Not to get political, but the transition between the Obama and Trump Whitehouse was one of the worst in American history. The outgoing president’s staff prepared briefings and massive notebooks of information. These were to aide the new president’s Transition Team in their many tasks. A transition team must identify and vet candidates for the approximately 4,000 non-civil service positions in the U.S. Government that serve at the pleasure of the president. They must survey the needs and concerns of each federal agency. They also must allocate office space and clarify communication procedures. None of this went according to plan. This resulted in both failed policy implementation (note the Travel Ban of 2017) and an unprecedented turnover of the administration’s staff and key advisors. Chaos became the new normal as the transition stalled.

Both President Trump and President Washington wanted to make America great. They each had a vision for massive change. Washington, however, had a native curiosity about the world. He studied both war and diplomacy. Early in his administration, President Trump stated, “I don’t care much for process. I prefer simply to act.” Healthy transition is a process. It requires us to slow down and evaluate our gut feelings. In a changing world, it helps to study history. Literature and the social sciences help us to recognize the underlying patterns of human behavior, the perennial return of crisis, and the need to view facts dispassionately.

The sciences too, help to guide a safe transition. The tragedy of our current coronavirus crisis is that the Global Health Security/Pandemic Response Team, put in place by the Obama Administration, was disbanded by by the new administration. Our current reality would look very different if this step of the Trump transition wasn’t skipped.