The most important election ever

Over the past 40 years, particularly since 2008 and aided by the growth of social media and the amalgamation of politics into almost every facet of culture, we hear this every Silly Season: “This is the most important election ever.” Sometimes, it more modestly carries the “in our lifetime” qualifier.

It’s a grand claim. George Washington became the first president of the United States in 1789, and this year will mark the 58th presidential election since the first. That’s plenty of elections for a young nation, with salient issues looming in the background every four years.

In 2008, Barack Obama said, “This is certainly the most important election in my lifetime — not just because I’m running.” In 2012, Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen wrote a piece entitled “The Most Important Election Ever.” The rhetoric is not limited to Democrats. In 2000, the National Rifle Association called the election between George W. Bush and Al Gore “the most important election since the Civil War.” In 1984, Ronald Reagan said it was the “most important election in this nation in 50 years.”

As a measure of its use, the phrase made its way into the 2018 midterm elections. David Corn of Mother Jones called it the “most important election of our lives.” “The most important election any of us have voted in so far,” said Joe Biden. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker echoed those sentiments.

This year has continued the trend, with Democrats upping the ante. In his Democratic National Committee speech, Obama declared, “That’s what’s at stake right now: our democracy.” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told viewers, “The future of our democracy is at stake.” Former Justice Department official Sally Yates said the same.

Not to be outdone by Democratic politicians and officials, left-wing author Robert Kuttner wrote a book, The Stakes, which argues the very survival of American democracy depends on the outcome of the election. John Dean, one of the infamous co-conspirators of the Watergate cover-up scandal, and who now spends the bulk of his time arguing any scandal involving a Republican president is worse than Watergate, said if President Trump gets reelected, “our democracy will be gone.”

Yet in a recent Gallup survey of registered voters, 56% said they feel their situation is better today than four years ago. It’s a remarkable number given that the U.S. continues to fight a deadly pandemic and the slow reopening of states across the country has hampered the economy.

That may be cold comfort to Trump, who trails Biden in several polling averages by 10 points or more. Still, it is hardly indicative of the public staring down the most important election of all time.

The United States is not actively engaged in any major wars. Foreign policy and national security challenges exist, but no crisis. Despite taking multiple hits from the coronavirus, the economy remains relatively stable. Interest rates are low. The stock market, and thus 401(k) plans, continues its ascent. When states entered lockdowns in March, the unemployment rate surged to nearly 15%. At the end of September, it dropped to 8%. Despite the coronavirus, people had the opportunity to watch (on television) all three Triple Crown races, the NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, and now, the MLB playoffs.

None of this is to minimize the coronavirus. It’s simply to offer some evidentiary support to voters’ relative lack of panic.

Compare with 1980, for example. The campaign pitted incumbent President Jimmy Carter against former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. While still recovering from the Watergate scandal and the end of the Vietnam War, the country faced many other challenges. The gasoline shortage in 1979 continued into the new year, with drivers having to contend with long lines at the pump. Interest rates hovered just above 13%, and inflation checked in at 14%. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was in full effect, and Iranian Revolution supporters held 52 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. That’s to say nothing of the rising crime, increased pollution, drug abuse, and general corruption that plagued the nation’s largest cities. The new president would face domestic challenges and multiple foreign policy dilemmas right out of the gate.

By contrast, Joe Biden said his first order of business if he wins the election is the repeal of the tax cut bill Trump signed in 2017.

Examining presidential elections through the lens of importance requires historical precedent. Otherwise, it comes off as trifling partisan posturing. If an afterlife hall for presidents existed, it’s not difficult to imagine Abraham Lincoln snickering and elbowing his fellow officeholders and asking, “Do they not remember 1860?”

Lincoln, a former one-term member of the House of Representatives, came out victorious in the quadrennial election, defeating John Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas. Lincoln’s victory was remarkable in that it represented the second-lowest share of the popular vote (39%) in U.S. history. Only John Quincy Adams, who lost the popular vote in 1824 (and, ironically, the Electoral College), did worse. Still, the Electoral College determines the winner of presidential elections, and Lincoln’s significant wins in northern states secured 181 electoral votes. Breckinridge finished second with 72. Bell won 39 and Douglas, 12.

