Four years ago, I wrote about an odd little historical parallel: Presidential elections from 1980 to 2020 mirrored those from 1788 to 1828. Both periods began with two-term heavyweights (George Washington, Ronald Reagan), moved on to a one-and-done president (John Adams, George H.W. Bush) and gave us three consecutive two-termers (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe; Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama). In 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump paralleled John Quincy Adams, a president who won the White House in 1824 despite losing the popular vote and who failed to secure a second term in 1828.
For this pattern to have continued, Joe Biden needed to serve two terms, like Andrew Jackson, who succeeded J.Q. Adams. By dropping out of the race this summer, Biden brought this parallel to a dead end.
The 76-year period following Jackson, from 1836 to 1912, was a wild ride in presidential history. Only three presidents managed to get reelected, and only Ulysses Grant finished a second term. Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley were both assassinated early in their second terms. A third president, James Garfield, was assassinated before he really even got started, and two others, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, couldn’t stay alive long enough to leave much of a mark.
and 24th U.S. president
The Whigs came and went, the Know-Nothings had a MAGA-like moment and the Republican Party was born, looking nothing like today’s GOP. The era packed in everything. The Civil War. The failure of Reconstruction (a failure that still haunts this country; “with malice toward none,” my ass, Abe). Genocide. Land grabs. The Gilded Age. Political corruption. Robber barons. Anarchists. Riots. Bombings. Banking panics. And we think we’re living in tumultuous times!
Oh, and tariffs. At least in one respect, Trump’s win propels us from a parallel with the early 19th century straight into a parallel with the late 1800s, when tariffs were a hot-button issue. They were contentious then, they’ll be contentious now. And for the first time since Grover Cleveland, we have a president who was elected to serve nonconsecutive terms.
One more thing: This chaotic era in American history also saw the beginnings of bureaucratic and progressive reforms, starting with Chester Arthur and the Pendleton Act of 1883 and Cleveland, then gaining momentum with Teddy Roosevelt. These reforms would lay the groundwork for FDR, the New Deal, the so-called liberal consensus of the mid-20th century, and the policies and programs over a roughly 40-year period that actually made America greater than it had ever been before – policies conservatives have been longing to dismantle for decades. And now? They’ve never been closer to their goal.
