Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, always one of my favorite people, made "tempting analogy" to the 1932 election in The Guardian today:
Donald Trump is on the verge of accomplishing what no American president has ever achieved – a truly multi-racial, multi-class, bipartisan political coalition so encompassing it could realign US politics for years to come.
...
Although the reasons for joining the anti-Trump coalition have little to do with Joe Biden, Trump’s presumed challenger, the Democrat may still become a transformational president. That’s less because of his inherent skills than because Trump has readied America for transformation.
The tempting analogy is to the election of 1932, in the midst of another set of crises. The public barely knew Franklin D Roosevelt, whom critics called an aristocrat without a coherent theory of how to end the Great Depression. But after four years of Herbert Hoover, America was so desperate for coherent leadership it was eager to support FDR and follow wherever he led.
I wonder if "tempting" means he didn't bite. Secretary Reich writes of the flip side to the tempting argument that the Trump defeat will show 2016 to be a one-off. But I don't know how that can be. Trump is still going to get at least 45% of the votes, 60,000,000 people and Trump was the favorite until the Triple Terrors of COVID-19, the economy, and George Floyd hit. There is no doubt whatsoever that those crises, coming in the year of the election, make 2020 the surpassingly more likely of the two elections to be a "one-off."
Donald Trump is on the verge of accomplishing what no American president has ever achieved – a truly multi-racial, multi-class, bipartisan political coalition so encompassing it could realign US politics for years to come.
...
Although the reasons for joining the anti-Trump coalition have little to do with Joe Biden, Trump’s presumed challenger, the Democrat may still become a transformational president. That’s less because of his inherent skills than because Trump has readied America for transformation.
The tempting analogy is to the election of 1932, in the midst of another set of crises. The public barely knew Franklin D Roosevelt, whom critics called an aristocrat without a coherent theory of how to end the Great Depression. But after four years of Herbert Hoover, America was so desperate for coherent leadership it was eager to support FDR and follow wherever he led.
I wonder if "tempting" means he didn't bite. Secretary Reich writes of the flip side to the tempting argument that the Trump defeat will show 2016 to be a one-off. But I don't know how that can be. Trump is still going to get at least 45% of the votes, 60,000,000 people and Trump was the favorite until the Triple Terrors of COVID-19, the economy, and George Floyd hit. There is no doubt whatsoever that those crises, coming in the year of the election, make 2020 the surpassingly more likely of the two elections to be a "one-off."
