05-19-2020, 09:07 AM
(05-19-2020, 12:06 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(05-18-2020, 11:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The White House rarely changes possession by a Party after one term by that Party. The last two times that that happened were 1980 and 1932. It could be that bad for Trump -- but a 270-268 defeat of Trump will be legally adequate for us to get new leadership at the apex of American power.1980 and 1992 you mean.
Strictly speaking, 1992 was the end of three terms of Republican Presidents in power. The elder Bush wasn't anywhere near as unlucky as Carter, let alone as counterproductive as Hoover. It took three "Presidentiads" (Ralph Waldo Emerson coined that term) for America to tire of Reaganism. Bill Clinton fully endorsed the foreign policy of the elder Bush; anything else would have been foolishness.
Had Hillary Clinton won the right votes in 2016 and barely gotten elected, the analogy this year would be to 1992. Of course, Hoover did not reek of corruption and Carter was beyond any doubt (and still is) a good man, American voters got impatient with both after one "Presidentiad".
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.