Will a Trump presidency be even more harmful to the world than the Reagan and Bush presidencies were? (Image: DonkeyHotey / Flickr)
Like millions of Americans, I am alarmed that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. While Barack Obama’s record as president is mixed, Trump has peddled hatred and suspicion, threatening to reverse everything positive that Obama has accomplished. But along with worrying about what is to come, I’ve been reflecting on some past elections that were also shocking or wrong, elections that brought great harm — but not quite the end of civilization as we know it. The chances are that’s what will happen this time too.
November 1980: One I Got Wrong
Mea culpa: I did not vote to reelect President James Earl Carter. Nor did I vote for Ronald Reagan, to be sure; I voted for Barry Commoner, a candidate I respected who had an excellent platform. Commoner was the nominee of the Citizens Party, and he got over 200,000 votes in addition to mine, somewhat less than the tens of millions needed to make him a contender. It was not a close election; Reagan won by almost 10 percent of the popular vote and a landslide in the Electoral College.In my state, Vermont, Reagan led Carter by about 6 percent, while independent John Anderson got almost 15 percent and Barry Commoner a tad over 1 percent. I had not expected him to win, and I doubt he himself was surprised when he came up a little short on Election Day.
Why did I do that? It wasn’t a planned strategic vote in a “safe” state, it just reflected how I felt about the candidates at the time. I thought Carter had let us down during his last years as president and did not deserve to be reelected; I also thought that Reagan couldn’t do much harm in his sure-to-be one-term presidency. Wrong on all counts. I now believe Carter was a much…