Every election season, one hears an assortment of politicians, pundits and even a few academics boldly making the claim: This is the most important election ever. If it’s not ever, then it’s some variation, such as in our lifetimes, in a generation or perhaps in history.
But it’s almost never true. I’d like to make my own bold claim: 2016 will not be the most important election ever. In fact, notwithstanding the excitement and controversy it has generated, this election will be middling in terms of its historical importance.
Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have used the “most important” phrase with regularity on the campaign trail and in the debates. Trump says we cannot take four more years of Barack Obama’s failed policies and radical agenda and that that’s what we’d get with Hillary. Clinton, meanwhile, says Trump represents a unique and unprecedented threat to the American system of government. Both of these possibilities make this the most important election ever, apparently.
Their surrogates and supporters have made similar arguments. Most recently Clinton fan Barbara Streisand said, “This is the most important election of our lifetime — I think,” expressing a bit more nuance than most do when this topic is raised.
Of course, you’d expect the candidates themselves to say it is the most important election ever, because for them and the people around them, it is. But for the rest of us? Not so much.
There have been many previous elections (1860, for instance, or even 1980) on which it could credibly be argued that the nation’s future hinged.
This year, the differences between the two candidates are probably less than those that separated the candidates in past presidential elections. Up until recently, Trump and Hillary held similar positions on a host of issues, from healthcare reform and abortion to (yes) immigration. Now they’re both embracing protectionist policies on trade. Yes, they have very different personas and styles, and the campaign has highlighted the differences between them. But they are more similar than is imagined in terms of the laws and policies that would affect citizens’ daily lives under their administration.
I hear the “most important” phrase all the time from conservatives. It’s usually something to the effect that our country can’t survive four more years of Obama’s big government policies. On the left, one hears that if Trump wins (or Romney, McCain, Bush, etc.), the country will return to the era of Jim Crow. Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains,” Vice President Joe Biden said at a campaign event ahead of the 2012 election.
But American democracy is resilient. The “most important” theme is deployed to energize voters to get to the polls in a country with comparatively low turnout rates, and to generate donations to political campaigns and D.C. non-profits. Potential donors are more likely to cough up a few bucks to help affect the outcome of THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER!!! than they are to pay for an airline upgrade to first class for the SUPERPAC chairman supporting a long-shot candidate.
None of this is to say that any particular year’s election isn’t important. They all are. Consider the fact that Obama has so far appointed 329 judges to the federal courts, including two to the Supreme Court. That’s about one-third of the total. These judges will help cement Obama’s legacy of judicial activism for liberal ends for decades. The prospect of Hillary expanding that legacy should be enough to get any eligible voter out to the polls to vote on Nov. 8.
Nor is it to suggest that a specific election isn’t the most important election for certain individuals. This will be a very important election for Syrian refugees hoping to get a chance to start a new life in America. For Merrick Garland, who’s waiting in judicial purgatory while the Senate refuses to consider his nomination to the Supreme Court, his career will hinge on the election. If Trump wins, he can likely kiss his shot at the Court goodbye.
But for America as a whole, there’s no reason to think this election will be any more or less important than the last one.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
