I have a photograph of Ronald Reagan in my office.
The black and white image is a moment — Jan. 20, 1989 — in our American story. Reagan is leaving the Oval Office for the final time and, with his right hand on the door knob, he turns to take a last look. His expression is wistful. A second later, he opens the door and heads to the inauguration of George H.W. Bush.
The desk is empty, a shaft of sunlight and shadow from window panes runs across it.
I treasure this photo because it is a gift from a dear friend, the talented photographer Jose R. Lopez, who captured this moment while covering the White House for The New York Times.
But even more than the personal connection, I display this photograph because it crystallizes one of the enduring strengths and accomplishments of the United States experiment: the peaceful transition of power.
The empty desk speaks to me with such hope. It’s wiped clean of the outgoing president, awaiting a new occupant. The desk is bigger than the men — and soon-to-be woman — who sit behind it in the Oval Office. It’s a through line of our United States.
The particular desk in the photo of Reagan is the Resolute Desk. It’s the same desk President Obama uses today.
This is the promise of America. Unlike many other countries, we have the certainty that our satisfaction or discontent with our elected leadership is temporary. It may be a long and damaging four or eight years, as Reagan’s was, but we know the president’s term will come to an end. Change will come.
The past won’t be wiped clean, but the present, in new hands — hands we have chosen — will have its opportunity to succeed.
This is one of many reasons Donald Trump’s cavalier pronouncement that he may not accept the results of the Nov. 8 election should shake every American, no matter who you support for president.
During the Wednesday night debate in Las Vegas, Trump refused to agree to participate in our democracy. He refused to say he would abide by the election. “I will look at it at the time. I will keep you in suspense.”
On Thursday, he clarified saying he would accept the result, “If I win.”
The good news is that Trump doesn’t decide the election, we do. Yes, he could make things difficult and drawn out by filing challenges and lawsuits, but if the vote margin is big enough, his flailing won’t matter. A loser doesn’t have to accept that he’s a loser to still have lost.
Trump’s candidacy as the Republican nominee for president has been an exercise in bizarre. He’s ignored precedent, decorum, facts and a basic knowledge of American government.
Trump has made a public career of boasting about his fantasy awesomeness while repeatedly demonstrating his inability to have a thought that doesn’t exit his lips at full volume.
But this is different. He’s crossed a line that goes beyond all others. By convincing his supporters that the election is illegitimate — only if he doesn’t win, mind — he’s committing theft of the highest order. He is trying to steal what the Founders and countless others have fought for over more than two centuries: the promise Americans have made to each other, and to the world, for generations, that we are a nation of many, bound together by an idea.
Even when our nation has confronted our worst selves, the shameful parts of our history and the problems we face today, the bedrock of America has survived because of the knowledge that our system of government is strong enough to withstand our disagreements, conflicting goals and discord.
Trump is trying to steal your vote, whether it is cast for or against him. He knows he’s going to lose the election. He is trying to make us believe that what we have to say at the ballot box doesn’t matter.
Let’s prove him wrong. Hugely, tremendously, beautifully wrong.
