After getting thoroughly trounced on November 5, losing the White House, Senate and House, Democrats in Washington, D.C., want Republicans and the new Trump administration to play nice.
"To my Republican colleagues: I offer a word of caution in good faith. Take care not to misread the will of the people and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme," outgoing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pleaded this week from the Senate floor.
This is the same sentiment being sent from 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, where President Joe Biden is vowing to implement a peaceful and orderly transition to a second Trump term in the White House.
"Mr. President-elect. Donald, congratulations. Looking forward to having a smooth transition, and we can make sure you are accommodated. Welcome," Biden told Trump during a traditional meeting in the Oval Office this week.
But Democrats in Washington, D.C., in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in the Deep State – suddenly putting down their arms and calling for a ceasefire – should not be trusted.
Over at the Pentagon, officials are already scheming about how to subvert the incoming Commander-in-Chief.
"Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers," CNN reports.
There's no doubt government bureaucrats across multiple agencies are shredding documents in anticipation of his arrival in the Oval Office.
But most importantly, the story of the 2016-2017 transition provides big lessons and warnings.
When President Barack Obama invited President-elect Trump to the White House on November 10, 2016, he promised a peaceful and orderly transition.
"My number one priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful," Obama said. "If you succeed, the country succeeds."
There were no plans to help Trump succeed. Obama was speaking with a forked tongue.
After the handshakes and exchanges of pleasantries, the unfounded investigations of Trump began and the undermining of his first term was well underway.
False accusations of Russia collusion were amplified, Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was framed, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate Trump's 2016 campaign, an impeachment came from Democrats after Trump asked about very real Biden family corruption in Ukraine and much more.
When Trump left office in January 2021, the lawfare was supercharged through Biden's Department of Justice, the New York City District Attorney's Office and in Georgia. It was an effort to ensure Trump could never run again for president, not to mention actually win. Biden publicly stated he wanted to see Trump in jail.
It all backfired. Trump just solidified the greatest victory, electorally and with the popular vote, of any Republican nominee in decades.
For years, leftist media figures and their Democrat friends falsely claimed the 2016-2017 Obama-Trump transition was peaceful. That is a myth. It was extremely hostile and carried out through the very agencies Trump has vowed to reform in his second term.
This week, Biden made the same promises as Obama did about a peaceful and orderly transition. This time, the incoming Trump administration is well aware those assurances could indeed be lies – especially as the bureaucracy prepares to bite back.