Have you ever seen a presidential transition that has hit as many land mines as the one that is about to conclude?
Donald J. Trump is going to become president of the United States with a public opinion approval rating in the 30s. Yes, that’s right: 30-plus percent of Americans approve of the 45th president. Meanwhile, the 44th president — Barack H. Obama — is about to leave the White House with an approval rating in the mid-50 percent range, which isn’t great, but it’s a damn sight better than what he was registering for much of his second term.
Presidential honeymoon period? There ain’t going to be one for Donald Trump.
Questions are piling onto questions about the new president. They include:
* Potential conflicts of interest involving his myriad business interests and the president-elect’s stubborn refusal to divest himself of the fortune he has amassed through real estate ventures around the world.
* Allegations of Russian spooks hacking into Democratic Party electronic files while looking for dirt to toss as that party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
* The quality of some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, such as the secretary of state-designate, Rex Tillerson, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin; housing secretary-designate Ben Carson, who once declared himself to unqualified to lead a federal agency; education secretary-designate Betsy DeVos, an avowed critic of public education; EPA administrator-designate Scott Pruitt, who detests the very agency he is being asked to oversee; attorney general-designate Jeff Sessions, who once was denied a federal judgeship because of his stated views on civil rights.
I am not predicting this will happen, but I won’t be surprised in the least if Donald Trump — somehow! — is unable to finish his term as president. There’s already dull roar developing about impeachment, given all the potential for missteps.
I have lived long enough to have witnessed a couple of presidential crises that tore the nation to pieces. The first of them came close to a presidential impeachment before President Nixon resigned during the Watergate crisis; the second of them occurred with an actual impeachment and Senate trial of President Clinton over a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern.
Tradition always has granted presidents a honeymoon period. They enter the Oval Office flush with high praise and hope. Donald Trump will have squandered that good feeling with his response to the criticism he has received. He tweets his rapid-fire reactions to seemingly every critical comment leveled at him.
So help me I am trying to give this guy some semblance of benefit.
Damn! I do not feel good about the presidential hand-off all of America is about to witness.