Is It 1912—or 1824?
23rd January 2016
Political pundits and historians always like to analogize the current election cycle to a past election cycle, though I think a case can be made that each cycle is unique and non-repeatable. On the surface, it might look like we might be heading for a repeat of 1912, when a Republican split led to the independent candidacy of Teddy Roosevelt and handed the White House to Woodrow Wilson. That, I am sure most sensible people will agree, was a blunder.
Was it ever. That was the start of the conversion of the historical Democrat Party into Amerca’s own brand of fascism, which flowered with Franklin D. Roosevelt and whose fruit have been marching through our institutions and corrupting them ever since.
But I wonder whether we might have four major candidates in the event of a Trump-Sanders or Trump-Clinton matchup—Bloomberg plus an “independent” Republican candidate (I’d guess it might be Romney)? Then the election we’d most resemble was 1824, when there were four major candidates running. That election was settled in the House of Representatives in favor of John Quincy Adams, even though Andrew Jackson won the most popular votes. One could imagine this happening again, with Trump, Clinton, or Bloomberg getting the most votes, but a Republican dominated House picking the “independent” Republican candidate. (Let’s hope to God it isn’t Jeb Bush.) One can imagine today’s Jacksonian candidate (Mr. T) being just as outraged as Jackson was at such an outcome. If you think things were bitter after the messy outcome of the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, just wait.
No matter how bad, the results would be better for America than Barack Obama, who has surpassed Jimmuh Carter as the Worst President Ever.
Cast your mind back to Bloomberg for a moment. Why did he run for mayor of New York as a Republican, even though he’s a much better fit in the Democratic Party? Or for that matter, if he wants to be president, why didn’t he run as a Democrat this year? (He dumped his Republican affiliation in New York as fast as he could, remember.) The obvious answer is that he had no opening in the Democratic Party in New York, where the party hierarchy operates much like a closed-shop union. And New York City Republicans have a bare cupboard.
Likewise, why is Donald Trump running as a Republican, after a lifetime of mostly liberal positions, and his occasional declarations that he leans toward Democrats? I still haven’t heard Trump give an account of why, suddenly, he’s changed his mind on so many positions. Like Bloomberg, it seems to be opportunism rather than conviction; he couldn’t win the Democratic nomination these days, but the open and scattered Republican field gives him an opening to win with a mere plurality of primary votes.
On the other hand, few traditions in American politics are of longer standing than opportunism.