Biden Is Serving His Country by Presiding Over a Peaceful Transfer of Power to Trump

Upholding democratic norms is never more necessary than when it is hard

The UnPopulist illustration.

American democracy has always been guided by, and has relied on, a constellation of unwritten rules, or norms—particularly for the presidency, the powers of which are sparsely enumerated in the Constitution. As Harvard Law’s Daphna Renan has put it: “The nature of the presidency in American constitutional governance cannot be understood without reference to norms. These unwritten or informal rules of political behavior provide the infrastructure that any particular president inhabits.” Throughout his time in office, Donald Trump was a habitual destroyer of norms—including those having to do with avoiding conflicts of interest and corruption, respecting the rule of law, and accepting oversight and accountability. These actions may not be illegal, but they degrade political discourse and undermine faith in our institutions, ultimately eroding the health of our democracy.

Joe Biden’s final moments as president will be spent inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda, publicly welcoming Trump back into office. Four years ago, Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration, a visual reminder of his refusal to accept the result of the election. That’s precisely why Biden is right to attend today’s ceremony: it sends a powerful message to Americans that their voices were heard and demonstrates that the core function of their democracy—the peaceful transfer of power—is still intact.

Unilateral Adherence as Unilateral Disarmament?

Faced with an opponent who openly profits from the presidency, endorses political violence, expresses contempt for the country’s founding documents, declares an intention to deploy the military against his political rivals, and refuses to accept the result of an election that doesn’t go his way, it can be tempting to ask why we should bother observing democratic norms when the other guy refuses to. Indeed, insisting on adhering to many of these unwritten rules in such a situation can seem like unilateral disarmament.

The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last channels this argument when he advises that now is the time to have an “uncomfortable conversation about ‘norms.’” Last acknowledges that “norms are important,” and he’s certainly not calling on Democrats to dispense with norm-following on issues of financial propriety or national security. But Last makes the case that there is no compelling reason for Biden to attend Trump’s inauguration. He argues that Trump benefited politically from refusing to attend Biden’s inauguration; Biden’s attendance will indicate that Trump’s behavior has been “within the norms and traditions of the established political order”; and that Biden’s presence could come across like an act of submission to Trump.

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Tuesday's Moral Catastrophe

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Last’s observation that Trump “never paid a price” for refusing to attend Biden’s inauguration ignores that, like it or not, Trump will always be held to different standards than his political opponents. Recall the frenzied MAGA outrage over Biden’s “garbage” comment right before the election. It didn’t matter that Trump used grotesque and threatening rhetoric against his political opponents every day during the campaign, describing them as “vermin” and the “enemy within,” and suggesting that they may have to be dealt with by the military. Trump can lie with impunity, insult war heroes and Gold Star families, and declare that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”—any of which would have torpedoed a normal presidential candidate. His political opponents should stop complaining about the unfairness of it all and accept that they must work under a new set of political assumptions and a blatant double standard. If Biden refused to attend the inauguration, Democrats would pay a higher political price than Trump.

Symbolic Power Matters

In an endorsement of Last’s argument, Arc Digital’s Nicholas Grossman goes further: Biden’s—and Harris’—attendance would be “stupid and weak”; it would undermine “efforts to resist an anti-democracy, anti-Constitution, authoritarian presidency”; and it would be a permanent mark of shame on them, staining their names forever.

Actually, for Biden and Harris, attending the inauguration is an act of service to the country: publicly, visibly honoring the norms that have governed the transfer of presidential power sends the message that they are still worth honoring and that the American political order should not abandon them, even if the other side has done its best to undo them. It is about respecting the institutions, not the rogue who is going to preside over them.

Grossman makes a useful distinction between the norm of attending the incoming president’s inauguration and the formal handing over of power: “To the extent inauguration attendance transfers anything, it’s symbolic legitimacy, not institutional power.” But symbolism matters in a democracy. It produces a stark, visual contrast between norm violators and norm followers. It shows Americans that their battered democratic institutions are still standing and can hold out the hope of rebuilding them.

It also isn’t clear that Biden’s attendance would be viewed as a sign of “submission” while non-attendance would look like strength—it’s just as likely that Democrats would come across as bitter losers who refuse to accept the will of the voters. That’s certainly how Trump would present it. Biden recently welcomed Trump back into the White House. They exchanged pleasantries in the Oval Office and Biden promised to do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated.” Trump expressed his gratitude: “I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as you can get.” Biden received pushback from some Democrats who thought he was too chummy with a man he once said “placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” He was also attacked by Trump supporters who argued that the cordial meeting in the White House proved Biden never believed what he said about the threat Trump posed to democracy.

