The Pariah President
Noah Bierman at LAT:
In April, Trump was asked to stay away from the funeral of Barbara Bush, wife to one president and mother of another, leaving it to former Presidents Clinton and Obama to serve as national consolers to the Bush family. In December, he opted to skip the president's traditional attendance at the annual Kennedy Center Honors gala after several of the artists being feted threatened a boycott.
The British royal family dispensed with inviting foreign dignitaries to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in May partly to avoid having to invite Trump, whom Markle had attacked as "divisive" and "misogynistic." Trump canceled the usual White House celebration for the NFL's Super Bowl champions when he learned most of the Philadelphia Eagles players were unwilling to attend. Only months earlier the Golden State Warriors had passed on their own invitation to celebrate their 2017 NBA championship title at the White House.
Ashley Parker at WP:
The latest snub comes in the form of the upcoming funeral for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which, before his death, the late senator made clear he did not want the sitting president to attend. That the feeling is mutual — Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised McCain as a “hero” — only underscores the myriad ways Trump has rejected the norms of his office and, increasingly, has been rejected in turn.
Less than two years into first term, Trump has often come to occupy the role of pariah — both unwelcome and unwilling to perform the basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency, from public displays of mourning to cultural ceremonies.
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“We’re not talking about a president going and having a rally in a state that voted against him,” said Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University who previously served as the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “We’re talking about a president who can’t even go and participate in a ritual where presidents are usually welcomed, and that is one of the consequences of his having defined the presidency in a sectarian way.”
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