Several news outlets have noticed a certain coincidence: When Donald Trump is sworn in for a second time on Jan. 20, he will become just the second president to serve non-consecutive terms.

The first, Democrat Grover Cleveland, was elected in 1884, narrowly lost in 1888, then returned to the presidency in 1892. Both he and Trump served during turbulent times, with closely divided elections and partisan control of Congress switching back and forth.

And that’s where the similarities begin and end. In almost all other respects, Cleveland and Trump are utterly different.

Cleveland, the then-governor of New York, was elected as a “Man of Integrity,” standing apart from the internecine battles in his home state, and dedicated both to sound money and a fair deal for workers — a rare position, then as now.

He defeated James G. Blaine of Maine, a power in the Republican Party for decades, who began his career as a newspaper editor in Augusta, served in the U.S. House and Senate, including as House speaker, then was twice secretary of state.

By 1884, though, he was a little shop-worn and didn’t enjoy the full support of his party. While admirers called him the “plumed knight” for his elegant oratory, detractors suspicious of his overly close ties to the dominant railroad interests gave him the nickname that stuck: “Continental Liar from the State of Maine.”

Cleveland’s campaign problem came when Republicans found out that, as a young man, he had fathered a child out of wedlock. Cleveland had acknowledged paternity and paid child support, however, and the issue fizzled.

It was a rare election when the promise of hard-to-attain “good government” overcame nest-feathering and the forces of financial gain.

Cleveland took office just four years after James Garfield was mortally wounded by a disappointed office-seeker, dying several months later, less than 20 years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Republicans in Congress finally took action to create a merit-based civil service and start phasing out the “spoils system” of political patronage that had existed since the time of Andrew Jackson.

Cleveland strongly supported civil service, and incorporated many more federal jobs into the new system, even though it reduced the number of favors he could supply to loyal Democrats, who’d been waiting 24 years — the longest period any party has controlled the White House.

Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointments do not suggest a similar commitment to the principles of good government.

Cleveland ultimately made four appointments to the Supreme Court, but the second — Chief Justice Melville Fuller, an Augusta native — was by far the most consequential.

In Fuller’s most famous case, he struck down the income tax that formed the basis for Cleveland’s second-term economic program also reducing tariffs, on the basis — probably correct — that it was a “direct tax” prohibited by the Constitution. Cleveland made no public comment, and the two remained friends.

Congress ultimately passed the 16th Amendment authorizing the income tax, which has been the bedrock of federal revenues ever since.

So far, the three justices appointed by Trump have abrogated a five-decades-old constitutional right to abortion, and provided a retrospective and prospective grant of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution based on nothing in the text of the Constitution.

Grover Cleveland strove to create better relations in the Western Hemisphere, and brought Great Britain, the leading world power, to the bargaining table after it claimed a large swath of Venezuela as part of its colony of British Guiana (now Guyana.)

Chief Justice Fuller then produced an arbitration decision that restored some of the territory to Venezuela, though not as much as he thought it deserved.

Trump’s opinions about most of those on these shores born elsewhere, and the countries they came from, are too well known to bear repeating.

Cleveland’s second term was shadowed by the Panic of 1893, a severe depression brought on by the policies of the outgoing Republican administration, and Democrats also lost Congress in 1894.

Nevertheless, until the end of his days Cleveland stood for sound money and against the Democrats’ populist faction led by William Jennings Bryan that advocated “free coinage of silver,” which could have led to rampant inflation.

Bryan was nominated three times but never won the presidency. Trump has now won the popular vote once. Cleveland won it all three times.

When he died in 1908, Cleveland’s last words were “I have tried so hard to do right.”

It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump having a similar thought.