As we prepare for Trump’s shenanigans in the 2020 election, walk
with me through the past presidential contests. Other than Ronald Reagan’s two
successful campaigns, historians have to go back 63 years to Dwight Eisenhower’s
1956 victory to find a time when the GOP won fair and square.
2016 Trump defeats Hillary Clinton.
The credit for the Republican win goes to Putin and the
Russians. Trump lost by nearly 3 million votes. However the loser became the
winner with victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, which put him
over the 270 electoral votes required to win in the Electoral College. Trump
won those key states with a total of 107,005 votes. With the Trump campaign
sharing polling data with the Russians, there is no doubt they were able to
assist him where and when it mattered with a flood of misleading social media.
Verdict: 2016 Election was stolen.
2004 Bush 43 defeats John Kerry.
Bush entered this campaign the underdog because of the lies
he and Cheney told to convince congress and the American people to invade Iraq.
The war was a disaster and would have spelled defeat for Bush, but for a
diabolical campaign to turn John Kerry’s heroic war record into something that
looked cowardly. Funded with millions from the far right, Bush backers
conducted the “Swift Boat” campaign. Thousands of TV and radio ads and other
media events tarnished Kerry’s exemplary Vietnam service record. Without that,
Bush-Cheney would have lost. Verdict: the 2004 election was stolen.
2000 Bush defeats Gore.
This was the year the Republicans figured out elections can
be won if not all the votes are counted. With the results hinging on a close
election in Florida and the Republicans worried a final recount would not go
their way, they avoided the voters by going to the Supreme Court. In a shameful
decision that the majority of the justices said should never be cited for authority,
Bush beat Gore by one vote. The high court rule 5-4 that the votes in Florida
could not be fully counted. Bush wins. Verdict: the 2000 election was stolen.
1988 Bush 41 defeats Michael Dukakis.
Remember Willie Horton? In a December 2018 article in the
New York Times, reporter Peter Baker wrote, “Michael Nelson, an editor of a book of essays
on the Bush presidency called “41,” said the Horton episode led to far more
overt plays to race in American politics, all the way up to President Trump.
“In some ways, the Willie Horton ad is the 1.0 version of Trump’s relentless
tweets and comments about African-Americans,” he said. The decision the
Republicans made to play the race card first gave us George H.W. Bush, and
later Donald Trump. Verdict: the 1998 election was stolen.
Ronald Reagan won
the 1984 and 1980 election on the up and up.
1972 Nixon
defeats McGovern.
Watergate.
Nothing more need be said. Less than two years after Nixon defeated George
McGovern, he was forced to resign, having become the most corrupt president in
U.S. history, a title being challenged today by Trump.
1968 Nixon
defeats Humphrey
The 1968 campaign
ended with a Nixon victory. He defeated Vice-president Hubert Humphrey by less
than 1%. Nixon’s win was made possible by his willingness to commit treason. In
the closing weeks of the race, President Lyndon Johnson had persuaded North and
South Vietnam to come to the table for peace talks. Nixon feared accurately
that if that happened, a war-weary American electorate would reward LBJ’s VP
with the win. So, he sent an emissary to South Vietnam secretly. The emissary was
instructed to promise the South Vietnamese that if they refused to talk peace
with Johnson, he (Nixon) would give them a far better deal when he was elected
president. The South Vietnamese government took the bait and backed out of the
peace talks. Nixon won narrowly and 20,000 more American soldiers died after
Nixon became president. Verdict: the 1968 election was stolen.
1956 Ike wins the
presidency fair and square.
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