President Donald Trump is departing Washington D.C. for the final time as the 45th President on Air Force One just hours before President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.
The quadrennial tradition of peaceful transfer of power has been a constant hallmark of American democracy, but the 2021 iteration of this tradition will look like none other that came before it for a number of reasons, many related to Trump’s decisions and leadership.
25,000 National Guard troops will be in attendance at the Biden inaugural ceremony due to security threats that followed the deadly attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters convinced by Trump’s repeated lies that the election was stolen. It was not.
A deadly Coronavirus pandemic that has taken 400,000 American lives also means that the attendance of the inauguration ceremony will be significantly smaller, as attendance was discouraged in favor of abiding by social distancing guidelines designed to abate the spread of the potentially deadly contagion.
Most notably, however, is Trump’s decision not only to forego attendance at the inauguration ceremony, but also to not greet Joe and Jill Biden at the White House and join them in the traditional limo ride to the Capitol building for the inauguration.
The reasons why Trump is choosing to flout this tradition have not been explicitly made clear, but reports have surfaced that Trump still believes he won the election, and perhaps he is unwilling to accept his role as a loser.
Watch above via Fox News.
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