Vice Precedents

The last US president to hold office (the verb serve seems hardly apt in the present context) for two non-consecutive terms was Grover Cleveland in the late nineteenth century. A biographer said that Cleveland "had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not." It is fitting that the first president to duplicate Cleveland's electoral achievement should not only possess none of those qualities, but should lack them to a degree other men do not. Cleveland's personal reputation remained high despite an unsuccessful second term; the Trumpster has gained a second term with a personal reputation that is high in a more fly-blown and olfactory fashion. Cleveland was a conservative in the antiquated sense of one who aspires to conserve; the Trumpster is a conservative in the modern sense of one who aspires to fascism. After his second presidency, Cleveland joined a law firm; after the Trumpster's second presidency, the law is likely to be more infirm than for quite some time.

The last US president to be black turned out to be a bland technocrat whose tenure precipitated a Trumpster term of office. The last US vice-president to be black has contrived to duplicate that achievement.