As observers tell us that the elections in South Africa, Mexico, India, and elsewhere are ‘unprecedented’, we turn to what is being named the most consequential upcoming election of all: in the USA. How ‘unprecedented’ is it? Here’s one precedent to ponder: 1956. The incumbent, Dwight Eisenhower, was not quite as old as Joe Biden is now, but was called ‘the Great Golfer’, an aged smiling figurehead who mangled his syntax and seemed confused about policy details (but really did mean well, or so it was said). Eisenhower’s opponent for the second time, Adlai Stevenson, could not be more different than Donald Trump in nearly every respect. But he did (reputedly) make an apposite point. When told that ‘every thinking person will be voting for you’, he replied, ‘I’m afraid that won’t do. I need a majority’. In the weeks before the election, Eisenhower responded to two foreign crises. Soviet troops invaded Hungary in order to put down a revolt. Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt in order to overthrow Gamal Abdel Nasser and seize the Suez Canal. The United States did not intervene in the first instance, and forced the invaders to reverse course in the second. Eisenhower won the election by a large majority. He served out his second term and lived until 1969. |