A pattern of deeming Republican presidents "illegitimate"

It’s a free country, and the nineteen (and counting) members of Congress who are planning to boycott President-elect Trump’s inauguration are certainly within their rights. So even is Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who said over the weekend that Trump’s election (or his presidency) is “illegitimate.”

That doesn’t make his comment true or honorable or helpful to the nation’s well-being, but he is free to say it.

Reps. Lewis, Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and the other inaugural boycotters are certainly not alone in finding Trump uniquely awful. They are not alone in believing the president-elect has gone out of his way to offend people. Probably they also recognize that, in the safe districts they all represent, an inaugural boycott might even be a political winner.

But this is also part of a pattern. Lewis and Lee, along with some other Democratic lawmakers at the time, also boycotted to make a point when President George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001. The Washington Post reported at the time that Lewis “thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush’s swearing-in because he doesn’t believe Bush is the true elected president.”