Trump’s Third American Revolution

For the first time, presidential power will pass to a business leader and true outsider.

On March 4, 1801, President-Elect Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office at 11 a.m., in what was considered a simple ceremony...

Despite the simple ceremony, James Madison said of the peaceful transition of power, “What a lesson to America and the world.” Jefferson was the third president, but this was the first-time power transferred from one party, the Federalists, to another, the Democratic-Republicans. It came after a campaign that made the 2016 battle look quite tame.

Long after his presidency had ended, Jefferson expanded on Madison’s thought, referring to his election as, the “Revolution of 1800,” because, he explained it was, “as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; not effected indeed by the sword, as that, but by rational and peaceful instruments of reform, the suffrage of the people.”...

Love or hate Trump, his election marks truly the first time someone entirely outside the political system and government became president. He has broken a barrier, a general belief among the public and most successful American in the private sector, that at least some government office is a prerequisite to being elected president...

The presidential victories of Jefferson, Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Reagan marked major political realignments. It is too early to speculate if Trump’s victory will spark a permanent political shift. Many wrongly predicted as much after Obama’s 2008 win. What his victory does mark is a new chapter in the evolving American experiment.

Trump broke through doing what no one else has done: become president without any prior government experience — save maybe for lobbying and donating to politicians, which he readily admits were the cost of doing business...

Americans have long been warm to the thought of government running as efficiently as a business. In 2016 they meant it. Even if Trump doesn’t succeed, he has still shattered another glass ceiling that needed to be shattered — busting through the political-governmental complex. That is indeed a peaceful revolution.