It has been two-and-a-half months since Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Yet, Trump and the Republican Party has been given an opportunity to sabotage Biden’s presidency in an attempt to demonstrate profound strength. In the two months since Trump’s losing, he has spent the majority of his lame-duck period overturning the election results before finally resorting to inciting violence at the US Capitol. He also spent that time-period granting pardons to his cronies that did his bidding, preventing Biden from launching any investigations to their dealings. Had Biden been able to assume his presidency much sooner, it is highly doubtful that such a riot would have occurred because the rioters would not have had an opportunity to plan such an event. The US Constitution granted sitting presidents an extensive period to transition power to his successor. But the primary reason the founding fathers decided on a lame-duck period was because they needed verification that every vote was counted. Since they did not have the internet or cars or telephones or televisions a lot of traveling needed to be done to secure people’s votes, count them and then report to Washington what the results were. As a result, whole weeks would go by before the public became aware of the result. Not to mention this was all in the winter. In the present, that is no longer the case. We are now able to know the result instantly. And Trump is not the only President to take advantage of the lame-duck period to sabotage his successor’s presidency. John Adams appointed Supreme Court justices to prevent Jefferson from filling them himself (https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-midnight-appointments). James Buchanan prevented the southern states from seceding since he found the issue of slavery only a trifling matter that was not very serious (https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/james-buchanan-why-is-he-considered-americas-worst-president/). Had Lincoln been able to succeed him much sooner, it is probable the American Civil War would have gone much differently and less bloody. Also, I should point out that lame duck periods lasted until March. And even Herbert Hoover, despite losing in a landslide to Franklin Roosevelt largely due to his lack of sufficient response to the Great Depression, stoked to Roosevelt that his New Deal would worsen the Depression (it did not) and urged him to abandon the Deal (he did not) (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/22224850/abolish-lame-duck-trump-biden-capitol-insurrection-constitution-20th-amendment) Other countries have the newly-elected leaders sworn to office almost instantly. This helps prevent a stigma on the current leader of a nation from being viewed as a powerless figure for a lengthy period of time, and is able to keep things moving at a decent rate. Furthermore, little to time is spent for world leaders to enact middling schemes to sabotage their successors. Of course, abolishing the lame-duck period is no simple task. Shortening the lame-duck period would require an amendment to the Constitution, which is very rare. But that does not mean we should try. After all, amendments are rare but not impossible.

The lame duck period is not without its faults, like the potential to “sabotage” the incoming presidents term. But the reasons that it exists still outweigh this risk. It is still important that we allow time to verify the votes, even if it is sometimes taken advantage of. This is why we have other processes in place to prevent this “sabotage” from going too far. Case in point: even in as strong a pursuit of overturning the election results as we saw in the 2020 election, it still didn’t make it all the way through. It could even be argued that tensions would worsen if people perceived that they were not given a fair contesting period (rather than preventing the riot). More importantly, it gives the president time to learn the ropes and put in place their own staff, which is crucial in ensuring a capable president.