Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden frequently warns about the perils of a second term for President Trump, urging potential voters to actually cast a ballot because “This is the most important election of our lifetime.”
Sound familiar? It likely does to even the most casual election observer over the past 20 years or more.
The former vice president is only the latest prominent Democrat to suggest the world will collapse if voters don’t back their favored candidate — usually them.
In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton invoked the phrase frequently. So did her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama, her rival-turned boss when he was president and she served as secretary of state, when they ran for the White House.
It’s a cliche that partisans from both sides trot out before each presidential election, warning ominously of effects if the other side were to win.
In reality, elections come and go, and many things stay static. In the case of 2020, though, there are certain to be canyon-wide chasms between Trump and the eventual Democratic nominee. So, depending on one’s partisan proclivities, this may just be one of the most important elections, if not in our lifetimes, at least the past 20 years or so.
Grayce McCormick contributed to this report.
