Elections have consequences, but not all consequences are equal

Sometime it seems that every single election of my lifetime had been more important than the one before. But is that really true? What follows is a first take at that question: I hope it provokes a long and contentious comment thread. (Hope, as we again realized ten days ago, really does spring eternal.)

Let’s start a little before I was born.

1960:  Not important, even in retrospect. Would Nixon have backed the Cuban exiles? Would Nixon have tried a Keynesian tax cut? Would either have mattered in the long run? There may have be knock-on effects on the struggle for African-American equality, but those are contingent and impossible to predict.

1964: Yes, very important, but such a blow-out that it’s not worth commenting upon.

1968:  Massively important, both as it seemed at the time and (even more so) in retrospect. A Humphrey administration would have brought universal health care and universal day care, for two things, let alone the implications for American political culture from avoiding Watergate.

1972: See 1964.

1976:  Not important, with a caveat. Gerald Ford would not have been appreciably different from Jimmy Carter. Ford, however, would not have been eligible to run in 1980 under the terms of the 22^nd amendment. (He took office before January 1975, therefore serving “more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President.”) If a Ford term wracked with inflation and recession (which it would have been) allowed Kennedy to beat Reagan in ‘80, then the consequences of having liberal Democrats in office during the subsequent boom might have been very large. But that is speculation; at the time, the stakes were low.

1980:  Unknowable. First, it wasn’t really that close. (See 1972.) In that sense, it’s hard to care about the counterfactual. Second, the American ship-of-state remained remarkably steady under the Reagan administration, given the rhetoric. Finally, its importance hinges on way too many unknowables. (See 1976.) In other words, it probably mattered a lot in the long-run but it really is not easy to say how.

1984: See 1972.

1988:  Not important, really, unless you believe that a Dukakis administration would have ignored the invasion of Kuwait. If you believe that then it was massively important.

1992:  Hard to say. The re-election of George H.W. Bush would have slowed the radicalization of the Republican Party. But at the time, the election didn’t seem earth-shattering save for the issue of health care … and those reforms failed to materialize.

1996:  Yawn.

2000: Massively important … but only in retrospect. Sure, a Gore administration would have kept federal finances in better shape, but that isn’t important. Slightly higher marginal income taxes would have meant slightly lower growth of inequality, but not by much. A Gore-driven Medicare expansion would not have required the fixing that Dubya’s did, but Dubya’s expansion was in fact later fixed. The massive consequences from that election were not foreseeable at the time.

2004:  Not sure. A Kerry administration would have had a rough time disengaging from Iraq. It might have headed off the 2007 financial collapse, but I doubt it. It would have appointed some Supreme Court justices which might have some large consequences going ahead. And then it would have ended with the election of John McCain in 2008. There is a strong case to be made that the stakes were not as high as they seemed at the time.

2008: Too soon to tell. You can make a case that America and the world would be in better shape had John McCain won. (Although his Veep … gulp.) But that hinges on McCain passing a big stimulus, something like Dodd-Frank, a climate change bill and heading off the election of the current President-elect. He would need to hit the quadrifecta while avoiding foreign policy missteps. How likely was that? Moreover, I think the political consequences of having had an African-American president will become clearer in the future, as will Barack Obama’s particular historical role. NOTE: had the 2016 election gone the other way, then I would be more certain in stating that ’08 was an important election, if not 1968-level important.

2012: Important. Obamacare and the Clean Power Plan, for two things. Of course, neither may survive the upcoming administration. See 2008.  

2016: Oh my God. America will change dramatically, or so it seems. 

If this analysis holds water, then two things stand out. First, the only massive future-of-the-Republic election we’ve had up until 2016 happened in 1968. Second, most elections seem less important in retrospect. 

It is possible that 2016 will turn out to be a blip, a strange election prompted by a reaction to the first black president combined with noxious social declines in parts of white America. That will not, however, happen on its own. Opponents of the administration-to-be will need to work very hard and very smart.

Thoughts? Counter-arguments? I would like this to generate discussion; these conclusions are far from firm.

Comments

[Andrew R.]

This has me *hoping* that lefties are right about the nature of the American Deep State. Because if they are, even though the folks at the top may be replaced, a lot of what remains in the body will be hard to change.

Unfortunately, I fear that the lefties talking about an American Deep State are about as correct as they were when talking about Peak Oil last decade...

[Dave K]

I think a case can be made that a Nixon win in 1960 could severely retard the conservative wing's dominance of the Republican Party.

[Robert P]

I agree that 1968 was momentous (I am just old enough to remember it in some detail - I was 10). If Humphrey had won, the world would be different - but I don't think Humphrey would have achieved universal health care. He would have fought for it, but I think it would have gone down in defeat. The backlash against the Great Society programs was well underway by 1968, even before the catastrophe at the Democratic Convention that year, and the southern democrats were already beginning their transition to the other side of the aisle. And hanging over everything there was the black cloud of Vietnam. I think Humphrey would have been a one-term president - he would have been punished by the voters for not "solving" Vietnam in four years.

[J.H.]

regarding 1968....

Okay, let us say that Humphrey does indeed get to win and proposes (and gets) universal healthcare and day care. He probably also halts the bombing of north vietnam, calls for a ceasefire and announces an early withdrawal of US troops and pushes for talks on a coalition government in South Vietnam involving the Viet Cong. If he ends effective US involvement in the Vietnam War in say...1969-1970, this gives him space to focus on the domestic agenda.

But the end result is probably the eventual end of South Vietnam between 1972 and 1975, with Humphrey being blamed for "losing Vietnam". This might hinder his chances of re-election and make the continuation or full implementation of his domestic program challenging no?

And what of strategic arms limitations? And opening up relations with the PRC? And the detente/thawing of relations with Moscow?

[Noel Maurer]

I'm not sure why I'm revisiting this now, J.H., but your last paragraph makes the 1968 election seem even more important, no?