By Jose Castillo, political columnist
Imagine the following election. On one side, you have a candidate who sports a stacked resume, yet is constantly burdened by controversy stemming from their time in the previous presidential administration. On the other, you have a candidate whose career was only made possible by the efforts of their father and whose competence is constantly brought into question due to their interesting way with words. Imagine that the first candidate comes off as elitist, robotic and unconcerned with the common man. The other was born with a silver spoon in their mouth, yet somehow still captures the blue-collar vote.
And after all of this, after enduring the most brutal election season possible, imagine the unimaginable: A victory by the Electoral College that did not align with the results of the popular vote and, with it, the farce conclusion of an election that included worn, familiar topics. Global warming, recounts, the Clintons, the Bushes, the Middle East, terrorism, oil interests, the relevance of Newt Gingrich and the influence of the Internet, media and polling predictions all made an appearance.
Obviously, I am talking about the election of 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush, had defeated former Democratic Vice President Al Gore in the most shocking election since Dewey made headlines. Going into Election Night, polling projections indicated a slight Bush lead in a race too close to call. Despite the lead in the polls, the Bush campaign was preparing to dispute election results, as many analysts predicted that Bush would win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote and, ultimately, the election.
An article from Nov. 1, 2000 written by New York Daily News columnist Michael Kramer reads, “In league with the [Bush] campaign—which is preparing talking points about the Electoral College’s essential unfairness—a massive talk-radio operation would be encouraged. ‘We’d have ads, too,’ says a Bush aide, ‘and I think you can count on the media to fuel the thing big-time. Even papers that supported Gore might turn against him because the will of the people will have been thwarted.’”
But Election Night came and went, and the “massive talk-radio operation,” ads and articles were never needed. After prematurely calling Florida for Gore, news agencies crowned Bush the victor. Democrats scrambled to challenge the night’s results, and Republicans criticized the Voter News Service as well as the collective media for unsuccessfully trying to sway election results.
Completely shocked, Democrats began to point fingers in every direction, trying to figure out what had cost them the White House. Was this our Founding Fathers’ fault for developing a voting system that some would argue doesn’t best represent democracy? Or was it the far-left, third-party candidate Ralph Nader’s fault for taking away votes in a highly-contested race? Could Gore’s loss be a result of working under an impeached president, and if so, how did that president’s wife, Hillary, just win a position in the U.S. Senate representing a state she had only lived in for a little more than a year?
Does this sound at all familiar?
While it makes for an interesting column, my purpose here is not to make arbitrary comparisons about the 2000 election and the election that just passed. I could take any two elections, carve them up endlessly, hold up their carcasses and try to act surprised by how each of the mangled remains look so alike. Nor is my purpose to reaffirm the old, cliché adage that history repeats itself.
On Friday, Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated as our 45th president, and people from all parts of the political spectrum are preparing for at least four years of constant dissonance. This is what I want all of you wanting to participate in this dissonance to fully realize: As much as you keep up with current events and try to gauge future ones, you must also be knowledgeable of the past. Hate and fear both share the same lack of understanding, and in a time that some news outlets describe as “post-truth,” we should all take solace, and direction, in a quote from novelist Gertrude Stein: “It is the soothing thing about history: That it does indeed repeat itself.”
Photo courtesy ryan, Creative Commons
