By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
The GenerationThe GenerationThe Generation
  • USA
    USA
    Show More
    Top News
    Dad charged with murder after 10-year-old son dies in rollover crash, TX officials say
    September 4, 2023
    Claudia Goldin wins 2023 Nobel economics prize
    October 11, 2023
    Marijuana Smoke May be Harmful to Health, Can Affect Your Heart
    November 2, 2023
    Latest News
    Trump to Iran: Make Peace Now or Face Greater Destruction
    June 22, 2025
    Jenifer Rajkumar: A New Name for Representation and Reform
    June 19, 2025
    Trump Organization Launches “Trump Mobile” with U.S.-Made Phone and $47.45 Plan
    June 16, 2025
    Happy 250th Birthday, US Army
    June 15, 2025
  • New York
    New York
    Show More
    Top News
    Bangladeshi Actor achieve international in US
    October 26, 2023
    NY District Cancels Classes After Multiple Fights Break out at Same Time at High School
    November 24, 2023
    Winter Weather Arrives As NYC Migrant Crisis Worsens
    December 20, 2023
    Latest News
    New Yorkers vote in mayoral primary as poll shows Mamdani leading Cuomo
    June 24, 2025
    NYC Mayoral Primary Election Today: What to Know and When to Expect Results
    June 24, 2025
    Zohran Mamdani Leads Cuomo in Ranked-Choice Poll: South Asian Progressive Candidate Gains Momentum in NYC Mayoral Race
    June 23, 2025
    Final Day of Early Voting in NYC—Mayoral Candidates Launch Last-Minute Push Ahead of Primary
    June 22, 2025
  • Politics
    Politics
    Show More
    Top News
    Joe Biden Plans To Ban Logging In US Old-growth Forests In 2025
    December 26, 2023
    Donald Trump Ranked As Worst US President In History, With Joe Biden 14th
    February 29, 2024
    Lawmakers Say They Should Analyze Protests Response
    May 31, 2024
    Latest News
    With Bernie Sanders’ Backing, Zohran Mamdani Gains Momentum in NYC Mayoral Race”
    June 18, 2025
    New York City Comptroller Brad Lander Detained by ICE During Immigration Court Visit
    June 17, 2025
    Mamdani Secures Second Cross-Endorsement in Battle to Unseat Cuomo in NYC Mayoral Race
    June 17, 2025
    New York City Mayoral Primary 2025: Latest Polls & Progressive Shift
    June 15, 2025
  • World
    World
    Show More
    Top News
    Arab League slams Israel siege of Gaza, demands aid for Gazans
    October 12, 2023
    Bangladesh hands over humanitarian aid to Palestine
    October 31, 2023
    Hezbollah’s anti-ship missiles bolster its threat to US navy
    November 9, 2023
    Latest News
    Iran–Israel Ceasefire in Effect Amid Tensions, Accusations, and Uncertainty
    June 24, 2025
    Is The World Close To A Nuke Radiation Incident?
    June 23, 2025
    Trump Leaves G7 Summit Early as Iran-Israel Conflict Intensifies
    June 23, 2025
    Iran Leader Khamenei Sees His Inner Circle Hollowed Out by Israel
    June 23, 2025
  • Finance & Business
    Finance & Business
    Show More
    Top News
    How Banks And The Fed Are Preparing For A US Default – And Chaos To Follow
    September 3, 2023
    Corporate Greed is not to Blame for High Inflation, SF Fed Says
    June 16, 2024
    Latest News
    Corporate Greed is not to Blame for High Inflation, SF Fed Says
    June 16, 2024
    How Banks And The Fed Are Preparing For A US Default – And Chaos To Follow
    September 3, 2023
  • EpaperNew
Search
  • About Us
  • Our Awards
  • My Bookmarks
  • Opinion
  • Crime
  • Science & Technology
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Economy
  • Fashion
  • Election
  • Feature
  • Charity
  • Literature
  • Security
  • US & Canada
  • Nature
  • Cooking
Copyright @2023 – All Right Reserved by The Generation.
Reading: The Transition Travesty
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Font ResizerAa
The GenerationThe Generation
  • USA
  • New York
  • Politics
  • World
  • EpaperNew
Search
  • Crime
  • Economy
  • Election
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
  • US & Canada
  • Finance & Business
  • Charity
  • Cooking
  • Fashion
  • Feature
  • Literature
  • Nature
  • Science & Technology
  • Security
  • Sports
Follow US
  • About Us
  • My Bookmarks
Copyright @2023 – All Right Reserved by The Generation.
Editorial

