Here's the Deal
We begin the end of our presidential elections. Don't get left behind.
The Democratic Party has argued that democracy itself is at stake in the 2024 election. It’s easy to make that argument when their opponent is crisscrossing the country, telling everyone how terrible everything is and that he is the only solution. The solution is deporting everyone he dislikes, shuttering media outlets that report his lies, and selling himself to the highest foreign country.
Generally, the idea that the “state of the country is in peril” is always a campaign slogan. Do I believe former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy? I think he is motivated by greed and reflects an electorate that feels left behind. I still think institutions would stop him from implementing many of his fanatical ideas if we do the stupid thing and send him back here.
Feeling left behind is as American as democracy itself. Nobody likes being left behind. I’m the youngest and was left behind at a store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, when I was six. To be fair, there were five kids, and my parents couldn’t keep track of all of us, even though being the cutest should have been easy to look for. Whatever, I stood in a store patiently waiting for my family to return, which, thankfully, they did.
The same can be said for a large part of the population who feel like they have been left behind at a department store of life in a town they don’t live in. They want to know when their parents are coming to take them back to a place of comfort.
Elections are our paths to keeping democracy and giving us the feeling of not being left behind.
As we enter the top five all-time best elections in United States history, we focus on one election, when the country needed someone to pick them up from the despair store, and leaving behind the two-elections-at-a-time format.
Let's dive in.
5: The Presidential Election of 1932
Election Date: November 8, 1932
The Candidates:
President Herbert Hoover won the 1928 in a decisive victory over Al Smith. Before the presidency, Hoover was in charge of relief services in Europe after World War I. This led him to be in charge of the Food Administration, then on to the Secretary of Commerce in the Harding and then Coolidge administrations. He landed the nomination when Coolidge decided not to seek reelection. Hoover sorta fell into being president and never had any strong challengers from the Republican Party.
The Democrats were licking their wounds after their humiliating defeat in 1928. And the one in 1924. Also, the one in 1920. Since they couldn’t dig up Woodrow Wilson, they settled on the former Secretary of the Navy, former vice president candidate, and current governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt had one major attractive asset – he wasn’t Hoover.
Major Issue of the Day:
There was this thing called the Great Depression, during which the stock market crashed, leaving millions unemployed, homeless, and helpless. Businesses shuttered faster than a viral video, and bread lines were as long as the list of things Hoover didn’t do right.
The Winner:
Novel.
With Roosevelt’s victory, the country embarked on a new path. We didn’t realize it then, but how World War I ended and how we acted in the 1920s led us down a path to a Depression and another World War.
Roosevelt gave the country a New Deal. He was optimistic about fixing our problems, whereas President Hoover looked at everything and thought, “How about the Same Deal?”
The States in the Electoral College:
48. Don’t forget North and South Dakota were created for political purposes, so yeah, it would be nice to have representation here in Washington, DC, at some point.
The Electoral College had 531 members, and the winner needed 266 votes.
You can say that Roosevelt left Hoover in the dust. FDR collected 472 electoral votes, while Herbie managed to get 59.
57% of the country voted for FDR, while almost 16 million thought keeping Hoover in office was a good idea for some reason.
It’s interesting when you look at the states carried. Roosevelt won 42-6. All six of Hoover’s states surround New York, which at the time had the largest number of electoral votes. The next highest was Pennsylvania, which Hoover won. What’s the deal with Pennsylvania?
The 2021 OKH Presidential Ranking:
FDR ranks third on the OKH Presidential Rankings. When I get around to ranking the presidents again, FDR will be a dark horse candidate to claim the top spot. I need to read a huge FDR book to help with the process.
Why Did I Rank it Here:
The 1932 election was life-changing for millions of people. Roosevelt didn’t react to a crisis. He reimagined the role of government in American life. He was so forward-thinking that his fireside chats were the original podcasts.
What do you think? Is this election top 5? Higher? Lower?
I watched a bit of the Vice Presidential debate earlier this week. Republican nominee JD Vance came off as a normal, reasonable person if you watched him on mute. Democratic nominee, Vice President Coach, looked nervous most of the night. I would be scared, too, if I were standing next to the Patrick Bateman of politics. I was half expecting JD to eventually bust out his thoughts on Huey Lewis and The News.
It appears there are still “undecided voters” in this country. At this point in life, if you call yourself an undecided voter, it’s because you just want to be on television or get your name on the paper (by paper, I mean online). Either way, I saw that most people thought the guy who made up a story about his constituents causing them harm won the night.
Another I saw this week was the judge's unsealed testimony in the January 6 case. It’s hard to believe that Donald Trump acted the way everyone would have expected him to. When he begins his “the 2024 election was stolen from me,” I would like a collective response to this be “So What?”
We are finally having a slow weekend here at the OKH compound. Playoff baseball begins the next round, and my Cleveland Guardians look good. Here’s hoping I did not just jinx them. I also need to dive into some educational work.
Today is Aunt Joan’s birthday. Be sure to say happy birthday to Aunt Joan!
I picked up a few new subscribers in September. I’m grateful for your interest and support. Feel free to drop me a line about anything!
Have a great weekend, everyone. I’ll see you on Monday.
Okay,
Chris
My father idolized FDR. We had a large portrait of him in our basement. Wow. Talk about a great leader, overcoming huge handicaps and obstacles. I like Kamala and hope she can muster some of that magic. I wonder if our social media 24/7 news cycles doesn’t make it harder to lead without continual distractions.
If Trump wins, I hope you’re right about institutions holding.
I read an interesting article the other day (I think it was Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch) that was more pessimistic. His overarching point was that institutions are essentially just people, and the people who held the line during Trump’s first term won’t be there for a hypothetical second term. Made me sick to my stomach.