Lincoln’s win and impending inauguration triggered seven Southern states’ secession between December 1860 and February 1861. Those states formed the Confederate States of America. It’s nearly unfathomable to grasp the idea that the United States, a mere 71 years after Washington became our first president, was now splitting apart under the stain of slavery.

Lincoln declared the secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender any federal property. Lincoln’s rebuffing of the demands led to Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordering the attack and capture of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Thus began the Civil War. It would rage for the next four years, claiming anywhere from 620,000 to 750,000 lives over that span.

One can argue people couldn’t fully flesh out the historical importance of the 1860 election, as subsequent events didn’t occur until after the results. Therefore, the 2020 election’s significance might not come to fruition until a year or two after it’s over.

It’s a possibility. Still, the country went through an election that raised the bar on importance, before and after it was over. The run-up and aftermath of the 1800 election contained enough intrigue and potential crises to fill a television miniseries.

Two Founding Father titans would face off for the second time. President John Adams would face a rematch against his vice president, Thomas Jefferson. It would signify the final presidential election with a split ticket, with Congress passing the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in 1803, and the states ratifying it in 1804.

Adams’s presidency was tumultuous, to say the least. Having to follow George Washington, viewed in the eyes of many as near-royalty, was difficult enough. Additionally, Adams had to face one of the most challenging foreign policy decisions of all time — whether or not to enter a war with France.

Adams’s attempt to utilize a peace commission in negotiations with France failed despite Jefferson’s assistance. The commission of John Marshall, Charles Pinckney, and Elbridge Gerry met with French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for only 15 minutes after they were made to wait for days. Talleyrand introduced them to his agents, who refused to conduct any negotiations without the benefit of significant bribes. The episode came to be known as the “XYZ Affair.”

Ironically, the Republicans (aka Democratic-Republicans) demanded that Adams release the details of the “XYZ Affair” and only weakened support for France when it happened. Adams’s popularity among the Federalists and the country soared, almost hoping for a full-scale war with France. Republicans continued to oppose the war, while Federalists blamed France and French immigrants for fanning the flames of unrest. Partisan Republican newspapers created more fiction.

The result was the passage and signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. These four laws significantly increased executive power, allowing the president to imprison and deport noncitizens deemed “dangerous.” The laws also criminalized making false statements critical of the federal government. Jefferson vehemently opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts despite two of the laws having expiration dates of two to three years. Writing anonymously for the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Jefferson said, “These and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron.”

The 1800 election also introduced the nation to negative campaigning, which would likely make today’s politicians recoil in horror. The attacks came mostly from the partisan newspapers of the day and supporters of the two candidates. One supporter of Adams said if Jefferson became president, “we would see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution.” In Connecticut, a newspaper wrote Jefferson would bring about a nation in which “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced.”

Attacks against Adams were no less dirty. Journalist James Callender called Adams a “repulsive pedant” and said he “behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.” It’s a far cry from “Sleepy Joe.”

Despite the ugliness and personal animosity between Jefferson and Adams, Jefferson’s win also marked the first time the young nation engaged in the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another.

In 2020, people have decried the “norms violations” by Republicans in nominating and pushing to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court weeks before a presidential election. In one of his final acts as president, John Adams nominated (and the Senate confirmed) John Marshall to the Supreme Court. Adams immediately promoted Marshall to chief justice. Also, Adams signed the Judiciary Act, which reduced the number of justices on the Supreme Court from six to five. Adams took all of those actions after losing the election. The U.S. was only 11 years old at the time of the 1800 election. The events leading to it and what happened after created an environment to look back on and declare it easily one of the most important presidential elections ever.

But fear not. In a little over two years, new midterm elections will give Republicans and Democrats a license to proclaim once again the arrival of the most important election in our lifetime. Again.

Jay Caruso is managing editor of the Washington Examiner Magazine.