Mega-stress ages Presidents more rapidly. “Before” photos have fewer wrinkles and gray hair. James Buchanan, until January 20, 2017, was considered by many to have been the worst POTUS, He told his successor how he felt.

As they rode together by carriage to Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Buchanan said: “My dear sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.” Klein, “James Buchanan: A Biography,” 1962, p. 402.

trump looks about the same as he did when he took office. His four years have established records: for days playing golf and number of times impeached. And, like Buchanan, trump never shared a bed with FLOTUS under the roof of The White House.

However, Buchanan bungled matters in the lead-up to the Civil War and some would place at least part of the blame on him for the deaths of 620,000 Americans from 1861-65. The number of people who have died from COVID in the U.S. is nearly 400,000 and rising.

For now it appears that we have been spared a celebration of trump, with guns saluting and jets flying overhead and brass bands playing. trump could learn from the man who is his hero, Andrew Jackson, a genocidal slaveholder.

When he left office, Jackson “bowed to the people, then returned down Pennsylvania Avenue.” Meacham, “American Lion,” 2008, p. 338. No other President has left office throwing a party for himself - or suffering such abysmal approval ratings - as trump.

At 12:01 p.m. on January 20 a new President will be sworn. Celebrations will be muted, because of COVID. If any are held to mark trump’s departure from the Oval Office, they should be akin to those of the Munchkins after the house landed on the Wicked Witch of the East.