Citizen Trump’s fond farewell

So long, Donald. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

With Joe Biden’s inauguration just hours away Donald Trump, soon no longer president, has quit the White House and Washington D.C. completely. Under normal circumstances the former president and president-elect – in a show of national unity – ride in a car together from the White House to the Capitol where the inauguration takes place. No matter how icy relations between the incumbent and their predecessor this tradition, which started in 1837, has been honoured on every occasion except once. Now, Trump joins Andrew Johnson as the only other president to break with it – unsurprising given Trump’s continued unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of his defeat.

Instead, Trump – like Nixon in 1974 – left the White House earlier today in the Marine One helicopter for Joint Base Andrews. At the military base Trump indulged in some final perks of office. His usual rally type speech given on the base’s tarmac was kicked off by a military band playing “Hail to the Chief” and a 21-gun salute.

The scene had a slightly desperate air. Trump’s family was there but most of his erstwhile supporters were conspicuous in their absence – Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, being the most senior Republican to bother to come and see him off. Finally, Trump wrapped up and, with Frank Sinatra’s My Way playing – was whisked away to Florida aboard Air Force One. The gesture seemed a final pointed slight to Biden who – unable to catch the Amtrak from Delaware to Washington as he famously did every day as a Senator due to security concerns – was forced to charter a private plane to Washington after Trump refused him a government one.

Trump has at least kept up with one tradition – he has apparently left Biden a note in the White House, something every president since Ronald Reagan has done. However, unless some desperate staff member has written it for him, it seems unlikely Trump will have indulged in the usual gracious words of advice and well-wishing.

As for what’s next for Trump, a stay at Mar-a-Lago seems likely. However, legally he can’t overstay his welcome there due to a decades-old user agreement banning anyone from spending more than 21 days there in a year – a stricture some of his neighbours are ardently pushing to enforce. Perhaps, finding himself in between jobs, he can move into the $32 million pad his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner have bought in Miami. More seriously, it seems unlikely as explosive a personality as Trump will disappear from the scene and the Republican Party, in particular, can be expected to be grappling with his legacy for years to come.