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On January 20, every four years, the winner of the US presidential election takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the US Constitution during a solemn ceremony, which formally inaugurates the winner of the election in the White House. .
Traditionally, the outgoing president and the losing candidate also participate. In the case of Donald Trump, he is both, but he is anything but a standard-bearer of traditions and customs.
Dagbladet has asked three Norwegian-American experts if they think Trump will participate in Biden’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2021.
They answer “no”, “yes” and “good” respectively.
“No” experts
US expert Hilmar Mjelde, a researcher at the Norce Research Center, does not believe Trump is involved.
– I don’t think Trump is going to participate, it would be to validate the “coup” against him. Trump is now making up an alternate history about the 2020 election in which the political establishment has thrown him into a coup. The irony is that it is Trump who has tried to steal the election he lost by having state authorities sidestep the election result, Mjelde tells Dagbladet.
– What can you invent to avoid assistance?
– You would probably like to direct some sort of Leni Riefenstahl-style outing where you shoot like a Jeanne d’Arc with her head raised. Or it just remains silent. In any case, it is not your job to be just a member of the audience.
Riefenstahl was a German filmmaker who, among other things, produced propaganda films for Adolf Hitler. Jeanne d’Arc is a French national heroine and saint, who during the Hundred Years War in the Middle Ages led France in the battle against England until she was captured and executed.
“Yes” experts
The American expert Anders Romarheim, a researcher at the Department of Defense Studies (IFS), part of the Norwegian Defense College (FHS), believes that there is the highest probability that Trump will participate, but he makes enough reservations.
– I estimate that there is about a 40 percent chance that he will pose quite normally, a 30 percent chance that he will pose but do mischief, and a 30 percent chance that he will not pose at all. Romarheim says to Dagbladet. .
He believes that Trump appears to be currently preoccupied with his own legacy and that it is therefore reasonable to believe that the president is therefore thinking carefully about how it will be perceived if no silent. That speaks to Trump’s position, Romarheim believes.
But Romarheim quickly adds to Dagbladet:
– If Trump is the losing president, he implicitly acknowledges that Biden won. That’s why it’s so on the way that Trump asks.
The IFS researcher can easily conceive of a third alternative, a kind of middle ground between silent and not silent.
– Trump almost does not tolerate public settings where he himself is not in the center. Queuing, but at the same time stealing the show, is also likely. None of these scenarios is hard to imagine, says Romarheim.
“Good” expert
US expert Svein Melby, IFS principal investigator, “waits for the name of decency” that Trump raises.
-But answering that question with certainty is impossible, he tells Dagbladet.
Melby believes that Trump is coming under heavy social pressure these days from close advisers and supporters to attend the ceremony, even if that would mean indirect recognition of defeat.
– If Trump intends to have a political future, and it is quite possible that he has thoughts about it, then it is not a good start for a new presidential campaign not to be present at this inauguration ceremony, says Melby.
He believes the math Trump has to grapple with is clear: If Trump runs for president again, he will have to attract more voters than his own base.
– So you need voters who are in the middle between these parties, and many of them will look negatively at Trump who is not present at the inauguration ceremony, says Melby.
According to Biden
Experts may disagree on whether Trump is running, but they agree on how important it is to Joe Biden that Trump participates.
– Does Biden really want Trump there?
– Yes, Biden is an institutionalist. He is interested in tradition and good style. It is a symbolically important part of a peaceful transfer of power in which the outgoing president participates. As political scientist Adam Przeworski says: democracy is a system in which parties lose elections, responds Norce Mjelde researcher.
Romarheim agrees and believes that the most important thing to Biden in Trump’s possible involvement is the signal he sends that Biden has won.
“It will make it easier for Biden to bring together the parts of America that will come together,” he said.
Romarheim’s colleague Melby draws similar conclusions.
– Biden is aware that it will be difficult to unite the entire nation, but there is no stronger image of a divided nation than the image of an inauguration ceremony in which the losing party is not standing.
Has it happened before?
If Trump decides not to attend his successor’s inauguration ceremony, Trump will be a member of a small historic club.
Only a few presidents before him have refused to attend his successor’s inauguration ceremonies on January 20, the year after the elections, according to Hilmar Mjelde.
– In that case, Trump will be the fourth president not to participate. John Adams in 1801, John Quincy Adams in 1829 and Andrew Johnson in 1869 also did not participate in the inauguration of the successor, says Mjelde.
Richard Nixon was also absent when his vice president Gerald Ford was sworn into the White House in 1974, after Nixon resigned as president. Then there was no public inauguration ceremony.
