Traditionally, we would likely write about the peaceful transfer of power on the day of a presidential inauguration.

We write how the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of the American presidency.

We write even if it is a president of one party replacing a president from another party, there are no bloody coups, or hunkering down in the White House. There are no tanks in the streets …

We cannot write that editorial this year.

Tanks are in the streets of the nation’s capital and in cities throughout the United States.

There was a coup attempt with the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol to keep Congress from certifying the election for Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump does not plan to attend the inauguration ceremony which hasn’t happened since Andrew Johnson left the White House in the 1860s in the bitter aftermath of the Civil War.

Though we cannot celebrate a peaceful transfer of power Jan. 20, it is worth remembering how it normally occurs in America.

We were blessed with having a George Washington as our first president rather than a Hosni Mubarak, or a Fidel Castro, or a Vladmir Putin, or any number of other leaders throughout history who have refused to relinquish power.

Given his success in defeating the British, his command of the nation’s military, the esteem in which his countrymen held him, Washington could have been president for life, a new king or dictator.

Instead, he surrendered his sword at war’s end. 

He stepped aside after being elected to two terms as president.

In the American Revolution, we were blessed with a Washington. In France, revolution ushered in the guillotine and Napoleon.

History has revealed there are far more Mubaraks, Castros and Napoleons than Washingtons in other nations.

But not in America. Not traditionally.

Washington attended the peaceful transfer of power to John Adams as the second president.

Like Trump plans to do, Adams did not stick around to see his political rival Thomas Jefferson inaugurated as the third president. But Adams peacefully allowed the transfer of power to an opposing party’s president-elect.

Our founders set the precedent of a peaceful transfer of power. 

The former president steps aside and welcomes the new president, whether they are political allies or if the former president lost the election to a political enemy. 

Country before party. The nation before self. No attempts at a coup. No tanks in the streets.

Sadly, we cannot write that this time.