Biden certainly hasn’t acted like Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. By failing to enact institutional roadblocks around his use of the National Guard, surveillance, and emergency powers, he is leaving the country vulnerable to Trump’s authoritarian depredations—as Shikha Dalmia recently argued. But the accusation that he’s cozying up to Trump is misguided. While we could have done without the pictures of Biden beaming next to Trump, he was mainly just doing his job. Put another way, he did what Trump has always refused to do: he honored the will of the voters and began the process of peacefully transferring power to his political opponent. A few months later, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the official counting of Trump’s electoral victory—and her own defeat—before a joint session of Congress. Harris did this exactly four years after a mob of MAGA fanatics stormed the Capitol to prevent her own administration from having its electoral victory formally counted by Congress.

“The vice presidency comes with plenty of indignities,” the New York Times’ Peter Baker wrote after the joint session earlier this month, “but probably none greater than the one that Kamala Harris endured on Monday when she presided over the certification of her own defeat.” That’s one way to look at it. Another way would be to acknowledge that Harris fulfilling her constitutional duty under trying personal circumstances was a dignified way to reinforce a pillar of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power.

When only one of the two major parties is interested in honoring democratic norms, the norm-guarding party is at a disadvantage, to be sure. Norms, after all, are constraints. The images of Biden shaking hands with a man he described as the greatest threat to American democracy just a few months prior are bound to look strange to many voters. While grinning photo ops aren’t necessary, Democrats have a responsibility to show the country that they respect the results of the election—a perfect inversion of how Trump behaved four years ago.

Trump’s Opposition Will Win By Embracing—Not Repudiating—Norms

The need to hold Trump accountable for attempting to overthrow an election and intentionally weakening the institutional guardrails of American democracy is in tension with the need to fully respect a democratic outcome. This is why Department of Justice prosecutors had to drop the case against Trump for his effort to overturn the results of the election. In the absence of legal accountability, all that remains is political accountability, which means amassing as much political capital as possible right now. Sitting out Trump’s inauguration will in no way undermine his “legitimacy” or hold him accountable—it will just give MAGA politicians and pundits a political bludgeon to use against Democrats.

There’s nothing weak or stupid about showing Americans that their voices were heard and the core function of their democracy still works. State and congressional elections are two years away, and the next presidential election is two years after that. Throwing a tantrum over the legitimate results of this election won’t win Democrats any supporters in 2026 or 2028. The opposition to Trump has little institutional recourse at the moment—Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency, and they have an ideologically sympathetic Supreme Court. The court cases against Trump are winding down. But Democrats will have other opportunities—they don’t need to burn political capital on performative gestures that will make them look more like Trump instead of distinguishing themselves from him.

If Trump’s critics are right that his corruption and authoritarianism will be more brazen than ever in his second term—and there’s every reason to believe they are—they can take this case to the American people in the midterms. After nearly a decade of investigations, impeachments, and indictments, Trump has only ever been stopped at the ballot box.

No American voter will suddenly appreciate the depth of Trump’s authoritarianism because a few high-ranking Democrats don’t show up to his inauguration, but there will be plenty of outrages to work with in the coming years. Trump wants to put a lackey in charge of the DOJ so that he can use the power of the federal government to unleash a “retribution” agenda and punish his political opponents. He’s planning to pardon Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police officers and assaulted the U.S. Capitol. He has handed the world’s richest man the reins of government with no concern about his massive conflicts of interest or complete lack of qualifications. He wants to deport millions of people; he’s promising to gut the federal government and replace nonpartisan civil servants with unqualified sycophants and ideologues; and he believes the country’s greatest enemies are Americans who oppose him. These are all abuses worth not just opposing but forcefully resisting by every non-violent means available: Mass protests, litigation, filibuster.

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Trump’s Victory Shouldn’t Cause Panicked Liberals to Overcorrect

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When confronted with the slide into authoritarianism, many of Trump’s political opponents will be tempted to question and reject other norms of democratic governance. “If the norms we followed brought us to this,” Last writes, “of what use were those norms?” This line of thinking will become even more tempting in the coming years.

In their 2018 book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out that the process of democratic decay often begins with violations of norms that don’t seem too serious—and the violations tend to become increasingly flagrant and consequential over time. They describe this process as an “escalating tit-for-tat between a demagogic, norm-breaking leader and a threatened political establishment.” One theme of their book is that norm-breaking on one side begets norm-breaking on the other—and now the ultimate norm breaker is returning to the Oval Office. As much as possible, Trump’s opponents should avoid falling into this cycle, which is why they should think very carefully about the norms they choose to embrace and discard over the next four years.

Even norms that seem minor have an important role to play in a democracy. When Biden was asked last month if he’s planning to attend Trump’s inauguration, he said, “Of course I am.” The fate of the republic didn’t hinge on his answer to that question. Biden’s presence at the inauguration won’t protect America’s democratic institutions from Trump’s authoritarian onslaught over the next four years. But nor will it bestow any legitimacy on Trump that hasn’t already been conferred on him by the American people. What Biden’s presence will do is communicate a simple message to millions of Americans, including those who voted for Trump—that one party still takes democracy seriously. In the end, that will be in the country’s—and the Democrats’—best interest.

© The UnPopulist, 2025

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