I once got a letter read on-air by Brit Hume on this subject. I consulted Miss Manners. According to her, the POTUS and VPOTUS both revert to the highest title they had before serving as POTUS and VPOTUS.
With Trump, it would be “Mr. Trump.”
The living former Presidents would be Governor Carter, Ambassador Bush, Governor Clinton, Governor Bush, and Senator Obama. And calling ANY of them “Mr. Lastname” at any time is correct, both during and after their term as POTUS or VPOTUS.
It is NOT disrespectful of a President to call him “Mr. Lastname.”
It IS, however, idiotic, to call Abraham Lincoln “former President Abraham Lincoln.” Whatever happened to “the late Abraham Lincoln” or “the late President Lincoln”? (For those who haven’t been following the news.) Or, for those who HAVE been following the news, what’s wrong with “Abraham Lincoln”?
GWB was almost always called Mr. Bush, with derision, especially at White House press conferences. From 2001 to 2009, the word that came after president for Democrats was Clinton. We will see if the leftist press calls Trump Mr Trump or Mr. president.
That’s probably where I read this. I was going to say it was from Miss Manners, but I couldn’t recall exactly. I’m sure I read it recently. Good work! I realized last night that Hillary would and should be Senator Clinton because there’s a current Secretary of State, which isn’t Hillary. There’s always a Secretary of State and only one person holds the job at a time, so all during the debates the media were incorrect to call her “Secretary Clinton”. Journalists usually will call the president by his title the first time mentioned and then revert to Mr. (or Mrs.), but some of them just use the last name after first pointing out the person’s title and first name one time.
I think Abraham Lincoln is sufficient, also, although with the lack of American history being taught in schools, maybe we should never presume people know who he is and that he was a president. Sad.