(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



The 2024 Election and that Elusive “More Perfect Union” [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-09-19  

Shawn David McGhee

We are now drawn into another presidential election that pundits and professionals alike claim will perpetuate or annihilate our republican experiment. Is this apocalyptic rhetoric useful for what should simply be a constitutionally-mandated exercise in public confidence? Alarmingly, the answer is yes. Every election is important, but this one will shape (or dangerously alter) the future of the republic—planet even—perhaps most critically when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. At least two other periods in our history are instructive of the current predicament: The elections between 1856 and 1876 and those between 1928 and 1948. These moments saw advocates of limited government toppled by successive administrations of government activism. More importantly, both parties viewed their opponents as existential threats to their continued existence, but in each cycle, liberty, dignity, and progress won the day. Our presidential contests since 2016 present a similar crisis; let us hope we see a comparable result.

In 1856, Americans elected James Buchanan as president. Buchanan saw little room for the federal government in most aspects of public life, typical of antebellum Democrats’ conservatism. His support of the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution catered to the slavocracy while quickening the demise of the national Democratic Party. In 1860, Americans elevated Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Lincoln, of course, pledged to prevent the spread of slavery. Yet he also championed higher tariffs, a transcontinental railroad, and a Homestead Act to promote industry, yeoman land acquisition, and free soil in the West. Before Lincoln even took the oath of office, however, southern states began seceding from the Union. Buchanan believed secession unconstitutional, yet also felt the executive branch powerless to prevent it. He ultimately stood by as the nation collapsed. Once president, Lincoln used an energetic federal government to maintain the Union and end slavery. He also achieved the rest of his policy goals, simultaneously promoting liberty, dignity, and progress.

Secession fever did not break in a single term; Lincoln won re-election and continued his activism until his assassination. Two more Republican administrations used the federal government to continue combating anti-government impulses. After Rutherford B. Hayes’s election, pro-business Republicans used the state to promote corporate interests rather than continue crusading against slavery and white supremacy. But the Union and constitutional order survived.

In 1928, Americans elected Herbert Hoover to the presidency, marking a third consecutive pro-business Republican administration. Unfortunately for Hoover, complicated global and domestic structural forces collided and sunk the United States into an economic crisis. Hoover’s hands-off leadership during the Great Depression caused many Americans to feel the president cared more about protecting businesses and banks than provisioning the breadbaskets of the people. This sentiment helped Franklin Roosevelt coast into the White House on a wave of public enthusiasm. Roosevelt used the federal architecture in new and imaginative ways, some successful, some not, to ease the plight of the common man. His initiatives offered public works programs that created shovel-ready jobs and offered dignity and hope to the downtrodden. He sought to stabilize banks, coordinate capital with labor, and modernize infrastructure. Roosevelt also passed the Social Security Act, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, and a range of other programs. Voters re-elected Roosevelt three times and his vice president won the 1948 election, building onto the New Deal his own Fair Deal. The constitutional order survived and the two parties sunk into predictable engagements over how to fund and apply these new American safeguards.

In 2016, faux-Republican Donald Trump shockingly defeated Hillary Clinton. Despite Trump’s obvious flaws, his rhetoric resonated with non-college educated working class whites. Trump’s constant scapegoating, conspiracizing about “the Deep State,” and willingness to “say it like it is” (though he was often just lying, confabulating, or exaggerating), created a permission structure for Republicans, independents, and soft Democrats to vote for him. His willingness to gaslight every inconvenient truth proved so hard to fact check that the public and press became nearly numb to his shameless mendacity. After losing the 2020 election, his delusions morphed into “the Big Lie,” as he and his circle of bad faith actors claimed Democrats and key Republicans conspired to steal the election. They didn’t, of course, but Trump’s repetition of this falsehood further weakened faith in election integrity among his base.

Our nation stands at a dangerous precipice. The anti-intellectualism and intellectual dishonesty of disingenuous MAGA leaders has poisoned our proverbial public square. And Project 2025’s architects are readying to destroy the constitutional order and replace it with some form of deranged theocracy. The 2020 election was not enough to eradicate Donald Trump’s venomous politics. Like the two aforementioned cycles, it will take multiple victories over Trumpism to regain equilibrium. Our present owes it to the legacy of the past and the promise of the future to continue pursuing that elusive “more perfect union.” If successful, Americans will make history and finally break that already-cracked glass ceiling. They may also save our vulnerable planet in the process.

Shawn David McGhee (PhD, Temple University) is a historian of Revolutionary America and the Early Republic. He is author of No Longer Subjects of the British King: The Political Transformation of Royal Subjects to Republican Citizens, 1774-1776 and a regular contributor to the Journal of the American Revolution.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/19/2271451/-The-2024-Election-and-that-Elusive-More-Perfect-Union?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/