Nazi, some left-wing leaders and media outlets appear to have altered their course, at least for the time being.
Two of Trump’s most relentless critics, “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, met with the once and future president last Friday at his Florida estate.
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Monday, referring to MSNBC’s Scarborough and Brzezinski. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
The media, Trump said, is “very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”
“The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future,” he said of his session with Scarborough and Brzezinski.
The question that remains, however, is whether the Left was lying to Americans only about the stakes of the election, or whether the Left is lying now about a peaceful transfer of power.