Historians have spilled much ink analyzing and interpreting all of the U.S. presidential elections, dating back to George Washington’s first run in 1788. But a handful of contests get more attention than others. Some elections, besides being important for all the usual reasons, also provide insights into their eras’ zeitgeist, and proved to be influential far beyond the four years they were proscribed.
2016 and 2020 were almost certainly among those elections, though academic historians have not yet written much about them (or even Obama’s 2008 election) because we typically wait a couple of decades before sensing that an event has passed from current or recent events into our distant domain. And anyway, it’s quite possible, even likely, that many future historians will examine the three Trump elections of 2016, 2020, and 2024 as a bundled set.
But that still leaves about 55 elections historians have focused on and learned lessons from. So here on Election Day 2024, I offer a brief digest of select, momentous presidential elections and explain how they connect to Trumpism and today’s contest.
1800– George Washington won uncontested elections in 1788 and 1792. By 1796, he was a wildly popular war hero and founding father who could have held onto the office. Some Americans even called for him to become a king. But Washington valued the new republican experiment, and also wanted to go home, so he retired. In doing so, he set an important precedent that lasted nearly 150 years. No future president, no matter how popular, attempted to serve more than two terms until Franklin Roosevelt disregarded tradition and won four consecutive presidential elections (1932–44).
In 1796, John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson in the first truly contested presidential election. Four years later, Jefferson bested Adams in the rematch. For the first
Some friends were recently debating whether or not Trump is actually a fascist. Some think yes because, while he may not perfectly fit the definition, he's rather close in many ways, and if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Some think not, that his beliefs and approach are just different enough to real fascism that he can be accurately called many things, but not an actual fascist.
The truth is, history isn't static. Nothing in the 2020s can be exactly like something from the 1930s. For example, today's Cuban and N. Korean communism are quite different from 1920s--1930s Soviet communism. So are today's Cuba and North Korea still communist or not?
I'm not searching for an answer. I'm asking that question rhetorically.
Perhaps Trumpism is not exactly fascism, or perhaps it is a suitably updated version. Either way, I think what matters most on the eve of the election is not which theoretical boxes Trump ticks, but which ideological and practical ones. Donald Trump is a far right wing, misogynistic, homophobic racist who: radicalizes voters and politicians around phantom threats of the alien invaders making us "impure"; sets up leftist and even centrist opponents for persecution by defining them as the threat from within; erodes democratic norms through rhetoric (including calls to violence) and, when in power, through concrete political action; praises and cozies up to right wing dictators whom he clearly admires and strives to be like; and runs a kleptocratic, nepotistic regimes.
Does that add up to modern fascism. Right now, it doesn't matter.
And I say all this as someone who spent a lot of 2016--18 arguing that Trump is not in fact a fascist despite the many similarities. However, I put that argument aside (perhaps to revisit in the future) because for now it can be distracting. He's going to wreak the damage he wreaks regardless of what labels we tag him with.