The Transition Travesty

Published January 11, 2025
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 19

by Mark Medish

JOE Biden keeps departing and Donald Trump keeps arriving. The soon-to-be former president and the still-future president are like comic-tragic characters in a political zombie film.
Let’s face it: the US presidential transition is a constitutional travesty. The months-long transition is undemocratic, unseemly and quite dangerous.
Mark the current scene. A politically defunct, King Lear-like Joe Biden continues to make big and small policy decisions after his intended successor’s platform narrowly but clearly lost at the ballot box, even as President-elect Donald Trump conducts an incipient shadow presidency through a torrent of legal maneuvers, social media pronouncements and interviews, sounding more Caesarian by the day.
Both the recent hectoring of Congress by Trump over the eleventh-hour budget deal and debt ceiling and the thriller over the threatened shutdown of the hugely popular social media platform TikTok on the day before the inauguration, pending a Supreme Court decision to the contrary, highlight the foolishness of permitting a long lame duck period with anything more than caretaker powers.
This spectacle of ‘dual power’ — to borrow a famous phrase from the tumult of revolutionary Russia in 1917 — is an affront to democratic common sense. Some would argue it’s a ‘triple power’ situation, with plutocrat-maximus Elon Musk as a pretender to the ad hoc triumvirate, but that is another matter.
The protracted transition period is built largely around the calendar of the antiquated electoral college process in which the supernumerary votes of state electors are deemed constitutionally more important than the national popular vote. Consequently, we must wait for the electors and Congress to act, and then another two weeks, until January 20th for the drama to end.
This long transition virtually guarantees a presidential time of troubles, a period of heightened national risk during which a president who has lost or lacks the electoral mandate nevertheless possesses full but unchecked and unaccountable ‘lame duck’ executive powers.
Biden’s breaking an explicit pre-election promise and pardoning of his own son, Clinton’s dubious pardoning of Marc Rich, Trump’s pardoning of Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.
Biden’s escalatory measures in the Ukraine war including long-range ATCM missile strikes and expropriation of sovereign assets after his administration’s war strategy was rejected by a majority of voters.
George HW Bush’s launch of the ill-fated Somalia mission bequeathing the ‘Black Hawk Down’ debacleto the incoming Clinton.
Eisenhower’s CIA-led assassination of the uncooperative Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba just days before JFK took office.
And the lame duck locus classicus, the series of ‘midnight’ judicial appointments by outgoing John Adams in the last weeks of his term.
The issue is less about the merits of the underlying decisions — which could and should have been debated ex ante — but about the timing of such executive acts beyond the reach of democratic and legal accountability.
Perhaps nothing has revived the nagging questions about the duration of the post-election presidential transition as much as the abortive January 6 insurrection-cum-coup attempt. The fact that Congress resorted to a failed post-presidency impeachment process to hold Trump accountable for alleged incitement of January 6 shows how lawless the transition period has become.
The accountability problem is reinforced because an outgoing president might be presumptuous enough to pardon himself while also enjoying expansive new constitutional immunity – that is, impunity — according to the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in the aptly named case Trump v United States.
Furthermore, the specter of potential abuse of Presidential emergency powers, either delegated by Congress under Article 1 or ‘inherent’ in the presidency under Article 2 as some legal authorities argue, hangs over the transition and intensifies the risk.
The unaccountable transition period is among the many depressing and potentially dangerous derogations of democratic principles in the Constitution. The list also includes omissions such as the lack of an individual right to vote, lack of gender equality, lack of a privacy right, disenfranchisement of District of Columbia and the US territorial possessions. For a brilliant and sobering discussion of such issues, see Erwin Chemerinsky’s book No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.
Justice Robert Jackson long ago warned in a much quoted dissenting opinion about the risk of anarchy that the Constitution should not be read as a ‘suicide pact.’ Unfortunately, despite its manifest nobility of purpose and pioneering ingenuity, as written, amended and interpreted, the founding charter also contains ingredients for the undoing of our democratic republic.

CounterPunch.org, January 6. Mark Medish, a lawyer in Washington DC, is a former senior White House and treasury official in the Clinton administration / This story has not been edited by The Generation staff

You Might Also Like

Chanchal Mahmud — The Eye That Captured Light and Life

Boeing 787 Dreamliner: A Marvel in the Sky or a Machine of Growing Doubts?

US. Senator Handcuffed: A Democracy Under Question?

Cuomo vs. Mamdani: A Tight Race Shakes Up NYC Mayoral Primary

Manufacturing Down, Food Expensive and ICE is Deporting Moms. Happy now, MAGA?

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Copy Link Print
Previous Article Hochul Proposes $110M for New Childcare Facilities
Next Article Bangladesh can become the US’s valuable trade partner

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
13kFollowersFollow
1.2kFollowersFollow
1.4kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Iran–Israel Ceasefire in Effect Amid Tensions, Accusations, and Uncertainty
World June 24, 2025
New Yorkers vote in mayoral primary as poll shows Mamdani leading Cuomo
New York June 24, 2025
NYC Mayoral Primary Election Today: What to Know and When to Expect Results
New York June 24, 2025
Is The World Close To A Nuke Radiation Incident?
World June 23, 2025
Trump Leaves G7 Summit Early as Iran-Israel Conflict Intensifies
World June 23, 2025

Quick links

  • About Us
  • Our Awards
  • My Bookmarks

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Editor
Sadia J. Choudhury
Executive Editor
Shah J. Choudhury, Mubin Khan & Salman J. Choudhury
Member of Editor’s Board
Husneara Choudhury, Fauzia J. Choudhury, Santa Islam & DevRaj A. Nath.

A Ruposhi Bangla Entertainment Network

By

Office Address
New York Office:
70-52 Broadway 1A, Jackson Heights, NY-11372, United States.
Contact
Tel: +1 (718) 496-5000
Email: info@thegenerationus.com
newsthegeneration@gmail.com
The GenerationThe Generation
Follow US
Copyright @2023 – All Right Reserved by The Generation.