A new sheriff comes to Washington, and the residents are afraid

IT'S an American political tradition of sorts, the honeymoon period in the relationship between the newly-elected president of the US and the American people.

In the period between the Christmas Holiday and its spirit of love and forgiveness and the pomp and circumstance of Inauguration Day, the country puts behind the political fury of the presidential election year as its gets closer to the inauguration of a new president. All Americans of all political parties and ideological persuasions, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, conservatives and liberals, come together in celebrating the peaceful transition of power in Washington. One occupant is vacating the White House and a new resident enters one of the world's most famous addresses, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Typically, on the eve of Inauguration Day, even the fiercest adversaries of the president-elect rally behind the incoming commander-in-chief. It's almost as if love is in the air. And the sentiments clearly tend to be reflected in the public opinion polls.

So it wasn't surprising that 79 per cent of Americans had a favourable opinion of Barack Obama, the first African-American president a few days before he was sworn into office in 2009. His predecessors, including Republicans George W Bush, George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan, and Democrats Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, had enjoyed favourability ratings of between the high 50s (Mr Reagan) and the high 60s and the high 70s (Mr Carter) on Inauguration Day.

It's true that in the case of Mr Carter and other presidents, the years following the inauguration and the ensuing honeymoon period, would be marked by dramatic changes in political fortunes. But as the new president and his family were on their way to their new home, most Americans applauded, and agreed that whatever you thought about the man during the heated presidential race, "We now need to give the guy a chance and see how he leads the nation in the next four years." Well, let's wait at least a month or two before we start criticising him.

That kind of attitude was even more pronounced among the residents of Washington, DC, and its adjacent suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. After all, they were welcoming a new neighbour to town. His family would be joining a local church. His kids would enrol in one of the local schools. And like other Washingtonians, he would have to endure the area's cold winters and sweltering summers.

Moreover, many of these Washingtonians would be working for, or with the new president, whether they were the members of Congress on Capitol Hill across the national mall or those who manage the largest office building in the world, the Pentagon in Virginia, and the rest of the thousands of government workers, lawyers, lobbyists and journalists who would be covering the incoming White House occupant.

But then, it will feel quite different on the day that Donald J Trump will be taking office. There is no love in the air for the new president, to put it mildly, and in particular not in the large urban centres of the East and West Coasts.

APPROVAL RATING

According to the recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 54 per cent of Americans now have an unfavourable view of Mr Trump while only 40 per cent have a favourable impression of him. By comparison, the outgoing president still enjoys a 61 per cent approval rating.

Moreover, according to the same poll, 52 per cent of Americans still don't think that Mr Trump is qualified to be president, as opposed to 40 per cent that do. In particular, 54 per cent of the respondents don't approve of the way the president-elect has managed his transition, while only 40 per cent approve.

These poll results are quite stunning, and explain in part why there are no signs of the political honeymoon, the kind that Mr Trump should have been enjoying by now. In fact, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Mr Trump's favourability ratings have fallen and are now lower than his low rating during the election campaign.

Making things worse is the continuing public battles between the president-elect and his political opponents, as well as his critics in the media, most recently over the Russian hacking scandal, that tend to take place in many instances in the social media, and usually start with the expected late-night tweets by Mr Trump. He fights with the producers of Saturday Night Live comedy show (he described the way actor Alec Baldwin plays him on the show as a "hit job") and actress Meryl Streep (calling her "over-rated" after she criticised him in an award ceremony) and not to mention his usual targets, such as Hillary Clinton, the Political Establishment, Corporate America and the Mainstream Media (MSM).

So after Congressman John Lewis, who is one of the icons of the civil rights movement when he served as aide to the late Martin Luther King Jr (MLK), questioned whether the Trump presidency should be regarded as legitimate, the president-elect tweeted angrily on MLK Day, charging that Mr Lewis's congressional district was "falling apart" and was 'crime infested". That in turn ignited a political backlash from top African-American leaders and other politicians, with at least 60 members of Congress announcing that they wouldn't attend the presidential inauguration ceremony and the other events scheduled for that day.

Almost every presidential inauguration has brought groups of protesters to Washington. But again, this time it seems to be different. These protests usually tend to be a public side-show on Inauguration Day, but now they are threatening to turn into a huge anti-Trump spectacle: Hundreds of thousands of protesters will converge on Washington, including a large contingent organised by womens' groups from all around the country.

Then there are the incoming president's neighbours in Washington and its suburbs who really don't like him. That was clearly demonstrated on Election Day when 91 per cent of voters in Washington cast their ballot for the Democrat Mrs Clinton and only 4 per cent - Yes! That's 4 per cent - or just 12,723 Washingtonians - voted for the Republican Mr Trump.

As someone who resides in the suburb of Washington, DC in Bethesda, Maryland, an upscale area where many government workers, lawyers, lobbyists and journalists make their home, my neighbours have never stopped mourning since the election results were broadcast in the early hours of Nov 9 last year.

SOMBRE MOOD

"Let's hope that next year would be better than this year" was the way my friends in Bethesda and around Washington congratulated one other during the New Year parties which sometimes felt like a vigil for the dead. "Poor Hillary. If only ..."

No. The new president wasn't their man, and that they have remained suspicious and even hostile towards him is understandable, considering that as a candidate he described Washington as a "swamp" of sleaze and corruption that he was planning to drain.

The president-elect's message to the Washington elite is that he is intent on reducing their power and influence. He has refrained from hiring think tank types to foreign policy jobs. He has pledged to get rid of the lobbyists and to put the members of the MSM in their place. And there has even been talk about the new administration closing down the section of the White House where journalists who cover the place do their work. Let them stand out in the rain.