Trump's wrecking ball of a transition

... to shorten the window, especially after the infamous "Secession Winter" of 1860 left President-elect Abraham Lincoln powerless as several Southern states left the union to form the Confederacy.

The 20th Amendment moved Inauguration Day to January 20 (and set the start date for a new Congress on January 3). If the nation needed one last reminder of why the shift was necessary, they got it after the 1932 election, when President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was unable to launch the New Deal for months amidst the deteriorating economic crisis of the Great Depression.

It turns out, however, that even two months is no guarantee of a smooth interregnum. President Donald Trump has managed to use his remaining time in office to act as a political wrecking ball while the country is still being ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As an aside ...

Fewer than four in 10 Americans voted for Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 -- he wasn't even on the ballot in nine Southern states -- but it was enough to win.  Lincoln carried eighteen of thirty-three states, sweeping Northern population centers, and won 180 of the 303 electoral votes.  His election outraged the South and triggered the Secession Winter.