Kamala Harris and Donald Trump don’t agree on much. But there is one thing on which both major party nominees do agree.
“I do believe this is the most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetime,” Harris told her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters last summer. “This will be the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump told his allies in the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
While that is often said, it certainly could be true this time. A Harris victory could end Trump’s recent domination of American politics and likely unleash turmoil within in the Republican Party. A Trump victory could signal dramatic changes in both policy and the way the United States is governed.
But only next month’s results — and their long-term impact — will determine if 2024 takes its place among the most impactful American presidential elections. There are many lists, and at least a dozen past contests could qualify in one way or another.
Here are the six with the greatest impact:
1789 – The nation’s first election. It was crucial that the new republic’s most respected leader, General George Washington, became its first president. In his two terms, he established both the extent of the president’s authority and some limits. And before passing the office on to his fellow Federalist, John Adams, he warned in his farewell address against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” and called on the new nation to resist the “insidious wiles of foreign influence” and “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
1800 – The first peaceful presidential transition. The party differences against which Washington warned soon surfaced, and, after a contentious 1800 campaign, Democratic-Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson unseated Adams. But a flaw in the original Electoral College setup created a tie between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. It was settled by the House of Representatives and led to enactment of the 12th Amendment that called for electors to vote separately for presidents and vice presidents. Adams left town in the early morning before Jefferson’s inauguration, but the transfer of power proceeded without incident.
1828 – The first truly “democratic” election. After a deal between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay counted Andrew Jackson out in 1824, the hero of the War of 1812 resumed campaigning. In 1828, he reversed the result by beating Adams in the first election in which the popular vote was dominant. It was also the election in which an “outsider” — Jackson was from Tennessee — ended the political domination of the republic’s East Coast founders.
1860 – The election that unleashed the Civil War and, after four bitter years, ended slavery in the American South. The forces that led to the war had been building for years as lawmakers clashed over whether to allow or ban slavery in newly admitted states. The election of Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Illinois congressman, brought Republicans to power for the first time and led to the secession starting even before his …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
