The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Amy Fried is a retired political science professor at the University of Maine. Her views are her own and do not represent those of any group with which she is affiliated.
When President Joe Biden removed himself from this year’s election contest, his words resonated with a deep vein of the American political tradition.
In the early republic George Washington was called the American Cincinnatus, evoking a Roman general who left power voluntarily and returned to his farm. By resigning his military commission in 1783 and later not staying too long in the presidency, Washington demonstrated he cared less about his personal position and more about the system.
It was also reminiscent of President Jimmy Carter’s farewell address, when he said he would “lay down my official responsibilities in this office, to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of president, the title of citizen.”
Biden echoed John F. Kennedy’s inaugural words — “the torch has been passed to a new generation” — in explaining his decision and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
With this, Biden reiterated respect for the principle that leaders have a time and then depart, preserving our democratic institutions.
In sharp contrast, when Donald Trump was supposed to leave his place of power, he did everything he could to stay.
Trump pressured the Department of Justice to declare the 2020 election “corrupt;” it wouldn’t because those allegations were baseless.
Trump got allies to create fraudulent electoral votes and tried to get the Georgia secretary of state to “find” just enough votes for him to win the state.
Trump told crowds to come to Washington, D.C., promising it would “be wild,” and it was. MAGA bands beat police officers and hunted Vice President Mike Pence and others.
While Rep. Jared Golden is right that courts, Congress, and cops helped stop Trump from illegitimately staying in office, I believe he is wrong in thinking a second Trump term doesn’t threaten democracy.
When president, Trump was held in check somewhat by people in his administration who care about American institutions. But people like that — from his vice-president to cabinet officials and other high level staff — won’t vote for Trump this year and won’t be tapped in the future.
Instead, as Axios reported, the Heritage Foundation is working with Trump’s most loyal associates, “prescreening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers,” with 54,000 to be installed “across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents.”
Trump has pledged to revive his late 2020 plan that “would have stripped protections from civil servants perceived as disloyal to the president and encouraged expressions of allegiance to the president when hiring.” This is part of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, written in large part by Trump’s most MAGA-oriented White House staffers, which Trump described in 2022 as “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”
Very quickly, Trump would remove experts in government and install a personal cadre of loyalists.
We’ve seen Trump pull congressional Republicans’ strings, ordering them to nix a bipartisan border security bill so, instead of serving the public good, they served his political campaign. It’s hard to imagine them checking Trump in a second term.
And Trump got the green light from judicial activists on the Supreme Court to use his “official powers” how he wants. This decision flew in the face of the founders’ design of checks and balances and limited executive powers.
Moreover, Trump promised to exert retribution, called for terminating the Constitution, praised dictators and shared memes calling for military tribunals to try former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and others for treason.
And too many Trump backers have antidemocratic views. As a 2023 study found, 46 percent of people who wrongly believe that the 2020 election was stolen “agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”
Trump never acknowledged he didn’t win in 2020 and is promising to pardon people he calls “January 6 hostages.” He picked election deniers to run his party and campaign and the Heritage Foundation already claimed a Trump loss in November would be due to fraud.
In his farewell address, George Washington warned of “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” coming to power. Now, by voting for Kamala Harris for president, we can prevent a man of that sort from threatening our republic.
