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WASHINGTON – Donald Trump has bragged about being an atypical leader, but now he has entered a rare club that he will definitely not appreciate: America’s presidents who have lost reelection.
Since World War II, only two other presidents who sought a second term from the voters have failed: Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush.
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American television networks called the race Saturday for Democrat Joe Biden despite the Republican shamelessly seizing the power of the incumbent.
Trump held rallies across the country in front of Air Force One, insisted on putting his name on the 150 million pandemic stimulus checks for Americans, and delivered his Republican convention speech at the White House.
His actions sparked accusations that Trump violated the Hatch Act, which restricts the use of the federal government for political activities.
“There is a reason it is unusual for incumbents to be defeated. Incumbents have the ability to use the bully’s pulpit to their advantage; they can change history,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University.
“They have all the symbols of the White House: the executive branch, the Oval Office, Air Force One. These are powerful symbols that they have at their disposal.”
The White House, in the words of one of its fictional inhabitants, President Andrew Shepherd in Rob Reiner’s “The American President” (1995), offers “the greatest hometown advantage in the modern world.”
For Trump, the first president to have never held an elected office or military leadership position before, the White House helped normalize a volatile man formerly known to Americans as a television celebrity.
As unpresidential as his tweets were, all his formal events took place behind lecterns bearing the instantly recognizable seal of the United States commander-in-chief.
American presidents enjoy ample room for maneuver in diplomacy, and Trump, like his predecessors, enthusiastically brought foreign leaders before the cameras at the White House, including in September, when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to recognize Israel. .
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Trump is the first president to ever cross 50 percent approval in Gallup polls and was intensely divided during his nearly four years, with widespread opposition to his handling of the pandemic, his abrasive rhetoric and incessant personal scandals.
George HW Bush, by contrast, enjoyed nearly 90 percent approval when he led the first Gulf War in 1991.
The difference, Dallek said, is that both Bush and Carter failed to unify their parties.
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Carter and George HW Bush faced primary challenges from the left and right of their parties, respectively, which weakened them heading into the general election.
Similarly, Lyndon Johnson, who technically did not lose re-election but decided abruptly not to seek a full second term in 1968, was struck by a revolt over the remnants of the Vietnam War.
Gerald Ford, who took office after Richard Nixon’s resignation and was never elected nationally on his own, also faced an energetic challenge in 1976 from Ronald Reagan.
Trump, on the other hand, practically took over the Republican Party, whose 2020 platform only said it supported his agenda.
“Trump’s challengers really had to come out of the Republican Party,” Dallek said.
With Trump’s electoral defeat but the dominant position in his party, talk has already begun about whether he would pursue an even more unusual feat: winning a non-consecutive second term in 2024.
Only one other president in American history has served two terms that were not consecutive: Democrat Grover Cleveland, who won his second term in 1892, four years after a narrow loss.
