{"id":30434,"date":"2021-02-26T07:37:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T03:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=30434"},"modified":"2021-02-26T07:37:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T03:37:37","slug":"whats-an-ex-president-to-do-trump-and-the-post-white-house-lives-of-his-predecessors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/whats-an-ex-president-to-do-trump-and-the-post-white-house-lives-of-his-predecessors\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s an ex-president to do? Trump and the post-White House lives of his predecessors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s how other former presidents have occupied their time after leaving the White House<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/span>In this July 2020 photo, former president Donald Trump stands at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.\u00a0(AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Is former president Donald Trump feeling anything like the 19th century\u2019s Simon Bolivar in Gabriel Garcia Marquez\u2019s The General in His Labyrinth?<\/span><\/p>\n

The ailing and failing South American \u201cliberator\u201d is described in the novel as a man \u201cshaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at the moment reaching the finish line \u2026 \u2018Dammit,\u2019 he sighed. \u2018How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is certainly dealing with multiple misfortunes, including the unique ordeal of a second impeachment trial (despite his acquittal), the humiliation of an election loss, hydra-headed lawsuits on the horizon and looming loan payments that may shake the Jenga towers of Trump\u2019s enterprises.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s this former president to do?<\/span><\/p>\n

We may find out soon when Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, this weekend. He will reportedly talk about the future of the Republican Party \u2014 and his role in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

How early former presidents kept busy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

How have other former presidents occupied their time?<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though Trump\u2019s interest in history is limited (he has, after all, spoken as if Frederick Douglass is still alive and suggested that the Continental Army captured airports during the American Revolution), the lessons and patterns of the past might nonetheless help him think productively about the next chapter of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Founding Father presidents \u2014 George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson \u2014 all retired productively to private life after leaving office. Plantation and farm management filled many days; Trump\u2019s business interests might become a 21st century counterpart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adams and Jefferson also savoured the longer hours available for ongoing studies in philosophy, religion and history. Jefferson enjoyed applying his interest in science to crops at his Monticello plantation in Virginia \u2014 and founded the University of Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adams and Jefferson also indulged in vast correspondence, including thoughtful exchanges with each other. The second president\u2019s letters could be eloquently cranky about his fellow men (\u201chuman reason and human conscience \u2026 are not a match for human passion, human imaginations, and human enthusiasm\u201d); he was also appealingly self-deprecating (\u201cI drop into myself, and acknowledge myself to be a fool.\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

The second president\u2019s son, John Quincy Adams, charted a different course after losing the bitterly fought 1828 election to Andrew Jackson. Rejecting retirement to Massachusetts, he served nine terms in the House of Representatives. He even died there \u2014 in the speaker\u2019s room, after collapsing during a debate \u2014 ending a post-White House career in which he became one of the most prominent anti-slavery voices in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ulysses S. Grant also travelled his own road, literally.<\/span><\/p>\n

He and his wife took two years to tour the globe, with the hero of the Civil War feted everywhere. There was tea at Windsor Castle (where Queen Victoria found Julia Grant \u201ccivil and complimentary in her funny American way\u201d) and hours of talk with Otto von Bismarck after Grant simply knocked at his front door.<\/span><\/p>\n

When crowds welcomed him home, the former president made a third run for the White House \u2014 but was out-maneuvered at the 1880 Republican convention by James A. Garfield. Grant\u2019s last years were then spent battling financial difficulties and cancer, with Samuel Clemens \u2014 more commonly known as Mark Twain \u2014 coaxing him into writing the money-making volumes that remain a masterpiece among presidential memoirs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern former presidents<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The 20th century offers more models.<\/span><\/p>\n

Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s post-presidential career stands out for drama. After William Howard Taft was inaugurated, Roosevelt led a big game hunting expedition to Africa for the Smithsonian Institution and New York\u2019s Museum of Natural History. His safari party tallied 11,400 kills, including six white rhinos.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Grant before him, Roosevelt kept travelling, spending months in Europe meeting monarchs and government leaders. And like Grant, welcoming crowds at home rekindled political appetites. As with Grant, again, that did not go well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Styling himself a progressive \u201cbull moose,\u201d Roosevelt forged a third party when the 1912 Republican convention renominated Taft. A three-way electoral split then gave Woodrow Wilson the White House with 42 per cent of the popular vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taft moved from the 1912 melee to a John Quincy Adams-like future. After taking up a Yale law professorship, he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1921.<\/span><\/p>\n

Memoirs, libraries<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the mid-20th century, post-White House life had some common themes. Beginning with Harry Truman, each president \u2014 John F. Kennedy tragically excepted \u2014 opted to produce best-selling memoirs and to help build presidential libraries, repressing impulses to resuscitate their political careers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some prioritized relaxation while writing. Dwight Eisenhower, for example, spent time golfing, fishing and playing bridge (which had already been a regular features of his time in the White House).<\/span><\/p>\n

Some had limited options because of declining health (Lyndon Johnson\u2019s heart problems, Ronald Reagan\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s). One \u2014 Richard Nixon \u2014 turned his traditional hard work habits toward reputation rehabilitation, using expansive writing to gain elder statesman status.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several have channelled energy and stature into creating new mechanisms for public service \u2014 for example, Jimmy Carter\u2019s Conflict Resolution Program and work for Habitat for Humanity and the Clinton Foundation founded by Bill Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, of course, Trump will devise his own unique post-presidency career \u2014 likely as unconventional and perhaps as troubling as his White House years. There is grumbling and fuming in his Mar-a-Lago labyrinth right now, but Trump is certainly seeking an escape that Bolivar could not find.<\/span><\/p>\n

There will be golf, of course, \u00e0 la Eisenhower. There will probably be a memoir, though a ghost writer may emerge battered from drafting sessions with a Trump accustomed to lobbing tweet-sized poison darts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most importantly, there will likely be Trump \u201cbig bang\u201d efforts \u2014 Teddy Roosevelt-esque incursions into the 2024 election, rallies during which he can strut his stand-up routines, perhaps a cable network launch to outfox an insufficiently obsequious Fox.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever Trump\u2019s approach to his post-White House life, there is bound to be some of the miasma Garcia Marquez sensed around Bolivar: \u201cA strange night \u2026 heavy with the weeping of orphans and the fragrance of decay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ronald W. Pruessen<\/strong><\/span>
\nProfessor of History, <\/span>
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 26 February 2021<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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